"Megatron may be back, and there is still more Energon. If they ever get enough, they could conquer the galaxy. So for now, let the battle be here, on this strange, primitive world. And let it be called… Beast Wars!"
—Optimus Primal, "Beast Wars (Part 2)"
The series that revived the Transformers franchise after a years-long recession,note Beast Wars was a fully CG-animated series that premiered in 1996. It was produced by Hasbro's firm Claster TV and animated by Mainframe Entertainment, hot on the heels of its predecessor, ReBoot note . With the corresponding toyline made and marketed by subsidiary Kenner.
Beast Wars is a Distant Sequel set in the far future of the Transformers: Generation 1 franchise, though it never refers to enough specifics to figure out which Generation One (cartoon, comics or something else), and the events of the "Great War" are Shrouded in Myth. After the war ended with an Autobot victory, an uneasy truce has existed on Cybertron for many centuries. During this time of peace, the Transformers were reformatted into smaller, more energy-efficient bodies; the descendants of the Autobots are known as the Maximals, and the Decepticons have become the Predacons.
A Predacon rogue steals a precious artifact from the Cybertronian archives and names himself Megatron after the historical Decepticon leader. The artifact contains the coordinates of a planet ripe with energon and Megatron escapes into space with it and a small band of followers, intent on acquiring enough energon to instigate a full-scale Predacon rebellion. The only ship able to pursue is crewed by a team of scientists and researchers led by Optimus Primal (who shares a similar name, role and appearance to the more familiar Optimus Prime, and they may or may not be related). Their ships crash on a mysterious world, similar to Earth in the native animal population except it has two moons. The planet is littered with raw energon crystals but the radiation will short out their systems and send them into stasis lock if exposed for too long. To bypass this the two sides adopt "beast modes" based on the planet's native lifeforms, which serves as a natural protection against the energon radiation and allows them to move about freely. Their crashed ships serve as their respective base of operations as they explore the planet. The Maximal ship was carrying a cache of "protoforms," Cybertronians who had not awakened and taken an alternate mode, and were scattered across the planet when the ships crashed. These protoforms serve as a way to introduce new characters, whichever side locates them first largely dictates which faction they ally themselves with.
Against this backdrop, the Beast Wars between the Maximals and Predacons begin. The Maximals want to go home and let the proper authorities deal with Megatron, but the hope for rescue is slim, as their ships had trans-warp engines that let them travel through space and time, so they could be anywhere, anytime, in the galaxy. If they can subdue the Predacons they can turn their attention to repairing their ship or devise a way to contact Cybertron. The Predacons seek to make use of the energon resources to prepare for a large-scale rebellion, but it's later revealed that Megatron has a secret, ulterior motive for coming to this specific planet at this specific point in time. The two sides must also deal with a third party, Sufficiently Advanced Aliens known as the "Vok" that have a presence on this alien world and don't like the Transformers interfering with their plans for it.
Beast Wars was innovative, not only in its CG animation, but also for having a tight overarching plot. The expense of CG animation at the time (each episode cost about $700,000 during Season 1, as an example) required a limited cast of characters, unlike the 1984 series's cast of dozens. This meant more time was spent with each character, and their distinct personalities and dynamics with each other, and most of them got ongoing story arcs across multiple episodes. It was aimed at older children (around 8-14), the violence took advantage of them being machines and easily repaired while the story included more complex characterization with changing allegiances, manipulations, betrayals and a Gambit Pileup between all the different factions. The show also had a more consistent sense of the mythology and setting, introducing the "Spark" as the soul of a Transformer and defines what gives them life and intelligence, which was readily adopted across other parts of the franchise.
The toys were revolutionary by making larger use of ball-joint technology, Beast Wars-era toys were a huge leap above the previous versions in playability; better articulation, their joints were less prone to damage and there was a lot more personality sculpted into the figure. Besides the earliest promo toys, they were made with intent to tie into the cartoon this time and there was more synergy in appearances. The toyline was not without its problems, however — "Shell-formers" became a fan term for toys where the beast mode just opens up to reveal a robot folded up inside, and the beast parts just fold up and hang off their back. While Transformers with this kind of design had existed before Beast Wars, they were usually seen in smaller doses like Kibbles and Bits, but they became much more prevalent here due to the robots having alt modes that were intended to look like fully organic animals and insects, and having them transform into humanoids with properly proportioned limbs was not always a feasible design goal.
In Japan, two traditionally animated series were created to fill in the production gaps between seasons, Beast Wars II and Beast Wars Neo. They were never dubbed, as they don't fit in very well with the continuity of either the source material or each other. Both shows are much more lighthearted than their Western counterparts and aimed at a much younger audience than Beast Wars. In addition, the Japanese release of the CG Beast Wars cartoon also changed the dialog for a younger audience, almost to the point of being a Gag Dub. Transformers: Timelines has provided a few prequel stories to Beast Wars.
Although divisive when the premise was first revealed, Beast Wars left a major mark on the Transformers mythos and elevated the standards for future cartoon adaptations. There are regular re-releases of the original toys and some brand new remakes using more modern technology. Blackarachnia and Waspinator were carried over into Transformers: Animated. The Predacons were also reimagined as a separate Cybertronian sub-faction in Transformers: Prime. Dinobot was the inaugural fan-chosen inductee into the Transformers Hall of Fame in 2010, with many Beast Wars characters following. While previously the Beast Wars was generally treated as its' own thing separate from the baseline Transformers lore, it would be given other adaptations to allow them to interact with Autobots and Decepticons. The 25th anniversary celebrated the show in the form of the Kingdom toy line portion of the War for Cybertron trilogy, with much of this show’s cast featuring in the show’s third season. 2023's Transformers: Rise of the Beasts also serves as another bridge for the Beast Wars, featuring several characters making their live-action debut in the Transformers Film Series.
Followed by its Darker and Edgier Sequel Series, Beast Machines.
The show has been uploaded to the official Transformers YouTube channel
in its entirety.
From beast to bot, the tropes are hot!
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Tropes # - F
- 2D Visuals, 3D Effects: Inverted. Because the vast majority of the show is CG, the rare instance of non-CG imagery (many fire and explosion effects, for example) is very conspicuous. Later seasons also showcase an all-CGI variant of this by retaining models from Season 1 like Rhinox and Waspinator, showing off how old and underdetailed they are compared to the ones introduced in seasons 2 and 3. Or compared to even Inferno and Blackarachnia from later in Season 1.
- A-Team Firing:
- Constantly. Given that characters can only die a permanent death when scripted, the combatants on both sides are equally incompetent at landing shots when they need to be. (The few times they do score hits, the victim is usually just knocked out or non-lethally blown to bits, as the case with Waspinator.) Rhinox takes the cake, as he once ended up literally knee-deep in brass casings firing two of his chainguns of doom without actually hitting anything. Especially jarring for Dinobot, who shoots laser with his eyes and should reliably be able to hit what he can see.
- The one time someone's appalling marksmanship actually gets called out, it's as a setup to an Exactly What I Aimed At moment, courtesy of Rhinox and several tons of falling rocks.
- Aborted Arc: Due to the show getting cancelled at the end of season 3, the Myth Arc with the Vok never gets proper closure.
- Accidental Murder: In the final episode, Megatron blows Quickstrike and Inferno up with the Nemesis' cannons when he tries to kill the protohumans. He didn't notice they were in the area, but probably wouldn't have cared if he had.
- Actor Allusion: In "The Agenda (Part 3)", Silverbolt looks up at Venus in the sky and says it reminds him of Blackarachnia. Blackarachnia's voice actress is named Venus Terzo.
- Actually Pretty Funny:
- In "Bad Spark", when Blackarachnia accepts Silverbolt's presence and companionship under the excuse of self-preservation and protection from Tarantulas, the two come across Tarantulas's severed limb hanging from a tree. Silverbolt says that there's no cause for alarm, since he has been disarmed. Both of them laugh after trying to hold in their snickers for several seconds.
- At the end of "Equal Measures", Optimus Primal scolds Cheetor for disobeying direct orders and orders him to never pull a stunt like that again. Cheetor answers that he'll never do such a thing again...until the next time he does it. Rhinox, Rattrap, and eventually Optimus as well laugh about Cheetor's statement.
- Adaptational Weapon Swap: The Transmetal toys only feature melee weapons, but the animated series required the cast to have guns. As such, everyone's melee weapons either function like guns (Optimus Prime's mace handles being used as machine guns when mounted to his back, Megatron's tail whip stiffening and acting like a cannon), or other parts of their body being given the ability to fire something (Cheetor's hands firing energy blasts, Tarantulas' shoulder markings serving as missile pods).
- Admiring the Abomination: Megatron really likes the Vok and their doomsday machines, even when they're trying to kill him and the other Cybertronians.Megatron: Brilliant! They're causing a chain reaction which will rip this planet to atoms and destroy all traces of them, simply to deal with us! Such sheer ruthlessness. Such disregard for sentient life! ...I rather like these aliens.
Terrorsaur: Like them?! They're trying to destroy us! - Advertised Extra: The Cyber raptors created by Megatron are featured prominently in the intro for the third season, implying they will be recurring enemies for the Maximals to face. However, they are only present in the episode "Cutting Edge".
- Aerial Canyon Chase: Cheetor tries this in a canyon containing several closely spaced pillars. While he manages to shake off the newly awakened Silverbolt with this technique, Megatron simply ploughs through the pillars head-first to no ill effect.
- Affectionate Nickname: Blackarachnia has a wide, colorful selection of doggy nicknames she uses for Silverbolt ("Jojo", "Bowser," "chunk-style", etc.) It's pretty adorable.
- Aliens of London:
- Rattrap has a Brooklyn accent.
- Megatron is British.
- Ravage's accent is Russian.
- Quickstrike has a Texas cowboy accent, despite having been born on prehistoric Earth and no one else having a southern accent.
- All There in the Manual: The device in the "Other Visits" two-parter is called a Metal Hunter in the scripts.
- Allegiance Affirmation:
- One of the ways the Transformers have to show their allegiance is their activation code, which can be switched at will: "Maximize" for the Maximals and "Terrorize" for the Predacons.
- After the events of "Maximal No More", where Dinobot ended up giving the Golden Disk to Megatron, he realized the error of his ways and swore allegiance to the Maximals for the rest of his life. Something he holds up to, as he dies in "Code Of Hero" saving the proto-humans and destroying the Golden Disk.
- Alternative Foreign Theme Song: WAR WAR! STOP IT! is the Japanese opening and "FOR THE DREAM" is the Japanese ending.
- Ambiguously Human: Word of God states that the Maximals and Predacons are basically human, for all intents and purposes. This can be seen throughout the cartoons as they constantly make pop-culture references to things like Pokémon and Monopoly, and are shown to enjoy things like eating, sleeping, bathing, etc. This is in contrast to the Autobots and Decepticons, who are absolutely massive in comparison and are more akin to mythological figures like Greek gods. Starscream, for instance, deliberately carries himself like a superhero (with intentional camera angles on the part of the animators), and his voice sounds downright alien compared to the rest of the cast. Authorial intent was that the ultimate plan of the Vok was to bring humanity and Transformers closer together, and eventually ''become'' the same species. This was to be the real reason for the Maximals and Predacons downsizing and gaining more human-esque figures compared to their Autobot and Decepticon ancestors. This was never elaborated in the cartoon, however.
- Ancient Astronauts: The Vok. Word of God says their seemingly nonsensical experiments were an attempt to accelerate Humanity's evolution so they would be able to prevent the Vok's ancestors, Generation 2's The Swarm, from devastating Earth. It's also implied they built the stonehenge. The Maximals themselves later take on this role, with the proto-humans inventing tools because of Dinobot's makeshift hammer, and the Maximals later opening a school for the cave people (complete with a blackboard) so they'll be ready for when the Decepticons wake up.
