My Review of Transformers: Animated season 2 episodes 12-13 A Bridge Too Close · 7:43pm Aug 7th, 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)
Greetings, everyone! This is yours truly back with another episode review for Transformers: Animated! For today, I will be reviewing the season 2 two-parter finale “A Bridge Too Close”! We are finally at the finale for season 2, and it is filled with so many things that happened. I personally found this finale to be a perfect wrap-up for the season which opens the way for season three to pick up where the former left off. Let’s get right into it, shall we?
First off, I love how creative and resourceful Starscream was in creating five new clones who each possessed one aspect of the former’s personality. We have Skywarp (the coward), Thundercracker (ego-maniac), Sunstorm (sycophant), Ramjet (liar), and Slipstream (smart-alec?). I am not much of a fan for these versions of the characters, but I do find Skywarp easily the most interesting and likable of them all. He seems like the type of character who is just too afraid to actually reveal his full potential and what he can really do. I honestly wish he had a solo episode so he could have some character development. Skywarp has always been one of my favorite TF characters besides being my favorite Seeker. Too bad he was never seen again after the season 3 opener.
Additionally, Tom Kenny seemed like he had a lot of fun voicing the Starscream clones. It’s like evil versions of Spongebob planning to take over the world. Can you imagine you’re sleeping on your bed and you hear multiple voices speaking with each other, so you run downstairs only to find one person speaking?
Moving on, it was great to see Ratchet bring the Autobot ship to life... seeing Omega Supreme being revived from his slumber. When I saw this the first time I watched this episode, I was so surprised the Autobot ship was actually a transformer. His design is amazing, his voice is amazing (thanks to Kevin Michael Richardson), and his action scenes were amazing.
We finally get to see the blue car from the Velocity episode actually return for the finale, but it’s not just any car. It is none other than Blurr, an Elite Guard officer. Blurr is famously known for talking super fast as shown in the original Transformers G1 series thanks to the amazing voice performance of John Moschitta, Jr. who voiced him in G1 as well. I think Blurr is an entertaining character as a whole although he isn’t exactly one of my favorites.
The plot for the finale was highly intriguing and served as a perfect way to conclude the season before moving onto season three. The action scenes were fantastic, the comedy was spot-on, the voice acting was terrific, and the animation was decent. Plus, the ending really set the tone for the season 3 premiere as well as establishing itself as a perfect cliffhanger.
Oh, and I love the argument between Megatron and Starscream during the end credits. That was one of the best parts of the finale for me. Overall, I really love the finale as it provided a great conflict for our heroes and re-introduced fan-favorite characters in the show. Thus, I give it an A!
And that concludes the second season of this awesome show! Get ready for season 3, folks! Peace!
It did leave a pretty good cliffhanger.
Wow. We went from an episode with no one to talk about to an episode with with 4 different subjects to talk about. We have Starscream and his clones, Blurr, and even Omega Supreme. Good lord, who do I pick? How about the clones and Blurr. We’ll talk about Omega Supreme and Starscream later. Now unto the trivia.
1. At the BotCon 2008 Cartoon Network panel, it was revealed that Blurr's design has a few small homages to Transtech Cheetor, mainly the "hollow" wheels in his legs.
2.While Blurr is still voiced by the former holder of the record for world’s fastest talker, John Moschitta, Jr, though Moschitta's speed-speech skill is given a different twist, namely that he no longer repeats himself.
3.Character designer Derrick J. Wyatt put Blurr's "still-beating spark" in the animation model for the compacted cube. However, this more detailed model was never used, and Blurr's spark was not shown in the episode. His life-or-death status is thus left ambiguous in the episode (though Wyatt contends that characters are not really dead until they turn black and white. Of course, he was still dumped into an incinerator... at least, that's what Cliffjumper was told to do, but in "The Stunti-Con Job", Cliffjumper was seen still holding Blurr's cubed form. The Botcon 2015 script reading—aptly titled "The Return of Blurr"—confirmed his survival.
Now for Starscream’s clones.
4.The glorious Thundercracker is never named as such in the cartoon, along with the other inferior clones He is simply referred to as "an egomaniac" by the female Starscream, and none of the male clones are given separate listings from Starscream in the voice credits. The scripts and animation model sheets simply refer to him as "Egomaniac Starscream". The toy was first to give him a name, and it was later reinforced by The AllSpark Almanac.
5.Skywarp’s bio states that he has teleportation powers like his Generation 1 counterpart, but he's definitely not brave enough to push anyone down the stairs. They might get back up! It’s also worth mentioning that Skywarp may be connected to Cyclonus in someway.
6.In "Decepticon Air", Sunstorm receives a boxy helmet reminiscent of a Generation 1 Seeker, so selflessly donated by that cunning, shrewd devil of a business-bot, Swindle.
7.Ramjet's nosecone is extremely brittle. It hasn't been reinforced at all. There's no way it can survive any midair collisions. This entire piece of trivia is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. The fact that it's about Ramjet (who isn't a big fat liar) has nothing to do with anything. So there. What? I never said that this trivia segment is true. You can't prove anything! 8.In case you didn’t know, Mr. J, Slipstream's existence is, of course, a gag about the famously effeminate Starscream having a "feminine side," but the show holds back from making this joke outright; when Starscream asks Slipstream what side of him she represents, she responds only by saying "Don't ask," As for her colors, they are loosely inspired by Godmaster Overlord.
9.Believe or not, there are two more Starscream clones. Thrust and Dirge. They only appear in the Allspark Almanac, and they were made by Swindle to be his bodyguards, with Dirge representing Starscream’s insatiable greed, and Thrust being Starscream’s unending envy.
Ps. I don’t know why the 8 trivia is stuck the 7 trivia. I couldn’t fix it.