My Review of Transformers: Animated season 1 episode 11–Lost and Found · 1:41am Mar 22nd, 2021
Grading Scale:
A (fantastic episode)
A- (an excellent episode with at least one flaw)
B+ (a great episode with a couple of flaws)
B (a good episode which still could have been better)
B- (a good episode with numerous flaws but still rewatchable)
C+ (a decent episode)
C (eh... it’s not terrible but not good either)
C- (it’s not worth rewatching although it does have good elements)
D+ (a bad episode with a few good things in it)
D (a really bad episode with wasted potential)
D- (a terrible episode with badly written characters and butchered moral)
F (horrible and unwatchable)
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Greetings, everyone. This is another Transformers: Animated review of season 1 being brought to you. This time, I will be talking about episode 11 Lost and Found. This is yet another one of my favorite episodes of the season as it brought back two of the initial antagonists from the season premiere: Lugnut and Blitzwing. These two make one of the most dynamic duo relationships in Transformers history because, let me tell ya, their unique personalities and how they often interact with each other are the things that speak volumes of their characters. Plus, it inspired many people even the Transformers community, which I am a part of, to make fan art and fan fiction out of them.
Blitzwing is my favorite of the duo because of his split-personality characterization which makes him more unique, more popular, and more loved amongst the fans than his G1 counterpart ever received. Honestly, this version of Blitzwing is my favorite version of him of all time because of how the writers portrayed him and his design. Bumper Robinson displayed his talented voice roles for each of those three faces: Icey, Hothead, and Random. I like Icey more, but Random and Hothead are both funny.
That’s why it really pissed me off that the Starscream-looking Seeker from Bumblebee was actually called Blitzwing. He looked absolutely nothing like him, and he wasn’t even a triple-changer. Thanks a lot, Hasbro. 🤦🏻♂️
Anyway, Lugnut himself is one of the original characters from this show who truly shined as a secondary villain. He is someone who is fanatically loyal to Megatron, and he silences those who would even DARE say a word of doubt or offense against his master. David Kaye rocked as the big Lugnut. Yeeesss...
Another thing I love about this episode is the interaction between Sari and Ratchet and how they got on each other’s nerves until they came together when danger presented itself. The character development was spot-on, and the animation was still pretty good. You can thank the animation studio Mook for that. Keep that in mind during my season 3 reviews once I talk about the animation.
I also loved the subtle foreshadowing in this episode. For instance, Ratchet openly called Sari a protoform as he expressed his disdain of working with her in the Autobot ship. Hmmm, what about the other one? After Ratchet knocked on the ship’s controls out of frustration, he addressed the ship as an “old friend”. Mmm-hmm, for those of you who watched the season 2 finale, you know what I’m referring to.
This has great action sequences and comedy as well. Oh, and I loved the references in this as well. During the opening, a lunar rover is seen viewing the Decepticons flying across space until Lugnut stepped on it. That was a reference to the scene in the first Transformers movie where the Mars probe was destroyed by a Cybertronian which I believe it to be Starscream based on the comics if I remember correctly. Another Transformers reference is the design of the construction workers who appear to be exactly like the ones from G1: Spike and Sparkplug.
Overall, this was another awesome episode that reinforces the lesson of learning to work together and set aside your hatred of each other as seen with Ratchet and Sari. I guess Lugnut and Blitzwing can learn a thing or two about the magic of friendship. Oh wait, Lugnut keeps wet-dreaming about Megatron too much. Never mind! A
Peace!
If I was Megatron, I could find better subordinates.
Time for trivia, FOR THE GLORY OF LORD MEGATRON! For a bit of context, if there is a new character introduced or if its a character I haven't yet talked about, the fact will be about them.
1.When developing the character who would become Blitzwing, Marty Isenberg originally envisioned a crazy, Joker-like character who could turn into anything, but was driven mad by his constant shapeshifting. Obviously, that idea proved unworkable in toy terms, so art director Derrick J. Wyatt proposed using Sixshot for the role. When Hasbro deemed a Six Changer to be too expensive, the Triple Changer Blitzwing was finally settled upon instead. As fate would have it, Hasbro designer Eric Siebenaler had been itching to do a face-swapping Blitzwing since 2005.
2. His German accent was a last-minute improvisation by voice actor Bumper Robinson, inspired by the character's name, that went on to influence his entire robot mode aesthetic; once Robinson had been cast in the role, Blitzwing was subsequently designed to "make him look really German", with his helmet an obvious nod to a World War II-era Stahlhelm helmet and goggles.
3. Blitzwing's face-changing gimmick was in part inspired by Man-E-Faces from Masters of the Universe.
4. In the Japanese dub of the series, Blitzwing speaks with a stressed American accent, rather than a German one. His "Icy" personality speaks with (what's regarded in Japan as) a very stereotypical (but polite) American accent; sounding out words slowly, always using the bland but respectful -masu form and ending nearly every sentence with a proper desu. His "Hothead" personality speaks with a "rude" American accent and spouts English words and phrases such as "Hey!", "Now" and often ends sentences with "Man!" His "Random" personality mostly loses the American accent and is instead a throwback to actor Yūichi Nagashima's previous performance as Alpha Q in Super Link.
5. Lugnut's name derives from an earlier stage in his development; at one point he was going to be more Frankenstein's Monster-esque, with giant bolts (or "nuts") sticking out from his neck. While this concept was effectively discarded, the character kept "Lugnut" for his final name... but it works well enough on its own, as he is a big lug and a bit of a nut.
6. According to the Decepticon character descriptions sent out in the initial Cartoon Network press release for Transformers Animated, Lugnut "carries a payload of mega-bombs and can spew liquid napalm with laser-like accuracy". Alas, his napalm-spewing ability hasn't shown up anywhere.
7.At Botcon 2008, Marty Isenberg took a liking to the term Punch of Kill Everything used in the fandom to refer to Lugnut's attack, and said he would find a way to work it in. Sure enough, in the comic The Arrival #4 penned by Isenberg, Lugnut's attack was named as such.
8.The four small red dots (two to either side) on Lugnut's head, according to the series' creators, are secondary optics. This means Lugnut actually has five eyes, rather than the one he appears to have at a casual glance.