The Trigger, Part 1
From Transformers Wiki
| The name or term "Trigger" refers to more than one character or idea. For a list of other meanings, see Trigger (disambiguation). |
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 "The entire world will once again kneel before the power of Laputa!" | |||||||||
| "The Trigger" Part 1 | |||||||||
| Season | 1 | ||||||||
| No. in season | 16 | ||||||||
| Production company | Mainframe Entertainment | ||||||||
| Airdate | November 18, 1996 | ||||||||
| Written by | Bob Forward | ||||||||
| Directed by | J. Falconer | ||||||||
| Animation studio | Mainframe Entertainment | ||||||||
| Continuity | Beast Wars continuity | ||||||||
| Packaged with | DX Megatron | ||||||||
 Watch this episode on YouTube
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Tigatron discovers a flying island with amazing alien power, but the Predacons are after it as well.
Contents |
Synopsis
An earthquake on a snowy mountainside raises questions from the nearby Tigatron, on his way to file his weekly report with the rest of the Maximals. Rattrap answers Tigatron's call, and as soon as Tigatron mentions that he hasn't seen any Predacon activity, Waspinator and Terrorsaur attack, their attacks causing Tigatron's communication console to collapse upon him as Rattrap listens. Optimus Primal heads out to rescue his comrade.
Tigatron, pushing the console off himself, continues to fight against his airborne assailants. A missile from Terrorsaur is detonated by a shot from Waspinator, tearing the ground into pieces and dropping Tigatron into a cloudy chasm. But when the two fliers follow Tigatron into the cloud to gather his remains as trophies, they are blasted by something unseen.
Primal eventually arrives at the site of the battle, and using Tigatron's communication console, radios to the Axalon that Tigatron is missing, possibly destroyed.
Airazor, spying on the Predacon base, witnesses Waspinator and Terrorsaur return in poor condition. The two goons report to Megatron what happened to them after they followed Tigatron.
Inside of the cloud Tigatron fell into, the two Predacons discovered Tigatron had landed on a massive flying island. While trying to finish Tigatron, the two were blasted away by energy beams from a strange tower in the center of the island. Megatron sends the team of Scorponok and Blackarachnia to claim the island in the name of the Predacons.
Airazor reports to the Maximals her observation of the two Predacons, who were in much worse condition than they should be had they won the battle against Tigatron, which means the tiger could still be alive. Cheetor rushes in to follow up her report with news that Blackarachnia and Scorponok are leaving the Predacon base. Airazor is sent to follow the two.
In beast mode, Tigatron explores the island he's discovered, and is amazed at the flora and fauna on the isolated paradise. But, after passing a rock with strange markings, the island reveals some strange defenses against his presence. Tigatron decides to play it safe for the rest of his time in the strange area.
Outside of the cloud, Blackarachnia and Scorponok find the island. Scorponok explores the island with one of his cyberbees, until Tigatron snatches the bee out of the air. The deceptive nature of the cloud confirmed, Blackarachnia fires a line into the cloud to board the island. As the line retracts, pulling up the two arachnids, Scorponok sees Airazor in pursuit. Using one of his rockets, he blasts her out of the sky. After Scorponok dodges the island's response to his attack, Blackarachnia resolves to take control of the island for herself.
Tigatron aids Airazor and explains to her that he reprogrammed the cyber bee to carry a message back to the Axalon. Soon, Primal recovers the bee and receives the message explaining how if the island's weapon is commandeered by either side, it would ensure victory....
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Maximals | Predacons |
|---|---|
|
Quotes
"Waszzpinator love victims that are punctual!"
- —Waspinator is happy to see Tigatron.
"Waszzpinator wants his heeeeead!"
"It's mine, bug face!"
- —Waspinator and Terrorsaur fighting over whatever's left of Tigatron.
"Either the grunge look is coming back, or those two ran into something hot."
- —Airazor on spying Terrorsaur and Waspinator after their encounter with the flying island.
Optimus Primal: Good thing you didn't just blast this bee.
Cheetor: Well, I would've... but it was carrying one of Airazor's feathers.
Rattrap: 'Sides... he missed.
Cheetor: Yeah, that too.
Optimus Primal: Prime.
- —The Maximals receiving the Cyber Bee.
Notes
Script timeline
- First draft: 20th May 1996
- Second draft: 18th July 1996
- Finalised: 13th August 1996
- As Air 12th November 1996
Animation and technical errors
- The trail of tiger footprints in the snow is a nice touch, but then Tigatron transforms and he's not leaving footprints anymore. The snow effects in general are rather inconsistent, only leaving impressions when absolutely necessary.
- Waspinator's first transformation is pretty screwy. The wasp-stripes on his thighs are vertical instead of horizontal; his insect-mode wings don't disappear entirely, so he has an extra set of wings in robot mode; the animation of his wings stops mid-shot; and there's a big green part sticking through his chest, clipping into his chin.
- Both times when Terrorsaur transforms, his shoulder cannons float above him as he transforms, then reattach when he turns to robot mode. This is better seen in his flashback.
- As Tigatron's transmission cuts off, part of Rattrap's wrist comes detached from his hand.
- When the radar array falls on Tigatron, it's explicitly shown that his gun lands a little distance away from it. But after he pushes the radar off himself and engages the flyers, the gun's right next to him.
- As the two Preds are looking for Tigatron's remains, Terrorsaur's wing membrane keeps detaching from his arms when he flaps them.