- And I Must Scream: In "Possession", it is revealed that, after being killed by Galvatron, Starscream's spark has been wandering through the universe for thousands of years, even traveling through time.
- Animal-Vehicle Hybrid: After gaining a Transmetal mode, several of the Maximals and Predacons acquire new modes for their beast forms: Optimus gained a skateboard for his Gorilla mode, Cheetor gained aerial wings, and later a back thruster, for his cheetah mode, Rattrap gained a pair of wheels, for his rat mode, Megatron gained skaters and a pair of thrusters for his Tyrannosaurus rex mode and Tarantulas gained motorcycle wheels for his tarantula mode.
- Animation Bump: While the CG was pretty good for its time, some sequences, such as Waspinator's resignation speech, contain especially fluid animation.
- Anyone Can Die:
- Out of a total named cast of twenty, only eight, not counting one-shot characters, make it out alive. This was largely due to Executive Meddling and software limitations. CG was relatively new at the time, and only a handful of characters could appear at once; add in the Merchandise-Driven nature of the franchise, and characters had to be removed to show off new toys. Luckily, the show ran with the punches and figured out how to swing the act properly each time someone had to bite it—save for Scorponok and Terrosaur and the infamous retconned death of Inferno in the second season finale.
- The remaining stasis pods were never found and presumed destroyed. note The body count is quite high for a kid's show.
- If you take Beast Machines into account, the bodycount is even higher. Of the ten characters introduced in the first episode of Beast Wars, only Cheetor, Rattrap and Waspinator are still alive at the end of Beast Machines.
- Arachnid Appearance and Attire: Tarantulas and Blackarachnia both have spiders as their alt modes and have spider-like traits even when in robot mode.
- An Arm and a Leg: Losing limbs is a relatively common dramatic device, as they can always be reattached later.
- Art Evolution:
- The CG was always top-notch, but as the hardware improved, so did the animation. The most dramatic leap was season two of Beast Wars, where the "transmetal" upgrades looked especially good with CGI compared to the attempts at more natural appearances. Beast Machines would show some characters in their first season bodies but with heavily updated hardware, really highlighting the difference over time.
- The first season would splice in real fire effects for some explosions, which was faded out by the second season.
- Character animation could be really stiff in the early episodes, with Optimus and Dinobot's duel in the first episode consisting mostly them doing chopping motions like they were action figures and some firefights are two opposing lines just firing randomly at each other without anyone getting hit. The animators later got really good at characters grappling each other and Slapstick.
- The Artifact:
- Optimus and Megatron's names were due to being planned to be the original G1 characters in new forms.
- A jetpack is a seemingly random ability for a gorilla transformer to have, but as Optimus Primal was planned to be a bat in the show (matching his original toy) scenes were written with Optimus flying, so gorilla Optimus was given a jetpack to preserve them.
- The beast modes of the characters largely lost any story importance after the start of the second season, since their main utility (blocking energon radiation) was no longer relevant, and the traditional uses of alternate modes in the franchise, such as disguise or rapid transport, were largely pointless or redundant from the get-go. Transmetal characters got pseudo-vehicle modes that gave them some utility, but other characters had little reason to use their beast modes other than "the toys have them."
- Artistic License – Arachnids:
- Scorponok and Quickstrike both only have two eyes in scorpion mode, while real scorpions depending on species have six, eight, ten, or twelve eyes.
- Tarantulas sucks the blood out of animals which is not a thing, though that could also just be him being Ax-Crazy. He also has nine spider eyes that also have eyelids, scanned his beast mode from the Italian lycosa tarantula in pliocene Africa, and spins webs despite that actually being a wolf spider. Tarantulas' purple, black, and yellow coloration propably doesn't count though, and propably just happens to be his natural color, since we saw the actual spider he scanned was realistically brown.
- Blackarachnia's toy does not look like a black widow spider because she's a repaint of Tarantulas' toy (which is, again, a wolf spider). Her cartoon model is more accurate, but she has golden legs, pedipalps, and fangs, which is not a thing. Also her hourglass is on the topside of her abdomen instead of the underside. Her specific species is also vague, and may not pass off as anything from Africa. As if this wasn't enough, she also has nine eyes.
- Artistic License – Biology: Rhinos don't have sharp fangs which appear on Rhinox's chest kibble, and real white tigers all have blue eyes while Tigatron's beast mode eyes are green. Additionally, rats originate from Asia and only spread to Africa with humans a very long time after this show's timeframe, but somehow the ship's scanners find a rat.
- Artistic License – Paleontology:
- The ships crashed in Africa, and their scanners supposedly picked up nearby lifeforms and their remains. Terrorsaur resembles the Brazilian Ludodactylus sibbicki (
accidentally, as it was discovered in 2003), while Megatron and Dinobot turn into a T. rex and an alleged Velociraptor — which lived in North America and Mongolia respectively. - Besides being on the wrong continent, the fossils are found in a volcano where they should realistically have gotten destroyed.
- Pterosaurs are now believed to have had feathers or something like feathers or fur, and dromeosaurs are known to be feathered, but Terrorsaur and Dinobot are both scaly. Even in a later toyline that updated various Transformers characters with modernized altmodes,
Dinobot remains scaly. - Dinobot is allegedly a Velociraptor, but he looks more like a Deinonychus, particularly in the head. This is because he was based on Jurassic Park (1993)'s "Velociraptor" which were Deinonychus in all but name (Chrichton wrote them as Deinonychus but changed the name because he thought "Velociraptor" sounded more dramatic). Deinonychus didn't live in Africa either, but in North America.
- Dinobot's beast mode also has one toe too many in each leg, and his dino form's palms point downwards when they should be turned more inward.
- While majority of the characters has realistic (or plausible, in the case of Dinobot and Terrorsaur) colors for their species, Megatron's T. rex is purple and green, which is rather unlikely.
- The ships crashed in Africa, and their scanners supposedly picked up nearby lifeforms and their remains. Terrorsaur resembles the Brazilian Ludodactylus sibbicki (
- Attack! Attack... Retreat! Retreat!: A delayed example when the predacons are hiding from the maximals in a cramped canyon: Terrorsaur is getting cabin fever from Waspinator and Tarantulas's antics, and begins screaming, "I've got to get out of here!" while Laughing Mad. After a Dope Slap and more some more discussion and exposition that ends with Megatron rushing up to Terrorsaur and roaring, "So no one leaves!!", Terrorsaur meekly asks, "Leaving? Who said anything about leaving??"
- Atrocious Arthropods: All the Predacons who aren't evil reptiles are evil arthropods; Waspinator the wasp, Tarantulas the tarantula, Blackarachnia the black widow, Inferno the ant, Scorponok the scorpion, Quickstrike the cobra/scorpion hybrid, and Rampage the crab. However Blackarachnia eventually subverts the trope with her Heel–Face Turn, even though she she becomes a sneaky Token Evil Teammate.
- Autocannibalism: Dinobot disposes of his fully biological clone in "Double Dinobot" by eating it.
- Awesome, but Impractical: The Nemesis's main weapon is a scaled-up version of G1 Megatron's fusion cannon. Its firepower is immense and devastating, but it takes forever to fully charge. You can count the number of times it fired with just one hand.
- Back for the Dead: Tigatron and Airazor. They both get abducted by the Vok halfway through the second season, then come back as Tigerhawk, a fusion of them as one being, right before the series finale. And then Tigerhawk dies roughly ten minutes into the final episode.
- Back from the Dead:
- In "Coming of the Fuzors", Optimus Primal is reborn in a new body, complete with a Transmetal upgrade, because Rhinox retrieved his spark from the Matrix and re-inserted it into a blank protoform.
- Blackarachnia also gets this in "Crossing the Rubicon". She tries to delete the Predacon reprogramming inside her with Maximal programming and a Transmetal driver. Her attempts to reprogram herself cause the Predacon programming to retaliate and nearly kill her instead, but the Transmetal driver fuses with her body and allows her to revert back to a Maximal with a Transmetal II body.
- The Bad Guy Wins: Both Seasons 1 and 2 end on decisive victories for Megatron:
- Season 1 ends with Megatron successfully orchestrating the death of Optimus Primal, with his final words being "The Beast Wars are over, Optimus-You. Lose.
- Season 2 ends with Megatron infiltrating the Ark and shooting Optimus Prime in the head, retroactively altering the timeline so the Decepticons win the Great War and the Predacons rule Cybertron; the season ends with the Maximals fading out of existence and Megatron gloating.
- Batman Gambit: At the end of Season 1, Megatron's plan to handle the Vok. When Tarantulas escapes with a Transwarp cell, Megatron installs a backdoor into it. He's counting on Tarantulas trying to book it off planet with a stolen stasis pod from the Axalon powered with said cell, which Megatron can then hijack and use as a high yield explosive to destroy whatever the aliens throw at them. Killing off a treacherous underling as a bonus. The plan almost goes off without a hitch and destroys the superweapon, but Tarantulas is incapacitated before he can fly it. However, Megatron is more than pleased with the unwitting replacement sacrifice. Optimus Primal.
- Battle Cry:
- "Maximals, MAXIMIZE!!"
- "Predacons, TERRORIZE!!"
- Inferno's "For the Royalty!"
- "For the glory of the colony!"
- Behind a Stick: In "Nemesis", Inferno is seen hiding behind a tree that is clearly too thin to conceal him when the recently base-less Predacons evade a Maximal patrol.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Whilst there are several Jerkass Maximals who'll resort to morally ambiguous tactics, the nicer Maximals are not to be underestimated. Some of the Predacons learn this the hard way.
- Big Creepy-Crawlies: Throughout the series, nearly all of the Predacons (specifically, all those that aren't dinosaurs) have insect or arachnid beast modes. At one point, every Predacon aside from Megatron is at least half-arthropod.
- Bittersweet Ending: Out of all the Maximals who appear in the series, only six make it back to Cybertron alive. Pretty dark for a show that's geared towards selling toys to children.
- Blood Knight: A trait of the Predacons in general, as illustrated when Optimus Primal and Megatron have their meeting about the truce.Optimus: When Predacons talk truce, it means they just want time to reload their weapons.
Megatron: Under normal circumstances, yes. - Bookends:
- In the premiere and finale, Megatron ignores tactical advice from Dinobot (or in the latter case, a clone thereof) in favor of toying with his enemy/satisfying petty grudges. In both cases, it costs him. Not only that, but the exact wording — in the pilot, Megatron counters a suggestion to blast the enemy while their shields are down with "Now where's the fun in that?", while in the finale, "Where is the honor in that?" is Dinobot's criticism to Megatron's petty decision to annihilate proto-humans with fusion cannons. Not only that, but "where is the honor in that" is the question Optimus Primal asked Dinobot when he spared him in their duel.
- The episode "Code Of Hero" starts with an anthropoid being bitten and killed by a poisonous snake. The final scene has another anthropoid find the stone and wood club Dinobot used to take the Golden Disk from Megatron. He uses it to break open a coconut and then defend himself against another poisonous snake. The anthropoid then cheers at the club's usefulness, implying that Dinobot triggered humanity's learning toolmaking.
- Borrowed Catchphrase: Optimus mimics Megatron's "yeeees" after musing the Predacon may be in over his head with the newly brainwashed Rhinox, while smirking at the audience.
- Terrorsaur likewise drops a smug "yeeees" after a successful bid to usurp leadership from Megatron in "Power Surge".
- Brass Balls: The pilot episode features Dinobot challenging Optimus Primal for the leadership of the Maximals. Rhinox's response:Rhinox: This guy's got bearings of chrome steel.
- Bridal Carry: Silverbolt carries Blackarachnia in his arms in "The Agenda (Part 3)" when they start entering the Ark. How chivalric of him.
- Broad Strokes: The show is a follow-up to the continuity of Generation 1, but exactly which G1 continuity is left unclear because elements from both the cartoon and the comic book are used. This is justified in two ways in-universe: 1. the show is set hundreds of years after G1, and 2. the Maximal leaders have purposely obfuscated facts about the Great War to hide certain things (such as Starscream's immortality). One of the major elements of the Marvel comic in the show is the Maximals' mentions of Primus, the creator god of the Transformers and Cybertron, beginning in the second season.
