Who is going to see the new Transformers tonight? Raise your hand…

(Raises hand)

Yeah, you know I was going to go see the newest live-action Transformers tonight. I mean I started this blog with a post about Transformers! And even though we won’t get near the number of homies attending this showing as the last one, the nostalgia factor is just too strong for me to resist. Look for a review of the Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen hopefully tomorrow. But in the meantime, I would like to re-visit one of my favorite Transformers Generation 1 episode, and yes… it is a bootleg classic.

Transformers “Heavy Metal War” December 15, 1984

Background:

You already know! But just in case… they are those robots that change (transform)  into cars, airplanes, etc.  C’mon you know… Optimus Prime and the Autobots (aka the good guys)  vs. Megatron and the Decipticons (aka the bad guys).  You know what!?  If you need a background on Transformers why you reading this blog!

The Episode:

Megatron challenges Optimus Prime to an honorable one-on-one gladiator style duel. The loser of the duel must take his respective team and leave Earth forever, thus ending the long bitter war between the Autobots and the Decipticons. However, unbeknownst to Optimus, Megatron cheats by taking the abilities of the other decipticons, giving Megatron a huge advantage in the duel.

(Hit the Jump to find out what makes this a Bootleg Classic)

What makes this a Bootleg Classic?

There are several reasons that make this epsiode a Bootleg Classic. The main reason… The introduction of the Constructicons and of Devastator. The introduction of the Constructicons at the beginning of this episode was nothing short of brilliant. The Constructicons were made to appear not only like a special ops Decepticon team, but also as a bad ass mofos.

I especially loved the first fight between the Constructicons and the Dinobots (who btw, are my favorite autobots). This was an epic encounter and,  this battle showed that the Dinobots are a force to be reckoned with. Even though the Constructicons were pretty stealthy and mean throughout this whole epsiode, they were getting their asses handed to them by the Dinobots, especially when the Dinobots went into dinosaur mode. That is until they combined to form Devastator!

Now combiners were not new in giant robot cartoon genre  (Voltron!), however,  this was the first combiner in the Transformers universe. And Devastator put a whoppin on the Dinobots (I was a little disheartened by this as a little kid back in the day).  To this day, I believe this first encounter is what made  the Constructicons and the Dinobots mortal enemies.

Lastly, the fight between Megatron and Optimus was pretty good as well. Even though it was one sided (with Megatron cheating and all), I enjoyed the conversations between Autobots and Decepticons. I loved the “that was my move”  chatter between the Decepticons, and the “there some shit going on”  chatter from the Autobots.

Watch the episode here in two parts:

Looking back, this was the last episode of season 1 of the Transformers and it could’ve easily been the last episode of Transformers… ever! The Decipticons fell into a lake of lava for goodness sakes, that would’ve killed the Terminator! If it weren’t for the Megatron coming out the lava and saying “we will rise again!” they could’ve just ended the show. Here let me do a quick edit and show you:

See! Autobots win! Series over! 

Luckily that wasn’t the case. In Optimus’ final quote from this Bootleg Classic, “In this vast universe, is anything truly forever?”