Four Warriors Come out of the Sky

« Transformers: The Headmasters ep 1 »
Warriors! Come out to PLAY-AY-YEEEEE!
"Four Warriors Come out of the Sky" 空から来た四人の戦士 () (Sora Kara Kita Yonin no Senshi)
Production company	Takara, Toei
Airdate	July 3, 1987
Writer	Keisuke Fujikawa
Director	Katsutoshi Sasaki
Animation studio	Toei
Continuity	Japanese Generation 1 cartoon continuity

In the year 2011, the Decepticons are back, and they've got added power in the form of the newest addition to the Transformers' war—Headmasters!

Synopsis

"The Decepticons are attacking! Darn them all to heck!"

On Cybertron in the year 2011, the space bridge suddenly reactivates, and Galvatron steps through with a small force including the mysterious new recruits Weirdwolf, Skullcruncher, and Mindwipe. Galvatron aims to take control of Vector Sigma, and Weirdwolf volunteers the three Headmasters for this task. Galvatron is irritated at his impudence, but the Headmasters rush off anyway. Galvatron sends the Terrorcons, Predacons, and Combaticons to attack the Autobots.

At Autobot Base, Spike and Carly Witwicky's tea is interrupted by the Decepticon attack, and they rush to the control room, where Spike contacts the Autobot base on Athenia. The message reaches Athenia, where Hound theorises that the loss of the Matrix's energy has destabilised Vector Sigma. Optimus Prime arranges for troops from Earth to reinforce those on Cybertron while he and Jazz also prepare to head there. He also suggests Spike and Carly evacuate to Athenia.

On Cybertron, Mindwipe turns his hypnotic powers on the Autobots, sending Grimlock to sleep. Unfortunately Skullcruncher also succumbs, much to Galvatron's fury. Spike realises that the Decepticons are after control of Vector Sigma, alarming Kup.

Meanwhile, on Earth, the Autobots under Ultra Magnus's command have received orders to join the conflict on Cybertron, but their way to the space bridge is barred by a Decepticon contingent led by Sixshot, and he and Magnus square off. At the same time, Wheelie and Daniel are plotting ways to get a ride to Cybertron when they accidentally run into Trypticon. He chases them until Wheelie gets the bright idea to run across a bridge over a ravine, and Trypticon is dumb enough to try to follow them. The bridge snaps under his weight and he plunges into the river below.

Sixshot has Ultra Magnus pinned when the Trainbots arrive and free their leader. The Autobots head for the space bridge, but are cut off again by Sixshot. Ultra Magnus sends the Trainbots on while he, Prowl, and Sideswipe keep the Decepticons busy. The Trainbots are attacked by the Constructicon, but luckily Metroplex chooses this moment to join the battle, and the Autobots succeed in reaching Autobot City and the Earth space bridge terminal. The troops are carried through the space bridge aboard the Trainbots, while Wheelie and Daniel stow away.

Fire! Water! Heart!

As the battle escalates and conditions worsen on Cybertron, Optimus arrives with more troops. On Athenia, Kup is reminded of the early days of the war when many Autobots fled Cybertron to escape the conflict. As if on cue, a mysterious light appears in the sky, approaching Cybertron—a light that Blurr soon realises is not a star, but a starship! As the Decepticons approach their goal, demolishing the Autobots that stand in their way thanks to Mindwipe's sleep-inducing hypnosis power, this ship appears in the skies over Cybertron, and four new warriors soar out to bar their advance—Chromedome, Hardhead, Brainstorm, and Highbrow!

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Holy crap.

Quotes

"This is so strange. How come a robot would feel sleepy?"

—Grimlock is confused by the effectiveness of Mindwipe's hypnotic abilities.

"All right, listen up! I'm the ninja consultant for the Decepticons. My name is Sixshot."

—Sixshot introduces himself.

"Well, well the game's over. So whaddaya think huh?"

