Robo Force, how I loved thee. Not many people remember it today, but Robo Force was a line of quite large and detailed robots, plus their vehicles and bases. The robot figures' main gimmick was a strange one. They had pneumatic arms that would squeeze together if you pressed a button on their backs. I never could figure that one out, since the figures were far too large to bear hug each other. The real main draw was their size and great level of detail, as I mentioned, plus they were quite sturdy and several of them had huge fists (all the better to punch the crap out of each other and your other toys). I had all of the robots and the two biggest vehicles.
The Robo Force were the good guys (even though the bad robots had "Robo Force" decals, too. Hmm.). Their leader was Maxx Steele, most intelligent and powerful robot, er, alive. The others were Sentinel, the (duh) sentinel, Blazer, who had fire-based weapons, SOTA (State Of The Art), the science robot, Wrecker, the demolitionist, and Coptor, who had helicopter rotors on his head.
The villains, as usual, were far more interesting both in design and personality. I'm ... really not sure what their group was called and the internet is not much help, except that a couple of their vehicles were called "Dred-[something]", so I guess I will call the bad guys the Dred Bots. Hun-Dred, their leader, had crushing claws and powerful lasers hidden behind his faceplate. Cruel - possibly my favorite of all the toys - had HUGE fists for punching down anything in his way. Vulgar had a drill (that was far too small for him to ever use for anything) in the middle of his face. Enemy was the absolute worst of the entire toy line in terms of design, features, and name. Really, "Enemy"? Come the hell
on. He was basically just a grey block whose only feature was a double-blaster hidden in his chest.
If you want to see what the toys looked like, go
here.
When I was little (four or five), Mom told me that she read in TV Guide about a Robo Force cartoon coming on! We gathered around the TV at the scheduled air time and ... an episode of "Newhart" or something came on. I cried. I felt cheated. I felt lied to.
Fast forward 27 years (gah!) to, oh, about an hour ago. I happened to think of the Robo Force toys and did a quick Google on them. One of the first results was - the cartoon episode! I nearly had a Terry Gilliam-style heart attack in my chair. It existed! It really existed, and was available to watch on youtube! Sometimes, the internet is great.
Without further ado, I give you my recap of "Robo Force"!
The credits are just clips from the episode, mostly of the robots shooting lasers and blowing up stuff. There are also a few scenes of humans who appear to be leading the robots. What??? Maxx-freakin'-Steele doesn't need some puny
human to lead him! What the hell is this crap?
The title comes up: "The Revenge of Nazgar", written by Flint Dille, who contributed a butt-ton of scripts to 80s 'toons such as G.I. Joe, Visionaries, and TransFormers. "Nazgar". Somebody was distracted by Bill Elliot's great 1984 season when they were writing this.
Anyway, we open with a pan across a futuristic city skyline, which ends on an establishing shot of a futuristic house. Some ninja-looking guys are skulking around outside, accompanied by -*gasp*- the Dred Bots! Hun-Dred makes a point of shoving his face into the camera.
Inside the house, a scientist named Dr. Furie is working on Coptor! Seems he can't get the robot to talk, so he kicks it, which enables Coptor to speak. Suddenly ... well, not "suddenly".
Leisurely, Cruel punches down the door to Furie's laboratory, letting the Dred Bots and ninjas inside. Nice touch that he was the one to do it, since that's his function. Wait ... no. I just rewatched the scene. What actually happens is that the
ninjas knock the door down, then step aside to let the Dred Bots enter. That p**ses me off, actually. The
puny humans had to knock down the door to allow the
badass robots to get inside. What the hell, Flint Dille? Anyway, Coptor tries to stop them from capturing Dr. Furie. He does all right at first, crippling Enemy and dodging Hun-Dred's eye beams. However, Vulgar and the ninjas get in a couple of shots. Then Cruel scoots forward and PUNCHES THE s**t OUT OF COPTOR, DESTROYING HIM UTTERLY! Yes! Unfortunately, this is all that Cruel gets to do in the whole show but still, awesome! Hun-Dred and the other robots then abscond with Dr. Furie.
Then there's a horrendous tracking error that renders the next few seconds unwatchable. Oh, well, this was proably copied from a 25+ year old VHS tape, what are you gonna do?
