BotCon 2000 is one week away, and the Transformers: The Movie screening has been cut from four showings to one. On this July 21, 2000 Radio Free Cybertron, John DeLuna’s ATT Buzz weighs in on Car Robots Black Convoy and Baldigus. Turin and Rattrap007 deliver opposing takes on GoBots, and Turin joins Brian Kilby to talk about the violence in Transformers: The Movie. Brian also interviews Daniel Sauvé, a moderator of rec.toys.transformers.moderated.

News

BotCon 2000 Movie Screening Cut to One Showing

BotCon is a week out, and most attendees on ATT have now received their confirmation materials. John DeLuna says the Hartmans cut it close, especially for fans traveling from out of the country. The schedule is already changing. Transformers: The Movie will now screen once, at 8 p.m. Saturday for pre-registrants only, instead of four times. John expects more changes and urges fans to keep checking BotCon.com. [Source: alt.toys.transformers]

Car Robots Black Convoy and Baldigus Draw Lukewarm Reviews

Car Robots Baldigus, a Bruticus repaint, and Black Convoy, a Laser Optimus Prime repaint, reached fans in droves. Reviews on ATT were lukewarm, with disappointment the overall tone. Baldigus’s component robots look good, but John calls the combined armor a puke yellow. Takara pulled Black Convoy’s electronics but kept the same price, which John calls price gouging. He admits Black Convoy looks spiffy and suggests a loose G1 Bruticus over Baldigus. [Source: alt.toys.transformers]

RFC Update

Brian apologizes for last week’s late show, caused by FTP upload trouble. He is not going to BotCon, but John DeLuna and Alex will call in updates during the convention. The site has a new BotCon poll, a new Newbie’s Corner, chapter 3 of Sea Spray and the Argonauts, and instructions for an evil Napster trick. In the last poll, 54 percent of listeners said yes to Car Robots coming to America.

ATT Buzz

A thread titled Why I Hate Rebirth revived old complaints about the three-part G1 finale: lame Headmasters and Targetmasters, animation errors and a corny ending. John doesn’t find Rebirth terrible, given that money was running out at the tail end of G1. He thinks Headmasters and Targetmasters would have gone over better as robots instead of Nebulan humanoids.

News from Cybertron

Wheelie shows off his moves at Wheeljack’s Dance Shop, then is killed and put in Wheeljack’s place. Brian’s Computer debuts the Iacon Buzz with news of Huffer’s wedding. The GoBots win the right to vote after Skippy the Pogo Stick stages a jumping strike.

Trivia

Rattrap007 says the original purpose of Autobot X was a temporary body for Autobots while their main bodies were repaired. Prometheus X and Noah Carroll got it right. This week’s question asks what movie Spike watches while he is Autobot X.

Turin on GoBots

Turin admits he liked GoBots better than Transformers as a kid, because in his area GoBots came first. The GoBots cartoon looked like the toys, while Transformers characters had generic hands and looked nothing like their toys. He calls out Soundwave’s size change, Optimus Prime’s vanishing trailer and the Megatron catalog picture. He soon came around, though, finding the Transformers toys and show much cooler, and collected heavily in 1985.

The Evil Napster Trick

Brian explains his prank: he stripped the vocals from Stan Bush’s The Touch and sang over it badly himself. Listeners can download it from the homepage and share it on Napster to fool unsuspecting fans.

Turin and Brian on Transformers: The Movie

Turin says the shuttle scene traumatized him as a child, especially Ironhide’s death at Megatron’s hands. He argues the cruelty and sadism, not the gore, made it hard to watch. Brian calls it a testament to how poorly written the movie is. Both agree season three succeeded in spite of the movie. Turin compares the movie to killing off James Bond in the first five minutes. They also praise G1 episodes such as Webworld, The Golden Lagoon and The God Gambit.

Interview: Daniel Sauvé

Daniel Sauvé, a 19-year-old Canadian script writer, explains why rec.toys.transformers.moderated bars fanfic: other groups accept it, and fanfics often carry spoilers. He describes the moderation process and says it isn’t censorship but agreed etiquette. He stopped reading ATT over the personal flaming of Neil Davidson and the Beast Machines writers. He defends Larry DiTillio, Bob Forward and Bob Skir for trying to serve both Hasbro and the fans. Cheetor is his favorite character and Tarantulas his least favorite. For a new Transformers comic, he picks Larry Hama, Fabian Nicieza or Erik Larsen.

Toy Review: Beast Wars Icebird

Goldimus Prime calls Icebird, leader of the Mutants, the best of the three released so far. The polar bear mode is versatile and earns a 9 out of 10, and the robot head gimmick works best on him. The owl mode gets a 7 out of 10. Goldimus gives Icebird a 9 out of 10 overall and says he is worth ten dollars.

Episode Review: Car Robots Episode 4

Goldimus reviews Spy Changer Emergency, which introduces the Spy Changers, repaints of the G2 Go-Bots. The Cybertrons get stuck in traffic, and the Spy Changers show up looking cooler than their toys. He finds Car Robots less appealing than Beast Machines season two but will keep watching.

Rattrap007 on GoBots

Rattrap007 compares the first GoBots episode with More Than Meets the Eye and finds GoBots a blatant ripoff. He mocks the Renegades and Guardians faction names, vehicle modes that existed before reaching Earth, and the name Handcuff. He also targets Zod’s obvious weak spot and Cy-Kill’s five o’clock shadow. He asks Brian to link a fan video splicing Unicron’s movie attack into a GoBots episode.

Radio Free Cybertron: The Transformers Podcast

Brian Kilby

Radio Free Cybertron is the world's first and oldest toy and action figure podcast — broadcasting from the heart of the Transformers fan community since October 1999. What started as a scrappy fan show has grown into an institution, with nearly 1,000 episodes and over 25 years of coverage. Every week, host Brian Kilby and the RFC crew dig into the latest Transformers news, toy reveals, collecting, and everything hitting shelves from Hasbro, Takara, and beyond. No fluff, no hype — just informed, passionate collectors who have been doing this longer than anyone else on the planet. The original. The longest running. Till all are one.

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