Giant

The Autobots find the Giant Planet and seek out its inhabitants. New allies are made on both sides of the battle.

Synopsis

On the Velocitron colony-world ship Ogygia, Scattorshot runs a tracking program to find the Atlantis, where Bud, Jolt and Reverb are still trapped, but the trail goes cold. Lori reasons that since Starscream is taking the Atlantis to Gigantion, then they simply need to reach the planet first to find them. Scattorshot picks up a heat-image, and they move in to investigate. Passing through an asteroid field, they find Gigantion, a colossal planet totally covered in cities.

Landing on the surface, the Autobots split up and try to find the citizens. After a long and fruitless search, Safeguard discovers a giant rock inside a building that's blocking a doorway. Wing Saber rams into it like a big dumb doof. One barrage of Cyber-Key-enhanced attacks later, a hole big enough for the humans and Mini-Cons is formed in it. Coby, Lori, Six-Speed and Safeguard investigate, but find only an ancient control room in disrepair and completely stripped of valuable parts. Safeguard makes note of the Gigantions' custom of constantly moving to newly built cities, so the Autobots split up again.

Back on the Ogygia, Scattorshot picks up a faint noise from underground, too steady to be a natural occurrence. The Autobots move to the approximate source, at which point the ground begins to tremble. Initially suspecting an earthquake, the Autobots pull back...only to marvel at the sight of a giant city rising up out of the ground! The Autobots immediately head into the new city and discover a construction site, with the actual Gigantion natives hard at work. Coby and Lori rush headlong into the build-site, and predictably, a nearby crane's load slips, prompting Landmine to charge in and grab the colossal I-beam that threatens to crush the humans. Optimus steps in to help, but neither is strong enough to hold the beam for long...until the gargantuan Metroplex, planet leader of Gigantion, shows up and uses his saw to slice the I-beam in two. As introductions are made, Metroplex inquires if the newcomers come from "that Planet X". When Optimus inquires as to what exactly "Planet X" is, Metroplex replies that he doesn't really know himself, then quickly turns to berate the crane-bot for forgetting their motto, "Safety first." Coby sets to work fixing up the injuries Landmine has taken saving them, while Six-Speed and Metroplex's Mini-Con partner Drill Bit reunite, and Drill Bit passes around hugs.

Metroplex takes the Autobots back to his main bunker, where he introduces his right-hand-bot Quickmix, and they all discuss the matter of the Cyber Planet Key. Quickmix says he's heard the object in question is in the planet's central layer, but the two Gigantions insist that going to the lower abandoned levels of the planet is not allowed by their laws, and that the Autobots should respect that. Vector Prime attempts to create a warp to illustrate...something, and discovers that for some reason, he can't. Further discussion is interrupted when a dump truck alerts Metroplex to trouble elsewhere: Menasor is back!

The rebellious bot is attempting to drill through another rock barricade. Quickmix manages to stop him, but Megatron and the Decepticons are there, along with another new ally: Soundwave, who helped bring them to Gigantion and now mocks the Autobots with his sonic skills, flawlessly impersonating Optimus Prime's voice. Menasor rants about how Gigantion's old ways are dumb and attacks Evac and Override. The fight begins: Optimus and Wing Saber merge into Sonic Wing Mode to dogfight with Soundwave, Quickmix handles Scourge, Thundercracker chases Landmine (and gets knocked out of the air before he can pull off his latest super-duper attack move), Leobreaker and Snarl tackle Ransack and Crumplezone, and the Cybertron Defense Team gang up on Thunderblast. Jetfire guards the humans and tells Coby to not even think about moving from safety.

Meanwhile, Metroplex tussles with the combined Megatron and Nemesis Breaker. Megatron believes that the giant's size will make him slow, but Metroplex proves to be far more agile than expected, leaping quickly into the air and stomping Megatron hard into the ground. Scourge, Thundercracker, Ransack and Crumplezone regroup and gang up on Metroplex to help their leader, but the giant effortlessly blows them away. Megatron, still underfoot, uses some dark energy to make Metroplex stagger, and rushes at him with a Cyber-Key-enhanced Dark Claw attack. Metroplex counters by powering up his "Sparkdrinker" axe with his own Key, and brings it down on Megatron's skull. The huge explosion and force of the impact sends Megatron crashing down through several levels of the planet, while Nemesis Breaker is hurled away and destroyed, evaporating back into the black mist he came from. The Decepticons, Menasor included, quickly jump down the hole, grabbing Megatron and rushing for safety.

After the battle, Metroplex and Quickmix come to a decision, realizing that they need to break their own traditions and enter the lower levels to stop the Decepticons from bringing destruction to all of creation. Adding the Autobot insignia to their armor, the two giants shake hands (and mixing drum) with the Autobots, and the forces of good get a lot bigger with just the addition of two more robots.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Quotes

"Abracadabra, rock becomes a door!" *rams into rock*"(dizzily) And my head becomes a lump."