- Brooklyn Rats: Rattrap is a snarky, cynical Cowardly Lion of a spy and demolitions expert with an exaggerated Brooklyn accent.
- Bulletproof Human Shield: Megatron pulls a disturbingly dark gambit on Dinobot by threatening to using a primitive human as collateral. Earlier in the episode, Dinobot uses Inferno to block Black Arachnia's spider leg guns, before shooting her with Inferno's gun and blowing Inferno's head sky high.
- Burp of Finality: "Double Dinobot" ends with Dinobot revealing that he ate his clone, then picking a piece of that clone from his teeth before burping.
- Butt-Monkey: Waspinator is by far the biggest example. His many deaths can be watched here. From the 'bot himself:Waspinator: Why universe hate Waspinator?
- Scorponok and Terrorsaur have almost it as bad early on. Terrorsaur, in particular, initially rivals Waspinator for being blown to pieces. Unlike the poor bug, he still manages to remain a genuine threat, if only due to having one of the biggest arsenals in show.
- As a matter of fact, Waspinator is such a butt monkey that he appears most frequently as the enemy in the Quake-style FPS game Rattrap plays in his downtime.
- By the Lights of Their Eyes: Megatron's new Transmetal form is teased in this way in "Aftermath", with only his red eyes burning through the smoke filling the Predacon base. Otherwise, it's used quite rarely for a series where most characters eyes naturally glow.
- By the Power of Grayskull!: Maximals and Predacons shouting out their activation codes ("Maximize" and "Terrorize", respectively). At first, it seems like this is a requirement to transform to robot mode, but the trope winds up being subverted as the series wears on. After the first season, activation codes were said less often. Lampshaded at one point where Dinobot tries to infiltrate the Predacons and has to prove his allegiance by changing his activation code. Tarantulas notes that simply changing his activation code means nothing.
- Catchphrase:
- The two most notable are Megatron's "Yes"/"No" Verbal Tic and Rattrap's Once an Episode "We're all gonna die."
- Optimus Primal's famous "Well, that's just Prime" phrase (usually used akin to the phrase "for the love of God") is used in the presence of the actual Optimus Prime, which causes Rattrap to lampshade it.
- Captive Enemy as Ally: In "Maximal No More", from season 2, Dinobot, having witnessed that the cast is indeed stranded in Earth at the end of Season 1, is surrounded and at the mercy of his former Predacon comrades. In that point, he decides to turn to the Predacons, outright revealing the location of the disc to Megatron. This has ramifications throughout the season that last even into Season 3, way after Dinobot is no longer part of the picture.
- Characterization Marches On: A lot of the characterization is quite different in early Season 1, before the writers really worked out who the characters were. Scorponok, not Tarantulas, is the smart guy of the Preds; Tarantulas's focus seems to be entirely based on eating things; and Rhinox is the type of guy to say, "Yo, ease up." None of it jives very well with the characters as they eventually become.
- Cheated Death, Died Anyway: Quickstrike's execution is postponed because of Tigerhawk's attack, but he only lives for two more episodes before dying in the Nemesis' barrage.
- Chekhov's Gun: The first episode opens with the mention that Megatron has stolen the Golden Disk, one of Cybertron's most ancient and sacred relics. Once it is determined that it could not lead them to Earth, as Megatron had believed, the disk is quickly forgotten. It becomes a crucial plot point in season two and beyond.
- Chekhov's Skill: In "Gorilla Warfare." On a exploration mission, an Earth plant launches one of its seeds onto Dinobot's back. Optimus later detaches a virus bug from himself and throws at the same point on Megatron.
- Chromosome Casting: The large majority of characters from the series are male.
- Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Comes with the package of being a Predacon. At one point or another, all of Megatron's forces try to betray him, with varying degrees of success, except for Scorponok (who is not too bright) and Inferno (who is insane). Even Rhinox, during his temporary Face–Heel Turn, does this. To top it all off, the original Starscream makes an appearance and does what he does best. Megs is happy to put up with all of this as long as he can use it to his advantage.Megatron: (to Tarantulas) I can suffer your treachery, lieutenant, but not your incompetence! Treachery requires no mistakes.
- Circle of Standing Stones: Some are found in the first episode, indicating the Maximals and Predecons are not the first advanced races to visit this world. The aliens in question are eventually identified as the Vok.
- Closed Circle: Both ships are totaled during the initial crash, and rescue is next to impossible, considering that they've traveled through both space and time.
- Combat Stilettos: Kick Chick Blackarachnia sprouts a pair upon achieving her Transmetal 2 form.
- Comic Trio: Inferno (schemer), Quickstrike (follower), and Waspinator (complainer) form one.
- Complexity Addiction: In the first scene of the pilot, Megatron has the Maximal ship cornered and damaged, but opts for a lateral shot so they will suffer, instead of destroying them outright. It ends up giving the Maximals a window to counterattack, causing both ships to crash-land, and is thus the reason for the whole cartoon series.
- Computer Voice:
- The interface on both ships. It's an impassive masculine voice for the Maximals and a rather seductive feminine voice for the Predacons. The Japanese dub gave the Predacons' computer (Named NAVi-ko) a full personality.
- The Transformers themselves have internal computer AI that they can communicate with. They're mostly monotone but sometimes show very faint signs of emotion in dire circumstances, such as Dinobot's onboard computer when he commands a system override.
- Convection, Schmonvection: The characters themselves get very close to lava without any adverse effect, but they are alien robots and can survive in environments that living beings cannot. All other combustible materials burst into flames at a proper distance.
- Creepy Asymmetry:
- A couple villains like Megatron and Quickstrike have distinctly mismatched arms (made more unsettling due to having organic parts in the mix), and Dinobot's Transmetal 2 Evil Knockoff has many asymmetrical details that his heroic template lacked (most obviously, his one scouter-like eye).
- This is also the aesthetic of multiple Transmetal 2 characters, both in the show and out, which is presented as a more excruciating, messed-up transformation than "ordinary" Transmetals. Take Transmetal 2 Cheetor, who looks like a random patchwork of fur and metal, and while still a good guy, the form is treated like a vicious werecat at first.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Tarantulas' demise, while admittedly well-deserved, is still pretty horrible.
- Crystal Dragon Jesus: The cast refers to Primus as their creator, and the Covenant of Primus seems to be some sort of Bible analogue. Once Megatron goes right off the deep end towards the end of the series, the Covenant goes from a cultural footnote to something that outright predicts things. The idea of Primus was actually nabbed from The Transformers (Marvel), so this was actually a long-distance Continuity Nod.
- Darker and Edgier: Compared to the G1 show. Characters on both factions are killed, the Never Say "Die" rule is largely averted and the show deals with some fairly mature themes for a children's cartoon from metaphysical pre-determination (Dinobot's entire character arc in Season 2) to trauma and vengeance (Depth Charge's vendetta against Rampage for the massacre of Colony Omicron).
- Death Is Cheap: Many of the characters get blown up easily, but can heal just as easily back on base. There are many subversions of this if the plot demands it, whether being too far from a Healing Vat, or taking too much damage, killing them for real.
- Deck of Wild Cards: Even by the standards of most Transformers series, the Predacons were particularly disloyal. All but two of them worked against the others for their own schemes at least once in the story. It says a lot of about Megatron's leadership skill that he was able to keep a group as self-interested and vicious as his crew unified at all.
- Decomposite Character: Optimus Primal and Beast Megatron. While the toyline's back story was changed to match the cartoon, the toyline originally set the events on present-day Earth, and instead of being legacy characters to their G1 namesakes, Primal and Beast Megatron originally were Optimus Prime and the original Megatron themselves, just with new forms. The cartoon made it so that Primal and Beast Megatron were instead descendants of the original characters.
- Depending on the Writer: Various writers have had their own interpretations of when the cartoon takes place:
- It was originally presented as a combination of the G1 cartoon and comics, best shown with Starscream who was depicted with his Marvel Comics body but had his G1 Cartoon backstory, having been killed by Galvatron in The Transformers: The Movie. However, the cartoon later started leaning towards primarily The Transformers as the Ark's backstory is lifted from "More Than Meets the Eye, Part 1" and the stasis-locked Autobots and Decepticons are in their stasis-locked poses from that episode. Fun Publications also went with "combination of G1 cartoon and comics".
- 3H Productions depicted it a sequel to The Transformers with Japan also doing this, setting it in the future of the cartoon.
- IDW Publishing's The Gathering and the Ascending presented it as a merger of Beast Wars, II and Neo whereas Dawn of the Predacus used a merger of the Beast Wars cartoon, the Sunbow The Transformers cartoon, the BotCon 2006 "Dawn of Future's Past" comic, and the various IDW Publishing Beast Wars comics.
- Deus ex Machina: In the finale, the Maximals, holed up in the Ark, are getting pummeled by the Nemesis Megatron just reactivated. Thanks to a tip from Dinobot II, they find a working shuttle in one of the bays. They take that shuttle, kamikaze it into the enemy ship, and then fly home on it.Blackarachnia: The history tracks never mentioned this!
Rhinox: History's still being made! - Dialogue Reversal: Between Silverbolt and Blackarachnia in "Bad Spark":Silverbolt: Are you damaged?
Blackarachnia: Just enough to make me...interesting.
Blackarachnia: Are you damaged?
Silverbolt: Just enough to make me...interesting. - Didn't Think This Through: G1 Megatron's plan to have the Decepticons' descendents travel back in time to destroy Optimus Prime. While G1 Megatron had no way to know about it when he wrote the message, the Predacons certainly knew about Unicron and how he was defeated, and should have realized that destroying Prime would also destroy the Matrix of Leadership, leaving Cybertron defenseless in 2005 when Unicron came a-knocking.
- Diminishing Villain Threat: Waspinator. While rarely a victor, he's initially portrayed as a competent fighter, as evidenced by his battle with Cheetor in the premiere. However, the writers soon made Waspinator comic relief, leading him to "getting blown to scrap all the time!" While this was originally done by the writers as an excuse to avoid having to write Waspinator's unique speech style too often, it led to Waspinator becoming one of the most popular characters in the series.
- When Starscream takes over his body, he is a lot more effective.
- Distant Sequel: Beast Wars has a cast from Cybertron in the distant future of the original cartoon, by which point the latter's events are the stuff of myth (even though some of its veterans are still alive). However, it also turns out that both the Maximals and Predacons have traveled to Earth in the distant past.
- Dragons Are Demonic: Megatron's final Transmetal-II form, as he asserts that he has become the Satanic Archetype of ancient Cybertronian lore, is a dragon. Later has its downside in the sequel series Beast Machines, as with his newfound hyperrationalist Flesh Versus Steel philosophy, Megatron despises his own beast mode.
- Drama-Preserving Handicap: The risk of entering stasis lock and shutting down due to overexposure of energon. In Season 1 you could make a drinking game of how often stasis lock kicks in at just the wrong time to stop a plot from resolving too quickly, by forcing the Transformers to enter beast mode and/or keeping them from entering robot mode. Season 2 largely dropped this concept for reasons justified in-story with the destruction of most of the planet's energon deposits.
- Early-Installment Weirdness:
- The transformations are treated with much more gravitas. Each member shouts his name and transformation code out loud, and is seen to transform by him/herself. This is not limited to just the first transformation, either, as almost all of them in the first two episodes are this way.
- Some characters in the first two episodes have yet to settle into their final characterization.
- Rattrap is far more insubordinate than at any other point in the series. This can be excused by him having learned him lesson from the pilot after getting chewed out over it by Optimus several times.
- Rhinox does not carry his iconic chainguns, somehow using Cheetor's gun during the only scene where he uses a weapon.
