War Dawn (episode)
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 Masterpiece Megatron and Smallest Optimus Prime face off. | |||||||||
| "War Dawn" | |||||||||
| Production code | 700-58 | ||||||||
| Production company | Sunbow Productions | ||||||||
| Airdate | December 25, 1985 | ||||||||
| Written by | David Wise | ||||||||
| Animation studio | Toei | ||||||||
| Continuity | Generation 1 cartoon continuity | ||||||||
Trapped in Cybertron's past, the Aerialbots learn the truth about Megatron and the rise of Optimus Prime.
- Japanese title: ひきおこされた戦争 (Hikiokosa re ta Sensō, "Caused War")
- Italian title, dub 1: Viaggio nel passato ("Travel in the past")
- Italian title, dub 2: L'alba della guerra ("The dawn of the war")
Synopsis
Starscream, Skywarp and Thundercracker are racing through the skies with the Aerialbots in hot pursuit. They have kidnapped human dignitaries for unknown, but certainly nefarious, purposes. The Aerialbots are debating amongst themselves in pretty stark terms if humans are worth saving. After they outmaneuver the Decepticons, Starscream dumps the hostages in mid-air. He and the others escape as the Aerialbots break off to save the humans.
Back at Autobot headquarters, the Aerialbots talk amongst themselves about their admiration of the Seekers, to the ire of the other Autobots. Teletraan I breaks in before the argument gets out of hand and alerts Optimus Prime to strange energy readings emanating from Cybertron. They board Omega Supreme and head into the stratosphere to investigate.
Under the ocean, Megatron gripes about the Aerialbots and losing air supremacy. Soundwave reports in that the Autobots have left earth, and Megatron goes after them across the space bridge. On Cybertron, Megatron explains that he has a time machine called a Kronosphere that he planned on using to steal energy from the past. Now, he wants to set a trap for the Aerialbots and send them back into the past.
The Autobots arrive on a dark and dingy Cybertron, and are attacked by Starscream and the others. Slingshot tries to get the Decepticons to stop attacking and talk to them. Starscream and the others drop down for a chat while Silverbolt frets. After gaining their trust, Starscream leads them right onto Megatron's Kronosphere. Silverbolt tries to warn them that it's a trap but it's too late. Megatron activates the device, intending to send them back to the beginning of time. The Aerialbots are encased in a purple bubble and disappear.
Seconds later, Optimus Prime and the other Autobots ram through the wall of the building and attack. Prime shoots the machine in order to stop it from trapping the Aerialbots in the past. The Decepticons retreat and Optimus orders the machine repaired. He estimates it has sent the Aerialbots 9 million years into the past to Cybertron's Golden Age.
The bubble bursts and the five planes reappear on Cybertron, but it's a different world than the one they left. This Cybertron is bright and alive. The Aerialbots admire the scenery and argue about whose fault it was that the planet was trashed. Slingshot isn't ready to blame the Decepticons and says they are misunderstood. They are interrupted by a small 'bot who introduces himself as Orion Pax. He works at the docks unloading energy shipments. Orion's friend Dion and girlfriend Ariel introduce themselves too. Dion alerts them to come outside and see the new type of flying robot that everyone is talking about. The Aerialbots go out and see Megatron, Soundwave and Shockwave flying overheard. Orion and Dion admire the flying robots, and Silverbolt warns them away from their hero worship. But does anybody listen to him? Nooooo.
After Orion goes back to work unloading ships, he is approached by a visitor who introduces himself as Megatron. Orion shows him around but when they reach the energy storehouse Megatron orders the Decepticons concealed outside to attack. When Orion tries to stop him, Megatron mercilessly shoots him and his two friends. The Aerialbots arrive after the battle to find the three Autobots inoperative.
Back in the present, Megatron is planning a counterattack to regain the Kronosphere. In nearby wreckage, Shockwave spots the body of a Guardian Robot, sans head, and Megatron plans to reactivate it. Meanwhile, Optimus, Wheeljack, Ironhide and Ratchet are still trying to repair the device.