- When Terrorsaur and Waspinator fly into the cloud, the sounds of the resulting battle are different from the ones heard during the former's flashback. Most notably, Terrorsaur is heard screeching before the island's beam weapon fires.
- Most of Waspinator's abdomen stripes are gone when he and Terrorsaur report to Megatron, but after the flashback, his stripes are back.
- After Megatron demands an explanation from the flyers, the position of his dinosaur head-hand is flipped 180° in the following shot.
- When Megatron addresses Scorponok and Blackarachnia, their feet are partially clipping into their floating platforms.
- Scorponok's visor changes from yellow to red multiple times in the second half of the episode.
Continuity errors
- It seems to take a very, VERY long time for the transmission tower to fall on Tigatron. There is at least a 20-second break between the Maximals losing his transmission and Optimus taking off to find him, after which Tigatron is still screaming as the tower finally falls on him.
Continuity notes
- Early in the episode, Rhinox observes that one of the moons is lighter than it should be. Perhaps this could be foreshadowing? A hollow celestial body? Call Dr. Lucy Suzuki!
- Terrorsaur's suspicions about the nature of the "cloud" may be due to previous experience with abnormal landforms on the planet.
- Gadgets and powers:
- Terrorsaur fires off a missile with a "shark-toothed" paint job.
- Airazor possesses telescopic vision, which she uses several times in the episode.
- Scorponok can receive live feeds from his cyber-bees.
Transformers references
- The idea of a tropical area surviving amongst otherwise inhospitable coldness is a concept used elsewhere in Transformers.
Real-world references
- Rattrap answers Tigatron's call with the phrase "What's new, pussycat?" This is actually the third time this phrase is used. The first was in "Equal Measures" as an expression by Cheetor and the second time in "The Spark" when Rhinox greets Cheetor during his dream sequence.
- Airazor, spying on a damaged Terrorsaur and Waspinator, quips that "The grunge look must have come back."
Trivia
- There is a model submarine on Rattrap's station.
Foreign localization
French
- Title: "L'île Volante - 1re partie" ("The Flying Island - Part 1")
- Title: "Île Volante 1" ("Flying Island 1")
German
Italian
- Title: "Il grilletto - Parte 1" ("The Trigger - Part 1")
- When Scorponok explores the island with the cyberbee, the narrator wrongly states that Blackarachnia is the one exploring it.
Japanese
- Title: "Ukishima no Death Match Zenpen" (浮島のデスマッチ前編, "Floating Island Death Match Part 1")
- Original airdate: 31 December 1997
- This episode was held back from Japanese broadcast for one week, due to the previous week's Wednesday (the day on which all episodes of the series had aired) having been December 24, Christmas Eve. Because of this delay, both it and the next episode aired together on the same day as a one-hour special.
- Terrorsaur's angry-face missile that he fires at Tigatron actually speaks. In a high-pitched voice, it screeches "caw caw caw!" in a manner similar to Terrorsaur (as caw caw caw was his verbal tic in the Japanese dub) and when it impacts without exploding, it coughs and grumbles in disappointment.
- Likewise, Scorponok's cyberbee also speaks, mimicking its master's verbal tic (chanting "orya orya orya"). As Tigatron holds it down and picks at it, the cyberbee pleads with him to stop between gasps of "orya orya orya".
- As the cyberbee surveys the floating island's terrain and Scorponok watches through his visor, he passes the time by singing "War War! Stop It" by Banana Ice to himself (naturally, this was the show's theme song in Japan).
- When recording his message for the Maximals with the cyberbee, Tigatron starts by stuttering and clearing his throat like he doesn't know the camera is on, then launches into a melodramatic call for help.
- After Tigatron's message ends and the screen goes blank, Rattrap shouts "Hey, what're we gonna do now?" before the clips for next episode begin.
Portuguese
- Title: "O Gatilho Parte 1" ("The Trigger Part 1")
Spanish
- Title: "El Detonante Primera Parte" ("The Explosive First Part")
Mandarin
- Title: "Yún Zhōng zhī Dǎo " (云中之岛, "The Island in the Cloud")
Home video releases
- VHS
1998 — Beast Wars — Warning from Space (Alliance Video)
1998 — Robots-Bêtes — Alert Dans L'Espace (Alliance Video) — French audio only.
1998 — Beast Wars: Super Lifeform Transformers — Floating Island Deathmatch (Pioneer LDC) — Japanese audio only.
1998 — Beast Wars / Robots-Bêtes Three pack (Alliance Video) — Available in English or French audio.
2001 — Beast Wars: Transformers — The Beginning: Vol. 3 (Universal)
1998 — Beast Wars: Transformers — Predacon Edition (Pioneer LDC) — English and Japanese audio.
- DVD
2000 — Beast Wars: Transformers — DVD Box (Pioneer LDC) — English and Japanese audio.
2003 — Beast Wars: Transformers — The Complete First Season (Rhinomation)
2011 — Beast Wars: Transformers — Season 1 (Shout! Factory)
2011 — Beast Wars: Transformers — The Complete Series (Shout! Factory)
2005 — Beast Wars — Classic Episodes: Volume 3 — The Battle Rages On! (Alliance Atlantis) — English and French audio.
2005 — Beast Wars — The Complete First Season (Alliance Atlantis) — English and French audio.
2006 — Beast Wars: Transformers — Season 1 (Madman Entertainment)
2009 — The Transformers: Beast Wars — Complete Collection (Madman Entertainment)