- Except for Optimus and Megatron, it's implied everyone else renamed themselves when they got a new alt mode, to match said alt mode. This doesn't really ever come up for any future character who wasn't a protoform - Depth Charge was known as such before coming to Earth, and Rampage is given the name by Megatron but is still referred to as X by Depth Charge who knows him as such.
- Waspinator's status as the series buttmonkey has yet to develop, so for the most part he's actually doing very well in battle, successfully holding off Cheetor and he and Terrorsaur pin the Maximals pretty well till energon build up happens.
- Megatron meanwhile is pretty small scale compared to how he'd come to be known considering his goal. First his goal is to rush a giant mountain of energon, which the show treats as if him getting there will end the universe, without considering how he'd mine it (while in beast form no less), or get it off world. And that the Maximals could've just detonated the mountain at any time by shooting it from range. Second, when Optimus beats him, Megatron flies into such a rage he declares he's willing to die right there and transforms to take out Optimus. This is a far cry from how he acts in the rest of the series where Megatron's pretty game to cut his losses when the tables turn. It's doubly weird he'd go all in over such a insignificant prize.
- Neither faction think anything of leaving their base undefended, something that becomes a huge consideration later in the show - culminating with the Maximals' creation of Sentinel, and Megatron's huge network of sentry guns and traps. Both sides leave their bases after the crash, leaving no one behind, having set up no defenses. This is doubly weird for the Predacons whose entire goal is to secure a mountain of Energon, and yet have no one defending their base where all their stuff is, and who are aware Dinobot has just switched sides and could just bring the Maximals to seize the Darksyde.
- Related to Rattrap, Optimus is treated as more of a newbie, junior commander, who struggles to control his own troops and has yet to gain the experience that'd earn him his troops' loyalty.
- Aside from the pilot establishing the characters, the general premise, and (more specifically) Dinobot defecting from the Predacons, season 1 is very episodic and could be watched in any random order, as was the norm for '90s cartoons. The next two seasons, however, would become very serialized, with very few stand-alone episodes sprinkled in.
- In the first few episodes, Scorponok's missiles have Maximal insignias on them, evidently the Cybertronian equivalent of marking your bullets with your victim's name. Viewers failed to pick up on this and wondered why a Predacon had weapons with the opposite faction's insignia on them, so later episodes have Scorponok's missiles bearing Predacon insignias instead.
- Earth All Along: The series begins with the Maximals and the Predacons ending up stranded on what they later discover is prehistoric Earth. Somewhat subverted in that The Predacons and Megatron knew it was Earth they were heading for the whole time, given that Dinobot mentions Earth in the pilot as their intended destination. Despite the doubts of all the Predaons during their crash landing, Megatron is eventually proven to be right about where they ended up.
- Eating Machine: After the Great Upgrade, Maximals and Predacons have gained bodies that are not only more optimal when it comes to Energon consumption, but also allow them to consume organic food, usually as indulgence but also as means of emergency power-saving measure:
- Tarantulas is often shown feasting on various animals for pleasure, which is used by Dinobot at one point to lure him out of his laboratory.
- In the opening of "Power Surge", Terrorsaur is shown devouring a bald eagle.
- In "Low Road", Rattrap mentions he had a limburger sandwich for lunch. In same episode, Optimus advises Rhinox to eat something to save energy after he's afflicted by Energon-discharging virus, so Rhinox helps himself to bean vines that have been growing around the Maximal base.
- Electric Love: When Blackarachnia gains a Transmetal 2 body and kisses Silverbolt, she ends up shocking him. She tells him "Transmetal 2 power. Get used to it."
- "End Is Nigh" Ending: In both cases, the aftermath is shown in following season, usually with a measure taken in order to prevent a full-on cataclysm:
- Season 1 ends with the Vok launching an anti-planetary beam just as Optimus was entering into its range. While the explosion of Optimus's coffin-shaped ship is shown as the weapon is fired, we don't get to see any effects until the next season. Cut to the screen showing the phrase "The End?" in the very center.
- Season 2 ends with Megatron damaging the original Optimus Prime's face in order to mess with the time-space stream and preventing the Maximals from existing. The effects of his actions are displayed, as the screen cuts to black and the words "To be continued?" are displayed.
- Environmental Symbolism: There's a decent amount of this in the Maximal and Predacon bases. The Maximal base is a stable command center with a circular table in the middle that teeters over a waterfall and rugged but otherwise solid terrain is around them, showing that although the Maximals are an unorthodox crew they are good guys with a firm sense of loyalty. The Predacon base is in the middle of a lava pit that the crash split the ship open over so the Predacons literally and figuratively have to step carefully in lest they burn in their own home. There is also only one chair reserved for Megatron and the rest have to make due with hovering platforms they have to stand in, making clear the hierarchal system that unambiguously puts the leader first.
- "Everybody Laughs" Ending: Several episodes in Season 1. It would often be followed by an image of a butterfly flying by, just so you'd know how great life is.
- Evil Is Burning Hot: While the Maximal base is located near a river, the base of the Predacons is at a lava flow.
- Expanded Universe:
- The original expanded Beast Wars timeline was an absolutely massive sprawling multimedia universe consisting of not only Beast Wars and Beast Machines, but also various comics, prose text, CD roms, online animations, and even script readings performed by the voice actors at the official Transformers conventions. It also explicitly included elements and events from both the original G1 cartoon and Marvel comics, creating a sort of Merged Reality. It's worth noting that of all the expanded universe continuities that have woven themselves in and out of Beast Wars over the years, this was the first and the only one which actually materialized as a bonafide sequel to Beast Machines via the 2003 Universe toyline. It eventually petered out when publishing company 3H lost their Transformers liscence, but it was finally given some closure many years later during a brief flashback in an entirely unrelated Cybertron comic.
- The IDW Beast Wars comics (existing in a separate continuity from the 3H media) shoehorned characters from Beast Wars II and Beast Wars Neo, along with most of the toy-only characters, into the series. They are all either chronally displaced or on Cybertron, however, so it does not clash with the series.
- Family-Unfriendly Death: This is a very violent show, exploiting the Mecha-Mooks loophole as far as it can. Characters are bashed up, blown apart, shot, stabbed...and usually alive in the next episode. When someone actually dies, it tends to go even further: Tarantulas is vaporized by one of his own mad science devices, leaving nothing but his feet with smoke rising from them. The last we see of Terrorsaur is his desperately outstretched hand slowly descending into the lava. And we'll spare you the details of Depth Charge, Rampage, and Tigerhawk's death.
- Beast Wars Megatron popping a cap in Optimus Prime's head. He got better, but still — giant gaping hole in the head of one of the biggest adored heroes of a generation, to say nothing of Dinobot's and Transmutate's heart-wrenching deaths.
- Fartillery: After being poisoned by one of Tarantulas' creations in "The Low Road", Rhinox is forced to eat a large amount of beans to keep his energy up. During the final showdown, the cumulative effect of those beans hits all at once, leading to an explosion so powerful that it destroys Tarantulas' lab, sends the Predacons flying, and creates a mushroom cloud that can be seen from orbit.
- Fictional Video Game: In "Proving Grounds", Rattrap is seen playing a fighting game where he plays as Optimus Primal and battles Megatron as well as a Doom-style first-person shooter where he shoots at copies of Waspinator.
- Finger in a Barrel: In the episode "Code of Hero," during the sequence where Dinobot is taking out the Predacons one by one, he brings down Rampage, at least temporarily, by clogging up the largest barrel of his BFG with an entire body - Waspinator's, to be specific - just before the big crab-tank can fire it. It's probably only the third most painful thing to happen to Waspinator in the show. Later, in "Deep Metal," Depth Charge does something similar, using his tail as a projectile, clogging Rampage's missile barrel and causing the missile to explode, damaging Rampage.
- Fling a Light into the Future:
- A villain example, before the Great War from the original cartoon, the humans launched the golden disk which contained information about Earth into outer space. Megatron, the leader of the Decepticons, acquired it at some point and encoded an additional message on the disk. Presumably, the message indicates the location of the Ark and asks the descendants of the Decepticons to use transwarp technology to travel through time, gain access to the Ark using codes to Teletraan I encoded on the disk, and change history by killing Optimus Prime, the leader of the Autobots, before he can defeat Megatron and win the Great War.
- Dinobot does an unwitting example when he uses a wood and stone club to take the Golden Disk from Megatron and destroy it. One of the anthropoids later finds the club and uses it both to gather food and defend himself from a predator, implying that Dinobot triggered humanity's learning to make and use tools.
- Foreshadowing:
- Rhinox makes a comment in the first episode that they do not even know when they are, because their FTL engines can move through time given certain circumstances. The fact the planet actually is prehistoric Earth does not come up until the beginning of the second season, mainly because the planet has two moons instead of one. Dinobot mentions Earth in the pilot as having been the intended destination for the Predacons, but the various differences from what they expected Earth to be initially fooled everyone aside from possibly Megatron, who was ultimately proven to be correct in his belief that they had indeed ended up on Earth.
- In the first episode, when Megatron is requesting information about Energon availability on the planet from the computer, eagle-eyed viewers will notice that the planet being shown is Earth. The planet will be officially confirmed as Earth in Season 2.
- In "Possession", Starscream deliberately zeroes in on the the seemingly random planet the Beast Wars were on and implies he'd been trying to go there for quite some time. Upon arriving, he muses that his Spark is capable of both traveling through space AND time, a comment that none of the characters seem to catch the significance of. This makes much more sense when it's revealed they were on Earth the whole time. Of course Starscream would be heading there since that's where the bots he knew would still be fighting the Great War and traveling through time explains how his Spark is there when his actual body is both still alive and in stasis in the Ark at that precise moment. It also explains how he's still a spark ghost despite him being seemingly restored to life in G1's third season episode "Ghost in the Machine" and Beast Wars being set centuries after G1. Starscream must have made the journey through time to prehistoric Earth before that episode.
- Episodes introducing a new character will often show the native animal their Beast Mode is based on before they emerge from their pod or starship.
- Halfway through the first season, Rhinox makes a comment that "one of the moons is lighter than it should be, almost as if it were...hollow." At the end of the first season, it is revealed that it is a planet-buster weapon.
- In "Call Of The Wild" the cheetah in Cheetor's dream falls into a lava pit. The fact that the Predacon base crashed on top of a volcanic area suggests at least one character is likely to die that way. In the second season premiere, Scorponok and Terrorsaur bite the dust...
- Throughout the first season, Tarantulas is hinted to know more of what is going on than any of the other characters. Among other things, he desires to recover a stasis pod to get off the planet alone as soon as possible before the above-mentioned Planet Buster hits. He also harnesses dark science and technology that is beyond any of the other Predacons' knowledge, even Megatron's, and has a scary obsession with the Vok. While in the main continuity this goes unexplored due to his death in the 3H continuity, he's actually a descendant of Unicron who wanted the power of the Vok to alter the timeline so that the Autobots and Decepticons could be erased and the Tripredacus Council would rise to unchallenged supremacy.
- In the episode "Other Victories", a rotating picture of the Nemesis is clearly visible on one of Tarantulas's monitors. What he is up to is revealed one episode later, ushering in the Final Battle: He had finished repairing the ship for his own use.
- "Code of Hero" begins with an Astronomic Zoom ending on a crow, a symbolic harbinger of the theme of death which will culminate with Dinobot's Heroic Sacrifice.
- In "A Better Mousetrap", Dinobot does not believe in leaving out a person's negative qualities after that person has died. This comes up again when Dinobot himself dies.
- A Form You Are Comfortable With: The first time the Vok speak to Optimus directly, they take the form of Unicron's head.Vok: We have no physical form you could comprehend. We chose this figure of authority from your datatrax.
- Four-Fingered Hands: Rhinox, Depth Charge and Transmetal II Cheetor all have four fingers on each of their hands..
