Fallen (episode)

A massive black hole forces the Autobots to evacuate Cybertron. And to make matters worse, Megatron is back...

Synopsis

The destruction of Unicron has resulted in the formation of a colossal black hole that now threatens the safety of Cybertron and the entire universe. Reporting from a remote station, Red Alert informs the Autobots on Cybertron of the black hole's continued expansion and the resultant destruction of the planet Moriturus, forcing Optimus Prime to issue a drastic command: the complete evacuation of Cybertron. The Autobots arrange to relocate to Earth and adopt vehicular forms scanned from the planet by Jetfire to hide in plain sight among humans.

A little later, as the population is transported via space bridge to Earth, the Autobots' headquarters is rocked by a tremor, caused by the appearance of a strange portal above the planet. From out of the portal emerges an ancient spaceship which suddenly transforms, revealing itself to be Vector Prime, "keeper of space and time." Vector Prime wastes no time in explaining his purpose on the planet, informing the Autobots of the lost Cyber Planet Keys, tiny fragments of the power of the Transformers' creator, Primus, that were lost to the far reaches of space eons ago. The Autobots must now find the keys and restore Primus's power in order to stop the black hole, but as Vector Prime synchronizes the map that will lead them on their journey, Starscream launches an attack on the base.

The Autobots retaliate, but Optimus Prime realizes that Starscream is simply serving as a distraction; while they have been busy fighting, Megatron has infiltrated the base. Prime returns just as Megatron overpowers the ancient Transformer and steals his map. Meanwhile, Starscream goes one-on-one outside with Landmine, but the fight takes a turn in the Decepticon's favor when the crumbling surface of Cybertron shifts under Landmine's feet. Starscream exploits this momentary distraction to blast Landmine into the air, where he is caught in the pull of the black hole. As the villains escape, Vector Prime opens a portal in Landmine's path, teleporting him across space and time to safety.

Across the galaxy, on Earth, the Hansen family are picnicking in the Rocky Mountains. Coby and his father ride dirt bikes through the forest, much to the consternation of Coby's friend Lori, whose family have moved to the Hansens' sleepy country town for the peace and quiet, which the Hansens are now disturbing. Before a full-scale argument can break out between Coby and Lori, Coby's younger brother, Bud Hansen, steps in and calms things down, and the three kids go for a walk. A strange glow in the sky attracts the kids' attention, and they watch as something comes crashing down nearby. That something, as they soon discover, is Landmine.

The kids drag Landmine out of the crater he has made for himself, and Coby puts some of his mechanical knowledge to work repairing an injury in the Autobot's arm. As Coby goes to work, Lori and Bud polish Landmine's armor, and he recounts to them the events that led to his arrival on Earth. Little does Landmine know, however, that Megatron has ordered Thundercracker to follow Landmine to Earth, and the loud-mouthed Decepticon soon tracks him down and opens fire. Landmine and the kids are saved when Thundercracker is knocked out of the sky by the sudden arrival of Optimus Prime, who lures him into a narrow cavern and uses the cramped space to explode Thundercracker's missiles in his own face. Thundercracker flees, and the Autobots all gather at Prime's location, where they are reunited with Landmine and introduce themselves to Coby, Bud and Lori. Vector Prime's Mini-Con companions, Jolt, Six-Speed and Reverb, also introduce themselves, at which point Jolt recognizes the symbol on Lori's shirt. Although Lori insists that it is simply a rock group album cover, supposedly an image from Atlantis, Vector Prime explains that it is the symbol of the Omega Lock, the focusing device for the Cyber Planet Keys...meaning that the ancient device must be hidden somewhere on Earth!

Featured Characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Quotes

Hot Shot: "I can't believe this, Jetfire. I can't believe we're abandoning Cybertron."
Jetfire: "You can't think like that, Hot Shot. We'll come back and beat this thing."
Hot Shot: "But how? Hey, now what's it doing? Look out!"
Starscream: "Target practice!"

—Hot Shot, Jetfire, and Starscream with the opening dialog of the first episode of the series. Apparently, showing things blowing up is more important than conveying what the hell is happening.

Bud: "Lori, Lori. When life gives you lemons... Make orange soda!"
Lori: "Orange... soda?"

—Bud hilariously mangles a classic phrase.

Thundercracker: (After his airstrike misses Landmine) "Oh, man! That was a waste of perfectly good missiles! I'll get him this time!"
Optimus Prime: "I hope you don't mind if I butt in!" (rams Thundercracker)
Thundercracker: "Where the heck did he come from?!"

