Hoist Goes Hollywood

by Ragey

While out for a drive across the mountainside in trusted Autobot companion Hoist, Spike and Carly notice two cars, a red and blue one, speeding past them like nobody's business. Although initially complaining about their behavior, Spike demands Hoist to speed up and follow them, curious as to what's going on.

The driver of the blue car takes a higher path and doesn't take too long before finding himself approaching the end of the path at maximum velocity. He completely ignores it and ploughs right on through, flipping through the air and then landing roof first on the top of the red car, which goes on without batting an eyelid.
 

Hoist stops after seeing this and the kids are promptly shouted at by some machinery-using individuals. Motion film producers! Spike is surprised to see the whole thing was planned, but it soon comes to their attention that the two cars are spinning out of control...

And fly off the edge of a cliff! It lands rather luckily on a precarious precipice, maintaining it's balance only slightly, but it makes rescue a hazardous mission. This wasn't exactly planned, of course, and the crew suggest they bust out the helicopters but those would take minutes to arrive. Carly and Spike believe they have the answer.
 

Hoist rolls to the cliff and transforms, climbing down carefully and extends a hand to the stuntmen. They manage to grab on just in time, as the boulder their cars are on gives way and sends them plummeting to an explosive destruction far below.

The crew celebrate the rescue of their stuntmen, as well as the top-notch work of the Autobot. The director congratulates him further and mishears his name, while Spike and Carly notice two of their favourite movie actors are nearby: Harold Edsel and Karen Fishook! The director tells Hoist he could have a use for him in one of his movies, but Spike steps in to claim Hoist is busy with other things, but he'll fill the necessity for a vehicle robot, even though he isn't one. Hoist, however, accepts the job offer, while Spike is given two studio passes as compensation.

Elsewhere, Dirge is lugging a piece of machinery in his plane mode as he calls Decepticon headquarters for help, claiming he can't stay in the air much longer. He finally crashes into a marsh set on the film studio, where he's told to shut down his systems and remain positively still until help arrives, as what Dirge has is Megatron's latest ultimate weapon!

Ramjet, Thrust and Astrotrain are called into the command room and told to rescue their companion, but his cargo especially. And with that, they move out.

Hoist and the kids arrive at the movie studio to do his scene, but he's just told to wait around for a while until he's needed. However, before they can start work a flying car soars down onto the set!
 

Tracks applauds himself for his fantastic entrance, only for a tank to barrel onto the scene and fire a shot into the air as means of showing off, it's onomatopoeia strewn speech making it clear that this is Warpath. Hoist gets frustrated with all this rather quickly.

It's not over yet! Sunstreaker makes his entrance by flying over a ramp and landing down in robot mode...
 

But any chance of applause is interrupted by Powerglide zooming in and pulling off some loop-de-loops, claiming a movie can't have a star about someone who can't get off the ground. Carly makes a bad joke. However, Powerglide's showing off comes to a halt when he crashes through the backdrop.

Hoist laments that his movie career was an enjoyable one for the whole ten seconds it lasted, but the director reacts to this all positively. After all, his film is an action movie, so it'll need plenty of action. And giant robots who turn into vehicles are bursting with action. Starting right now, they're the stunt vehicles!

Harold takes position beside the totalled Sunstreaker while Karen runs onstage and gives him a kiss, while the Autobot is dragged off by Hoist.

Powerglide rams into a building (aptly named "Store") and Harold takes his place, having apparently stopped the crooks in doing so. Powerglide gets towed away.

Tracks gets thrown into a brick wall, an act by Harold done for the love of Karen; at least in the script. Tracks complains about his lack of compensation from this ordeal.

Elsewhere, the director and company find Dirge in their marsh set, claiming they didn't order a plane in, while the Autobots complain to Hoist about their aches and pains, encouraging him to talk to the director and land them better parts. Acting roles. Anything other than stunt men! Hoist claims he'll see what he can do. The director then realises that he can work Dirge into the movie by building a bridge around it, so his workmen prepare to get to work on that.

Hoist gets the director's attention but is told to get himself a snack and some R&R, but the Autobots decide they've had enough of this and storm off, leaving Hoist on his own. The director oversees the work on the bridge and claims they'll shoot the scene tomorrow, but he believes it still needs something extra.

Conveniently, Astrotrain, Ramjet and Thrust fly in and make off with Dirge and the machine, while the director records it all on film. Before they can get the machine, the jets notice the camera and believe it to be a weapon, so they destroy it with some laser fire before nabbing the machine and making themselves scarce.

Back at Decepticon headquarters, Megatron applauds Ramjet and Thrust for retrieving the machine and socks Starscream in the face for doubting that he knows what it does. Thrust is told to give a demonstration, turning it on and stepping far away.

That's all it does before it stops and begins smoking, prompting Starscream to laugh at his leader's incompetence, only to get tossed into some boxes for being a smartass as Megatron complains that it'll take months for it to dry out. Astrotrain reminds Ramjet and Thrust that they were spotted by the humans, and they tell Megatron about the encounter with the film crew. Megatron believes the Autobots will find out and build a weapon to counter their own if they do not destroy that film!

