Union

« Transformers: Armada ep 50 »
"Union" 連合 (そうりょくせん) (Sōryokusen) "Union: All-Out War"
Production code	TF: A-50
Production company	TV Tokyo, NAS
Airdate	October 1, 2003 (English, United Kingdom) December 10, 2003 (English, United States) December 12, 2003 (Japanese)
Writer	Shōji Tonoike
English adaptation	Ward Perry
Director	Ken'ichi Ishikura
Animation studio	Actas Inc.
Continuity	Unicron Trilogy

As Unicron stands ready to attack Cybertron, the Autobots and Decepticons fight back. Galvatron takes extra time to deal with the issue of Thrust's betrayal of the rest of his species.

Synopsis

"Hey, patsy, er, uh, Thrust. Scram!"

Unicron stands, his body surrounded by energy, destroying any ships that come close to him. While Galvatron orders his forces to retreat to a safe distance, Thrust sits on Unicron's shoulder, laughing at the feeble efforts to defeat his new god. However, he's still steaming about how Sideways had told him to get lost after the Star Saber had been placed inside Unicron. He plans his first action as Unicron's right-hand bot to get rid of Sideways.

The Autobots and Decepticons try to determine how their armies could possibly defeat Unicron. Unicron suddenly takes action and prepares to attack the abandoned planetside. Hot Shot and Wheeljack lead some fighter planes, hoping to interrupt Unicron. While the fighters can't harm Unicron, they focus on Thrust.

The Cybertronian army's scanners finally detect a weak point on Unicron's neck. A plan is formed, giving Galvatron the opportunity to personally confront Thrust. Thrust stands on Unicron's shoulder, and notices that Unicron is making no responses to any advisement—he questions that perhaps the web of lies he had constructed might have been a mistake, he assures himself that Unicron is the right way. At this point, his sanity is clearly in question.

Don't tell Unicron, but the cannon is actually voice activated.

Optimus Prime and Galvatron realize that the key to defeating Unicron lies within the Mini-Cons inside of Unicron, since the Mini-Cons themselves desire nothing but to free themselves from Unicron's grasp. At the same time, the kids come to a similar conclusion. Seeing that it might work, Galvatron declares that they finally work as a real team. Before the plans are put into action, Unicron fires his massive energy cannon, blasting a very, very large portion out of Cybertron's landscape. Before Unicron fires again, Optimus and Galvatron commence their own attack, leaving both Autobot and Decepticon armies under the command of Hot Shot. The final war on Unicron begins, the Hydra Cannon positioned to use its force field to block the blast that could tear another chunk out of Cybertron.

TETSUOOOO

While Optimus aims above the plasma chest to allow himself and Galvatron to go inside Unicron, Galvatron confronts Thrust of his treachery against the Transformers, swearing that he will pay for it. Unmoved, Thrust gloats, proclaiming the destruction of Cybertron is inevitable. But seconds after professing his desire to see Galvatron destroyed, Thrust bounces into a quickly closing crack in Unicron's armor. Squeezed, he begs for help, only to find out that his cries for help elicit no response from either the Chaos Bringer or his former leader. Galvatron then turns his back away from this, warning Thrust that this is the fate of those daring to dream for power and treason, and Thrust is inevitably popped like a pathetic zit to his death.

The Hydra Cannon's shields give up, letting Unicron's powerful blast head towards Cybertron, but before it makes contact, the glowing green Mini-Cons rush to block the shot. Before Unicron closes the panels that cover his cannon, Optimus and Galvatron sneak inside.

The Street Action Mini-Con Team announce they plan on going inside of Unicron too. The kids and Red Alert decide they're going along to help. The Mini-Cons outside combine into a massive green mirror of Unicron, who protects the kids long enough to sneak through the underground warp gate, but while the kids sneak through the gate in time, Red Alert is left buried in rubble.

With Optimus and Galvatron at Unicron's core, the kids and the Street Action Team are elsewhere in Unicron. Unicron battles the Mini-Con mirror of himself, while a combined army of Autobots and Decepticons engage in one final assault.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Quotes

Optimus Prime: "Once we get inside Unicron, we're going to rescue all the Mini-Cons."
Fred: "Ahh, you're the greatest!"
Galvatron: "...what?"
Fred: "Uhh..and...you're really the greatest too, Galvatron."
Galvatron: "HA HA HA! Now that's what I like to hear!"

—The best way to coexist with Decepticons is to flatter them, or else they'll flatten you.