—Optimus makes a dramatic entrance

Optimus Prime: (After appearing in Super Mode, completely unharmed by Thundercracker's missiles) "That was your best shot, Thundercracker? That's just sad." [brings his heavy cannons to firing position] "Here's mine."
Thundercracker: "How's this?!" [Angrily fires off another missile volley]
Optimus Prime: "Gee, nice fireworks." [shoots the missiles, blowing them up in Thundercracker's face and sending him flying] "Decepticon in the corner pocket!"

—Thus begins the practice of Thundercracker channeling the spirit of Waspinator.

"Vector Prime, sir. We must act quickly, before those fiendish Autobots return. Those evil Transformers would steal the power of Primus. We must find the Cyber Planet Keys first. Now, give me the map."

—Megatron tries to trick Vector Prime.

Notes

Differences with Galaxy Force

This episode is a composite of the first two Japanese Galaxy Force episodes, "The Sacred Homeworld, Planet Cybertron, Destroyed?!" and "Encounter with the Transformers". This is effectively accomplished by beginning the episode in medias res, kicking off with the Transformers already in the process of evacuating Cybertron and Landmine being warped to Earth. The opening and closing scenes of the first episode (the family having their barbecue and the kids finding Landmine) are then presented back-to-back, and all the other events of the first episode are presented in heavily truncated form as flashbacks told by Landmine. No real plot points or important actions from the first episode are lost in this manner—things are just more condensed—but removed footage includes:

• Lori complaining over the phone to a friend of hers back in the city about boring country life, then getting angry when she hears the noise of the Hansens' bikes.
• Coby actually winning the bike race, only to find that his family doesn't congratulate him, but instead commiserates with his father. This scene and a few others like it peppered throughout the first quarter of the series (for example, the opening scene of "Search") suggest that Coby's relationship with the rest of his family is not the greatest, but it never actually goes anywhere, and Cybertron elects to omit this facet of the boy's character.
• Lori spilling a drop of the juice Bud gives her on Coby's bike, prompting the boy to go off on a rant about how machines are alive. Lori incredulously asks if the plane flying overhead is alive as well...not realizing that it's Jetfire, who is on Earth scanning the machines that he proceeds to take back to Cybertron for use as disguises by his fellow Autobots. It is over whether machines are "tools" or "lifeforms" that Coby and Lori are arguing when we rejoin the characters a little later, right before they find Landmine, whereas they squabble over ice cream flavors in the Cybertron version.
• The Autobots constructing a huge "Cyber Cannon", with which they blast the black hole. It briefly appears to succeed in destroying the singularity before the black hole reasserts itself.
• Starscream and Megatron spying on Vector Prime's address to the Autobots from within the fire dimension.
• The first appearance of Starscream's vehicle mode transformation stock footage.
• The Autobots regrouping after Megatron and Starscream escape. The team believes that Landmine has been sucked into the black hole, and Optimus Prime vows to find him, but first they have to take the space bridge to Earth, as Cybertron vanishes into the depths of the black hole and disappears in a flash of light. In particular, the notion that Cybertron was sucked into the black hole was very deliberately omitted from the Cybertron dub, and when the characters return to the planet in the second half of the series, it is likewise claimed to be not within the singularity, but merely near it.

In one notable piece of changed dialogue, Cybertron has Lori refer to a brother that did not exist in Galaxy Force. Naturally, this brother would never appear or be mentioned again.

Also, in Galaxy Force, despite that version of the series not being intended to follow Super Link, Bud somehow knows of the existence of Transformers before anyone tells him. However, dialogue in future episodes of Galaxy Force suggests that Transformers are urban legends, not unlike Bigfoot, meaning it's not completely impossible for someone like Bud to know about the Transformers.

To incorporate these flashbacks, it was the second Galaxy Force episode which really received a chopping. Long scenes removed from this episode include:

• Autobots pursuing Megatron through space and battling him and Starscream for possession of Vector Prime's map.
• The revelation that the map is based on an older layout of the universe and not especially helpful.
• The Autobots searching for Landmine on Earth, including Scattorshot scanning his alternate mode from a billboard.
• Humans following Landmine's trail of massive footprints, thinking he's Bigfoot.
• Thundercracker's blasts starting a forest fire that the Autobots have to fight.

The second episode was later dubbed in its entirety to make up the numbers, as "Inferno", a "lost episode" that aired as the 52nd and final of the series. Check out that episode's article for a more detailed run-down of its contents.

Animation or technical errors

Strangely, this episode features some scenes using different animation from their Japanese counterparts.

