The Artificial Sun
The Star Force has reached Balan--the half-way point of their trip to Iskandar. But unbeknownst to them, it's the site of a Gamilon Base. Conroy, Wildstar, and IQ 9 are on a reconnaissance flight and see . . . a star orbiting the planet Balan?
The bridge crew discuss the mission. Wildstar and Conroy approach the planet surface and see pod-like plants all over the ground. And in the center of a crater, IQ 9 sees a Gamilon station. Wildstar and Conroy do a closer flyby and call the Argo to advise them of the base's existence.
As they close in on the base, anti-aircraft fire greets them, but they evade and continue surveying the planet. IQ 9 relays the return message from the Argo, but Wildstar decides to shut the base down. A Gamilon squadron launches. Conroy tells Wildstar to go back, since he's just flying a recon plane. Conroy engages. Wildstar gives IQ 9 the controls, only to have IQ 9 take him back to the ship while Conroy continues the fight.
Wildstar lands and goes to the bridge. On the bridge, Homer orders Conroy to return. Wildstar urges Avatar to destroy the base. Venture protests--they're 44 days behind schedule. Wildstar points out that they'll just have to fight them on the way back, putting them even more behind schedule. Avatar agrees to attack just as Conroy in his damaged fighter.
Lysis is mustering his fleet 50 mega-miles from the Balan base. Balgar paces, getting on Lysis' nerves. Lysis plots and schemes. A common enemy commander trait, isn't it? He knows the Argo will close in to the surface base, and he'll use the artificial star to crush them. Balgar is upset that Lysis is willing o sacrifice the base.
The base prepares to counterattack the Argo. The Argo closes on the planet and Avatar orders all hands to battle station. Wildstar prepares the missile and main gun batteries. He notices the sun is doing something weird and orders an eye kept on it.
The Gamilon base launches missiles. The main guns intercept the missile barrage. Balgar and Lysis watch as they approach straight on to the base. Lysis orders the artificial sun activated and starts its descent. The sun closes in on the Argo while it's fighting its way through the missiles.
On the bridge, Eager notices the sun closing in and alerts the rest of the crew. Wildstar wants to fire the wave motion gun at it. Eager and Sandor protest, and the fourth missile wave reaches them. The sun closes, and Avatar orders him to prepare the wave motion gun to fire at the sun. He and Venture coordinate the aiming--300 seconds to align the gun, 290 seconds for the sun to destroy them. Lysis gloats and Balgar is upset that the troops on the base will be sacrificed and leaves the control room.
Missiles strike the ship's unprotected flank as the aft guns struggle to shoot them down. Wildstar orders them to back away from the sun--Venture is afraid the missiles will do even more damage from that close range. They do it anyway, and some panic ensues as the sun promises to destroy the Gamilon base as well as the Argo. Nova sees Avatar clutching his chest . . .
Lysis is gloating--until Balgar tells him that Desslok is calling. Lysis wonders why he chose now to call. Desslok orders him not to sacrifice the base. Lysis, enrage, yells at Balgar.
The Argo crew see the sun receding. Thy come around and prepare to fire the wave motion gun. The BFG does its thing and destroys the sun. Fragments from the sun strike and devastate the Gamilon base, but the Argo escapes. Lysis and Balgar watch in dismay as the Argo emerges relatively unscathed.
A research team lands on Balan the moment the sun is done erupting. The bridge crew is at ease after the battle. Wildstar says the plants were the thing that tipped him off to the sun's artificialness. Avatar orders him to meet with him at a specified time. Nova and IQ 9 land on the hangar deck and bring a space turtle on board. The turtle's vestigal eyes and the plants all indicate that the planet normally has very little light. The ship resumes its crews.
Wildstar meets Avatar in his quarters. The captain says he's fatigued. He asks Wildstar for help, taking on some of the responsibilities as deputy captain.
Any chance the Man-Made sun episode of Dairugger was an homage to this episode? As well as the team leaders becoming co-captains with Ise?
There are only 253 days left.
Showing posts with label Episode 20. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Episode 20. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Monday, June 27, 2011
Pidge's Home Planet/Goodbye Earth
Another favorite.
Pidge's home planet
We open on Castle of Lions. And Nanny. Blaugh. Allura has to get married off to a prince consort to be coronated. And the team's not good enough. But hey, they'll make great butlers. Y'know, it's a good thing we don't have to sit through all of that political crap and talking, talking TALKING in Vehicle Voltron. I mean, watching our heroes in silly Buckingham Palace uniforms kissing the hand of the princess in Disney's enchanted kingdom is NON. STOP. ACTION.
Just as bored as I am, the team (sans princess) goes to castle control and sees radioactive missiles bombarding the planet Balto, Pidge's home planet. The team decides to go intervene, but princess, Coran, and palace gaurds come to stop them. If they leave, they leave Arus without Voltron. And then, Nanny. Keith makes the point that Voltronb's duty is to defend other planets in their federation. Coran places them under house arrest. They beat up the guards (damn, those guys have a shitty job). They leave without Allura and the blue lion.
As they fly off, Coran opens fire with the castle's AAA batteries. To, y'know, give them a salute. Yeah.
Ah, planet Doom. I was kinda jonesin' for that clanky planet Doom music. Zarkon, Lotor and Haggar all watch the team fly to Balto. Lotor takes off with his flagship and a flight of other ships. This is the first time we get a good look at the other ships in Lotor's fleet.
The team approaches Balto, which has been destroyed, wiped out. They fly over a city swamped by lava. They near Pidge's village, and land near his old school. It looks like the people escaped to another planet, but the planet is lost. Inside the school, they suddenly hear weapons bombarding the position. It's Lotor's fleet. He deploys fighters.
Keith shoots fighters down with his proton missiles, while they others fire their lions' shoulder weapons. Then Lotor launches the Robeast--who is basically Kurt Langstrom, the Man-Bat, with a Haggarian makeover. He launches missiles out of his shoulders, then flaps his wings real hard to blow the Voltron force out of the sky with a tornado. Then it commences to strafe them. Oh, yeah, and he has batwings on his knees.
Allura sits in her room, and they can apparently see Balto through her window. Keith convinces her to go to their aid through, um, telepathy? I think it's meant to be a radio transmission, and WEP is kinda pretending they're in castle control. Coran and Nanny try to stop her, but they don't try very hard.
Lotor observes the princess' arrivle while the robeast knocks the team into a crevasse. Red lion tunnels through the rock. As Allura arrives, the shoots a flight of Doom fighters down from behind. This turns Lotor on. So he hits blue lion with some sort of energy weapon from the bow of his ship.
Underground, Lance uses red lion's weapons to start a volcanic eruption, separating the team from the robeast, and disabling Lotor's ship. The team sees the princess, and they form Voltron. They start the fight with the electro-saber, deflecting energy frisbee things the robeast launches from its mouth. Voltron throws the sabre, then the robeast pins them to the volcano with a force field thingy from its wings. Then the volcano erupts more and knocks the robeast over, breaking the forcifield. They form blazing sword, and destroy the robeast with some weird star-shaped enery blast.
Lotor is angered that they've destroyed yet another robeast, but a robot convinces him to leave before the planet explode. The team follows suit, shedding a few tears for the passing of Pidge's home planet. And this is the first planetary explosion we see in Voltron--there'll be plenty more in Vehicle Voltron (well, at least three more). Pidge wishes he could have seen his back yard again. Allura offers to make Pidge an honorary citizen of Arus.
After the last commerical break, we get a hodge-podge of scenes edited together to represent Pidge's new citizenship celebration. Y'know, to make up for all the stuff that was cut out of Golion.
Goodbye Earth
Because it's EARTH that's actually being destroyed, seemingly by a combination of the after-effects of World War III and a meteor bombardment, not by any efforts of the Galra empire. But even though this is the original Japanese version, I'm not so much of an Otaku that I will claim that the Japanese version of something is ALWAYS better. The opening bullshit with the princess being told she has to get married off isn't any better in Japanese. In fact, Hys' voice grates on me even more than Nanny's weird Russian milkmaiden accent.
However, I wonder if the prince Fala is supposedly marrying in Hys' hallucination is a "cameo" of a character from another series, or just a generic character design.
When they go to castle control, they're just looking at Earth out of nostalgia, but happen to catch the meteor strikes. They're pretty vague about what exactly is happening. Fala tries to appeal to the team, while Raible is the one who brings out the guards. And . . . Hys. But at least I don't have to keep track of a dozen different Drule captains. That would suck!