- The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: Megatron's speech at the end of the second season after he attempts to kill the original Optimus Prime appears to be addressed to the viewers as much as it is to the Maximals, especially since it ends with remarking "And you...you no longer exist!".
- Fragile Flyer: In the bios of the cast, the flying characters (Waspinator, Terrorsaur and Airrazor) have noticeably low endurance compared to their comrades (4, 4 and 5 respectively). As a point of comparison, Rattrap, the smallest and weakest character on the show, also has an endurance score of 5.
Tropes G - R
- Gag Dub: The Japanese version of the show was rather less serious (though it tries it's best to keep the tone of the source material).
- Gambit Pileup:
- In the first season finale, Megatron, Blackarachnia and the Maximals all have their own individual plans for dealing with the destruction of the planet by the alien Vok, and almost all of their plans hinge on the different known factors of everyone else's plans.
- Tarantulas originally plans on escaping the planet in a stasis pod, Blackarachnia secretly plans to steal his stasis pod for herself and use it to escape, and Megatron purposefully allows the two of them to go about stealing said pod with the plan of forcing that pod (with the escapee still inside) to become a makeshift bomb used to destroy the alien Planet Buster. Optimus and the Maximals plan to use the pod for the same purpose, but with the idea that Optimus will escape the pod at the last second. (Megatron's version, which ultimately wins out, involves Optimus not escaping and dying in the explosion.)
- Getting Crap Past the Radar:
- In "Double Dinobot", there is ciphertext that reads "hey ian, go fuck yourself". The word "Fuck" alone is enough to warrant at least a TV-14 rating in America, 14 in Canada, or M in Australia.
- After Silverbolt's illegal flirting with Blackarachnianote :Rattrap: So, uh, where ya' been, bird-dog?
Silverbolt: Uh, scout patrol...
Rattrap: Oh, yeah, yeah, scoutin' the enemy, yeah. Find any new positions? - In "Code of Hero", Dinobot's first scene involves him sitting in conspicuously seiza position, intensely concentrating, and then holds his sword to his torso. Naturally, being a kid's show, they won't exactly say what he's doing, especially when he doesn't go through with it, but it should be pretty obvious to anyone what exactly he IS trying to do.
- In "Double Dinobot", there is ciphertext that reads "hey ian, go fuck yourself". The word "Fuck" alone is enough to warrant at least a TV-14 rating in America, 14 in Canada, or M in Australia
- A God Am I: Megatron has one hell of a God complex. In the Grand Finale, he refers to his "imminent godhood" and quotes from the Covenant of Primus in reference to himself. This leads nicely into his view of himself all through Beast Machines as destined to ascend to godhood.
- Good Colors, Evil Colors: Downplayed, in that plenty of weapons fire on both sides came in a variety of colors, but the only characters or ships you'd ever see using the color purple for their energy weapons would be Predacons. Yellows and greens for ship-mounted weapons at least were firmly in Maximal territory, though examples from both Predacon and Maximal transformers had green weapons fire.
- Good Is Not Dumb: Optimus Primal is one of the most noble characters in the series, and one of the most cunning as well.
- Greater-Scope Villain:
- The 3H comics and supplementary material for the Japanese Generation 1 continuity established that Unicron was behind Tarantulas's plan to destroy the Ark with the Decepticons and Autobots on it, as it would mean that he could destroy Cybertron without the Matrix to stop him.
- There's also the original Megatron, who came up with a back-up plan to have any Decepticons go back in time and kill Optimus Prime in case the Decepticons lose the war, and he had the instructions coded on the Golden Disc. It's this plan that pretty much starts off the series once the current Megatron gets hold of said Golden Disc.
- Guile Hero: Optimus Primal gets to show his chops on occasion. In "Dark Designs", Rhinox is captured and reprogrammed into a Predacon. Primal's plan? Do nothing, because he knows that, freed of his morality, Rhinox is too smart and ambitious for Megatron to control. Rhinox ends up taking out the entire Predacon army before Megatron turns him back, at which point the Maximals run over the weakened Predacons and take him home.
- A Handful for an Eye: During the Maximal/Predacon "truce" (which apparently allows combat so long as no weapons are used) Rattrap kicks a bunch of dirt in Waspinator's face, temporarily blinding him (even though he's a robot). Rattrap then proceeds to give Waspinator a noogie.
- Have a Gay Old Time: Cheetor uses the word "scat" more than once in the cartoon, in the sense of leaving quickly, but these days people are more likely to think of the sex act.
- Healing Vat: Both sides have their own type. The Maximals posses a small, airtight, one person chamber, while the Predacons use a vat that resembles a hot tub. In fact Megatron is seen bathing in one on multiple occasions, complete with a rubber ducky. This allowed for both sides to be regularly severely injured without lasting consequences.
- Heart Light: The Transmetal 2 characters in both the cartoon and toyline have glowing orbs called spark crystals with their faction insignia on it that represent their sparks, and are often located on the robot mode chest.
- Heel–Face Turn:
- Dinobot at the beginning switches to the Maximals due to his distrust in Megatron, believing the plan has failed. When he realizes that Megatron hadn't failed at all, he temporarily switches back to the Predacons. He returns to the Maximals in the same episode, both out of his sense of honor and his revulsion at just how dangerous Megatron's ambitions really are. He remains with the Maximals until his Heroic Sacrifice.
- Silverbolt was recruited by the Predacons in his confusion after activation, but quickly switches to the Maximals when he learns that they are a much better fit for his morality than the Predacons ever could be.
- Blackarachnia defects to the Maximals in "Optimal Situation" after realizing that Megatron's plan would wipe her from existence.
- Dinobot's Transmetal 2 clone switches sides after Rampage dies and he somehow regains memories from his predecessor. While brief, his action in this moment was enough to grant the Maximals victory in the Beast Wars.
Megatron: What?! What possible reason do you have to disobey me?! I am your master! I am your creator!
Dinobot 2: And I...have my honor! - Hope Spot:
- Some episodes, such as "The Probe" and "Victory", involve the Maximals finding a way to get back to Cybertron, only for attacks by the Predacons or some other mishap sending them back to square one.
- After Depth Charge kills Rampage at the cost of his life, it seems the gigantic explosion that results has destroyed the Nemesis and thus prevented Megatron from using it. Unfortunately for the Maximals, this isn't the end as the Nemesis rises undamaged.
- If You Die, I Call Your Stuff: In "Other Voices (Part 2)" as Optimus Primal is about to embark on a mission that has the potential to end in a heroic sacrifice, Rattrap asks him "Uh...just in case you don't come back...can I have your quarters?" Then Primal does die, but a few episodes later comes Back from the Dead. At the end of the episode he returns in, he states that one of the things he has to do is "have Rattrap move all his junk out of my quarters!"
- Illusory Wall: Tarantulas conceals a secret lair of his with one of these.Tigatron: A holo-projector. Clever.
- I'm a Humanitarian:
- Tarantulas almost drained Cheetor of energy and was planning on eating him, and threatened to eat Waspinator at one point.
- Dinobot ate his organic clone after defeating him.
- Rampage killed and ate his way through at least two Maximal colonies before being captured.
- Impaling Arthropodal Legs: Despite their "realistic" organic altmodes and large size which probably should render them visible to the naked eye, none of the arachnid Predacons have visible tarsi (feet) or claws.
- Real tarantula feet have two toe tufts and two claws between them. Tarantulas just has stick legs with no feet at all. This trope is taken further in his transmetal form, where he basically just has knives for legs.
- Black widows have three small claws on every leg. Blackarachnia only has stick feet, and she also gets knives for feet when she goes transmetal.
- Scorponok and Quickstrike also lack visible tarsi and just look like their whole legs are claws they balance on.
- In Spite of a Nail: Megatron tries to alter his present day by traveling to prehistoric Earth. His first goal is to kill humanity's ancestors so they can't help the Autobots defeat the Decepticons, and later to blow up Optimus Prime so the Autobots are leaderless during the Great War. The Maximals prevent both his efforts, and unwittingly kickstart humanity's evolution by teaching them how to make and use tools. This doesn't alter the past, since humanity would have discovered toolmaking on their own.
- In Their Own Image: According to G1's Megatron, this was the plan passed down to BW's Megatron. By going back to when the Autobots and Decepticons were in stasis lock and killing Optimus Prime, Megatron would create a time paradox that would remove Autobots, and thus Maximals, from existence, causing the Decepticons to win the Great War and shape the future in their image.
- Insane Equals Violent: When Inferno's stasis pod scans a fire ant for his alt mode, it also alters his logic, making him hell-bent on protecting the stasis pod he came in, perceiving it as his "colony". After the pod is destroyed by Maximals, he goes extremely Trigger-Happy, often incinerating everything in sight any time Maximals show up.
- Interspecies Relationship: While they are all Cybertronians, their animal forms serve as this for two pairs; Tigatron/Airazor and Silverbolt/Blackarachnia.
- It Only Works Once:
- Optimus' death in the first season finale was undone several episodes into season two with the justification that the nature of his death, destroying the Planet Killer device, left a direct energy trail from his spark to the Matrix, the Transformer afterlife. Even then, retrieving him was said to push Rhinox's mental capacities to their limit and they needed a blank protoform body to put Optimus into. It was all very lucky they were able to get him back, and most certainly wouldn't be able to be done twice.
- Megatron's first attempt to attack a group of the early ancestors of humanity in a specific valley to prevent the evolution of modern man was never repeated. In the attack, Dinbot shattered the Voyager Disc that allowed Megatron to view his effects on the future and the surviving proto-humans were forced to flee the valley in separate groups. With the tribes scattered in hiding and with no access to the Disc's message, Megatron gave up on attempting to wipe out humanity as he could never be certain that he could find and kill enough of them to change the future to his specifications. He still had the proto-humans hunted on a few occasions, but only as part of other schemes.
- Jigsaw Puzzle Plot: Though the plot itself is fairly straightforward, there's loads of subtle character moments, subplots, hints of larger forces at work, and background information that comes together to tell an even more complete story. Some of the subtle mysteries, ambiguities, and machinations of the show are still debated to this day, decades after it first aired.
- Kangaroo Court: Quickstrike is given a "trial" for treason after he tries to kill Megatron while taking part in one of Tarantulas's schemes. Megatron is the judge (complete with powdered wig), Waspinator is the defense, and Rampage and Dinobot II are the jury. After Waspinator's "brilliant" summation, Megatron asks for the verdict. Rampage and Dinobot II immediately point their weapons at Quickstrike.
- Killed Off for Real: Quite common, as a result of the competing needs of introducing new characters and keeping the cast small. Terrorsaur and Scorponok are unceremoniously bumped off at the beginning of Season 2; Dinobot's death in "Code of Hero" counts, later developments notwithstanding. Then, of course, the last few episodes are spectacularly fatal, with Tarantulas offed by the Vok; Depth Charge sacrificing himself to kill Rampage; Tigerhawk, Inferno, and Quickstrike getting gunned down by a giant space warship, and Dinobot's clone taking a leaf from his predecessor's book.
- Klingon Promotion: It was officially stated that Predacon leadership welcomes treachery under the rationale that leaders who cannot thwart a treacherous underling are probably not fit to be leaders.
- Lava Surfing: In "Double Dinobot," the Dinobot clone kicks Rattrap off a cliff into a river of lava. He survives by riding on a rock floating in the lava.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Happens twice in "Dark Designs"
- Optimus smirks at the audience after dropping a "yeeeesss".
- Megatron and Blackarachnia share a nonplussed grimace to the audience at Waspinator's concussed antics.
- Left the Background Music On: In the third-season episode "Changing of the Guard", when the previously reluctant Rattrap is beginning to enjoy his submarine ride, cheery, upbeat music (a rarity for this series in general) begins playing. Cut to Silverbolt, listening to the music over his communicator with a puzzled expression.
- Licensed Game: The cartoon had two video game tie-ins: Beast Wars: Transformers for the PC and PlayStation as well as Beast Wars: Transmetals for the PlayStation and Nintendo 64.