• When listening to Red Alert's report, and later, while addressing the Autobots before the evacuation, Optimus Prime features a noticeably different color scheme, with different coloration on his helmet, midriff, pelvis and forearms. This colour scheme (likely test colours) was featured in Japanese hobby and character magazines a few months before the Galaxy Force series aired in Japan in late December 2004.
• The animation which accompanies Vector Prime's recounting of the history of the Cyber Planet Keys is completely different between versions, with the Japanese version simply featuring four glowing lights on a black background, and the American version actually displaying the keys against a spinning map of space.

Continuity errors

• As a result of the episodes being cut up and stuck back together, Vector Prime seems to appear in two places at once. He clashes with Megatron inside the base, but when Megatron breaks out, he immediately escapes atop Starscream. However, Starscream was present when Vector Prime opened the warp gate to send Landmine to Earth, meaning that Vector Prime would had to have been outside already.

Transformers references

• Optimus drops one of the franchise's most famous taglines: "Robots in disguise".

Trivia

• For an unknown reason, this episode was skipped when the Cybertron series began airing, even in foreign markets like the UK, suggesting that the decision to combine the two episodes may have been a late one. The second episode, "Haven", was also skipped domestically, and neither aired in the U.S. until Cybertron moved to the Kids' WB afternoon programming block, several months after the series had debuted. The second episode saw a VHS release, at least.
• Megatron is not voiced in this episode by his regular voice actor, David Kaye, but by Trevor Devall, doing his best Kaye impression.
• Speaking of voices, Coby's is a heck of a lot reedier and whinier in this episode than in all others. He's still being voiced by his regular actor, Sam Vincent, but holy hell, he constantly sounds like he's about to burst into tears.
• "Moriturus" is Latin for "[I] am going to die," likely derived from the famous phrase "Morituri te salutant"—"We who are about to die salute you"—spoken by Roman gladiators saluting the Emperor prior to combat. Or perhaps someone on staff is a fan of the hapless "wizzard" Rincewind of the Discworld series...
• Optimus' vehicle transformation does not match up entirely with the fire truck he scanned, only the cab is the same. The truck he scanned looks more like a normal fire truck of the variety with a "cherry-picker" bucket-lift. Said truck would also appear to be based on early designs for his toy. The other Autobots' vehicle modes also deviate slightly from the scans (to accommodate their Cyber Key slots), but not to the same extent.
• Optimus is apparently familiar with the game of billiards, or pool.

Foreign localization

French

• Title: "Chutes" ("Falls")

• Overhaul's voice actor makes a... questionable Asian accent just for his line "Hurry everyone!".

Italian

• Title: "Il buco nero" ("The Black Hole")

• Interesting fact: the title "Il buco nero" was previously used for the episode "The Killing Jar" from the original series.
• Scattorshot's "and it's right on top of us!" weirdly becomes: "and it's right on top of you!"
• At the beginning of the episode, the term "Cyber Planet Key" is changed to "Cyber Key"... which is a different thing! To make things worse, the first time they're correctly called "Cyber Planet Key" is by Optimus... who doesn't know about them, and who says it right after Vector Prime called them "Cyber Key"... oh God!
• When Coby introduces himself, Bud, and Lori to the Autobots, he's supposed to start the sentence and being suddenly interrupted by his brother... except for the fact that, in this dub, he stops talking well before Bud starts, like if he was waiting for someone to interrupt him... yeah, RIGHT...
• Well, this one is really BAD: after Jolt tells the kids that he has never heard about Earth, they're supposed to be disappointed, but, instead, in this dub... they LAUGH! Yes, they start laughing and, after that, when Bud says: "You're killing me here!", it Italian he's still laughing and he instead says: "You're cracking me up!"... oh, FOR PRIMUS'S SAKE! What likely happened is that the translator thaught Bud's line was supposed to mean "You're making me die from laughter!"... RIGHT!
• In English Lori states that the drawing on her brother's shirt is "the picture of an album cover of a rocker", while, in Italian, it's "the logo of a rock band".
• For... whatever reason, Atlantis is called by its English name instead of the Italian one (which should be "Atlantide"). This is not limited to this episode but also happens in the rest of the series.
• Well, let's face it... this episode has a pretty bad Italian adaptation...

Home video releases

DVD

👁 Japan
2005 — Transformers: Galaxy Force — Sound Pack 1 (Victor Entertainment) — Limited edition, Japanese audio only.
👁 Japan
2005 — Transformers: Galaxy Force — Vol. 01 (Victor Entertainment) — Japanese audio only.
👁 United States of America
2008 — Transformers: Cybertron — The Ultimate Collection (Paramount)
👁 United States of America
2014 — Transformers: Cybertron — The Complete Series (Shout! Factory)