—Sixshot after he defeated Ultra Magnus

Notes

Transformers references

• This episode occurs a year after "The Return of Optimus Prime, Part 2" (which takes place in 2010 in Japanese continuity, compared to America's 2006), taking the place of "The Rebirth, Part 1" for this continuity.
• The events of issue #3 of The Great Transformer War take place almost immediately before this episode, focusing on the Autobot Headmasters' hunt for the Decepticon Headmasters, who are joining Galvatron for his assault on Cybertron.
• Athenia previously appeared in "Five Faces of Darkness, Part 1", but it has been seriously re-worked since then.
• The energy of the Matrix was released in "The Return of Optimus Prime, Part 2".
• The concept of Autobots fleeing Cybertron to escape the war was established in "Desertion of the Dinobots, Part 2", and revisited in "Fight or Flee".
• Up to this point, the space bridge has been the province of the Decepticons alone, but this episode establishes that the Autobots have now created their own network, linking Autobot City on Earth to Cybertron and Athenia.

Animation and technical errors

Metroplex misses the "low bridge" sign.

• When the Decepticons emerge from the space bridge at the start of the episode, Hun-Gurrr is missing from the Terrorcons, Swindle is missing from the Combaticons and both Divebomb and Headstrong are missing from the Predacons. The two Predacons reappear later on, but the others don't, and Rippersnapper actually gives out orders to the team.
• Similarly, when the Technobots appear, Strafe is missing, but when the angle switches, Scattershot has disappeared, and Strafe is in his place (just as Lightspeed issues orders to the team!).
• Perhaps in an attempt to outdo his brother (who appeared in two places at once in The Transformers: The Movie), Sideswipe is seen on both Athenia and Earth.
• Right before Sixshot introduces himself to Magnus, a shot of Soundwave shows him with his optics colored white instead of red.
• Despite being huge in most shots, Metroplex is somehow able to drive right into one of the tunnels leading into Autobot City.
• As Chromedome steps forward to introduce himself, Hardhead's mouth is missing.

Continuity errors

"Did Prime just... die?"
"You know, it was really unclear."

• This episode begins with a montage recapping the vague basics of Transformer history, covering their eons-long war, their migration to Earth, the death of Optimus Prime, the rise of Rodimus Prime and Megatron's recreation as Galvatron. The death of Prime is of particular note, as it shows him perishing in a fire-fight in front of Autobot Headquarters, rather than accurately replicating his actual death from The Transformers: The Movie. This was a bit of a continuity patch-job on the part of The Headmasters, as the movie still hadn't reached Japan yet at this point (and wouldn't until 1989, when Victory was airing), so the actual circumstances of Prime's death hadn't been chronicled outside of similarly vague explanations in the pages of TV Magazine.
• Although he does not speak, Prowl appears quite prominently in a few scenes, despite his death in the movie. The fact that the movie had not yet been released in Japan at this point is often cited as a reason for this, but Prowl's name was included on the list of dead Autobots in the Japanese dub of "Dark Awakening", so they did know. The Binaltech storyline seemed like it was going to explain this, but got shunted off into its own alternate reality when it ended.
  • Years later the Facebook version of Ask Vector Prime finally gave a full explanation: Japanese cartoon Prowl did die in the events of the movie and was subsequently replaced by his dimension-hopping counterpart from a closely-related alternate universe.
• Blitzwing is shown with the Decepticons, but he was banished from their ranks in "Five Faces of Darkness, Part 5". This previously occurred in "The Ultimate Weapon", and it will not be the last time that this occurs in The Headmasters.
• Many characters who'd previously been quite different in height are now scaled down to match other characters. Most noticeably, Grimlock is now the same height as Blurr and Wreck-Gar. In dino-mode, he's the same height as Goldbug.

Trivia

• The Japanese-language version of this episode released on DVD by Metrodome, Madman Entertainment, and Shout! Factory is missing the opening montage.
• The Metrodrome DVDs translate the title as "Four Warriors from Outer Space".
• The Shout! Factory DVDs translate the title as "Warriors from Space".
• This episode marks the first appearance of Broadside's final jet mode character model. The last time he was shown in jet mode, the animators used his pre-final model, which had previously been used in the 1986 Triple Changer toy commercial.