"Did I make a terrible mistake by betraying the Decepticons? Oh... What if he's nothing more than a huge Transformer like the rest of us?! Oh no! Did Sideways trick me into doing all of this?!"

—Thrust starts to wonder if he screwed up.

"I have to go meet Optimus Prime. We're going inside Unicron. I'll give you two choices: Either I shoot you here and now..."
(Thrust shakes his head, whimpering in fear)
"...or you free yourself and get out on your own. And if you do, there will be nowhere to hide.

—Galvatron, to put it lightly, is extremely pissed off.

"Thrust, if you dare to have dreams of power...you will be consumed by them."

—Galvatron

"Unicron is going to blast us! I don't want to get blasted on an empty stomach!"

—Fred

"Let's get it on!"
"This is one crazy team."

—Tidal Wave and Blurr

Notes

Differences with Legends of the Microns

• When Thrust commands Unicron to destroy the Transformers, the animation of him twirling is at a slow pace and seemingly stops at a random point. Legends of the Microns has him go faster and has the finished animation where where he swings his arm by the end of the shot.
• In Legends of the Microns, while Thrust lusts for the destruction of all other Transformers, he becomes utterly terrified and confused when Unicron attacks Cybertron. In the dub, Thrust is the one insisting that Unicron should destroy the planet, and laughs maniacally all the way through.
• When Optimus and Galvatron Powerlinx with Jetfire and Tidal Wave respectively in Armada, an insert of the Transformers theme plays and ends when Galvatron lands close to Thrust. Meanwhile in Legend of the Microns, the track "The Ultimate Soldier Returns" plays, and ends with the upward pan of Unicron.
• Galvatron and Thrust's last moment together is slightly different between dubs, mostly how Thrust sounds more confident in the English dub whereas he's more unhinged in the Japanese:
  • Armada has Galvatron tell Thrust he'll pay for his betrayal, to which Thrust replies he isn’t afraid of him anymore and at least he chooses his allies wisely. Thrust then calls Galvatron a bad joke and asks what he was thinking joining forces with the Autobots, and then says he has no need for him since all they did was fight one meaningless battle after another. He proceeds to mock him for not managing to control his own soldiers and praises Unicron for his enormous size and bets on a successful partnership, which makes Galvatron passively calls him out on liking his own voice. Thrust proceeds to tell Galvatron he can't wait until Unicron blasts him into pieces, and when he gets caught in one of Unicron's moving parts acted like all of what he just said was a joke and he didn't mean any of it. Galvatron tells Thrust he can either shoot him now or come out on his own, and threatens him that there will be no where to hide before leaving, with the latter's last words consist of begging Galvatron not just leaving him to his death. Galvatron tells Thrust that having large amounts of power will eventually consume you, and Thrust is somehow able to let out a final death scream.
  • Galvatron mentions Starscream when he threatens Thrust in Legends of the Microns, to which the latter says that isn't like him to say something like that. Thrust proceeds to say that even with a union, they'll never stand up against Unicron and it doesn't matter if he gets shot or not, and then calls Galvatron a fool for caring about overpowering all Transformers and conquering the universe when all he did was fight an endless war, and says he got tired of it all. Thrust then puts Unicron on a high pedestal, mentioning his enormous power and calling him the God of Destruction, and with him now being his servant, he has become the chosen one and will soon be able to realize his own dream. Galvatron asks Thrust if that's all he has to say, to which the latter says he will never achieve his dream and is destined to become space dust before getting stuck. Thrust then begs Galvatron for help, but the latter makes his leave and tells the former he can either save himself, or escape on his own and chase after the union. Thrust proceeds to whimper about being in pain, and Galvatron says that his dreams have now been shattered before he explodes. Thrust doesn't scream when blowing up, but sounds of crushing metal can be heard more clearly. Additionally, the animation when Thrust is getting crushed is faster and more timed in Legends of the Microns compared to Armada, and his final scream has an echo effect.
• The final shot of Unicron's heart is silent in the Japanese dub.