The director and company watch the footage they got of the incident and believe they can work it into the action film once they get the Autobots back on the team once more. Harold doesn't take this too well.

In one insignia scene change, the Autobots are back, have their own giant seats and are all too happy with their new stardom! Tracks doesn't even complain about how they spelt his name wrong. However, the crew arrive to tell them to put on their costumes.

"Precisely what sort of character am I supposed to be?"

The director informs them that their roles are all that of evil alien robots, chasing after a human girl. They start immediately, chasing Karen in a zombie-like fashion before Harold steps in and "fires" at Warpath. He complains to the director about how the weapon didn't fire, but he's told that's when special effects come in and are added later.

"I don't believe this!"

He plays along anyway.

Meanwhile, Spike and Carly pop into the editing room and find the production assistant looking through the reels; someone's stolen a scene from the movie! Carly then sees that one of the reels in black and white, which is the master copy and allows the crew to tinker with things without scratching the real versions (education!), which reminds the assistant that she can print another copy from the vault, which in turn means they can possibly find out why they were stolen in the first place.

In one of the equipment sheds, Megatron looks through the reels Starscream swiped and the jet claims he got all of the footage of themselves and the machine, but Soundwave corrects him that the negative still exists. Megatron takes this rather angrily, tearing out wires from his chest and mocking his suggestion of destroying the entire studio and therefore making sure no footage exists, telling his less stupid lackeys to go out and find the remaining prints.

Elsewhere, the Autobots are doing a shuttle sequence for the film with some small explosives going off, but the director reminds them that they're harmless but to treat them as if they're real. Unbeknownst to anyone, Rumble makes his way in and replaces the weakened ones with dynamite! Tracks laments his current predicament.

The shuttle rocks and boulders are thrown at it while the Autobots demonstrate their rather lacklustre acting skills. The explosions are then cued, the second one doing a lot more damage than they all expected. The Autobots drag themselves out of the rubble while the director demands the names of everyone involved in the scene to see who sabotaged production, but Hoist tells him to not get in such a tizzy over a film. The director agrees; and after all, they can use the footage in the film!

Spike and Carly look at the missing scene and see Decepticons and the super secret device, so they believe they should tell someone before INEVITABLE SOUNDWAVE ATTACK! He destroys the reel being used, but the two make their way into the film vault to find the negative before the Decepticons do.

They don't get far out of the room before they run into Megatron, and quite willingly throw him the reel before making their escape. Spike gets tetchy at his girlfriend for giving him the negative, but Carly reveals she just threw him another reel; the real reel was under her shirt! However, they chose to hide in a sound studio with Soundwave in it.

They head out in a jungle set and hide in a cave, where they find a small control panel and decide to make use of it.

The Decepticons follow after into the jungle, and see dinosaurs approaching!!

They believe them to be the Dinobots, but one blast on each causes them to explode and prompts Spike and Carly to exit the set and arrive by a lake where two people are fishing. They warn them of the approaching Decepticons, but they're actually just dummies, and when they find a boat with an outboard motor it turns out to be a decoration. Despite all these fakes and decoys, Carly claims she has an idea.

Megatron and his posse arrive on the scene, seeing a raft with two occupants which Thrust decides to swipe up and return to his master, but what fooled Spike and Carly also fools the Decepticons. The two kids find Hoist and tell him what's going on, showing him the film reel, and he knows what he can do to stop the bad guys, but only if they follow exactly what he says.

The Decepticons find the building they're hiding in and surround it, but upon entering Megatron sees Hoist dangling Spike, Carly and the film reel over a vat of flesh eating lava, and is all too prepared to drop them in unless he leaves! The emperor of destruction believes he's talking some flavour of BS, but Hoist shows him he's talking for real and drops them in.

Hoist and the rest of the hiding Autobots run out and open fire on the Decepticons, prompting Megatron to head outside and inform his troops of their futile mission, commanding them to return to headquarters.

Back inside, Hoist removes the kids and the reel from the "flesh eating lava," claiming there's no such thing; this is the movies! It even has an on and off switch for Pete's sake.

The villains chased away and all our heroes safe, Wheeljack is brought in to look at the Decepticon footage and laughs it all off. Their ultimate weapon was a total failure! The thing never worked, and if it had he wouldn't have left it behind on Cybertron in the first place!

The director congratulates Hoist on a job well done and claims he'd like to make him the leading man in his next film, but Hoist politely declines. His work as an Autobot comes first, and his buddies all celebrate his recollection of sense.

This episode is incredible, and it makes me sad that Transformers is taken seriously in newer media.

Dirge is completely forgotten about after he's rescued. Shows how much they care.

It should probably go without saying that Harold and Karen are none-too-subtle parodies of the most popular actors from Star Wars, Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher.