Original G1 Script - Megatron's Master Plan (Article for Masterforce UK)

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Maz
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Original G1 Script - Megatron's Master Plan (Article for Masterforce UK)

Post by Maz »

For those of us who found our way into the world of Transformers via the Sunbow cartoon in the mid-eighties, those episodes we remember from childhood still hold a very special place in our hearts and will forever be recognised as the gateway to the hobby we cherish today. In the UK, many of the episodes were not easily accessible and it wasn't until the mid-to-late nineties that a number of fans were able to view seasons 1 to 3 in their entirety, until then VHS tapes were like gold dust. Then the DVDs came and the VHS tapes became worthless. However, as one collector recently said to me wisely, we tend to now enjoy the episodes that we had as children the most. My favourite childhood G1 episode was Megatron's Master Plan, and thanks to Masterforce.co.uk, I now have the original G1 script for that episode, from Marvel Productions Ltd and written by Donald F. Glut.

Original G1 Script - Megatron's Master Plan | Masterforce UK <- CLICK TO READ

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Many thanks to Morgan Evans from Masterforce.co.uk for hosting my work, and for this wonderful piece of history!

All the best
Maz
In-depth articles and reviews www.TF-1.com

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Vehicon Mike
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Post by Vehicon Mike »

Well, when Shout Factory released the original first season, I got a digital copy the original script for Transport To Oblivion, it was different from what the finished version of the episode was like. Funny, the original script had a lot more dialogue for the characters when the scenes were supposed to be longer. I didn't understand it at first, but I got the hang of it by comparing the script to the episode when I did.
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Post by Brendocon 2.0 »

Megatron's Master Plan had a script?
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Post by Auntie Slag »

That's the coolest screen grab of cartoon Megatron I've ever seen. With his Darth Vader stomach buttons, with plenty of shadows cast off the metalwork as he fires Cyril Sneer out of his arm cannon. He's proper 80's cartoon smirky evil.
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Post by inflatable dalek »

The link only seems to lead to a "New products for October" page.

As easy as it is to mock the episodes as adults (as... well pretty much every thread talking about the show proves), I do have the episodes I had on video as a kid as wired into my soul as the film, which covers a multitude of sins.
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Post by Brendocon 2.0 »

inflatable dalek wrote:The link only seems to lead to a "New products for October" page.
BECAUSE THERE IS NO SCRIPT!
As easy as it is to mock the episodes as adults (as... well pretty much every thread talking about the show proves), I do have the episodes I had on video as a kid as wired into my soul as the film, which covers a multitude of sins.
Laserbeak wanna cracker?

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Post by inflatable dalek »

That's terrifying!

I don't think I ever say Megs Master Plan as a kid, I've a vague feeling I must have seen the video box though as it always seemed terribly exciting.

No, it was The Girl Who Loved Powerglide I saw over and over and over.

Between that and Roger Moore's "A woman?" reaction to a scientist with a vagina in Moonraker (come on Rog, you're meeting a "Dr. Goodhead" and you're James Bond, of course she's going to be a woman!) I can't understand why I'm single.
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Post by Tetsuro »

I actually feel singled out sometimes because not only did I not see a single episode of the cartoon as a lad, video or otherwise, but I didn't even know there was a cartoon until sometime...well, actually I haven't a feckin' clue of when I first learned of it's existence.

I just distinctly recall expecting the cartoon to be an adaptation of the comic until I actually saw it.
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Post by Rack 'n Ruin »

Tetsuro wrote: I just distinctly recall expecting the cartoon to be an adaptation of the comic until I actually saw it.
If only! Animated Target:2006... :love:
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Post by Auntie Slag »

Rack 'n Ruin wrote:If only! Animated Target:2006... :love:
That would be Watership Down levels of hellishness. Robots got smashed up, obliterated, tortured, near beaten to death and shell-shocked. If the cartoon had been like that, with dark and brooding camera angles + eery music, flippin 'eck.

On the other hand, some of those issues were so good you could see it animated in your head as you read it; that bit where Hound gets thrown through the trees by Cyclonus, the Autobot electrocuted by Shrapnel.

That saga (at the time) did an incredible job of making Galvatron, Cyclonus & Scourge appear unstoppable, and all my heroes at once utterly vulnerable. I was a hard drinker by issue 82.
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Post by Rack 'n Ruin »

Yes, Auntie, I think you've nailed it there. It was the sudden, palpible vulnerability of our old favourites that gripped us, I think. Suddenly they weren't invincible heroes. Will Hound live another week? Will Jazz? Jetfire? Etc. Tense stuff, when you're 8!
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Post by Tetsuro »

Rack 'n Ruin wrote:If only! Animated Target:2006... :love:
I'd love to see a direct to video adaptation of that thing, similar to what DC and Marvel have been doing in the recent years.

Unfortunately, the Finnish publication only printed US content except for like two UK stories, neither of which were part of a larger narrative, and even then US content was published rather wildly out of order - of course I didn't know it then, but the special which was probably my first comic book ever contained US issues 15-20 but skipping 17 and 18 - which in turn were then finally published four years later, in an issue I never saw.

The only "epic" I experienced as a kid was the Underbase saga, which severely coloured my expectations on the cartoon - when you read a story where 3/4 of the entire cast is killed off, the carnage in the '86 movie seems pretty tame in comparison.
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Post by Auntie Slag »

Oh yeah, I heard the trees in that forest crack and crunch as he flew backwards through them. Target: 2006 had this British darkness about it(I didn't know it was a UK story at the time; I could just tell that it wasn't a more day-glo, coloured dots Delbo story... and even though The Smelting Pool changed all that, I don't think any US story ever came close to matching the Blaster/Scrounge two-parter).

And when I was eight, turning over to see a full page spread of Jazz being tortured. I couldn't look at that one page for years! Seeing Prime's head detached and plundered for the mysteries of the Creation Matrix was fine, because it felt like something silly you'd see in a comic. But when one of your hero toys who hasn't been around for ages suddenly turns up and gets tortured to ****, that's scarring.

Imagine if they animated Last Stand of the Wreckers. Holy hell!
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