When the tracking error fixes itself, Furie's annoying little kid, Mark, whose voice I recognized as belonging to David Mendenhall, comes downstairs and is mildly perturbed to find Coptor destroyed and his Dad missing. He sees Hun-Dred's truly weird ship take off and recognizes it as belonging to the Dred Bots. He vows to never stop trying to rescue his father from Hun-Dred.
10 years la--
Oh, no you don't, Flint Dille! Where the
hell were Maxx Steele and the rest of the Robo Force? And what's this crap with an annoying little kid? Eh, never mind.
10 years later ...
Councilwoman Deena Strong is addressing the High Council of Celestia, which is either the city, nation, or planet on which all this is taking place. She has shocking news: the actual name of the bad robots! Turns out I wasn't far off. They are called "The Cult of Dred", founded in the name of the evil dictator, Nazgar. Another councilman helpfully informs us that Nazgar died 2000 years ago. A smarmy guy, apparently the leader of the council, smarmily tells Deena that Nazgar is only a legend and that only fools believe in him. The rest of the council applauds. (Huh?) Deena insists that Nazgar is not a legend. In fact, she has archival footage of his invasion and conquest of Celestia 2000 years ago to prove it! Head Councilman Smarm dismisses even this. Deena then informs the council that the Dred Bots have preserved Nazgar's brain for all of the 2000 years since his death (!!!) and intend to bring about his resurrection. She shows the council a message recorded on a crystal that was recently found in Hun-Dred's secret hideout - Wait, what? If they know where it is, how is it a "secret" hideout? If they had forces inside the place, why didn't they wipe out the Dred Bots instead of just capturing the message crystal? Again: what the hell, Flint Dille? Anyway, the crystal contains a message from Nazgar himself! It was apparently recorded - complete with excellent lighting and multiple camera angles - by Nazgar himself literally right before the moment of his death. That seems kind of unlikely but, whatever. The message is adressed to, I swear, "my doggies". No, really, I've listened to it about a dozen times and that's what it sounds like he says. The gist of it is that there will be three message crystals... What?! He recorded three of the damn things AND hid them across the globe
seconds before his death? WHAT THE HELL, FLINT DILLE?
Ok, I'll quit doing that.
There will be three message crystals that, when brought together, will reveal the location of Nazgar's brain so that his followers may find it and install it in a new body. Oh, so in addition to recording three message crystals and scattering them across the globe mere moments before his death, he also removed his own brain, preserved it, and hid it away. You know, I withdraw my objections to this absurd plot development. Instead, I choose to believe instead that Nazgar was able to do all that because he was just. That. Awesome.
Head Councilman Smarm brushes aside even this and vetoes Deena's motion to officially declare war on Hun-Dred. That settles it, he works for Hun-Dred, if not directly for Nazgar's brain. I guess his corruption would also explain why no one has done anything with the knowledge of where Hun-Dred's "secret" base is. Ok, Flint Dille, you're off the hook for that one. Head Councilman Smarm orders Deena to find and arrest Mark Furie instead, who "has now grown to manhood". Deena objects that stopping Nazgar really is kind of important. Say, Deena, why don't you just destroy that crystal you've got? That way, even if the other two are found, all three of them can never be together.
Say ... there's something fishy going on here. Long ago, a man who caused trouble for a powerful republic was killed by agents of that republic. Ever since, a fanatical group has been intent on bringing about his resurrection. Many people regard this man as a myth and his followers as dangerous fanatics. Now - 2000 years after his death - he is poised to return and lead his faithful to dominion over the nonbelievers. Flint Dille has made
Evil Jesus the villain of Robo Force! I really don't know what to think about that.
Someone mentioned Mark Furie, right? He and - finally - Maxx Steele are involved in a bar fight. A
bar fight? Maxx Steele would never lower himself to fighting ruffians in a bar. For his part, Mark has grown up to be nearly as ripped as He-Man. He and Maxx toss some people around. Mark corners someone who gave him bad information and threatens to have Maxx do bad things to him with a power drill unless he coughs up the
real location of Hun-Dred's base. Geez, Mark, you could probably have read about it in the news. Council forces have been in there already at least once.
Meanwhile, Head Councilman Smarm (look, they didn't tell us his name yet), contacts Hun-Dred. Ah-ha! Told you he was crooked. Head Councilman Smarm lets Hun-Dred know that Deena has one of the three crystals. Later that night, while Deena is out walking by herself for some reason, Enemy, Vulgar, and Cruel surround her and ... fade out. You're aren't getting off the hook for
this one, Flint Dille! The main gimmick, remember, is that the robots have that bear-hug motion with their arms. Capturing Deena would have been an appropriate, hell, downright perfect time to show that off. Anyway, they take Deena to the "secret" base (which turns out to be an underwater castle) where Hun-Dred gloats in his dull monotone voice that he now has one of the crystals thanks to her. (Why didn't you destroy it, Deena?)
