Awaken Sleeping Giants
From Transformers Wiki
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| Die-cast construction! It's a lost art. | ||||||
| "Awaken Sleeping Giants" | ||||||
| Season | 1 | |||||
| No. in season | 17 | |||||
| Production company | Allspark Animation | |||||
| Airdate | December 15, 2018 (Singapore) December 21, 2018 (CN app/website) December 22, 2018 (USA) | |||||
| Writer | Zac Atkinson | |||||
| Director | Ehud Landsberg | |||||
| Animation studio | Boulder Media Studio | |||||
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The Autobot team finally discovers the location of the Ark.
Contents |
Synopsis
In Grimlock's base, Windblade grimly assesses the situation: though they barely managed to hold off Shockwave from exterminating all life on Earth, three Autobots and a drone won't be enough to hold of the Decepticon armada that's en route to Earth. Grimlock, however, has a plan of his own; tapping a hidden wall in the stone bunker, the ground shakes to reveal a new room, one that contains a map of the way the world looked on the day the Ark crashed: Pangaea.
An enthusiastic Teletraan-X pores over the map as he reminisces about his earliest days on Earth, and in the process displays the ability to correlate the locations of Pangaea with modern-day continents. Grimlock notes that he carved the map during his long search for the Ark after his arrival on the planet, before the extinction of the dinosaurs cut his quest short. Teletraan-X, ever eager to help, bluntly tells Grimlock that his theory about the Ark's location was completely wrong. By using his own data to factor in the Ark's entry trajectory, and taking into account continental drift and climate change, the little drone finally deduces that the starship has crashed somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. The three Autobots celebrate this discovery—unaware that one of Shockwave's drones has been spying on their entire conversation and relaying the news to its master, who tells Shadow Striker and the Seekers to intercept the Autobots...
Using the cargo plane, the heroes beat a hasty trail towards Mount St. Hilary, the final resting place of the Ark, but before Teletraan-X can lecture the team any further about their destination they're beset by Slipstream and her Seekers, leading to a fierce dogfight as Windblade tries to impede their attackers. Beset by Thrust and Acid Storm, the Camien is unable to prevent Slipstream from firing a flurry of missiles, successfully blowing the cargo plane out of the sky. With no other option, Grimlock and Bumblebee are forced to abandon ship, with Grimlock using his powerful dinosaur mode to catch Bumblebee. Unfortunately, the Decepticons are relentless, and Grimlock teams up with Bumblebee to deliver a Fastball Special that paralyzes the oncoming Nova Storm... and then uses Teletraan-X to take down Thundercracker.
Using her turbines, Windblade is similarly able to take down Slipstream, but as the dazed Decepticon recovers from her humiliating crash she's interrupted by an irate transmission from Starscream, who demands to know what she's doing. Starscream informs her to prepare for their arrival immediately, but when Slipstream stalls for time by letting slip that she's already working for Shockwave, the incensed Air Commander demands to know why the scientist has already come to Earth, and, in the process, allowing Teletraan-X to overhear their conversation.
As the Autobots regroup at the crash site, Teletraan-X arrives to warn the trio of the imminent arrival of the Decepticon fleet. With no time to waste, the trio venture into the volcano's lava tubes, still unaware that another of Shockwave's drones is still tailing them. Inside the volcano, lava flows and earthquakes cause Grimlock to wonder if their starship is still intact, but Windblade retorts that as long as there's even a chance of survival, then they have to keep looking... and, seconds afterwards, a cave-in from underneath their feet sends the three plummeting into a deeper level of the volcano, right in front of a massive river of lava. Bumblebee uses his blaster to create a series of stepping stones for himself and Grimlock, until Grimlock loses his footing and plummets into the lava!
Despite their worries, Grimlock does survive the experience, emerging in his dinosaur mode and using his newfound fire-breath to blast a passage through the rocks—a passage that leads directly to the final resting site of the Ark! Their mission seemingly complete, the four embrace... once more, unaware, that Shockwave is watching their every move...
