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You know the attack is serious when it's announced in all caps.
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Side Burn chases love
Decepticons destroy stuff
Movor is to blame
- Japanese title: Aiming From Space! Shuttler
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) graveyard 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 Seven B 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.
Stats
Original airdate:
Japan: July 26, 2000
Canada*: January 12, 2002
Written by: Matthew V. Lewis
Producer: Jamie Simone
Executive Producer: Eric S. Rollman
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Autobots | Predacons | Humans | Others |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Quotes
"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
"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.
Items of Note
- Because of post-9/11 sensitivity, this episode never aired on television in the United States because of a fear that the gratuitous destruction of buildings would have a disturbing effect on people.
- And let's be honest, that's pretty reasonable.
- Movor's first-person-perspective shots are digitally altered from the original Japanese version to have more on-screen effects.
- When Movor starts to track Tow-Line, the display shows a Predacon symbol at bottom left. It then turns into the Decepticon symbol.
- 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 RiD universe must be pretty lax.
- Side Burn's references to movies "About a big ship that started to sink", dinosaurs eating cars and aliens that take over people's minds could be references to the films Titanic, Jurassic Park and Invasion of the Body Snatchers respectively.
- Mega-Octane claims that Megatron did not like the sand sculpture Sky-Byte made.
- 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.
- The screen shot of Mega-Octane that is used following the destruction of the ten empty summer homes is used again when Mega-Octane's patience is beginning to wear thin.
- X-Brawn somehow has the ability to muffle the mouth of a holo-projection.