—Wing Saber

"Not every problem can be solved by breaking something, you know."
"Hmm. Maybe if we all tried together, we could break through."
"Exactly! ... Wait, what?"

—Jetfire and Optimus Prime

"Wait, it could be dangerous!"
"Oh, it's always dangerous."

—Optimus Prime and Coby

"Just step back, old man! I'm sick of all your daft rules that don't even make any sense! The time for those rules is long gone! They're old and outdated, just like you! We're about to enter a new age! And I'm gonna be the one who's gonna lead this planet into it!"

—Menasor

"All you 'bots down on the floor, get ready to rock it."

—Soundwave giving a DJ impression.

"Looks like it's time to drop some science on you all."

—Soundwave

"Soundwave, when I'm done with you, the only sound coming out of you will be your own voice begging for mercy!"
"Big talk. Let's see you back it up!"

—Optimus Prime using a ridiculously long sentence to explain how he will defeat Soundwave, who tells him to back it up.

"Our team just keeps getting bigger and better!"
"Well, we're just so likable!"

—Coby and Lori

Notes

Differences with Galaxy Force

• As the Autobots look down on Gigantion, Galaxy Force has them marvel at the prospect of Transformer descendants living on it. As we already know they do, thanks to Jolt saying so in "Balance", Cybertron changes the dialogue to the Autobots getting ready to go into action and vowing to get the Cyber Planet Key.
• When the city rises out of the ground, Cybertron has Coby conclude that the Gigantion natives live underground, before Scattorshot pipes up about it taking the sight of the city to convince them he was right about it not being an earthquake. In Galaxy Force, Coby does not reach this conclusion, and it is Override, not Scattorshot, who speaks next, informing the kids that they construct things the same way (raising them up out of the ground, presumably—she doesn't expand on her statement) on Velocitron.
• During Metroplex's explanation of the partnership between Mini-Cons and the larger Gigantions, Galaxy Force has him mention that the Mini-Cons can actually "act through" the larger robots by linking up with them.
• While Cybertron just has Lori plead with Metroplex and Quickmix to allow them to go to the lowest level, Galaxy Force has her ask why they abandon their cities. Neither Gigantion actually knows, but Metroplex speculates it's a way of escaping their past.
• Nemesis Breaker can be heard screaming when he is hurled before he is destroyed and fades away in. In Galaxy Force however, he remains completely silent.

Animation or technical errors

• When the Autobots all power up with their Cyber Keys, Scattorshot is shown using an Earth Key, as opposed to the Cybertron Key he started using after his upgrade.
• When Metroplex introduces himself, he mispronounces Gigantion ("Jy-gan-shun") as "Guy-gan-shun".
• As the Decepticons gawp at the defeated Megatron, the black "mask" around Ransack's eyes is missing.
• When Quickmix notifies Metroplex about Menasor, there are two Quickmixes in the picture!

Continuity or plotting errors

• Why didn't Safeguard tell anyone about the Gigantions' build-then-move thing before they spent all day wandering around a clearly abandoned city?

Continuity notes

• When thinking of a way to help the Autobots in battle, Coby decides to run back to the Ogygia and get the mysterious crate he was seen loading on board in "Warp". The plot-point will come to fruition in "City".
• Back when we first caught a glimpse of the planet in "Balance", Gigantion was much smaller than it appears in this episode. Future episodes will explain this mysterious change in size!

Trivia

• With this episode, the blacked-out figures of the Gigantions visible in the new Galaxy Force closing sequence, which debuted in "Critical", are blacked-out no longer, taking the sequence into the finalized form it will retain until the end of the series.
• The show reinterprets Metroplex's vehicle mode as having a saw on top, when in actuality, it's supposed to be a bucket-wheel excavator, which shovels rocks and debris away, spinning the opposite direction a saw would. Of course, there are motors that can spin either way, and in any case the shovel end of the axe is in front. On the other hand, the Gigantions' transformation stock footage sequences illustrate some notable toy accuracy, as they depict each of the characters' "work" modes as in-between stages in their full transformations. Metroplex and Quickmix take a moment to pose in these modes in the middle of their transformations (pictured), but Menasor's is never shown fully and clearly.
• This is the last we ever see of Nemesis Breaker. Not that he did much anyway, but Megatron never bothers to bring him back after this.
• Menasor's Cyber Key is hilariously useless. In Galaxy Force, his call-out is for "Giant Drill", but the only obvious thing that summoning the key does is spin the drill, which he can do anyway, as he proves in this very episode! So, what's the point?
• For this episode, Soundwave is voiced by Garry Chalk in place of his regular actor Robert O. Smith, this was done to mirror the Galaxy Force version where Soundwave also copies Optimus's voice.

Home video releases

DVD

👁 Japan
2006 — Transformers: Galaxy Force — Vol. 10 (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)