A Miner Disaster is the 25th episode of Dinosaur King, in Series 1.
Summary[]
The Alpha Gang has been sent in a blimp to commandeer a mine and take any Alpha Metal they may find. However, the engines begin overheating, and they need to jettison the Alpha Droids to stay airborne, letting them walk to the mine on their own. The blimp then crashes through the mine entrance and catapults the Alpha Gang into an elevator that takes them into a tunnel, where they find a Water Move, claiming this to be their lucky day.
At their own digsite, Max finds a trilobite fossil and Dr. Taylor explains the first Futabasaurus fossils found. Zoe tries climbing a steep rock cliff, but slides down and sprains her ankle just as the Dino Holders detect a signal nearby. They leave Zoe to investigate.
At the mine, they find a tunnel-digging Saichania and a rock-rolling Spinosaurus that they recognize as belonging to the Alpha Gang. Ursula has Spiny attack, but though the D-Team fights back, the Alpha Gang's new Futaba Super Cannon Move Card easily overpowers them, though the Futabasaurus it summoned gets hurt by Tank and disappears. The D-Team retreats to safety.
They argue over the Alpha Gang's purpose for being there before deciding to turn around and go back to the mine. In the mine, the Alpha Counter shows the Alpha Gang that they are getting closer to the Alpha Metal. Meanwhile, Zoe has been told by Mrs. Taylor to stay off her ankle, so she immediately walks off to try and call Max, in the process finding a fisherman who reels in the Futabasaurus! When it disappears and shows up in the lakeside reeds, Zoe has Paris heal its neck wound with Nature's Blessing, and it befriends her.
Having infiltrated the mine, Max, Rex, and Dr. Taylor are confronted by Spiny, who Dr. Taylor holds off by shocking it with a broken cable. Back at the lake, Zoe has rowed a boat out to Futaba, where it knocks her into the water and lets her ride him. The Alpha Gang, meanwhile, believes they have found a boulder of solid Alpha Metal, so they call back their dinosaurs, making Futaba return to his card, too, but because he's so far away, it doesn't return to them, so Zoe claims it, telling Max by phone what happened, and Dr. Taylor goes to get her.
The Alpha Droids begin pushing the boulder out of the mine, until they start going down hill and the boulder chases the Alpha trio out of the entrance, bowling a strike in the end. When the D-Team encounters them, they call out their dinosaurs for another battle, but realize they don't have Futabasaurus. Dr. Taylor shows up with Zoe, and Tank helps retrieve the Water Move from her, but Futaba soon decides to switch its allegiance and defeats the Alpha Gang on its own, despite defeating itself as a result. The D-Team reclaims his card.
The Alpha Gang try to leave with the Alpha Metal boulder, but in the process get chased downhill by it again. Back at Zeta Point, Dr. Z has compressed the boulder to reveal that it contained an amount of Alpha Metal equal to half the size of a marble. He is disappointed at their result of mining and not bringing back the Move Card, with sound effects revealing that he used them as bowling pins of his own, too.
Battles[]
Ursula/Spiny vs. Max/Rex[]
Ursula has Spiny attack the D-Team, so Chomp and Ace are summoned. Spiny swings his tail and knocks Ace into a cliff side, but Chomp charges and knock him over, then Ace jumps onto his stomach.
Ursula activates the new Move Card they found, Futaba Super Cannon, causing Ace to jump away, and summoning a Futabasaurus in a just-appeared pool of water, who defeats Ace with one blast. Spiny then jumps into the air and lands in front of Chomp, swinging his tail to knock Chomp away.
Futaba tries to attack again, but Tank randomly shows up and hits him in the neck with her tail club before walking off again, making the attack miss and Futaba sink into the pool.
Spiny then charges Chomp himself, but Chomp is recalled as the D-Team retreats.
Ursula/Spiny win
Alpha Gang vs. D-Team[]
Ursula summons Spiny to attack, so Max summons Chomp. He charges, but Spiny knocks him away with his tail. But as the Alpha Gang realizes they don't have Futaba Super Cannon, Chomp charges and flings Spiny away.
When Zoe shows up with Futaba Super Cannon, she summons Paris to join the fight. To get the card, Ed summons Tank, but she burrows into the wall. However, she soon bursts out of the wall behind Zoe, causing her to drop the card and letting the Alpha Gang retrieve it.
