Attack from Outer Space
From Transformers Wiki
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 I can see my house from here! | ||||||
| "Attack from Outer Space" (Uchū kara Nerae! Shuttler!!) "Aiming from Space! Shuttler!!" | ||||||
| Production company | TV Tokyo, NAS, Studio Gallop | |||||
| Airdate | 26 July 2000 (Japanese) January 12, 2002 (Canada) (English) July 27, 2002 (US, BotCon 2002) (English) | |||||
| Written by | Kazuhiko Gōdo (Japanese) Matthew V. Lewis (English) | |||||
| Director | Yoshiaki Tsutsui | |||||
| Animation studio | Studio Gallop | |||||
Side Burn chases love
Decepticons destroy stuff
Movor is to blame
Contents |
Synopsis
A human space agency launches a space shuttle into orbit. The Predacons and Autobots watch a broadcast of the launch with fascination. What the humans and Autobots are unaware of is that the shuttle is actually the Decepticon Movor. Movor begins tracking Autobot movement. Following Tow-Line is fruitless, as he is too preoccupied towing vehicles away. Tracking Prowl, who's in hot pursuit of a criminal, is equally pointless. Megatron is impatient with Movor's inability to discern the location of the Autobot base.
Distracted from his mission, Movor watches Sky-Byte and his underlings carve a giant image of Megatron's face in the ground, Sky-Byte having taken a sarcastic suggestion from the Decepticons a bit too literally. As Movor watches from orbit, X-Brawn soon finds the four Predacons, and after a brief scuffle, he escapes and reports back to the Autobots.
Movor loses track of X-Brawn because of the Predacons, so he then starts to track Side Burn, who is doing what he does to whom he usually does it. The object of his affection only turns each of his pick-up lines back on him, however. Side Burn happens to drive by Sky-Byte and company, but a laser blast from Movor discourages the shark from interfering. Side Burn leads Movor to conclude the Autobot base is in Sector 12, which the rest of the Decepticons quickly destroy.
Finding nothing but an old soda bottle, a comb, and a (now destroyed) grain silo in Sector 12, the Decepticons follow Movor's report to where Side Burn was seen last, Sector 14. They quickly detonate ten empty summer homes, but soon notice Side Burn has already moved on, still chasing the car of his dreams. The Decepticons later raze a power plant, blow up an airport, and soon after destroy a shipyard, all of which gets on Mega-Octane's nerves, as none of the sectors were anywhere near the Autobots' base. Side Burn doesn't notice the carnage trailing behind him, as he's too busy following his heart. His would-be lady-friend eventually ditches him by driving into a hole.
The Autobots, who have been trying to figure out why the launched shuttle isn't responding to them, determine that Movor has been tracking their movements. Learning that the Decepticons are tracking Side Burn, they trick the gullible Autobot into going to Pier 7B for a date with the red car. Giving the shuttle one last chance, the Decepticons follow Movor's report and head to the pier.
Side Burn waits at the pier, hoping to meet his car of his dreams. Instead, he meets the five Decepticons. Optimus and the other Autobots arrive nearby. At first confident, the Decepticons become hopelessly outnumbered when Team Bullet Train arrives. However, Scourge looks forward to fighting Optimus. Movor attempts to use his Argon Ray to help his leader, but instead of hitting Scourge's opponent, he hits Scourge right in the back. Another attempt at helping Scourge has pretty much the same results. Seeing how the battle isn't going too well, the Decepticons retreat.
In the aftermath, the Autobots have an intervention to help Side Burn deal with his addiction to red sport cars, even if it was useful this one time. As they have a big, manly laugh, miles above, Movor is knocked out of orbit by a satellite and lands in the ocean.
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Autobots | Predacons | Humans |
|---|---|---|
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Quotes
Sky-Byte: Hahahaha! Can't you just see the look in Megatron's eyes as he flies into the rendezvous point?!
Dark Scream: Somehow when the Decepticons said "try drawing Megatron's face in the ground," I thought they were kidding.
Movor: Ha! They actually did it. That is so lame!