Translation errors

• When Optimus orders Red Alert to protect the kids and "retreat to the safe zone," Carlos petulantly exclaims "What a—", and uses a synonym for "cheat" derived from a slur for the Roma. While this was clearly a deliberate choice by the dub writer, on another level, we feel pretty safe saying this was a mistake.
• For the whole episode, Demolishor talks using Hoist's voice, and is referred to as "Hoist" the only time he is named. Hoist also has one line in his own voice. To be clear, this isn't an animation error; it's an error introduced by the English dub, as it's definitely supposed to be Demolishor speaking, having used data from his Mini-Con to identify Unicron's weak spot.
  • The Finnish, Italian, and Swedish dubs of this episode replicate this exact error, presumably being based on the English dub scripts.
• Thrust flashes back to an occasion where Sideways promises that Unicron will give him immense power, if he agrees to sever his "allegiance with Galvatron". This is presumably when Thrust first teams up with Sideways—but in the English dub, that would mean it takes place long before Galvatron took on his new name. In Japanese, he was simply Megatron for the whole show, but this is one case where the dub writers shouldn't have localized the trademark.
• Billy refers to the Requiem Blaster as the "Auto Blaster". Maybe he's just stupid?
• When Jet Optimus combines with Overload, he yells out "Ultra Magnus!" That's Overload's Japanese name.
• When referring to the Mini-Cons dormant within Unicron, High Wire says "Perceptor is not waking up." Perceptor is the combined form of the Street Action Mini-Con Team. We honestly have no idea how they mixed this one up, as Perceptor isn't mentioned at all in the Japanese version.
• Sureshock is given a male voice, even though the character is intended to be female. The Japanese dub has a female voice actor.
• The dub writers clearly had no idea what to call the Dead End Drones that attack Optimus and Galvatron inside Unicron; Galvatron just refers to them as "Laser Pods".

Animation and technical errors

• In one shot during the initial attack on Unicron, Wheeljack's scar is missing.
• Thrust's death is pretty cartoonish: he's squeezed like a tube of toothpaste, his torso and head expanding before he explodes entirely into sparkly pink dust. Look, fair enough, this isn't really an error—even if he's a robot, getting crushed in half is probably a bit too graphic for a kids' show!

Continuity notes

• Overload is briefly visible in robot mode.
• Thrust is the only named Armada character to die and not be resurrected at a later point in the Unicron Trilogy.
  • However, in the Japanese continuity, Thrust is resurrected as Unicron's servant in the Unite Warriors comics.
• Sureshock speaks using human language for the first time.
• Gadgets and powers:
  • Unicron uses some kind of lightning forcefield to shield his body from oncoming attacks.
  • Unicron's scream can unleash shockwaves.
  • While not shown on-screen, Rollout is Powerlinxed with Overload.
  • Unicron's chest cannon fires plasma bursts.
  • Unicron fires spherical bombs from the planet-kibble pieces on his legs. While the show depicts them as spheres, these are actually missiles on the toy, with the spherical parts only being the tips.
  • The gravitational field of Unicron's forearm running just ever so slightly past Cybertron's surface, is enough to tear apart cities.

Trivia

• The English version of "Union" first aired in the United Kingdom. It aired in the United States on December 10, 2003.
• Legends of the Microns' commercial bumper of Unicron appearing over Cybertron debuts in this episode.
• Isn't it irregular that the commercial break is opened with a shot of the Autobot logo appearing on Earth, when the story hasn't had any non-flashback scenes on Earth for nine episodes now?
• Thrust raises the nosecone part of his head when he's shocked, similarly to how a human raises their eyebrows.
• Rad's gloves are excessively cool.
• This episode marks the last time a Transformer Powerlinxed with a Mini-Con in the series, along with two Transformers Powerlinxing together.

Foreign localization

German

• Title: "In letzter Sekunde" ("Last Second")
• Original airdate: 14 January 2004

Hungarian

• Title: "Közös erővel" ("With Joint Forces")

• In the dub, Optimus mistakenly calling Overload by his Japanese name Ultra Magnus is changed to him shouting "Ultra Size!" during their combination.
• Blurr says his last line, bizarrely, in Unicron's voice.

Italian

• Title: "L'unione dei Transformers" ("The Union of Transformers")

• After Alexis says she hopes they'll all come out the situation, in English Rad says: "Don't worry! We will!", while, in Italian, he says: "Don't worry! He/She/It's gonna do it!", which makes no sense.
• "Auto Blaster" is correctly replaced with "Requiem Blaster", and the name "Ultra Magnus" is simply not pronounced.

Portuguese

• Title: "União" ("Union")

Home video releases

DVD

2004 — Transformers: Legends of the Microns — Volume 13 (Columbia Music Entertainment) — Japanese audio only.
2006 — Transformers: Armada — Season One: Part Two (Rhino Entertainment)
2007 — Transformers: Armada — The Collector's Edition (Universal)
2009 — Transformers: Armada — Volume Two (New KSM) — English and German audio.
2014 — Transformers: Armada — The Complete Series (Shout! Factory)