Outside, the Robo Force approaches in their sub. We - finally - get to meet them all. During the course of the introductions, Blazer lets go with a rather lengthy blast from one of his flamethrowers. Given the positioning of the characters in this scene, he ought to have incinerated Mark. Now that's a guy I want on my team, yes sir. That's a fairly minor animation gaffe, however. The real problem here is that none of the robots have personalities. At all. Their voices are also very similar to each other, which makes it hard to tell who is speaking unless you can see the flashing lights on their chests that light up when they talk. Plus, the whole deal of them working for a
puny human, especially one as bland as Mark Furie, is still p**sing me off. Maxx Steele and the Robo Force should be the equivalent of Optimus Prime and the Autobots, not lackeys to some guy who's even too lame to be a G.I. Joe character. What the hell, Flint Dille? (Sorry, sorry, I know I said I'd quit that.) Oh, lest you thought we were spared dealing with an annoying little kid now that Mark has grown up, we get to meet Jason, Mark's younger brother. Jason looks exactly like Mark did ten years ago and also has David Mendenhall doing his voice. Great.
They breach the castle wall by having Blazer cut a hole in it with his flamethrower (underwater). Inside, a vaguely European, vaguely villainous guy warns Hun-Dred that the Robo Force has arrived. Hun-Dred orders the guy to destroy the Robo Force. Uh, I'm not sure Vaguely Villainous European Guy is up to the task but, then again, I'm not an evil robot overlord. What do I know, anyway? Hun-Dred announces out loud, to no one in particular, that he and the Dred Bots will be abandoning the fortress to search for the other two crystals. (Deena, why didn't you smash yours?)
Mark and the robots separate. The robots will destroy the place (off screen, because that would be expensive to animate) while Mark looks for his Dad. Mark finds a holding cell, shoots the lock off, and kicks open the door. This one, simple scene has so many problems! Mark shoots the lock off the door. One would assume he'd be able to kick it open. Instead, he kicks it completely off its hinges. If he could do that it was pointless for him to shoot the lock at all. It also means the door is so flimsy that whoever is inside probably could have pulled it off themselves. Cripes! It turns out to be Deena inside the cell. When Mark introduces himself (nice to see you take time out to hit on ladies while desperately racing against time to find your father, Mark), Deena says she thought he'd look tougher. Damn, lady, he just kicked open a door that appears to have been made of steel. Plus, he's built like friggin' He-Man!
What would it take for you to think he looks tough?
Suddenly, Deena says, "Look out!". Mark turns around and watches as Vaguely Villainous European Guy tiptoes into the room, holding a pistol. Oh, my, how will our heroes get out of this one?
So, how do our heroes get out of this one? A fart wafts into the cell, the stench of which is so great Vaguely Villainous European Guy collapses. Ok, it's probably supposed to be knock out gas. Where did it come from? Why, from Max Steele, of course! He pops in, says it's a good thing he just happened to come by, and leaves. What the hell, Flint Dille? (I suppose that it is kind of funny, in a meta-humor sort of way.)
Mark and Deena argue for a minute about whether or not Mark and the robots are villains or heroes, then the castle starts coming apart. Mark picks up Vaguely Villainous European Guy and takes him along, settling in Deena's mind the question of his heroism or villainy. They are delayed in their escape by some generic robots. While blasting at them, Mark reveals to Deena that he is Dr. Furie's son. Whoa, really? Mark Furie, who has the same name as Dr. Furie's son, who hangs out with robots built by Dr. Furie,
who Head Councilman Smarm identified to Deena as Dr. Furie's son, turns out to be Dr. Furie's son? Inconceivable! Once Deena is done having her mind blown, she helps fend off the robots while making more chit-chat about Mark's Dad. Seems Dr. Furie's last project was working on a way to put living brains in robot bodies. Deena is worried that Hun-Dred will put Nazgar's brain in a robot body. (You should have destroyed the crystal!) Keep in mind they talk about all this while engaged in a pitch battle to the death with killer robots. Cool customers, Mark and Deena.