- Lightning Reveal: When Waspinator was possessed by Starscream, there was a lightning storm. When the lightning flashed, it showed Starscream instead of Waspinator.
- Literal Disarming: Megatron has an Arm Cannon in the form of his T-Rex beast-mode's head, which fires powerful lasers out its mouth. Optimus had to resort to slicing it off altogether in one of his rare head-on fights with Megatron, and was pretty outclassed until he did.
- Look What I Can Do Now!: This technically happens any time a character receives an upgrade, which is quite often.
- Lost Superweapon: The Decepticon flagship Nemesis becomes this in the finale. Megatron learning the location of it kickstarts the endgame.
- Machine Blood: Hydraulic fluid and bits of metal go flying everywhere.
- Magnetic Plot Device: The Vok were an alien race who had a vested interest in the planet and left all sorts of powerful technology that the characters fight over. While there is certainly some continuity with Megatron's schemes, the Vok episodes tend to be the ones where things really start to shake up.
- Make Wrong What Once Went Right: As hinted in the first episode, the real reason the Predacons traveled to the past Earth was to destroy Optimus Prime within the Ark and establish the Predacons as the rulers of Cybertron.
- Matter of Life and Death: For the Maximals, having a Protoform die is much worse than losing one to the Predacons. They do what they can to avoid either option.
- May It Never Happen Again:
- In the episode "Chain Of Command", Optimus Primal was captured by the Predacons and the remaining Maximals were hobbled by the fact that they don't have an actual plan for this situation. An attempt at voting for a new leader failed due to being split down the middle, until Optimus managed to send a message putting Rattrap in charge. In the aftermath, the Maximals organised a proper chain of command in order to prevent such a blunder from happening again.
- Invoked in the backstory of Rampage. He was created by the Maximal Elders in an attempt to duplicate the immortal Spark of Starscream note . They succeeded... but the resulting creature (codenamed Protoform X) was a murderous maniac who, among other things, massacred an entire space colony and ate some of this victims. After he was finally captured by Depth Charge, the Elders disposed of all the project's data (even going so far as to completely seal up Starscream's records so no one would ever try to duplicate his immortality again) and tasked Optimus Primal with dumping X on some dead world far from any civilisation. This had some unintended results: due to Primal and his crew getting drawn into the Beast Wars, Megatron was able to forcibly recruit X into his ranks. Even more unexpected was when Starscream himself manifested during the conflict, and the fact that the Maximals had no idea who he was due to his records being sealed put them at a huge disadvantage. Luckily, former Predacon Dinobot was more familiar with Starscream thanks to the Predacons not sealing their records.
- Meaningful Echo: In "Code Of Hero", Rattrap confronts Dinobot for his defection back to the Predacons: "'Oh yeah, he's a slag-spouting saurian, but at least you know where he stands!' Guess we live and learn." Later, after Dinobot saves the valley at the cost of his life, Rattrap repeats himself, "Like I said, you're just a blasted slag-spouting saurian, but...it's nice to know where you stand."
- "Upwind of you, for preference, vermin."
- Meat-Sack Robot: Ultimately what the characters are, as an inversion of a regular Cyborg. One episode the Predacons sabotaged the shielding used on the Maximal base so they had to remain in beast mode far longer than they normally would, and it resulted in them becoming more like the animals they adopted. Tigatron, being an arctic scout, was more accustomed to that issue and helped them adapt their beast form traits to their advantage. Beast Machines implied this was anticipated and used by the Oracle supercomputer for a greater "technorganic" revolution on Cybertron.
- Merchandise-Driven: One of the few genuine cases of such done properly.
- Merged Reality: The cartoon explicitly pulls elements and events from both the original G1 cartoon and the Marvel comics. Word of God states this was to avoid elevating one version of G1 over the other as the "true" beginning of Transformers. For instance, Starscream explicitly mentions events from the 1986 movie but his color scheme (with the blue head) matches his Marvel appearance, not the cartoon. This also extends to the expanded Beast Wars universe as well; certain things like Headmasters and Targetmasters are revealed to have existed long before the events of The Rebirth (as it is in the Marvel comics), and Ratchet and Ironhide both evidently survived the events of the 1986 movie given they both turned up just before the signing of the Pax Cybertronia.
- The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body:
- If Transformers stay in Beast Mode for too long, days not hours, their animal instincts begin to take over. This is the basis for the Predacon plot in episode 19 "Call of the Wild", though Megatron does imply that sleep deprivation also plays a big part in this happening. Getting damaged as a protform can also cause this to happen like with Inferno.
- In "Call Of The Wild", it's revealed that while the Maximals adopted beast modes, they (and, presumably, the Predacons) had a programming block that automatically suppressed the accompanying beast mode's instincts. When the Maximals are forced to remain in their Beast Mode for days on end, their minds begin to go dormant and the beast takes over due to being so unfamiliar with the various senses and urges their beast bodies give them (e.g. Dinobot instinctively wants to hunt). With some coaching from Tigatron, they manually delete the programming block, accept both sides of their identities, and regain their senses.
- Mind Rape: As makes sense given their robot nature, multiple plots involve hacking or messing with their minds/sparks; the screaming and struggling that accompany it makes it clear that this is not a clean process.
- Mirror Morality Machine: Megatron uses a machine invented by Tarantulas to turn Rhinox into a Predacon in "Dark Designs".
- Misplaced Wildlife: While the show never specifies where exactly on prehistoric Earth the Cybertronians have landed, the presence of proto-humans and various African animals like gorillas, cheetahs and two-horned rhinos strongly suggest it’s Pliocene-Early Pleistocene Africa. However, some of the animals shown in the series would not have been there:
- A white tiger named Snowstalker is shown living in a mountain range in close proximity to the jungle, and gives Tigatron his beast mode. Tigers were only ever native to Asia.
- Rattrap scanning a rat for his beast mode also doesn’t make sense, since rats (Rattus) are native to Asia and Australia, and only gained a worldwide distribution rather recently, after hitching a ride on human ships once they later started colonizing the world.
- Megatron and Dinobot gain their beast modes by scanning the local fossils of a T. rex and dromaeosaur, neither of which are known from Africa. We have found various types of predatory theropods in Africa but tyrannosaurs and raptors are not among them. The closest equivalent to a T. rex in Africa would be Carcharodontosaurus, which was just as big and sported a similar giant head and tiny arms combo.
- Silverbolt somehow manages to scan a gray wolf for his wolf-eagle hybrid beast mode, even though gray wolves are native to Eurasia and North America. The closest equivalent in Africa would be the African wolf, a much smaller species that’s closer in size and stature to the local jackals and looks more like a jackal than a wolf, while size-wise, the nearest match would be the extinct Xenocyon.
- Quickstrike is half-cobra despite there not being cobras in Africa. The head doesn't resemble any non-naja that have "cobra" in their common name either.
- Missing Man Formation: Optimus, Cheetor, and Silverbolt fly overhead in the missing man formation during Dinobot's funeral.
- Mix-and-Match Critters:
- The Fuzors, Silverbolt and Quickstrike (the former turns into a wolf with avian wings while the latter's alt mode is a scorpion with a cobra for a tail). There are more of them mentioned in the IDW comics. Magmatron recruits them.
- Tigerhawk, due to being a fusion of Tigatron and Airazor, whose respective beast forms are a white tiger and a hawk.
- The Mole: Tarantulas was a mole for the Predacon Secret Police the entire time.
- Mook Horror Show: During "Gorilla Warfare", Optimus goes on a rampage against the Predacons, hunting them down in their own base. At one point, he breaks through a wall to grab an obviously terrified Waspinator.
- Morphic Resonance: Several of the Transformers' faces resemble that of their beast modes. For example, Rattrap has buckteeth like a rat, Cheetor and Tigatron both have catlike noses and whiskers, and Waspinator has a bug-like face.
- Mugging the Monster: Sorta. In "Dark Designs", Megatron builds a brainwashing machine and tests it on Rhinox. Optimus rather accurately predicts the result: evil!Rhinox is too much for the Predacons to handle, and Megatron has to change him back to stand a chance.
- Murder-Suicide:
- In "Tangled Web", Blackarachnia threatens this unless Tarantulas severs their Psychic Link. At first Tarantulas doesn't seem to realize he'd die too if she cracked open the energon cube in front of him, but he relents to her demands when he starts feeling her pain through the link. The spiders both survive the incident.
- In "Nemesis, Part 1", Depth Charge struggles with Rampage to ram an energon shard into the Predacon's spark. Rampage suddenly lets go of the shard and lets it pierce his spark, laughing, and they both die in the resulting explosion.
- Mythology Gag: Numerous to the original series, but also to the original line of toys (including one knock at Hasbro's change from die-cast metal components to all-plastic).Rattrap: (Commenting on the Ark) This thing wasn't built...it was POURED!
Optimus Primal: Die-cast construction...(looks at the viewers, shrugs rather sadly) It's a lost art. - Neck Lift: In the second season opener, this is how Rhinox establishes to Dinobot that he's in no mood for any argument about who's in charge right now. Very few things frighten Dinobot. A pissed off Rhinox is one of them. A few episodes later, Quickstrike questions Megatron on a decision, and Megatron does this to lift the smaller Preacon up to his level to have a more intinate, and threatening, conversation.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero!: Cheetor firing upon Megatron in the first episode cemented the Predacons' decision to go to war with the Maximals after the crash. He also fired the first shot in his skirmish with Waspinator. Although Megatron said he was always planning to attack, he also said that it Cheetor who threw down the power gauntlet.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Rivals!: When Silverbolt and Rampage fight over Transmutate, it jumps into the crossfire and uses its powers to make its friends stop. This leads to Transmutate getting destroyed.
- No Clear Leader: Whenever Optimus Primal is captured or incapacitated, the Maximals get into a fight over who takes charge, with Dinobot usually being the one to demand he be made leader. They even tried voting who'd be in charge one time, and ended up in a tie! Luckily, Rhinox would put an end to this little charade and use a little brute force to put Dinobot in his place.
- OOC Is Serious Business:
- Dinobot's fight in the valley is the only time in the series where a character's on-board computer displays an ounce of inflection.Computer: WARNING: POWER RESERVES NINETY-SIX PERCENT DEPLETED. STASIS LOCK COMMENCING.
Dinobot: Override...
Computer: REPEAT: POWER LOSS CRITICAL. FURTHER EXPENDITURES WILL RESULT IN LOSS OF SPARK. STASIS LOCK MUST COMMENCE.
Dinobot: OVERRIDE!
Computer: ...ACKNOWLEDGED. - Depth Charge is single-mindedly determined to bring down Rampage, and frequently butts heads with Optimus and the other Maximals over missions. The fact that he immediately listens to and obeys Optimus in the finale without protest, and initially ignores Rampage tells you how serious the situation is.
- Dinobot's fight in the valley is the only time in the series where a character's on-board computer displays an ounce of inflection.
- Orcus on His Throne: For a guy that wants to gather enough energon to return to Cybertron and start a full-scale rebellion, Megatron spends a lot of time focusing on fighting the Maximals and not a lot of time on securing energon deposits or even trying to repair their ship to leave the planet. Turns out there's a pretty good reason for this: the energon wasn't his true goal in the first place, his interest is the planet itself, the prehistorical Earth, and the ability to change history through his actions here.
- Our Dragons Are Different: Megatron's Transmetal-II dragon beast mode is the only entirely fictional animal on the series, seemingly assembled out of multiple creatures like a more advanced Fuzor. It's a fairly standard western dragon apart from being cybernetic, with the signature brightly coloured, highly reflective metallic body of other Transmetals.
- Our Souls Are Different: This series establishes sparks as being the life force of a Transformer.
- Outrun the Fireball: Seen in the opening of every episode of the first season, no less.
- Overly Long Gag: Rhinox unloading his Chaingun of Doom into Waspinator during the climax of "Chain of Command". It's almost ten seconds of nothing but roaring gunfire and Waspinator screaming in pain.