In the past, the Aerialbots are carrying Orion's lifeless body to someone who can help. Slingshot is singing a very different tune now; he swears revenge on Megatron. A mustached figure from a doorway calls to them and suggests they go someplace else for help. Decepticon attacks have caused severe casualties among the Autobots. After the Aerialbots ask again, he agrees to fix Orion. After an unknown amount of time, the stranger emerges with a rebuilt Orion Pax, now going by the name Optimus Prime. Prime and the Aerialbots rush off to join the battle, while the stranger muses about rebuilding Ariel into a female warrior named Elita One.
Just as the tide of battle is turning in the Decepticons' favor, Megatron is confronted by Optimus Prime, who takes out the entire Decepticon front line by himself. Meanwhile, the Aerialbots have returned to the docks to find the Decepticons raiding the energy stores.
Flashing to the present, the time machine has been fixed, but Megatron and the Decepticons attack. To further complicate things, they let loose the Guardian Robot against the Autobots.
Back in the past, the Aerialbots set energy pack charges to blow up the storehouse in order to keep the energy out of Megatron's hands. Unfortunately, they are trapped inside because Decepticon warriors are blocking the exits. Silverbolt orders Slingshot to blow up the storehouse anyway. Just as the charges go off, the Kronosphere scoops them up and brings them back to the present. They merge into Superion and take out the Guardian Robot. Megatron retreats and an enraged Slingshot yells after him.
As they head back to Omega Supreme, Silverbolt describes their adventures in the past, and Optimus finally recognizes the Aerialbots as the ones who saved him. Ratchet demands to know what's going on and Optimus starts to tell the tale.
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Autobots | Decepticons | Others |
|---|---|---|
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Quotes
"There's only one way to get those Aerialbots off our tails and that's to dump the chumps.”
- —Starscream right before he dumps the chumps, er, humans.
"Are those guys crazy?"
"Crazy, or even dumber than I suspected."
- —Skywarp and Starscream talking about the Aerialbots who stopped fighting and want to "talk" to the Seekers.
Starscream: Okay buddies, we'll talk. What do you want to know?
Slingshot: I want to know why Optimus Prime thinks you're evil.
Starscream: That old rust bucket doesn't know a thing about Decepticons. Stick with me. I'll teach you some things about the Decepticons, all right.
Silverbolt: I don't believe this!
- —Starscream prepares to school the Aerialbots.
"Those little twerps. They're tryin' to switch sides!"
- —Ironhide comments on the dubious loyalty of the Aerialbots.
"A warrior doesn't need a head, just a good strong body."
- —Megatron, commenting on the damaged Guardian robot that is about to be reprogrammed to serve the Decepticons.
"You may not recognize him. He is no longer Orion Pax. He is the first of our new defenders... Optimus Prime."
"I was wrong, my friends. I admired Megatron merely because he was powerful. I failed to see how he used that power."
- —Alpha Trion introducing Optimus Prime.
Optimus Prime: You've caused enough destruction for one day, Megatron!
Megatron: I haven't even started!
[Megatron fires several shots at Optimus Prime, all of which bounce off harmlessly]
Megatron: [shocked] You, who are you?!"
Optimus Prime: Your worst nightmare!
- —Megatron and Optimus Prime confront each other for the first time.
"It all began about nine million years ago..."
"Oh, great! It's gonna be one of those long stories!"
- —Optimus Prime and Ratchet, after the latter demands to know what's going on.
Notes
Animation or technical glitches
- The air battle at the beginning of the episode is filled with errors: Firstly, Slingshot is coloured like Air Raid when Skywarp is bearing down upon him. Moments later, Skydive fires purple lasers at Skywarp. Moments after that, black panels on Thundercracker's hull are mis-aligned. Finally, Slingshot's cockpit is unpainted, as is Starscream's chest.
- The top of Slingshot's head is consistently colored white in this episode, where it was orange in "The Key to Vector Sigma."
- While Megatron berates the Seekers for allowing the Aerialbots to defeat them, Starscream's lower right arm is coloured red.
- Omega Supreme disappears in a couple of frames during his transformation sequence.
