*As seen at Jim Sorenson and Flint Dille's panel at TFCon LA 2022*

In late 2020/early 2021, Flint Dille began the clearout of his storage and the auctioning of many items from his 40 year career in animation, RPG and computer game writing. Among them was a binder containing the outline for parts 3-5 and scripts for parts 1-4 of Five Faces Of Darkness. Thanks to the contribution of its new owner - along with a separate contribution of the part 5 script and call sheet by Sharon "Tut" Laborde and Monzo - all of this material is now available to view at the Sunbow Marvel Archive

Follow the link below to be taken to the landing page for the Flint Dille Collection, to view these and other items from Flint's animation career. Including Inhumanoids, Visionaries, Bigfoot And The Muscle Machines and even his first animation script from the Mister T cartoon.

https://sunbowmarvelarchive.blogspot.com/2021/11/the-flint-dille-collection..html

Alternatively, if you just want to go straight to the TF section: https://sunbowmarvelarchive.blogspot.com/p/mp-700-transformers-part-2-1986-1987.html

On Saturday, March 12, 2022 at 4:30:24 PM UTC-7, Simon Letch wrote:

> In late 2020/early 2021, Flint Dille began the clearout of his storage and the auctioning of many items. Among them was a binder containing the outline for parts 3-5 and scripts for parts 1-4 of Five Faces Of Darkness.

Thanks for posting this. This is amazing.

I love the "Five Faces of Darkness" script... it's positively dripping with personality. And some of the ideas that didn't make it into the final episode are also fascinating to me.

They were already thinking ahead and wanting to bring back Starscream as a ghost. That's awesome.

I love the idea that the damaged battle-worn Menasor on Chaar is also missing an arm like Devastator, but is also using a peg-leg in place of one of his missing Stunticons. That's hilarious.

It wasn't originally Blaster and Outback going to Carbombya, it was Sparkplug and Sandstorm!

On Chaar, when Motormaster is waxing nostalgic about the past and says "like, for instance, the Autobots used to have a great leader!" he follows it up with, "What was his transform, anyway?" That seems like a strange thing for Motormaster to forget!

Cyclonus' evangelist speech when he's trying to get the Decepticons to donate energon is described as him being "a pitch man for Herbalife."

I love having access to the spoken dialogue. In part two, when the Rockaroid arrives on Chaar and the Decepticons scatter, Soundwave announced the flaming object approaching, Drag Strip says something but his voice is so heavily modulated that I've never known what he says. I've always guessed it's "Get inside!" but according to the script it's actually, "You don't say!"

The Matrix vision is described so beautifully in the script. "Yes, that's it! He's falling towards the Autobot Matrix inside himself! Mathematics meets magic. Silicon meets ectoplasm. The mundane meets the sublime. Computers do have souls! So much for metaphysics!" There's no way in hell AKOM could have ever done this justice. No wonder we got floating arabic numerals exploding.

The football game Spike alludes to when he's trying to convince Kup and Magnus to attack is explicitly described as the 1997 Superbowl. Also, later in this scene, Ultra Magnus transforms into truck mode, sans trailer.

I love the description of Galvatron when he emerges from the lava. "Before he was just kind of a mild megalomaniac. Now he looks downright deranged. Sparks flash irregularly off his head, and his eyes occasionally flash with a malevolent glow. (This isn't a temporary condition, by the way. He'll be this way for the rest of the season.)"

The ship that transports the Aerialbots to Quintessa to rescue Magnus and Kup and Spike is described as the Aerialbot carrier, a "uniquely designed ship that serves as a space and atmosphere-worthy aircraft carrier for the Autobots." Not Broadside.

Flint Dille's notes on Blurr: "I have decided to elevate him from being a one-note character to being a TWO-note character. When he is in combat or under extreme stress, he will become very calm." Look at him trying so hard to salvage The Transformers: the Movie and turn it into something more interesting. It's great.)

There's a hint as to why Wheelie has a replacement voice actor for several scenes. The original idea, as conceived by Flint Dille, was for Blurr to start speaking exceedingly slow, and Wheelie starts to call him out and suggest he run a self-diagnostic. This idea was scrapped, and Wheelie's dialogue for these scenes was hastily rewritten, and evidently performed by a would-be sound-alike (who does an awful job).

The wave of Decepticon troops spilling out at the beginning of part 4, that's filled with animation mistakes, may actually be Flint Dille's fault! He writes a note about how "it looks like the whole toy line has gathered for this party," and while it's obvious he's being sardonic about the whole cartoon being based on a series of Japanese toys, the animators probably took this very literally. Which is why we see characters like Snarl, Grimlock, Thundercracker, Shockwave, etc. as part of this group. The animators were literally trying to draw the entire toy line.

That weird Decepticon dialogue between Blast Off and Dead End and Swindle was badly edited. When Dead End says "we owe this grand opportunity entirely to our new allies" and Blast Off doesn't get it, Swindle clarifies, "He means one of their opportunities could come knocking for US next time!" We never heard him finish this sentence in the final cut of the episode.

The reason why Motormaster sounds so bizarre when he says, "Galvatron, you have returned!" is because what we're actually hearing is Frank Welker doing Galvatron MOCKING Motormaster. Motormaster's line, that Galvatron is parroting, must have been edited out.

I always thought Cosmos' dialogue was added in post-production to clarify what's going on with the Quintesson decoy ship, but it's right here as part of the original script. The weirdly-flanged Quintesson ("Our decoy worked! Cybertron is now helpless!" is missing, though.