"I knew a gal, name'a Dirty McGall, who was always happy to SEEEEEE me!"
- —X-Brawn sings worse than Strong Bad.
"Man, I think I might have been having battery palpitations there for a while."
- —X-Brawn
"I do have a sensitive side. I can cry at movies. Especially during car crashes. And all of my doors dent surprisingly easily. You know, maybe we can go see one of those movies about actually really falling in love! ...if it doesn't go on too long."
"Thank you, but I'd rather eat a mouthful of thumb tacks."
- —Side Burn unsurprisingly fails to win Kelly over.
"This is exciting. I had front row tickets to a heavy metal concert once, but this is way better. I'll just sit back and watch the action."
- —Movor
"You metal maggot, you just zapped your own chief!"
- —Mega-Octane on Movor
"Lasers from space? Look, that's hardly sporting."
"I hate this guy, I really hate this guy."
- —Midnight Express and Scourge, on Movor
"I don't think I'm real popular right now. I never found the base, I blew up the wrong stuff, and I shot Scourge twice."
- —Movor will probably not be putting this episode in his resume.
Notes
Differences with Car Robots
Following the modified approach to the dubbing of the series that the September 9/11 terrorist attacks prompted, this episode, with its scenes of extensive building destruction, was one that appears to have received special attention. While no plot elements are changed, it features a particularly large amount of minute video and timing edits, and quite a bit more noticeable "flavour" dialogue than the already-widespread quantities the series normally has. Regardless, no amount of editing seems to have been able to justify its airing on television, as it is one of three episodes of the series which were never broadcast in the United States.
- Robots in Disguise regularly adds dialogue where Car Robots is silent, though this episode's open scene provides a particularly thorough example, as a chatter from the astronauts, mission control, and Optimus runs over the top of the shuttle launch sequence where only a countdown was heard in the Japanese version. After the shuttle has launched and Koji voices his desire to be an astronaut, Robots in Disguise has Optimus point out how much work it will take, and he groans at the prospect; in Car Robots, Optimus just tells him to keep reaching for the dream and that's all.
- All of Movor's first-person-perspective shots are given the standard CGI POV overlay treatment for Robots in Disguise. Notably, the original Car Robots footage is actually of an angled view of a screen inside Movor's cockpit, rather than a literal POV shot as is normally the case; the overlay mostly hides this, but sometimes the crosshairs of his screen is still left visible, or the very edges of his screen sneak in, and both continue to be at angle, rather at odds with what the overlay is trying to convey. Observe the image at right closely for some examples of these.
- In Car Robots, there's a joke about how Prowl feels like someone is watching him. In Robots in Disguise, this dialogue is replaced with the content of the emergency call he then speeds off to respond to.
- In Car Robots, it's Scourge who informs Megatron they have not heard from Movor yet; Robots in Disguise gives this line to Mega Octane, and instead changes Scourge's exchange with Megatron into a gag in which he doesn't understanding Megatron's overly florid language.
- In Car Robots, the Predacons are drawing Megatron's face in the sand because Sky-Byte thinks it'll impress him. In Robots in Disguise, this rather odd little stunt is reinterpreted as the creation of a rendezvous point for the villains, which Sky-Byte has chosen to have rendered in this form because the Decepticons jokingly suggested the over-the-top idea to him. Where Robots in Disguise has Darkscream mutter to himself about the Decepticons' trick, Car Robots has him remarking to himself that actually defeating some Autobots is likely to impress Megatron a lot more than the drawing ever will.
- Car Robots doesn't establish until later in the episode that the Autobots are (rather oddly) in direct contact with the Space Agency; Robots in Disguise makes it clear from early on when T-AI notes that the agency actually gave them the frequencies for the shuttle, which Car Robots doesn't specify.
- When Car Robots has T-AI re-check the frequency, Robots in Disguise instead has her try bouncing their signal off a satellite at Optimus's suggestion.
- In Car Robots, X-Brawn sings El Cóndor Pasa. In Robots in Disguise, he sings a made-up song (quoted above), followed by the American National Anthem.