The Robo Force finally shows up and destroys the robots. This is actually one of the few nice touches to be found in the episode. Mark and Deena's blasters were knocking the bad robots down but they kept getting back up to resume their attack. However, the Robo Force's weapons utterly destroy the generic robots. I'll give you credit for showing that the Robo Force robots really are more powerful than the humans, Flint Dille, even if you did inexplicably make them servants of humans instead of an autonomous group acting as allies to humans.
Unfortunately, this nice touch is followed by one of the
worst touches of the entire damn thing. Do you remember that I was wondering why Maxx and the other Robo Force robots didn't show up when Hun-Dred destroyed Coptor and captured Dr. Furie at the beginning? Turns out it was because Maxx and the others didn't exist yet. Mark built them later on.
WHAT THE HELL, FLINT DILLE?!?!
Mark. Built. Maxx. Steele. Not Dr. Furie. Mark Furie, who has displayed absolutely no ability, intelligence, or personality whatsoever
built Maxx Steele and most of the Robo Force! Imagine that, instead of being a race of sentient machines from an alien world, that Optimus Prime and the Autobots had instead been built by boy genius Spike Witwacky. Yeah, that's pretty s**tty, right? That's precisely the level of blunder Flint Dille makes here. Why couldn't Dr. Furie have built them all, with Maxx being his greatest achievement? Why - why - am I forced to accept that friggin' Mark built them? You know, I would even buy it if an early, less powerful version of Maxx, instead of Coptor, had been destroyed at the beginning (which would have given Maxx's rivalry with Hun-Dred a lot more punch, by the way) and Mark had repaired and suped him up. But no. Flint Dille has it that friggin' Mark Furie built Maxx, Blazer, SOTA, Sentinel, and Wrecker. (Please note that Wrecker is visibly more primitive than the others, while Coptor is actually quite sophisticated. It would make much more sense if Wrecker had been the first, with Maxx being the last of Dr. Furie's creations, the culmination of a lifetime of experimentation and experience.)
I just came up with three better origins for the Robo Force than Flint Dille did, in about five minutes. I really don't hate Flint Dille. On the contrary, his episodes of various 80s cartoons were usually among the best episodes of their respective series. That's why I'm so shocked at the quality of the writing here. Poor Mr. Dille must have been working under extraordinary time constraints, and possibly corporate meddling from Ideal, makers of the Robo Force toy line. Even so, Flint, man, if you were going to have Mark build them, you could have at least tried to make him likable.
So, where were we? Oh, yeah. Mark, Deena, and the Robo Force barely manage to escape the underwater castle before it explodes into a huge fireball and collapses into a burning heap. Read over that again, if you need to, and identify what's wrong with that scenario. Deena explains again to Mark and the robots about the three crystals and how Hun-Dred will use them to bring Nazgar back. (YOU SHOULD HAVE DESTROYED YOURS ARGH!) Maxx posits that Vaguely Villainous European Guy might know where Hun-Dred and the Dred Bots are going, so Deena volunteers her home as a temporary base of operations while they plan their next move and wait for him to come to.
Eventually, Vaguely Villainous European Guy wakes up. Blazer shoots off his flamethrower a couple of inches in front of his face, then sticks it into his mouth, threatening to kill him unless he talks! Holy geez! Understandably, Vaguely Villainous European Guy spills his guts. Hun-Dred is going to "the Cliffs of the Lost". SOTA knows where that is, of course, because he's got a map screen built into his head, you know. While Blazer has his guard down, Vaguely Villainous European Guy leaps out a window. Establishing shots had it that Deena's house was right on the edge of a cliff, so ... I hope he didn't pick the wrong window to jump out of.
Later, at the Cliffs of the Lost, we get an actually fairly atmospheric shot of an empty desert, blue sky, and the Dred Bots flying in for a landing next to a woman in an odd costume who speaks with an electronically distorted voice. Hun-Dred demands that she give them the second crystal. The woman protests that she has no idea what they're talking about. Vulgar, getting his only line, begs Hun-Dred to let him make her talk. No need for that, all Hun-Dred needs to do is say the secret words! They are, "Nazgar lives!" Upon hearing the oh-so-secret words, the woman has a seizure, after which she agrees to take the Dred Bots to the crystal. When she spins it for them (it would be impossible for any of them to do it), Nazgar himself appears to let them know they should go to the Island of the Doomed. I really have no complaints about this scene at all. The visuals and music are atmospheric, the villains seem honestly dangerous and threatening, Nazgar feels like a real menace now that we see him healthy instead of almost dead, and the woman is intriguingly mysterious. Is she a robot, left by Nazgar to wait around until someone who knows the words comes by for the crystal? If not, she's certainly supernatural somehow, since there's every indication she's been here for the entire 2000 years since Nazgar died. If only the episode overall had been as good as this one scene.
