The Final Battle (RID)
| The name or term "The Final Battle" refers to more than one character or idea. For a list of other meanings, see The Final Battle (disambiguation). |
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 It's the Final Battle of Ultimate Destiny! | ||||||
| "The Final Battle" (Saigo no Tatakai! Fire Convoy) "Final Battle! Fire Convoy" | ||||||
| Production company | TV Tokyo, NAS, Studio Gallop | |||||
| Airdate | 27 December 2000 (Japanese) March 23, 2002 (English) | |||||
| Written by | Junki Takegami (Japanese) Tom Wyner (English) | |||||
| Director | Osamu Sekita | |||||
| Animation studio | Studio Gallop | |||||
| Continuity | Robots in Disguise | |||||
Autobot torture
Galvatron is triumphant
Can they turn the tide?
Synopsis
Galvatron gloats to the Autobots that with the power of Fortress Maximus he is unstoppable. As they hang helpless in the air, he first shocks and then drops them all to the ground. Side Burn drags himself to the edge of a huge crater, at the bottom of which Optimus Prime lays battered. As Optimus struggles up, Scourge and Ruination burst through the crater wall and open fire on the Autobot leader. Sky-Byte and the Predacon trio peer cautiously out of the hole as well, worrying what Galvatron will do to them if he spots them. Unfortunately for them, Galvatron already has spotted them, and orders them to attack the Autobots. Figuring that Galvatron will always be the scarier of the two options, the four Predacons get ready to fight, and are promptly trampled by the oncoming forces.
The Autobots come to Optimus Prime's aid, hailing the Decepticons with a barrage of weapons fire. High above the battlefield, Galvatron laughs and seizes them all in an energy field. T-AI opens a portal to the space bridge nearby, but Optimus is seized by a beam from Galvatron. He orders his men to enter the space bridge, but they block the beam of energy, freeing him. Though Optimus stubbornly refuses to go, he's grabbed by Ultra Magnus and carried off.
In the space bridge, Optimus persuades Magnus to help him return to the battle. They form Omega Prime and challenge Galvatron to a one-on-one fight. Galvatron follows Omega into the space bridge, where Omega instructs T-AI to open portals to the Earth's molten core and close them once he and Galvatron have gone through. T-AI and Koji protest that that will trap the pair of them, but Omega makes it a direct order. Koji, however, has a brainwave and begins contacting other children over the Internet.
Omega Prime leads Galvatron to the Earth's core, but his strength is quickly sapped by the conditions while Galvatron thrives. Koji's plan begins to work and Fortress Maximus becomes re-energised with the power sent to him by all of the children. Galvatron boasts that he has discovered a great power—the world's children—which he intends to harness. He's interrupted by the arrival of a massive burst of energy passed on by Fortress Maximus, which re-powers Omega Prime and creates the mighty Matrix Blade. The pair clash violently until Galvatron's Striker Lance shatters, and an immense explosion lights up the sky. T-AI cries that while Omega may have won, he's still trapped.
Sometime later, Koji sadly looks around the parking building where the Autobot base is located, commenting that the place seems deserted. As he trudges down the road, a fire engine pulls up behind him—it's Optimus Prime. Optimus tells Koji that they'll be going back to Cybertron soon, but first they're going to have a last look around. Optimus got free because the sheer force of the blast that deactivated Galvatron reactivated the space bridge and freed him. Sure enough, the Autobots are all engaging in their usual leisure activities. Fortress Maximus and Ultra Magnus are taking the Decepticons and Predacons back to Cybertron—all except Sky-Byte, who cheerfully swims off into the sunset.
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Autobots | Predacons | Humans |
|---|---|---|
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Quotes
"I know! If we retreat, Galvatron will destroy us, and if we fight, we don't stand a chance. What do we do?!"
"Galvatron's a lot meaner than they are."
- —Sky-Byte frets while Dark Scream applies logic to a hopeless situation.
"Now, stand tall, stand proud, and show those Autobots what you're forged from."
- —Sky-Byte prepares to lead his Predacons to epic victories...
Sky-Byte: That went... swimmingly.
Gas Skunk: We showed them, all right.
Slapper: I think I dented one of their feet with my face.
Dark Scream: We win.
- —...seconds later, they seem happy to take solace in smaller ones.
"Go ahead, Galvatron, and do your worst. It doesn't matter! You're not gonna beat us, no matter what you do, because you're a poser, Galvatron. Always have been, always will be!"
- —Side Burn cuts Galvatron bad.
"Mayday, mayday! The Autobots need our help. We've got to re-energize Fortress Maximus. We've got to send him energy from all over the world, from as many kids as we can contact in order to give him enough power to re-activate. Call every friend you've got! All of us have to work together to protect the Earth! It's up to us now, guys. Galvatron's trying to steal our world and our future, but we're not gonna let him! We were able to activate Fortress Maximus before, and now we're gonna do it again. We've got to!"