- In Car Robots, Movor realizes that someone has hacked into his transmission briefly. Robots in Disguise, on the other hand, has him confused to be receiving images of X-Brawn, as he wasn't previously locked onto him (though that doesn't make a ton of sense because X-Brawn is right next to where the Predacons are, and that's where Movor is looking at the time).
- After X-Brawn stumbles onto the Predacons, Robots in Disguise goes into commercial break, so an extra shot using footage of X-Brawn from a moment before when he pulled up in front of the villains is added for an into-break cliffhanger, and a shot of the villains standing in front of him is added to begin the second act when the break ends.
- Robots in Disguise shortens Darkscream's pre-transformation threat to X-Brawn, then shortly after also cuts down an exchange between X-Brawn and Sky-Byte in which the villain explains they're "turning the area into a monument".
- After X-Brawn escapes the Predacons, the short scene of Movor scanning the area is extended for Robots in Disguise by adding some reused footage of him floating around in orbit to the start.
- As the Autobots start to get wise to the Decepticons' scheme, Prowl has a bit of a fit after he thinks Movor might have been watching him too. In Car Robots, this is because X-Brawn has jokingly asked if he was doing something bad; in Robots in Disguise, he is chastising himself for turning his sensors off for the police pursuit he was involved in.
- When Prowl asks why X-Brawn didn't call for help, Robots in Disguise has him suggest he might have if he'd had time, while in Car Robots, he proudly states that he couldn't call himself Prowl's older brother if he had to call in help to deal with those losers.
- In Robots in Disguise, Sky-Byte sarcastically asks if the Decepticons' strategy involves "a wedding or a cotillion"; Car Robots has him ask why they're still sitting around at the base. Mega Octane's reply is angry in Robots in Disguise, mocking the sand drawing, but sarcastic in Car Robots, suggesting their absence from the field is to give the Predacons space to make the drawing!
- Robots in Disguise cuts out a shot of the Predacons cringing in shared embarrassment when Sky-Byte blushes about the drawing (see right).
- When Side Burn propositions Kelly with a visit to a movie, Car Robots has him suggest one about a "giant meteorite hitting the Earth", which Robots in Disguise replaces with a Titanic reference. Side Burn does mention Titanic a moment later in Car Robots, which Robots in Disguise swaps out for a reference to Jurassic Park. Next, a reference to a serial killer movie is replaced with one about alien mind control, then finally, a lake-monster movie is swapped for a romantic movie. In most cases, both versions have Kelly wish the plight of the film upon Side Burn... except for the serial killer flick, which she suggests he could have been the star of, the lake-monster movie, which she thinks starred one of his relatives, and the romantic movie, which she ranks second to eating a handful of thumbtacks.
- In keeping with the nature of the dub post-9/11, Robots in Disguise makes a point of having Mega Octane stress that the buildings they're destroying are empty.
- Robots in Disguise edits out a particularly extreme visual gag of Mega Octane's giant head appearing over the Earth to bellow at Movor (see right again), keeping the content of his dialogue, but replacing the visuals with two pieces of footage from earlier, first of Mega Octane, then of Movor in orbit.
- When Optimus covers T-AI's mouth, Robots in Disguise edits out the end of the scene, which sees the Autobot leader's hand pass through the hologram (see right one more time), presumably so the visual gag of her being muffled actually makes sense.
- In Robots in Disguise, Side Burn is sad about missing his chance to reconnect with the red sports car, and X-Brawn tells him to drop it so they can battle the Decepticons. In Car Robots, he's suitably ashamed, and blames his incredible girl-hunting technique for nearly exposing their base, prompting X-Brawn to angrily inform him that he wouldn't put it like that!
- Scourge notes that they won't need to find the Autobots base if they can destroy them then and there in Robots in Disguise, but it seems in Car Robots that Megatron has designs on the base itself, rather than just as a means to an end, as Scourge points out that defeating the Autobots means there'll be no-one to stop them taking and using the base.