And as they launch in the lions, we're serenaded by a thematically weird choice of music. I guess it's a variant of the black lion theme. Because they mention black lion in the chorus. Oh, and Raible is actually trying to shoot them down. Suzuishi gives Kogane some crap about wanting to stay on Altea (these are really about as far as the hints of a romance between Kogane and Fala get, reams and reams of fanfiction be damned).
Daibazal doesn't think too much of the Golion team, since they're prone to internal dissent. 'Cuz, y'know Galra just kills everyone before they get to the point of dissension.
When they arrive at Earth, they see that entire oceans have been replaced by magma--at least the oceans the animators remembered to draw as magma. They fly over a shelter near their old Fuji Space School. And where their families all used to live. They enter the shelter to see a skeletal hand that scribbled on the wall in blood. Then a tremor shatters the skeleton and it's all reduced to dust. And Galra attacks.
Weapons used: Black bazooka, red laser, green gun, (yellow) gatling missiles. And the beastman is named Batolda. That's right, Batolda. I sorta like his design. He's kinda back to the Deathhell and Galcia realm of beasstman designs.
Suzuishi says he'd be happy to die on Earth. Seidou calls him a dumbass. Fala, in her room, is looking at Earth out a window (!?). And she hears the voices of the team in her head. She decides she must go after them. And she is able to reason with Hys and Raible. It seems as though she simply doesn't want them to be on an obviously dying planet like Earth, not that she knows they're under attack. But then again, she's not surprised to see Sincline's forces.
When they form Golion, it's again Formation V. With an instrumental part toward the end.
Heh. Batolda. And he talks! He tells Golion to die, just before the volcano erupts. They form Jyuoken and use the "Great Whirlwind" attack. Apparently that's the Golion verson of the Tachikaze or sword wind.
As they leave, Kurogane seems to think making mount Fuji erupt is what destroyed the Earth, but Kogane assures him that it was the "abnormality" they saw back on castle control's monitors. And Fala offers Altean citizenship (more or less) to all of them.
Pidge's home planet
We open on Castle of Lions. And Nanny. Blaugh. Allura has to get married off to a prince consort to be coronated. And the team's not good enough. But hey, they'll make great butlers. Y'know, it's a good thing we don't have to sit through all of that political crap and talking, talking TALKING in Vehicle Voltron. I mean, watching our heroes in silly Buckingham Palace uniforms kissing the hand of the princess in Disney's enchanted kingdom is NON. STOP. ACTION.
Just as bored as I am, the team (sans princess) goes to castle control and sees radioactive missiles bombarding the planet Balto, Pidge's home planet. The team decides to go intervene, but princess, Coran, and palace gaurds come to stop them. If they leave, they leave Arus without Voltron. And then, Nanny. Keith makes the point that Voltronb's duty is to defend other planets in their federation. Coran places them under house arrest. They beat up the guards (damn, those guys have a shitty job). They leave without Allura and the blue lion.
As they fly off, Coran opens fire with the castle's AAA batteries. To, y'know, give them a salute. Yeah.
Ah, planet Doom. I was kinda jonesin' for that clanky planet Doom music. Zarkon, Lotor and Haggar all watch the team fly to Balto. Lotor takes off with his flagship and a flight of other ships. This is the first time we get a good look at the other ships in Lotor's fleet.
The team approaches Balto, which has been destroyed, wiped out. They fly over a city swamped by lava. They near Pidge's village, and land near his old school. It looks like the people escaped to another planet, but the planet is lost. Inside the school, they suddenly hear weapons bombarding the position. It's Lotor's fleet. He deploys fighters.
Keith shoots fighters down with his proton missiles, while they others fire their lions' shoulder weapons. Then Lotor launches the Robeast--who is basically Kurt Langstrom, the Man-Bat, with a Haggarian makeover. He launches missiles out of his shoulders, then flaps his wings real hard to blow the Voltron force out of the sky with a tornado. Then it commences to strafe them. Oh, yeah, and he has batwings on his knees.
Allura sits in her room, and they can apparently see Balto through her window. Keith convinces her to go to their aid through, um, telepathy? I think it's meant to be a radio transmission, and WEP is kinda pretending they're in castle control. Coran and Nanny try to stop her, but they don't try very hard.
