"Transformation" is the twentieth episode of Teen Titans series and the seventh episode of Season 2.
Synopsis
One morning, Starfire finds out she has gained a large lump on her forehead. She is worried at what the others will think so she keeps her lump a secret, but as each day passes, she keeps getting more transformations. Eventually, once her secret is out, Starfire goes into space to find a new home that will accept her new appearance.
Plot
Starfire's happy life suddenly takes an abrupt turn for the worse when a large lump pops up on her forehead, and that is just the beginning. Starfire asks Raven, who dismisses the lump as a zit. As the days pass, her body begins to develop new mutations, making her feel horrible because she fears that she is turning into a monster. She more and more shies away from her friends and hides her new deformities under heavy clothing.
Plasmus and Titans moments before noticing Starfire's mutations.
Then the Titans quickly receive an emergency call about Plasmus, who is ripping up a stadium in search of a nourishing sewer pipe. When the Titans engage him, they get defeated one by one, until Starfire reduces the sludge monster to human form.
Then, Plasmus grows back to a sludge monster with green eyes and the ability to spit acid. The acid washes Starfire's extra clothing off and shows the mutations.
Starfire ashamed of her transformation.
Starfire then imagines herself being laughed at by everybody. Ashamed and humiliated, Starfire leaves Earth in tears. Thinking that she now has no home to return to, she attempts to find aliens whose mutations match her own, but in each attempt, she is met with fear and revulsion.
As Starfire flies through an asteroid belt, a Cironielian Chrysalis Eater follows her, knowing the mutations are signs that the Tamaranean will become a chrysalis, the Chrysalis Eater's delicacy. Finally, Starfire lands on a seemingly uninhabited planet. She meets a carnivorous plant that eats her and spits her out in disgust. Back on Earth, the other Titans, worried about her and realizing they should've taken better care of her, modify the T-Ship for space travel and set off after her, tracing her route through the alien planets she has visited. Meanwhile, behind the bushes, a Cironielian Chrysalis Eater, possibly the same one that followed Starfire in the asteroid belt, spots Starfire. The eater turns into its humanoid form and floats over the lake towards Starfire. She explains the Transformation to Starfire, who replies that Blackfire merely turned purple for two days. The Eater says that each Tamaranean has a different form of Transformation. Starfire was one of the few that would become a chrysalis.
Soon, a chrysalis forms around her. When the chrysalis has almost completely formed, the Cironeilian Chrysalis Eater reveals its true form.
Starfire in dire straits, when the Eater tells Starfire to scream, so that the eater will be more eager to eat Starfire.
As the chrysalis is about to complete, the eater tells Starfire to scream as it whets the eater's appetite.
But before for the Chrysalis Eater to be able to devour Starfire, the other Titans arrive and interfere. Robin frees Starfire from her cocoon and shows her that she has reverted to her former appearance, though with one improvement: she can now fire eyeblasts. With this new ability, she blasts the Chrysalis Eater back to the lake, where it is eaten by the flesh-eating plant Starfire had met earlier. With the reassurance that the other Titans will always be her friends, no matter how much she changes on the outside and she will still be beautiful on the inside, Starfire returns home, happy once again until Beast Boy suffered chickenpox.
Characters
Main Character
Supporting Characters
Villains
Others
Credits
- Written by:
- Directed by:
- Starring:
- Greg Cipes as Beast Boy
- Scott Menville as Robin
- Khary Payton as Cyborg
- Tara Strong as Raven
- Hynden Walch as Starfire
- Also featuring:
- Dee Bradley Baker as Plasmus
- Cathy Cavadini as Cironielian Chrysalis Eater (Only appearance; credited as Alien Woman)
- Tony Jay as the narrator
Trivia
- The episode is actually narrated in third-person limited in a few scenes. The late Tony Jay told the story from a book and zooms in on Starfire.
- List of Starfire's conditions of puberty:
- Large forehead lump (later, it changes to a rhinoceros horn).
- Straight tusks on her neck.
- Elongated zebra-colored fingernails.
- Weird craving for unusual food.
- Pointed ears.
- Scaly reptilian skin.
- Enlarged hairy Sasquatch feet.
- It is revealed that Blackfire had only turned purple for two days during her transformation.
- This episodes unites Catherine Cavadini and Tara Strong who have previously voiced Blossom and Bubbles in The Powerpuff Girls.
- When Cyborg modifies the T-Ship, he attaches two solid rocket boosters, making the ship resemble a space shuttle.
- When the Titans search for Starfire, each of the inhabitants on their planet individually point to the next planet she's been visiting. This is because they already knew Starfire herself is an alien.
- Scott Menville and Tony Jay both worked on seperate projects of The Jungle Book for Disney. Scott voiced a teenage wolf in The Jungle Book: Mowgli's Story and Tony voiced Shere Khan in both TaleSpin and The Jungle Book 2.
Cultural references
- This episode's story is a reference to the cult anime, FLCL. In it, the main character grows similar looking horns out of his head; from which robots sprout out of. The episode explores themes, puberty for instance, similar to ones explored throughout FLCL.
- The scene in which the T-Ship escapes a beast that appeared to be a planet references Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.
- Starfire's large hairy feet are a reference to the Hobbits from The Lord Of The Rings trilogy.
- The fly shouting "Help me!" is a reference to the 1958 film The Fly.
- The music that plays during Starfire's Chrysalis puberty is reminiscent of the X.A.N.A Theme from the French animated series, Code Lyoko.
- Coincidentally, both series premiered in 2003, aired on Cartoon Network, and use a similar style of traditional animation.
Goofs
- In one scene where Starfire was dealing with her newly found out lump, her shoulders are the same color as her neck collar. She could, however, simply be positioning her shoulders in a way that makes her collar more prominent than usual.
- As Beast Boy tries to hold in his bladder and he turns to look at one of the three Titans, Cyborg's left ear turned human instead of metal while pouring himself water in a cup.
- On that note, it is rather strange how there is only one bathroom in a building that has to be at least 30 stories tall.
- When Raven is meditating and moving the boulders, she is shown wearing blue gloves which she does not normally wear, and were not there in the previous shot.
- When the Chrysalis Eater was about to eat Starfire, Beast Boy and Cyborg can be heard gasping, but in the same scene, it looks like Robin is calling out to her, although his voice was not heard.
- After Starfire changed back into her normal self, her boots are fixed which is odd since they were destroyed when her feet became too big. If it was more realistic, she still would have been barefoot, due to her ripped boots.
- As the chrysalis eater breaks free from the webbing formed by Raven, Beast Boy (who was running up in front) would abruptly disappear.
- When Robin stood next to Starfire's chrysalis, he disappeared for a couple seconds before asking if she was okay.
Gallery
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Transcript
Click here to view the episode transcript.