- When Silverbolt notifies Prime about the other Aerialbots leaving with Starscream, Prime's smokestacks are drawn totally wrong (they're white instead of gray and are sort of melting into his trailer).
- As Optimus says, "Our only hope is to repair these time controls," his voice has an accent for a moment.
- Silverbolt asks Orion what he does, but it's Orion mouthing the words.
- The bottom of the screen has thin black lines on it for several shots just after the Aerialbots meet Orion.
- When Orion and the Aerialbots enter the loading bay for the first time, we see a vehicle that shares Dion's vehicle mode and colors unloading cargo. Right after that, Dion drives into the hangar from outside.
- Skydive explains to Fireflight why Megatron wouldn't recognize them 9 million years in the past, and Fireflight says, "Huh?" but the scene cuts to a close up of Skydive so it looks like he's saying it instead. Huh?
- Ariel is shown with the Aerialbots running back to the warehouse, but she's already in it (and gets shot down by Megatron) before they arrive. That was reused from the scene when Silverbolt said "That was Megatron".
- When Ariel is shot by Megatron, her cel is not properly aligned with the background, so one of her legs floats over the energon cubes.
- As Megatron flies out of the warehouse, his cannon is on his left arm.
- Skywarp is missing the metallic flange in his voice as he notes how the guardian robots used to give the Decepticons "a pounding back in the old days."
- As Alpha Trion decides to rename Ariel into Elita One, his chin is white rather than gray.
- In one aerial shot of Megatron's transport drones entering the docks, they disappear before reaching the doorway.
- Just before the Aerialbots return to the present, Megatron and the Decepticons land and fire their weapons, but the weapons make a "clunking" sound instead of the usual blasts.
- When the Aerialbots return, They appear a few seconds apart for some reason. Silverbolt transforms immediately and is missing his side windows. The rest of the Aerialbots simply run out of the energy field, but they're also given transformation sounds (which doesn't make sense as they were already in their robot modes in the past).
- As the Aerialbots start to form Superion, Slingshot and Fireflight form Superion's legs while Skydive and Air Raid form his arms. While this is different to their traditional placement, as Scramble City-type limbs, not altogether "wrong". However, once Superion is complete, Slingshot and Skydive have morphed into each other, likewise for Fireflight and Air Raid, resulting in the "normal" Superion.
- Megatron and the Decepticons fly out of the building, but the next shot shows them flying over the hole on the roof rather than through it.
- The original broadcast version of the episode had the entirety of act two's soundtrack incorrectly played back at too slow a speed, noticeably pitching down the dialogue and music. This was corrected for the Kid Rhino DVDs, but when Shout! Factory went back to the broadcast masters for their original audio tracks, this error was re-introduced to their DVD of the episode in order to restore it to its original broadcast version.
Continuity errors
- The humans the Seekers dump at the beginning of the episode somehow don't die after plummeting several hundred feet and landing on the metal bodies of the Aerialbots.
- When Starscream dumps the hostages, we see him drop a total of 7 people. In the next shot they have doubled, as we see 14 falling through the sky. In the shot after that, we see a total of 10 hostages being rescued.
- It is unclear why the Aerialbots (bar Silverbolt) are so impressed by the Seekers considering the ease with which the Decepticons were defeated.
- Optimus Prime somehow knows exactly what the Kronosphere is doing despite the fact he was out of earshot when Megatron said it.
- In "The Search for Alpha Trion", Optimus Prime had no idea that Alpha Trion was his creator, despite the fact he has a direct interaction with him here.
- Flashbacks in this episode depict the Autobots on Cybertron nine million years ago using energon cubes, despite the pre-movie cartoon's otherwise-consistent presentation of the cubes as the province of Decepticons alone, about which the Autobots knew nothing before 1984. The actual term "energon" is never used to refer to the cubes in this episode, however, so it may be an error on the animation level, rather than the scripting level.
- There's also at least one river on Cybertron, despite it being a world made of metal.
Transformers references
- This takes place "a few weeks" after "The Key to Vector Sigma, Part 2", according to Optimus Prime.
- The events of the minicomic "64 Cybertron Urban Defense Robot GADEP" take place around this time period, showing Megatron raiding more energon storage facilities.