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Autobots | Decepticons | Others |
|---|---|---|
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Quotes
"Wasn't that an exciting flight? Oh look, we're still under attack!"
- —Teletraan-X
"Shockwave is there with you?! But how? And why does he always do this to me?!"
- —Starscream
"Apologies, friends. I can sometimes get a little heated when telling tales of my travels."
- —Grimlock after falling in lava
Notes
Continuity notes
- Arcee made an appearance in the opening scene of the stasis pods aboard the Ark; she previously appeared in "Sabotage" as a member of the Ark's crew, but as that memory had been modified by Shockwave it was impossible to tell if the Autobot actually served aboard the Ark; this episode confirms that she did.
- Shockwave came to Earth in the previous episode, and Starscream announced his intention to come to Earth in "Siloed." The cargo plane that Teletraan-X commandeered also appeared in "The Extinction Event."
- Teletraan-X's ability to generate a force shield to protect himself was first used in "Teletraan-X."
- Grimlock compares his experiences in Mount St. Hilary to his adventures in the Acid Wastes; he was previously established to be fond of exploring the region back in "Maccadam's".
Transformers references
- Mount St. Hilary was the crash site of the Ark in most Generation 1 media.
- Grimlock's fire-breath is a traditional power for Dinobots in general.
- Windblade swears by Solus Prime, again.
Real-world references
- The episode's title refers to a (likely apocryphical) quote attributed to Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto regarding the attack on Pearl Harbor: "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."
- Teletraan-X notes that Mount St. Hilary is a part of the real-world Ring of Fire.
Trivia
- Going by Grimlock's map of Pangaea, his base is located somewhere in northern Quebec.
Animation and technical errors
- Teletraan-X concludes that the Ark crashed in the Pacific Northwest of the United States, as is tradition. But the marker on the map is on the opposite side of the continent, around Maine.
- Nova Storm lacks the trim on her cockpit once again.
- During one part of her dogfight with Slipstream, Windblade's aircraft mode is missing half of its horizontal stabilizer.
- While Shockwave is giving the Seekers their mission briefing, all of Slipstream's command are present - except for Thundercracker, whose place is taken by one of the generic "mustard-colored" Seeker models. Once on the mission, the generic is absent and Thundercracker is in the formation; therefore, the presence of the generic in the briefing appears to be an error, his animation model having been swapped for Thundercracker's.
Geological errors
- So Teletraan-X and Grimlock both claim that the Ark crash-landed on Pangaea some 65 million years ago. In real life, however, the supercontinent is believed to have broken apart early on into the Mesozoic era; by about 175 mya—the early Jurassic era—the continent had already split down the middle into Laurasia and Gondwana, and by the Late Cretaceous, 66 million years ago, the continents had further broken apart into something approximating the modern-day world map. It might be possible to no-prize this by saying that Grimlock and Teletraan were simply misinformed about which era of history their ship arrived in, but Teletraan-X also claims that he passed the time by talking to hadrosaurs, which were an exclusively Cretaceous species...
- Grimlock mentions that the asteroid arrived 65 million years ago, though recent evidence has suggested that the Cretaceous ended some 66 million years ago.
Foreign localization
French
- Title: "Le réveil des géants" ("The awakening of the giants")
- Original airdate: December 16, 2018
German
- Title: "Die Ark" ("The Ark")
- Original airdate: January 26, 2019
Hungarian
- Title: "Ébredjetek, alvó óriások!" ("Awaken, Sleeping Giants!")
- Original airdate: March 2, 2019
Japanese
Portuguese
- Title: "Acordem, Gigantes Adormecidos" ("Awaken, Sleeping Giants")
- Original airdate: January 29, 2019
Home video releases
- DVD
2019 — Transformers Cyberverse — Intégrale Saison 1 (ESC Éditions) — French audio only
2019 — Transformers Cyberverse — King of the Dinosaurs (Beyond Home Entertainment)