- Painful Transformation: Every upgrade transformation is accompanied by screams, and the second upgrades of Optimus Primal and, to a far scarier extent, Cheetor have their new body parts burst through their old ones.
- The Pawns Go First: During one attack on the Maximals' base, Megatron told Quickstrike to go first. Inferno asked why he wasn't chosen to take point, to which Megatron replies, "When expecting booby traps, always send the boob in first!" Sure enough, Quickstrike got splattered before Megatron could finish the sentence.
- Peripheral Heads: Many Maximals and Predacons have their beast mode heads on some part of their bodies in robot mode, but the extra head does not act on its own. While Megatron treats his T. rex head/right hand as a Right-Hand Cat at one point and it seems to "react", this is an anomaly and can easily be explained as him putting on a puppet show for himself (this is the galactic overlord who owns a rubber duck, after all).
- Pet the Dog: Rampage is a cannibalistic monster, but his treatment of Transmutate shows there's at least a tiny bit of goodness in him.
- Power Floats: The floating mountain of energon in the episode "Power Surge".
- Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: Quite a few but special mention goes to the following exchange from "Code Of A Hero":
- Premature Eulogy: Practically a running gag, with some characters receiving them multiple times over the series.Dinobot: Fear not Optimus, I shall ensure that your funeral is a glorious one, as befits a warrior who died in battle.
Optimus: Ugh... Afraid I'll have to miss it Dinobot, I'm not scrap yet.
Dinobot: Hm... Are you certain? It would be a triumphant passage. - Prequel: Theft of the Golden Disk and the comic "Dawn of Future's Past" both tell what happened before this cartoon's events.
- Public Hater, Private Fan: For all of Dinobot's bluster about Predacon virtues, he actually holds a great deal of respect for the Maximals. Largely due to Dinobot being an honorable warrior, while the remaining Predacons are not so honorable. Which the Maximals are.
- Puny Earthlings: Zigzagged. Megatron hates humanity for our helping the Autobots defeat the Decepticons and allowing the Maximals to rule over the Predacons. One of his reasons for coming to Earth was to massacre our ancestors and prevent humanity from existing. The early anthropoids are initially helpless against the Predacons, and only Dinobot's Heroic Sacrifice keeps them from being wiped out. The anthropoids later take a level in badass and are able to fight off Inferno and Quickstrike quite effectively. It's implied that this came from Dinobot unwittingly teaching them toolmaking and the Maximals' later attempts to educate them.
- Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Both teams start out like this, with the Predacons as a relatively hastily assembled group of renegades and the Maximals a group of scientists/explorers who happened to be the only ones in the area able to pursue them.
- Rank Scales with Asskicking: Present, as per usual for a Transformers series, but downplayed at first. Optimus Primal and Megatron do start the series bigger (barring Dinobot), stronger, and better armed than the rest of the cast, but not to the same overwhelming degree as their G1 counterparts. They can and do lose engagements to foes that are not each other. However, as the series goes on, and they evolve into the various Transmetal forms, their power compared to their contemporaries increases exponentially; once he achieves his "Optimal" form, Optimus tends to wind up getting sidelined in most fights simply because he's heavily-armed enough to scatter the entire Predacon force pretty much singlehandedly.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Dinobot delivers a brief but awesome one to Megatron in "Maximal No More" :Dinobot: Your ambition had made you insane Megatron! It will destroy both Maximal and Predacon! And all who came before...
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Nearly all of the evil Predacons have red eyes... but so do most of the heroic Maximals, making this show a big aversion of the trope for the Transformers franchise.
- Reflecting Laser: Intentionally invoked, albeit with a laser built for communication, not as a weapon: long-range communication was rendered impossible due to energon interference, so bouncing a laser off the moon was the only way to signal a downed stasis pod and activate its DNA scanners.
- The Remnant: The Predacons. The same applies to Ravage, one of the few remaining original Decepticons, and also Starscream's ghost.
- Renegade Splinter Faction: Megatron’s crew are considered criminals by Predacon standards, which eventually leads to the Tripredacus Council sending an assassin to destroy them. Not due to any innate violations of Predacon morality, but because the high profile theft of Maximal artifacts and dangerous plans they have are considered dangerous to the long term goals of the majority of the Predacon faction. Tarantulas proposes the formation of one of these himself with the arachnid Preds, but his adjutants are so treacherous (Blackarachnia) and blockheaded (Quickstrike) that his breakaway from Megatron's command is short-lived.
- Reptiles Are Abhorrent: Megatron, Terrorsaur, Quickstrike (part of him anyway), and Dinobot II (for a while) all have reptilian/dinosaur beast modes. So does the original Dinobot, though unlike the others, he is an honourable warrior. That said, he retains some of his Predacon sensibilities even after he defects to the Maximals. His clone also pulls a Heel–Face Turn by the end of the series (when Rampage dies and Dinobot II's Spark is fully formed) and performs a Heroic Sacrifice to stop Megatron's plans, crashing the Nemesis in the process.
- Resourceful Rodent: Rattrap, being a Maximal who turns into a rat, falls under this trope. Though a snarker and often more concerned with his own well-being, he's clever enough to weasel his way out of traps, knows how to combat opponents (even much larger ones) effectively, knows traps like the back of his own hand, and can go through the occasional bout of deceit against the Predacons.
- Ret-Canon: Prior to the series premiere, the toyline painted the events as happening on present-day Earth, and instead of being Legacy Characters of Optimus Prime and the original Megatron, Optimus Primal and Beast Megatron were the same characters as their G1 namesakes, just with new forms. Once the cartoon debuted, the toyline's backstory was changed to match up with it.
- The Reveal: The Golden Disc was not just a map to an energon goldmine, it was a backup plan left by G1's Megatron with instructions for the Decepticons' descendants to travel back in time, gain access to the Ark, and kill Optimus Prime and any other Autobots that would stop the Decepticons from winning the Great War. This data was hidden on the actual historical Golden Record launched into space during the 1970s.
- Revealing Reflection: When the Vok probe comes to the Standing Stones, a fight breaks out around it. When Rhinox goes to examine the probe, he notices Waspinator trying to sneak up on him reflected on its surface and turns to give the wasp a face full of Gatling Goodness.
- Revenge Before Reason: Depth Charge only cares about one thing; destroying Protoform X/Rampage. Everything else, including protecting the Ark and preserving history, is secondary to that.
- Rewatch Bonus: Word of God revealed that Dinobot knew he was going to die five episodes before he actually did right up 'til the last moment. Rewatching said episodes with this knowledge causes a lot of Dinobot's actions and dialogue to take on a whole new meaning.
- Riding the Bomb: Rattrap pulls this in The Agenda (Part 3) complete with yeehaw-ing and waving his tail whip, though the bomb he's riding is still attached to a crashing ship. He makes it away fine before the bomb blows.
- Right Man in the Wrong Place: Optimus's crew were mere scientists starting an exploration mission who just happened to be the only ones in the area when a certain crew of renegade Predacons zoomed by in a stolen ship.
- Rule of Cool: There is no other reason why Megatron should have a mythical beast (a dragon) as his final beast mode in late Season 3 other than because it's awesome.
Tropes S - Z
- San Dimas Time: Integral to the second season. In "Code of Hero", Rhinox calculates that the shockwave from the Planet Buster explosion is moving into the future, and will reach contemporary Cybertron in a matter of weeks. Sure enough, "reinforcements" from the future arrive at that point, rather than travelling back to immediately after the explosion.
- Sealed Cast in a Multipack: Every new character except Depth Charge comes from one of the stasis pods Axalon jettisoned before crashing, falling to Earth when their orbit around the planet decays. Every time a stasis pod makes planetfall, the Maximals and the Predacons race to claim it for themselves (the Predacons using brainwashing because all the pods contain Maximal protoforms).
- Sealed Evil in a Can: Protoform X a.k.a. Rampage. He is the result of Maximal experiments to produce an immortal super-soldier by copying Starscream's mutant spark. They got that part right in the form of an unkillable serial killer who slaughtered human and Cybertronian alike. After eventually capturing him, the Maximal Elders sealed him up in a stasis pod, then turned him over to Optimus Primal's crew to dump on some desolate asteroid, since they couldn't figure out how to destroy him. Several adventures later, the monster is unleashed again and recruited by the Predacons.
- Sealed Good in a Can: The stasis pods all containing protoforms that are Maximals are this by default, but can be reprogrammed with a little know-how to produce a Predacon. This turns every time a protoform makes planetfall into a race between the two factions to recruit the newcomer.
- Secondary-Color Nemesis: Purple is strongly associates with the Predacons, as it was with their ancestors the Decepticons, including on their faction symbol (though it's closer to blue than the Decepticons' symbol). Green is also prominent in their color schemes.
- Second-Person Attack: This infamous scene has a double version, plus an Impairment Shot of seeing double and falling over after the punch.
- Secret Police: The Predacons have one, imaginatively named the Predacon Secret Police. Tarantulas is revealed to have been a mole the entire time and be a lieutenant in the PSP.
- Serial Killer:
- The Predacon Mad Scientist Tarantulas is heavily implied to have been one before the crews were stranded on the unknown planet. He's a cackling sadist who tells Cheetor he drinks his victims' bodily fluids because he enjoys the act, and Dinobot refers to his many past victims. In The Web, Tarantulas captures Cheetor, puts him in a giant spider web in a cave, and tries to kill him slowly with the intent to cannibalize him afterwards.
- Rampage started off as a Maximal who his own government used for immortality experiments, before he escaped the space colony he was created in, killing all but one of the people there. He then went out of his way to kill everybody anywhere he went, until he was captured by the Maximals and put in stasis where he stayed until the show's second season. He's a cannibalistic sadist like Tarantulas, but Rampage is also an immortal with a Healing Factor and may or may not literally feed on his victims' fear.
- Shoot the Hostage: Dinobot tries this to use Tarantulas as a hostage against Megatron. The problem with this scenario is that he tries to use Tarantulas as a hostage against Megatron.Dinobot: (holding Tarantulas) Do not fire, Megatron! I have a hostage!
Megatron: Why, so you do. *Fires* - Shout-Out:
- In "Beast Wars: Part I", an Cheetor gets mad at Rattrap and threatens to cut "meeces to pieces"
- The scene in "Gorilla Warfare" where Optimus stalks Waspinator before pulling him through a wall is inspired by RoboCop.
- In "Victory", the scene where Optimus is falling from the Axalon after being shot by Scorponok in his beast mode resembles a scene in King Kong (1933).
- There's also this one to Superman, complete with a Suspiciously Similar Song version of Supes's Main Theme:
Dinobot: Wait! Look! Down in the sky! Is it a bird?
Rhinox: Maybe a plane!
Rattrap: Nah! IT'S OPTIMUS!!!- In Dark Designs, Cheetor's "Better dead than Pred" is a pun on an anti-communism message from The '50s.
- Another scene, in which Optimus brandishes his swords before Megatron shoots him down, is reminiscent of the duel between Indiana Jones and the Cairo swordsman in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Dinobot pushing Scorponok into his rotor blade weapon echoes the demise of the German engineer in the same movie.
- Airazor's pose in "The Low Road" is a direct reference to the famous Star Wars poster.
- The sequence in Season 3 where Megatron is using the Transmetal Driver to create the new Dinobot II from a blank Protoform draws heavily from the classic film Frankenstein (1931).
- In the episode "The Probe," the search-and-rescue probes sent out from Cybertron, shot for shot, mirror the Imperial probe droids from the beginning of The Empire Strikes Back.
- Several to classic Looney Tunes, mostly involving Waspinator getting scrapped.
- Rock'em Sock'em Robots battle between Rhinox and Inferno in Season 2. Colors even match.
- Megatrons Verbal Tic of a long drawn-out "Yeeeess..." or "Noooo..." was originally used by the character Death's Head in The Transformers (Marvel) UK.