- —Koji attempts to save Earth by harnessing the power of chain-letter e-mail spam.
"Resistance is an exercise in futility."
- —Galvatron trying to hide the fact he's secretly a Trekkie.
"This power resides in the hearts and minds of Earth's children. Their fundamental belief that the universe is a place where goodness prevails over evil is the most powerful force in existence. But once I've warped their minds, evil will prevail and I will reign supreme!"
- —Galvatron's plan leaves a little to be desired.
"Go ahead, flail away! Your new-found energy won't last you much longer, and then you're mine!"
"I disagree!"
- —As the final, climactic exchange between Galvatron and Omega Prime, it has to be said that this is pretty weak.
Who's the smartest shark around?
Who's the coolest shark in town?
Sky-Byte, that's me! Ha!
- —Perhaps appropriately, the last word (or song), belongs to Sky-Byte, the true star of this show.
Notes
Differences with Car Robots
- Following on from the previous episode's omission of Galvatron's energy-draining do-baddery, this Robots in Disguise episode makes another change to the Japanese Car Robots story to once again to remove the villain's vampiric victimization. Rather than challenge Omega Prime to a final showdown and allowing him to pick the battlefield, in Car Robots, Galvatron specifically instructs Prime to open the Global Space Bridge to Earth's core, where he intends to absorb the energy of the planet itself. Prime's plan to trap Galvatron at the Earth's core is created for Robots in Disguise and unlike the previous changes, is a bit more noticeable, on account of how it doesn't work very well with the existing visuals of the episode—after all, if the spacebridge was supposed to be shut down to keep Galvatron trapped, why was a portal conveniently lying wide open for Fortress Maximus to transmit his energy through?
Continuity errors
- After being absent for the entire previous episode, Skid-Z, Tow-Line and the Spy Changers are all back.
- Sky-Byte suggests to the Predacon Trio that Galvatron thinks that he's gotten rid of them already and will react badly to seeing them still alive; however, Galvatron has no reason to think the Predacon Trio dead, and never showed any actual intention of killing any of them anyway.
- The whereabouts of Scourge and the Decepticons is fairly unclear for most of this finale; they're last seen being fired upon by the Autobots when Galvatron intervenes, and are not seen again until the epilogue, where we're told that they were captured.
- At the start of the episode, Optimus is in battle mode. After hitting the ground (and causing a sizable crater), he's back in regular old Optimus mode. Where did his trailer go?
Transformers references
- When things are looking their bleakest, the self-sacrificing Omega Prime makes the decision to seal himself and Galvatron in the Earth's core, giving his life to save the planet. It doesn't come to that in the end, but if it had, it wouldn't exactly be without precedent.
- As in "The Decepticons", the word "Cybertron" is used as a synonym for an inhabitant of the planet Cybertron. This is a reference to the Japanese name of the Autobots, and was also used in Beast Wars.
Real-world references
- The depiction of the Predacons' and Decepticons' final imprisonment inside flat, rotating crystals seems to owe an awful lot to Superman's Phantom Zone from the 1978 film.
Trivia
- Galvatron's "absorb the power of children" dealie is also created for Robots in Disguise, probably to create some sort of justification for the sorta ludicrous "children's good will makes green energy that falls out of the sky" business that happens with Fortress Maximus this episode. With the show having gone this route, you're left thinking that Galvatron draining energy from the kids in the previous episode might have been better kept, as it could have served as some sort of lead-in to this oddness.
- On the flipside, in Car Robots, Omega Prime's final strike with the Matrix Blade actually didn't finish Galvatron off. Galvatron defeated Omega Prime and began draining his energy as well, leading to the fatal cartoon villain mistake of trying to absorb too much energy at once, being overloaded and zonking out. Which is a hell of a lot less dramatic, especially when it all happens off-screen and is only ever related after the fact by Prime.
- Despite the comprehensiveness of its approach to the story's characters and loose ends, the epilogue declines to make any mention of Ultra Magnus in dialogue. His fate is not unknown, though—he apparently took the Predacons and Decepticons into custody, as he can (just about) be spotted standing on the hull of Fortress Maximus as the battleship flies through space.
- Fortress Maximus either has an e-mail address, or a membership to a Social Networking site that allows him to interact with concerned children on a massive scale.
Home video releases
- DVD
2001 — Transformers: Car Robots — Vol. 10 (Pony Canyon) — Japanese audio only.
2005 — Transformers: Robots in Disguise — Three-Disc Box Set: Part 2 of 2 (Maximum Entertainment)
2007 — Transformers: Robots in Disguise — Season Two (Maximum Entertainment)
2007 — Transformers: Robots in Disguise — Ultimate Collection (Maximum Entertainment)