That's definitely Tailgate who says "it'll be passing above us soon!" during Trypticon's first appearance. I knew it had to be him or Swerve. I was wrong about who says "Where is the transforming cog now?" I figured it was Eject as voiced by Neil Ross, but it was really a Quintesson using a disguised voice.

Autobots stationed at the volcano base include the 1986 Mini Autobots, but Flint Dille also suggests "we can feel free to also use some of the old goofs for background: HOUND, SIDESWIPE, WINDCHARGER, etc.)

Scrapper is written like Curly from the Three Stooges and his dialogue is given as: "Wot's da point? We're supoifluous!" Surprised they didn't add a "Nyuk, nyuk!" at the end.

Hubcap is scripted to appear during the Trypticon defense scene!!

Ramjet and Dirge aren't specifically scripted to die by the hands of Ultra Magnus, but Magnus does jam his fist into Dirge's gut, causing him to transform partly out of jet mode, arms and legs dangling, until he skids and crashes into a wall. I love it.

The three forms of Sky Lynx are described in the script as Skylynx-Pterodactyl, Skylynx-Lynx, and (combined form) Skylynx-Dinoblast.

Blurr's football play is described as the "Razzle-Dazzle" play. I don't think anybody ever knew that.

Anyway, this is great stuff. Absolutely great. I enjoyed this immensely.

Zob

Very cool stuff indeed. I was reading the partial outline for parts 3-5 (haven't started on the script yet) and was very intrigued that Blitzwing's part in FFOD was originally written for...Shockwave!

You can really tell that Flint Dille was primarily a GI Joe writer because writing Shockwave off of the show while still offering at least some degree of closure is a very "Joe" thing to do, as opposed to Transformers who would usually kill people off or just drop them into a memory hole.

On 3/14/2022 9:36 AM, Sky Raider wrote:
>
> Very cool stuff indeed. I was reading the partial outline for parts 3-5 (haven't started on the script yet) and was very intrigued that Blitzwing's part in FFOD was originally written for...Shockwave!

Wow. I wish they had done that. Blitzwing always came off as just a dumb
thug. This sort of decision does seem more in character with Shockwave.

On Saturday, March 12, 2022 at 9:02:15 PM UTC-5, Zobovor wrote:

> On Chaar, when Motormaster is waxing nostalgic about the past and says "like, for instance, the Autobots used to have a great leader!" he follows it up with, "What was his transform, anyway?" That seems like a strange thing for Motormaster to forget!

I'm reading the script now and just got to this part. I think what's going on here is Motormaster is nominating himself as new Decepticon leader and trying to be coy about it. As in,

"We need a strong leader, like the guy who led the Autobots and became a truck. Hey...I become a truck too! Hint hint!"

That kind of thing. Basically, he's a truck supremacist. :P

On Monday, March 14, 2022 at 2:00:39 PM UTC-6, Sky Raider wrote:
> "We need a strong leader, like the guy who led the Autobots and became a truck. Hey...I become a truck too! Hint hint!"

Oh, wow. That adds a totally new dimension to Motormaster's line. I thought he just had a begrudging respect for Optimus Prime. It didn't occur to me he was throwing his own name into the hat as a possible successor.

Zob (loves everything about these early scripts)

On Monday, March 14, 2022 at 10:36:48 AM UTC-6, Sky Raider wrote:

> You can really tell that Flint Dille was primarily a GI Joe writer because writing Shockwave off of the show while still offering at least some degree of closure is a very "Joe" thing to do, as opposed to Transformers who would usually kill people off or just drop them into a memory hole.

Oh, man. That would have been so fitting if it had been Shockwave in that role instead. He definitely strikes me as being an older-generation Decepticon, much moreso than Blitzwing. And being the conscientious objector duing the whole Quintesson recruitment exercise would be so in character for him. Man, I wish we'd gotten this. It would have been such a great swan song for the character. And we would have gotten an actual REASON why he disappeared from the show.

The more I think about it, the more I think Hasbro must have interfered, wanting to replace Shockwave's role here with another newer Decepticon to be prominently featured instead. Of course, I don't think they realized that by making it Blitzwing (whose toy was still selling in 1986) they effectively ended the show's ability to advertise him further.

Man, to think that in some crazy alternate universe where events unfolded differently, it could have actually been Springer and *Shockwave* featured in "Starscream's Ghost" instead of Sandstorm and Octane. That would have been nuts.

Zob (I still love "Five Faces of Darkness" despite its many, many, many, many, many flaws)

On Monday, March 14, 2022 at 1:00:39 PM UTC-7, Sky Raider wrote:
> On Saturday, March 12, 2022 at 9:02:15 PM UTC-5, Zobovor wrote:
>
> > On Chaar, when Motormaster is waxing nostalgic about the past and says "like, for instance, the Autobots used to have a great leader!" he follows it up with, "What was his transform, anyway?" That seems like a strange thing for Motormaster to forget!
> I'm reading the script now and just got to this part. I think what's going on here is Motormaster is nominating himself as new Decepticon leader and trying to be coy about it. As in,
>
> "We need a strong leader, like the guy who led the Autobots and became a truck. Hey...I become a truck too! Hint hint!"
>
> That kind of thing. Basically, he's a truck supremacist. :P

I love this interpretation, SkyRaider. :) This whole thread is full of great memories for me, too!

Joseph