- As Shuttler hits the atmosphere, both versions have him yelp in pain at the heat, but Car Robots has him do so in song, by reciting the lyrics of Goldfinger 99, a Japanese version of Ricky Martin's Livin' la Vida Loca with alternate lyrics. Okay then!
- In the final scene, Robots in Disguise has Tow-Line commend Side Burn on a job well done, while in Car Robots, he actually tells him that he needs to put a stop to the woman-hunting, and that he's going to have to work hard from here on out.
- Scenes extended for Robots in Disguise include:
- Optimus watching the launch (to incorporate new dialogue from him that wasn't in the original)
- Optimus telling Koji to work hard at being an astronaut
- Movor watching Tow-Line
- Multiple shots during Movor's first report to the Decepticon base
- Two shots of Optimus asking T-AI questions about their trouble getting a picture from the shuttle
- Optimus responding to T-AI's problems getting a transmission from the shuttle
- Prowl asking X-Brawn why he didn't call for help
- X-Brawn explaining why he didn't call
- Optimus asking about the fake shuttle
- A close-up shot on Prime's face he realises the shuttle is Movor
- Sky-Byte receiving Mega Octane's transmission
- Scourge ordering the Combaticons into action
- Optimus explaining his plan to T-AI
- Optimus ordering the Autobots out of their base
- Side Burn fretting over being tricked
- Two closeups of Scourge before the fighting breaks out
Animation or technical errors
- When Movor starts to track Tow-Line, the display shows a Predacon symbol at the bottom left. It then turns into the Decepticon symbol.
- When the Decepticons are at the graveyard, careful observation shows Movor with the group, when he should still be in space, while there is no sign of Rollbar. When the Decepticons attack the silo, Rollbar is seen in the attack while Movor is gone.
- Not exactly an animation error so much as (probable) laziness: As he floats over the Earth in space shuttle mode looking for the Autobot base, Movor's display screens (seen right) show what is presumably supposed to be Cybertronian script, but in reality, the "letters" include the very human symbols of the Zodiac.
Continuity errors
- While generally Movor's vehicle mode is depicted as around the same size as the other Decepticons, this would make him a very tiny space shuttle indeed—and so suddenly in this episode, he's a full-sized space shuttle.
Real-world references
- Side Burn's reference to a movie "About a big ship that started to sink" could be a reference to the film Titanic.
- His reference to a film about dinosaurs eating cars might be a reference to Jurassic Park.
- The movie about aliens that take over people's minds is maybe a reference to Invasion Of The Body Snatchers.
Trivia
- Mega-Octane claims that Megatron did not like the sand sculpture Sky-Byte made.
- How could the human space agency (never explicitly referred to as NASA) not have noticed that their shuttle had been replaced with an evil duplicate? Space agency security in the Robots in Disguise universe must be pretty lax.
- Prowl is designated "unit #3" by the Metro City police and can broadcast on their radio frequency. Whether this is part of his car disguise or if the police have actually given official status to an Autobot is not stated.
- Movor is an idiot.
Foreign localization
Italian
- Title: "Attacco dallo spazio" ("Attack from space")
- The gag in which Mega Octane doesn't understanding Megatron's language isn't well rendered since he speaks in common Italian here. Also, Mega Octane's line: "Sir?" is spoken by Scourge.
- In the Italian dub of this series, the scene transitions lack the voice saying: "Transform!". Still, in this episode there's one instance in which the voice is kept.
- While, in English, when Movor enters the atmosphere, he says that he's turning into Rudolph, in Italian he says that he looks like a meteorite... although he probably meant a meteor, since meteorites are just debris.
Portuguese
- Title: "Um Ataque Vindo do Espaço" ("An Attack Coming from Space")
Home video releases
- DVD
2000 — Transformers: Car Robots — Vol. 5 (Pony Canyon) — Japanese audio only.
2004 — Transformers: Robots in Disguise — Three-Disc Box Set: Part 1 of 2 (Maximum Entertainment)
2007 — Transformers: Robots in Disguise — Season One (Maximum Entertainment)
2007 — Transformers: Robots in Disguise — Ultimate Collection (Maximum Entertainment)