Back to the Robo Force. Somehow, SOTA intuits that the Dred Bots are going to the Isle of Doom. (Maybe the name has been shortened since Nazgar's time.) How he knows that is anyone's guess, since last we saw, Robo Force hadn't even made it to the Cliffs of the Lost yet. The Island of the Doomed scene has the potential to be pretty good, too, because the atmosphere and radiation levels are lethal to humans, meaning Mark and Deena will have to stay behind. Yay! Way to go, Flint Dille!
The Robo Force lands on the Island of the Doomed and promptly enters a highly radioactive cave because ... um. Whatever the reason, it's good that they did. Hun-Dred is inside with the last of the three crystals. (I point out, for the last time, that none of this would have happened if Deena had destroyed hers as soon as she found out how dangerous it was.) Hun-Dred puts the crystals together and spins them, somehow, with those big claws of his, and something completely unexpected happens. The Red Death manifests himself to give them the final clue! I'm not joking, it's The Red Death, as portrayed in the movie
Masque of the Red Death. The Red Death speaks a line that Flint Dille surely deserves some kind of award for coming up with, "You will find the Great Brain at the peak of Mount Infinity!"
Let me stop here to applaud. This -
this - is why I watch bad movies and weird, old cartoons. You simply won't find unpredictability like this in any competently-produced movie, television show, or cartoon. The best part is, this scene isn't intended as parody nor, indeed, any sort of comedy at all. It's in here because Flint Dille remembered how scary an old Vincent Price movie seemed to him when he saw it back in the 60s as a kid, so he tossed The Red Death in here to freak out the kids of the new generation. Flint Dille
meant every word of this bizarre, out-of-nowhere scene. That sort of dedication and commitment, my friends, is something I cherish more than anything to be found in modern, cynically designed, mainstream entertainment.
In a tunnel nearby, Blazer hears Hun-Dred speak about Nazgar's impending resurrection, which sends him dashing ahead to confront the Dread Bots. This has the effect of alerting Hun-Dred to the Robo Force's presence before they can mount an effective attack, and he uses his eye beams to cause a cave in which traps the Robo Force in lava. No, that's not lava. It's, I dunno, bubblegum? Yes, it reallly looks like chewed bubblegum. Just when the bad guys were looking competent, Hun-Dred assumes the Robo Force can't escape and leaves without finishing them off. MORON! Aside from that, this whole segment has kicked almost as much ass as the short bit where the Dred Bots got the second crystal. No humans around to steal thunder from the robots, the whole thing with The Red Death, momentary competence by the villains, and negative consequences portrayed for reckless actions by the heros. Well done, Flint Dille!
So, our heroes are caught in radioactive bubble gum. How will they get out? Easy. Sentinel shoots a grappling hook to the ceiling and pulls them out. Before that, though, we spend the longest amount of time with the robots interacting that we get in the whole show, and probably find out why Flint Dille felt the need to make humans the main characters. The robots simply aren't expressive enough. None of them have faces, their voices are very similar, and so are their personalities. The flashing "talk lights" are obscured by the bubblegum for most of this scene so you really can't tell who's talking. It would have been very difficult for kids watching the show to bond with the robots as they are presented here. In that light, it's perhaps understandable that Flint Dille made them secondary characters in their own show. But, dang it, Flint, would it have hurt to make Mark a little more likable, or even interesting? I know you can write memorable characters. Also, something as simple as giving the robots more distinct voices would have helped tremendously. I don't blame the voice actors. The filter they run all the voices through is what makes them sound alike. (Note that when TransFormers, in which Flint Dille was heavily involved, debuted the next year, the "robot voice" filter applied to the Autobots and Decepticons was much more subtle than the one used here and did not detract from the actors' performances nor render them indistinct. Someone, apparently, learned a lesson.)
Back at the Fortress of Steele, the Robo Force's base, Mark and Deena work to change out the robots' power packs. Geez! They can't even recharge themselves without human help? Deena b***hes some more about Hun-Dred waking up Nazgar, like we haven't been paying attention to the preceeding two-thirds of the show and missed that detail. Mark turns toward the camera and says, "You two, scout around!" I have no idea who he means, since all the robots seem to be incapacitated and Deena is the only other person there.