Trivia
- This aired on christmas day in the U.S.! Merry Christmas! Hasbro's present to you is Optimus dieing (and setting a trend)!
- This episode introduces a lot of major mythological elements from the Generation 1 cartoon, including the origin of Optimus Prime and Elita One and showing the start of the Third Great War.
- While the Decepticons often threaten or injure humans, this is the first time they are shown explicitly trying to kill them via a direct act (Starscream dropping them from the sky).
- It may be more than coincidental that this episode also marks the return of Starscream after a three episode hiatus resulting from Megatron seriously injuring him in "Hoist Goes Hollywood". Maybe he damaged Starscream’s compassion processor?
- In an interview on the Kid Rhino DVD set, writer David Wise says that the meeting between Orion Pax and Megatron happened differently in the original version of the script. Megatron was to blast Orion's arm off and then use it to decapitate him. Sunbow, fearing the scene was too violent, had it changed.
- Megatron asks who Optimus Prime is, and Optimus replies, "Your worst nightmare." A nod to Rambo, perhaps?
- For whatever reason, voice actor John Stephenson wasn't in this episode and thus Thundercracker and Alpha Trion had different voices; Alpha Trion's voice was Corey Burton's, and Thundercracker's was that of voice director Wally Burr. Burr also filled in as Jazz in "Kremzeek!" and Ratchet in "Masquerade".
- Dion's fate is never revealed. Fans have speculated that he was also rebuilt and reformatted by Alpha Trion into a familiar character, with Ultra Magnus and Ironhide being the two most popular suspects. Of course, it's entirely possible he simply died.
- This episode is one of the two episodes before the movie featuring a genuine female Transformer.
- Footage from this episode was used to represent a historical video in "Transform and Roll Out", the opening movie for Transformers Animated. Most notably, a shot of Dion shielding his eyes with his hand was used out of context to represent an Autobot saluting.
- Later, Dion's profile in Timelines #4, "Wings of Honor", gave a name to the specific area of the docks which Orion and the others worked. Storage yard 67 was named for e-HOBBY Orion Pax and Dion's Japanese identification number.
- In case you couldn't tell, the headless guardian robot reactivated by Megatron and co. is totally the same one Megatron decapitated in the past, and the ruined building housing the Kronosphere is the very same warehouse the Aerialbots destroyed.
Home video releases
- VHS
1986 — The Transformers — Volume 12: "The Secret of Omega Supreme", "War Dawn", "A Plague of Insecticons" (Family Home Entertainment)
1986 — The Transformers — The Key to Vector Sigma & War Dawn (A.M.T. Video Gems)
1988 — The Transformers — The Key to Vector Sigma & War Dawn (V.I.P. Video Gems)
2000 — The Original Transformers — Volume 5: Return to Cybertron (Rhino Entertainment)
- Laserdisc
1995 — Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers — Megatron Set (Takara) — Japanese audio only.
1999 — The Transformers — Decepticon Edition (Pioneer LDC) — Japanese audio only.
- DVD
2001 — The Transformers — DVD Box 2 (Pioneer LDC) — Japanese audio only.
2003 — The Original Transformers — Season 2 Part 2 (Rhino Entertainment)
2003 — The Original Transformers — Season 2 Part 2: Vol. 7 (Rhino Entertainment)
2004 — Transformers — Season 2 Part 2 (Metrodome)
2004 — Transformers — Collection 3: Series 2.2 (Madman Entertainment)
2006 — Transformers — The Complete Generation One Collection (Metrodome)
2007 — The Transformers — Complete Collection (Madman Entertainment)
2009 — Transformers — Volume 06: Stagione Due Parte Quarta (Medianetwork Communication) — English and Italian audio.
2009 — Transformers — Season Two: Part Two (Metrodome)
2009 — The Transformers — Complete Collection: Decepticon Edition (Madman Entertainment)
2009 — The Transformers — The Complete Series: 25th Anniversary "Matrix of Leadership" Collection (Shout! Factory)
2009 — The Transformers — Season Two, Volume Two: 25th Anniversary Edition (Shout! Factory)