Foreign localization

English

• Title: "The Four Soldiers from the Sky" (Omni Productions dub)
• Original airdate: July 12, 1992

• Title: "Warriors from Space" (Shout! Factory sub), "Four Warriors from Outer Space" (Shout! Factory menu)

• Sixshot refers to himself as a "Phase Six Decepticon officer" instead of the original "Decepticon Dinobase Ninja Commander".

Italian

• Title: "I quattro guerrieri dello spazio" ("The four warriors of space")
• Original airdate: ?

• If you thought the Italian dub of the original series had a lot of mistakes, well, this series isn't better, and this episode is a good example... let's begin:

• A common mistake in this series is having Optimus Prime misnamed as Ultra Magnus, which is caused by the fact that Ultra Magnus's Italian name is Convoy, which is also Optimus's Japanese name. This happens twice in this episode: the first time in the opening narration, where the narrator states that "Convoy" is the Autobot leader, and the second time when Kup says that they must warn "Convoy" about the fact that the Decepticons are after Vector Sigma.
• Instead of saying that the Cybertronians woke up after 4 million years, the narrator states that the story takes place 4 million years in the future. There's possibly still someone out there who thinks the series took place in the 40020th century...
• When Optimus tells Hot Rod that he's going to Cybertron, the line was changed by having him saying: «You and Carly can come here to repair yourselves»... OH GOD, WHAT THE...!?

• Actually, because of synonyms, the sentence could also mean: «You and Carly can come here to protect yourselves», which may make a little bit more sense...

• Metroplex is called by his Japanese name (Metroflex) instead of the Italian one (Guardian). Some characters in this series are in fact called by their Japanese names, but Metroplex is not one of them since he's regularly called Guardian in the next episodes.
• Once, Kup calls the Matrix of Leadership "Matrix of Energy" (Matrice dell'Energia).
• The part in which Kup remembers what happened 4 million years before is really badly translated: the result is Kup talking about how some random guys managed to escape from Cybertron after the end of the war. After that, Spike even says: «I don't understand how this story of yours could help us now» which... is exactly what any Italian probably thought while watching this.
• And this is just the first episode!

• Outside the mistakes, the writing that states that the series takes place in 2011 is cut out.
• Also, in this series Hot Rod and Rodimus Prime are both called "Captain" (which should only be the name of the latter), possibly because in Japanese their names are both shortened in "Rodimus".
• In this series there's also a big problem about pluralization: in fact, the name of some Trasformers groups are generally pluralized by adding an -s at the end, but not always. As a good example, the Decepticons are mostly called "Distructor" in singular form and "Distructors" in plural, but, from time to time, even the plural form lacks the -s.

Mandarin

• Title: "Cóng Tiān ér Jiàng de Sì-yǒngshì " (从天而降的四勇士, "The Four Warriors Come down from the Sky")
• Original airdate: ?

Russian

• Title: "Chetvero Nebesnykh Voyinov" (Четверо небесных воинов, "The Four Sky Warriors")
• Original airdate: ?

Spanish

• Title: "Los soldados del pasado" ("Soldiers of the past")
• Original airdate: ?

Home video releases

LaserDisc

1996 — Transformers: The Headmasters Set (Takara) — Japanese audio only.

DVD

2001 — Transformers: The Movie (Sony Wonder) — Omni dub only.
2002 — Transformers: Takara (Sony Wonder) — Omni dub only.
2002 — Transformers: The Headmasters — DVD Box (Pioneer LDC) — Japanese audio only.
2004 — Transformers — Season 2 Part 2 (Metrodome) — Omni dub only.
2005 — Transformers: The Movie — Reconstructed (Metrodome) — Japanese audio with optional English subtitles only.
2005 — The Takara Collection Vol 1 — Transformers: Headmasters (Metrodome) — Optional commentary by Chris McFeely.
2007 — Transformers — The Complete Takara Collection (Metrodome) — Optional commentary by Chris McFeely.
2007 — The Transformers: Headmasters (Madman Entertainment)
2009 — The Transformers: Japan Generation 1 — Complete Collection (Madman Entertainment)
2011 — Transformers Japanese Collection: Headmasters (Shout! Factory) — Japanese audio with optional English subtitles only.
2012 — Transformers: The Japanese Collection (Shout! Factory) — Japanese audio with optional English subtitles only.