Meanwhile, at the peak of Mount Infinity, a scene transpires which leaves no doubt that Hun-Dred, at least, views serving Nazgar as a full-out religion. Having found Nazgar's crypt (or whatever you call somewhere that houses an undead brain for 2000 years) he
prays to Nazgar to allow them to resurrect him with the robot body Dr. Furie has made. And, hey! Dr. Furie is there with them! Hi, Dr. Furie! How's it goin'? I guess they need him to install the brain in the robot body. Nazgar's spirit agrees to Hun-Dred's offer and a stone slab opens in the center of the room, revealing Nazgar's (glowing) brain underneath a glass dome. "At last. Nazgar's brain," Hun-Dred monotones.
SOTA is flying around somewhere in a vehicle when he detects strange readings from "Mount Agony". No, damn it! It's Mount
Infinity! Coptor, also doing something somewhere, agrees with SOTA and it's no joke! (Oh, did I mention Coptor tells jokes that are so unfunny that no one watching would even consider them to be jokes if it weren't explicitly stated that he is telling a joke?) Maxx turns on the main monitor, training it on Mount Infinity, which crumbles, revealing a huge fortress underneath. I guess we can add "built huge fortress inside a mountain" to the list of things Nazgar did in his last moments of life. Mark tells Deena to gather the robots and start the attack at "4300 hours, sharp!" So ... at 7PM tomorrow evening? I'll let that one slide. Maybe whatever planet this is has a 43+ hour day. Seems Mark is going in by himself to find his father before the attack proper.
Meanwhile, in Nazgar's fortress - whoa! Mogera is sitting right there at the control console! Neat! Anyway, Nazgar is pleased with his new, Darth Vader body. He can't wait to get his revenge on all of Celestia. The fortress's main weapon is a giant death ray with the power to destroy everything on the whole planet. Hmm, guy with a robot body who controls a giant fortress with a weapon powerful enough to wipe out a planet ... where have I heard that before? Maybe in some obscure movie, or something.
Maxx and the Robo Force are in position to attack the fortress. They see the death ray powering up. Blazer wants to go in and smash it before Nazgar can use it but Maxx thinks it's more important to wait for Mark to find his father.
...
...
...
It took a great deal of willpower for me not to quit watching right then and there. Given stakes that high, they should have gone ahead with the attack. Hank and the kids would have gone ahead with the attack. Jayce and the Lightning League would have gone ahead with the attack. Optimus Prime and the Autobots would have gone ahead with the attack. Hell, even the numbnuts from G.I. Joe would have gone ahead with the attack. We're talking millions of lives, here, vs. one old man who, though of great sentimental value to Mark, really isn't that important in the bigger picture. "What the hell, Flint Dille?" doesn't even begin to cover this. This is just plain wrong and it has killed the show dead. You can't even argue that Maxx and the robots don't have free will. Blazer (I think) was sure ready to charge in. It was entirely Maxx's choice to wait.
But it gets arguably worse! Mark sneaks into the fortress somehow (he's climbing a rope up the side of the outer wall and then he's magically inside). Enemy and Vulgar are escorting Dr. Furie somewhere, contemplating killing him even against Hun-Dred's, or maybe Nazgar's, orders. Mark swings from the ceiling,
kicks them over, and rescues his Dad. Mark, a mere human, physically attacked and defeated the robots, making them look like fools and wimps, despite the fact that their great power is theoretically the reason we are watching the show. Enemy gets his one and only line, "We cannot let them escape!" and it's as bland and dull as his overall design so well done, I guess. (Oh, and he fires lasers from his bare hands instead of using his double-gun, the thing that's literally his only feature.)
Mark and his Dad escape by hiding behind a door. The Dred Bots can't get through even though VULGAR HAS A FREAKING DRILL JUST FOR SITUATIONS LIKE THAT ARGH! WHY DOES THIS SUCK SO BAD ALL OF A SUDDEN? Mark and his Dad have a tender moment blah blah blah I don't care.
Meanwhile, Hun-Dred test fires the death ray. It's 4300 hours, so Maxx and the Robo Force finally attack. During the assault, Blazer makes no use of his fire weapons (he just has regular lasers now), Sentinel makes no use of the powerful cannon mounted on his head, Wrecker makes no use of his wrecking tools. Hell, nobody does much of anything. Damn it, we are watching the show to see the robots use their powers! That's what makes kids watch, that's what makes kids buy the toys! What the hell went so wrong?