Lotor observes the princess' arrivle while the robeast knocks the team into a crevasse. Red lion tunnels through the rock. As Allura arrives, the shoots a flight of Doom fighters down from behind. This turns Lotor on. So he hits blue lion with some sort of energy weapon from the bow of his ship.
Underground, Lance uses red lion's weapons to start a volcanic eruption, separating the team from the robeast, and disabling Lotor's ship. The team sees the princess, and they form Voltron. They start the fight with the electro-saber, deflecting energy frisbee things the robeast launches from its mouth. Voltron throws the sabre, then the robeast pins them to the volcano with a force field thingy from its wings. Then the volcano erupts more and knocks the robeast over, breaking the forcifield. They form blazing sword, and destroy the robeast with some weird star-shaped enery blast.
Lotor is angered that they've destroyed yet another robeast, but a robot convinces him to leave before the planet explode. The team follows suit, shedding a few tears for the passing of Pidge's home planet. And this is the first planetary explosion we see in Voltron--there'll be plenty more in Vehicle Voltron (well, at least three more). Pidge wishes he could have seen his back yard again. Allura offers to make Pidge an honorary citizen of Arus.
After the last commerical break, we get a hodge-podge of scenes edited together to represent Pidge's new citizenship celebration. Y'know, to make up for all the stuff that was cut out of Golion.
Goodbye Earth
Because it's EARTH that's actually being destroyed, seemingly by a combination of the after-effects of World War III and a meteor bombardment, not by any efforts of the Galra empire. But even though this is the original Japanese version, I'm not so much of an Otaku that I will claim that the Japanese version of something is ALWAYS better. The opening bullshit with the princess being told she has to get married off isn't any better in Japanese. In fact, Hys' voice grates on me even more than Nanny's weird Russian milkmaiden accent.
However, I wonder if the prince Fala is supposedly marrying in Hys' hallucination is a "cameo" of a character from another series, or just a generic character design.
When they go to castle control, they're just looking at Earth out of nostalgia, but happen to catch the meteor strikes. They're pretty vague about what exactly is happening. Fala tries to appeal to the team, while Raible is the one who brings out the guards. And . . . Hys. But at least I don't have to keep track of a dozen different Drule captains. That would suck!
And as they launch in the lions, we're serenaded by a thematically weird choice of music. I guess it's a variant of the black lion theme. Because they mention black lion in the chorus. Oh, and Raible is actually trying to shoot them down. Suzuishi gives Kogane some crap about wanting to stay on Altea (these are really about as far as the hints of a romance between Kogane and Fala get, reams and reams of fanfiction be damned).
Daibazal doesn't think too much of the Golion team, since they're prone to internal dissent. 'Cuz, y'know Galra just kills everyone before they get to the point of dissension.
When they arrive at Earth, they see that entire oceans have been replaced by magma--at least the oceans the animators remembered to draw as magma. They fly over a shelter near their old Fuji Space School. And where their families all used to live. They enter the shelter to see a skeletal hand that scribbled on the wall in blood. Then a tremor shatters the skeleton and it's all reduced to dust. And Galra attacks.
Weapons used: Black bazooka, red laser, green gun, (yellow) gatling missiles. And the beastman is named Batolda. That's right, Batolda. I sorta like his design. He's kinda back to the Deathhell and Galcia realm of beasstman designs.
Suzuishi says he'd be happy to die on Earth. Seidou calls him a dumbass. Fala, in her room, is looking at Earth out a window (!?). And she hears the voices of the team in her head. She decides she must go after them. And she is able to reason with Hys and Raible. It seems as though she simply doesn't want them to be on an obviously dying planet like Earth, not that she knows they're under attack. But then again, she's not surprised to see Sincline's forces.
When they form Golion, it's again Formation V. With an instrumental part toward the end.
Heh. Batolda. And he talks! He tells Golion to die, just before the volcano erupts. They form Jyuoken and use the "Great Whirlwind" attack. Apparently that's the Golion verson of the Tachikaze or sword wind.
As they leave, Kurogane seems to think making mount Fuji erupt is what destroyed the Earth, but Kogane assures him that it was the "abnormality" they saw back on castle control's monitors. And Fala offers Altean citizenship (more or less) to all of them.
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