Futaba is summoned and attacks Chomp, knocking him down to critical energy level in one shot, but when Paris uses Nature's Blessing to heal Chomp, Futaba remembers when the Move had been used on him, and chooses to realign to the D-Team mid-battle.
When Spiny charges and bites at Paris, he jumps in the way, throwing Spiny into Tank. Tank hits Futaba in the head with her tail club, so he shoots a blast of water and defeats her in one hit. As Spiny attacks Paris again, Futaba knocks him away, then hits and defeats him in one blast, but since Spiny was the dinosaur using his Move Card, he returned to his card at the same time.
D-Team wins (by default)
Quotes[]
(the Alpha Droids are pushing a boulder behind the Alpha Gang)
-Ed: "I hope those droids don't get tired of pushing that rock and go on strike or something."
-Ursula: "Are you kidding? They're robots. They don't know the first thing about strikes."
-Zander: "Well, it's going to get easier for them in a second because we'll be heading downhill soon."
-Ursula: "Wait. Downhill? With a huge rock behind us!?"
(boulder rolls, starts chasing them; after they run out of the tunnel, it catches up to and rolls over them)
-Ursula, Zander, & Ed: "Now that's a 'strike'."
(the D-Team had been outside to see this happen)
-Max: "So, are you building a secret base or are you exercising? Which is it?"
-Ed: "Can't you see we're bowling?"
(as the Alpha Gang are leaving the mine)
-Ursula: "Well, at least we got a giant boulder with plenty of Alpha Metal to spare."
(Alpha Droids push boulder down hill at them)
-Zander: "And I think they're going for a spare!"
-Ursula: "Run for it!" (boulder chases them downhill) "If we survive this, then I'm going to go on strike!"
-Zander & Ed: "Did you have to say "strike"!?"
(boulder bowls another strike)
(Dr. Z shows the Alpha Trio that there is very, very little Alpha Metal in the giant rock)
-Ed: "I coulda carried that in my pocket."
Transcript[]
New Cards[]
- Futaba Super Cannon move card (featuring Futabasaurus)
Trivia[]
- Dr. Taylor mistakenly calls Futabasaurus a dinosaur: it's a plesiosaur, a marine reptile, although their is a theropod dinosaur that shares the same name, though it is only its informal name and must be changed when the dinosaur is officially described.
- During the second battle, it almost seems as if the D-Team thinks they can use Futaba Super Cannon: it's a Water Move, and they can't use the Water Element because the Alpha Gang has the Water Stone.
- Sounds that are used for the Futabasaurus are the recycled sounds of the Amargasaurus in both the arcade and anime series. It was also given one of Godzilla's roars, this makes it the first that any of the prehistoric reptiles in Dinosaur King uses a recycled sound of one of Japan's most famous monsters.
- For those unaware of the meanings of the puns used, "strike" is a bowling term for knocking all of the pins over at once, and "spare" is doing so between two sequential throws that are counted together.
- This episode shows that it wasn't just advantageous for the Alpha Gang that Dr. Z gave Tank a more aggressive personality with the Alpha Controller; her rash (or careless) attack on Futaba was the trigger for him to meet Zoe, befriend her, and later turn against the Alpha Gang, losing them the battle.
- This is the only episode in which a prehistoric creature has suffered a visible injury by a dinosaur, in this case Futaba by Tank. However, it seems strange that Futaba was not injured when Spiny bit his neck, which should have inflicted a bigger wound than Tank's tail club (Saltasaurus and Amargasaurus were also bit on the neck by Spiny to no real injury, so perhaps he simply has a weak bite force).
- When the D-Team are talking about how dinosaurs are named, Max says, "Well then you better get used to hearing the name 'Maxasaurus'". Interestingly, there is a sauropod not featured in Dinosaur King called Maxakalisaurus, though it wasn't named after a person, but for the Maxakali tribe (it would be a Water Dinosaur if it was featured).
- Zoe says that Futaba Super Cannon is a Water Move Card without even looking at the back. She may have simply concluded this from the fact that Futabasaurus is a marine reptile and that the card is orange.
Dub Edits[]
- The text on the Alpha Counter was removed in the dub in all shots.
- These edit weren't present in the initial airing.
- The scene where the Alpha Gang uses the Alpha Counter to decide which tunnel to go through is mirror flipped in the dub.
- A scene where Dr. Taylor is electrocuted by the lamp he used to shock Spiny was cut in the dub. Him being burned to a crisp was still shown later however.
- A shot of Zoe in the boat was cut in the dub.