Robo Force encounters Mark and Dr. Furie. Mark orders Coptor to fly his Dad away. Say, Mark, don't you think Coptor's could put his flying ability to better use
flying up there and smashing the death ray? Look, I understand you haven't seen your Dad in ten years. I understand how badly you want to keep him safe. But there are
millions of lives at stake! Damn it! Once Coptor is gone, Mark orders the rest of the robots to storm the control room and shut down the death ray. You had a flier who could have gone right to it ...
(Here I banged my head on my desk a few times.)
Just as they reach the control room, Hun-Dred emerges and challenges Maxx to single combat, "...the fight we've both been waiting for." Does Hun-Dred use his mighty eye beams to melt Maxx to scrap? Heck, no! He uses a powerdrill on him, even though he knows darn well Maxx is nearly invulnerable to physical assault! Maxx punches Hun-Dred once, causing him to explode and fall apart. (!!!) What the -- ??? Lamest boss-fight EVER. After the fight, Maxx says he has something to take care of and wanders off while the others go to kill Nazgar.
Nazgar, as it happens, is talking to Head Councilman Smarm, who is begging Nazgar to protect him. Nazgar refuses and seals himself up in Darth Vader's life support chamber. Deena, Mark, and the robots come in. Head Councilman Smarm finally gets a name when Deena gasps, "Councilman Fross! (or maybe Frost)" Fross (or maybe Frost) rather lamely says it's not what it looks like, he's there to help them. Mark, Deena, and the robots melt Nazgar's life support chamber thingie but, uh oh, he's not inside. Oh, well, whatever. Oh, and it's not even one of the robots (I'd have picked Blazer) who gets to deliver the parting quip before they open fire. It's not even Mark. For some reason, it's Deena. Yeah, buddy, Deena sure was the one we cared about, she was the one who deserved to get the last word on Nazgar. Why, think of all she accomplished during this episode. She got captured, enabled the Dred Bots to resurrect Nazgar and, um ... No, screw Deena, she sucked! Mark sucked! The robots sucked! This show sucked! Wait, it's not over? Damn it!
OH MY GOD! They never deactivated the death ray! Whoever's left in the control room (I'll pretend it's Cruel) is firing it on the city! (SOTA says its running on automatic but screw him! Cruel's doing it!) I ... I ... what? What? All that fuss about getting to the control room to stop the death ray and they didn't do it? They took a side trip to murder Nazgar instead but he got away, anyway. You ... you morons!
We find out where Maxx went. He's just now arriving on top of the death ray. "Hope I'm not too late," he says. Sorry to inform you of this, Maxx, but you are too late. I'm not sure if this rates a "What the hell, Flint Dille?" but it sure is odd to have Maxx say that after you've already shown the death ray waste half of the city. Anyway, Maxx smashes the ray with one punch, day is saved, yahoo.
Next scene (END!), finds us back at the Fortress of Steele, where Mark is getting the robots drunk on oil. Deena looks upset, so Mark asks her what's wrong. Well, jerk off, maybe she's a bit concerned about ALL THAT DAMAGE AND LOSS OF LIFE THE DEATH RAY CAUSED! Damn it, Mark, I hate your freakin' guts! ENDENDEND
Mercifully, the episode ends.
Looking through the credits, I see a lot of names that have been associated with much better cartoons. I really have no idea what happened, unless the obvious time crunch was even worse than it seems to have been. I've maybe been a little hard on Flint Dille but blunders in the script, above all else, are what caused this episode to fail. Who knows? Maybe he had to crank out the script in one day. The animation is really quite good and the voice acting (except for Mark ... Rodger Bumpass was having a seriously off day) is at the very least solid and professional. The music was just kind of there, not adding anything to the production, but not detracting from it, either.
When I discovered Robo Force after 27 years (gah!) of feeling cheated, I was bouncing off the walls with excitement. Here was the cartoon I never got to see about a toy line that was nearer and dearer to me than just about any other. I also knew that I never had to worry about Michael Bay coming along and mucking it up. Well, turns out that Michael Bay couldn't have mucked up Robo Force any worse than it already was. I'm very disappointed in the cartoon but glad that I finally got to see it, nonetheless.