- The head writers involved were very active in the online fandom. As a result, these cropped up all the time, often in the form of locations. Subsector Hooks and Grid Joona, for example, are named after fans who posted on the alt.toys.transformers usenet group at the time.
- At one point a concussed Waspinator refers to himself as "Wonko the Sane." While originally the name of a minor character in So Long and Thanks for All the Fish, the specific reference was to a Beast Wars fan, Benson Yee, who used this name as an online alias. Yee was recruited as a continuity consultant for the second season finale. The Beast Wars crew recognized the value of the fandom.
- What may have been a very subtle Shout Out was Cheetor's weapon sound effect. It sounded just like Mega Man's from the cartoon. Both were voiced by Ian Corlett.
- Rattrap and Optimus's dialog about the Ark, how "that ship wasn't built, it was poured" and "die-cast construction: it's a lost art" are both about how the original G1 Transformer toys (well, the better, larger ones) all had die-cast parts for at least half the body.
- Speaking of the Ark, it's appearance here was partially modeled after both the version seen in the G1 cartoon, as well as the USS Defiant (especially the nose area).
- Megatron's first appearance to Optimus after he gets his new dragon body: "Enter the Dragon!"
- The episode Tangled Web includes a mention of Grid Arrakis.
- Shout-Out to Shakespeare:
- "Tell my tale to those who ask. Tell it truly, the ill deeds along with the good, and let me be judged accordingly. The rest...is silence," says Dinobot before dying.
- In the earlier episode "Victory", Dinobot says: "Alas! Poor Tarantulas. I knew him, Cheetor." Dinobot was holding Tarantulas's severed spider legs, though, not his severed head.
- Dinobot also tosses out a "To be or not to be, that is the question" when contemplating Free Will vs Fate.
- Showdown at High Noon: It was actually at sundown, but at the end of the episode "Coming of the Fuzors (Part 1)" the Predacons rally around Megatron and the three Maximals ready their weapons, before both sides draw their guns in classic shootout fashion. Comes complete with a riff straight out of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
- Shut Up, Hannibal!: In the final episode, Optimus delivers an epic one to Megatron.Megatron: Well come on, let's have it. The usual "destiny and honor" speech.
Optimus: Speech this! *clocks Megatron in the jaw* - Siding with the Suffering: This happens in the climax of Season 3 with Dinobot 2, who was loyal to Megatron up to the point of Megatron activating the Decepticon starship and raining hell upon the surface of Earth. This, alongside the loss of Rampage's spark, prompted Dinobot 2 to behave more like his former self, ending with him making a Heel–Face Turn, right when the ship explodes with him on board.
- Sliding Scale of Free Will vs. Fate: Dinobot spends most of the second season contemplating his fate and whether he has any control over it, once he discovers Megatron has a method to predict the future using the golden disk. Dinobot goes through enough grief that he joins the Predacons for the simple reason they're more likely to win, and after rejoining the Maximals, he contemplates suicide. He finally finds his answer witnessing Megatron directly changing the future of his own free will. Dinobot becomes relieved and ironically finds himself with no choice but to perform a Heroic Sacrifice to thwart Megatron's plan to wipe out human existence. In death, Dinobot finds peace, knowing he died from actions of his own free will.
- The Smurfette Principle: While the original cast was entirely male, female characters Blackarachnia and Airazor were introduced in the first season. However, with Airazor getting beamed into space by some freaky alien plants midway through the second season, Blackarachnia remains the only female in half of the second and the entire third season. However, Airazor does return as Tigerhawk, a fusion of both her body and Tigatron's, but the character is presented as male.
- So Last Season: In the first season, being able to fly was a pretty big deal, as it meant races to stasis pods counted on which Maximal or Predacon flier got there first. And while the fliers weren't totally invincible, just Terrorsaur and Waspinator put together could spell some serious trouble for grounded Maximals like Tigatron or Dinobot, and in some cases, even for Optimus. By the second season, however, the ability to fly was no longer as big of an advantage as it used to be, thanks to both sides gaining more Maximal and Predacon fliers and Transmetal technology changing the landscape of the war; Megatron and Cheetor both gained flight modes and the lack of energon meant that Inferno could stay airborne for longer, while the Maximals gained new fliers like Silverbolt and Tigerhawk. Megatron lampshaded it during "Coming of the Fuzors (Part 2)".Megatron: Flight is no longer your advantage, Optimus!
- Somewhere, a Mammalogist Is Crying: Rhinoceroses do not have fangs like Rhinox's rhino lower jaw appears to have when it's on his chest in robot mode.
- Soul Jar: In his debut episode, Megatron slices out half of Rampage's spark and locks it in a small container full of energon crystals. Whenever the reluctant Predacon gets uppity, he squeezes it, causing Rampage to double-over and scream in agony.
- Spoiler Opening: The second season opening spoils the first one's final episode twist, along with all the new Transmetal forms and both the Fuzors. The third also gives away the major debuting characters' designs and gives us a good look at Optimus's new form.
- Squashed Flat: Happens to several characters. The writers really liked dropping heavy things on the poor bots.
- The Starscream: Throughout the series all of Megatron’s subordinates aside from Inferno and Scorponok betray him or flat out try to overthrow him in a significant way. It doesn’t work out for any of them and they all end up dying aside from Blackarachnia who performs a Heel–Face Turn. Waspinator becomes a literal example when he becomes possessed by the original Starscream who true to form, tries to overthrow Megatron.
- Stock Sound Effects: When the actors aren't making their own growls and roars, stock animal sounds are frequent. Cheetor (and the Smilodon in "Bad Spark") use the most commonly-used cougar and bobcat snarls, Airazor and her peregrine falcon beast mode donor use the cry of the red-tailed hawk, and Rhinox gives the stock camel groan when he transforms to robot mode.
- A Storm Is Coming: The show actually has an episode called "Before the Storm."Megatron: There is a storm approaching. A storm of such power, such magnitude...it is beyond imagination.
- Story Arc: Less obvious in the first season, but becomes prominent in the other two with the Vok and Golden Disc issues.
- Strong as They Need to Be: Shots could stagger an opponent, dent their plating, knock them off their feet, send them flying, or dismantle them, depending only on what was needed for the plot. This applied to any projectile, from energy blasts to missiles. Even trying to apply modern day "powerscaling" logic to the show and the characters can prove to be unhelpful because of how inconsistent certain characters can be even with greater power and upgrades. Silverbolt can go from defeating and critically injuring Rampage badly enough that Rampage became easy prey for Megatron to carve out his spark but later on, gets his ass handed to him by Waspinator. Blackarachnia can be shown in the third season defeating and taking out Transmetal 2 Dinobot even though the original Dinobot (assuming she didn't have backup, the element of surprise, or the transformation lock lens courtesy of Tarantulas) could solidly make quick work of her in "Call of the Wild" and defeat her when she had an entire team of Predacons backing her up in "Code of Hero". And someone like TM2 Cheetor can go from beating all the Predacon heavy hitters including Rampage, Megatron, and TM2 Dinobot to losing to Inferno in "Go With The Flow" or getting taken out by Tarantulas like a rookie in "Other Victories" even though at that point, Cheetor should logically be powerful enough to beat Inferno or Tarantulas with little issue... made more glaring when you consider Cheetor did take Tarantulas and Inferno out with little issue when he was in his first season form in "Call of the Wild" but somehow can't win against them in his Transmetal 2 form.
- Stuff Blowing Up:
- The show has a lot of explosions. At least one of the Transformers will be blown up in every episode.
- Not counting Waspinator, who gets blown to bits in nearly every episode regardless.
- Stumbling in the New Form: In Seasons 2 and 3, several characters receive upgrades that drastically alter their bodies. Some of them significant trouble adapting to the changes and make comical or dramatic mistakes.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: In one episode, Blackarachnia headbutts Silverbolt hard enough to knock him out... and then she falls unconscious a few seconds later. It doesn't matter who's on the receiving end, trauma from headbutts go both ways.
- Taking You with Me: In the opening space battle, the Darksyde manages to shoot down the Axalon first, but as the Maximal ship falls from orbit it fires off a few final shots that cripple the Predacons too.
- Probably the reason why Rampage lets Depth Charge destroy his spark in "Nemesis (Part 1)".
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Early on, the Maximals are as prone to internal squabbles as any crew of 'Cons, and these are only exaggerated by the addition of a Predacon defector to the team. They eventually overcame this, but still have a few hiccups now and again.
- Temporary Blindness: Rhinox, Rattrap, Dinobot, and Cheetor experience this in "Dark Voyage" when an accident shorts out their optic sensors. They spend the rest of the episode trying to get back to base so that they can use the CR chamber to restore their sight.
- That's No Moon: The "second" moon at the end of Season 1. Said revelation results in Earth All Along.
- They Don't Make Them Like They Used To: Optimus and Rattrap conclude this when they try to enter the Ark.
- Timey-Wimey Ball: How time travel works in this series is a bit inconsistent.
- On the Screw Destiny front: it becomes a major plot point in Season 2 that the past can be changed, and this is directly demonstrated. Not to mention the season finale where Megatron destroys Optimus Prime, causing time to twist into a pretzel for a moment now that the course and outcome of the Great War is irrevocably changed.
- On the Stable Time Loop front: the Nemesis is found crashed in the ocean and is raised to crash land in a jungle instead, lining up with the G1 canon. Earth also certainly doesn't have a second moon in the present; while the presumption the Vok utilized their planet-buster or else took it away at some point before G1 happened, that begs the question of why they did so.
- Considering that the second moon is the Planet Buster, and Optimus Primal destroys it with a transwarp detonation in order to stop it from destroying the Earth, this point at least has an explanation.
- This also is to all say nothing of the wreckage of the ships and the Transformers themselves, the significant geography changes caused by the Vok's planet buster, the way the Transformers directly influenced human evolution, and so forth. The series never explores the potential repercussions of any of these events, so it's not clear if they were part of the Stable Time Loop stuff where these events always happened, or part of the Screw Destiny front where they did change the future but in ways not so great as to be of note.
- Title Drop:
- By many such as Optimus, Megatron, and Tigatron, to name a few. Optimus himself declares this, starting a new war between Maximals and Predacons.
- Done by Dinobot in "Maximal No More".Dinobot: From this day forth, I am Maximal no more.
- Title Scream: The only lyrics in the opening are "BEAST WAAAAAAAAAARS!".
- Too Injured to Save: At the end of the episode "Code of Hero", after a hard-fought battle, Dinobot managed to defeat six heavily armed Predacons and destroy the Golden Disk, but at the cost of his life. When the Maximals found him, he was running out of reserves, with Rhinox stating that "he's too far gone, even for Stasis Lock mode".
- Toxic Phlebotinum: Energon is basically this for the first season in particular; it can be a useful power source, but in its current raw state the energy it produces would basically cause the Maximals and Predacons to overload if they were exposed to it in their robot forms for more than a few minutes.
- Toyline-Exclusive Character: As usual for a Transformers show, but Beast Wars was especially Egregious in this regard; the toyline contained countless characters that never made it into the show due to the high costs of making an All-CGI Cartoon.
- Trickster Transformee: Invoked by the Predacons when they manage to steal a key component of the Axalon that shielded the vessel from the overly powerful Energon radiation that covered the whole planet. Without the shielding, the Maximals are forced to remain in their beast modes (which specifically protect them from the radiation) until their minds begin to succumb. When the Predacons attack, the Maximals have to rely on ambushing them using their beast instincts since they can't access their robot modes - and in a straight fight between a Transformer in their beast mode versus one in the robot mode, there's a high chance the former would be slaughtered by the latter and both sides know it. At the end of the episode, the Maximals realise that it's to their advantage to properly learn how to use their beast modes and the accompanying natural talents.
- Undercover Cop Reveal: In The Agenda, Ravage reveals to Megatron that Tarantulas is a mole for the Predacon Secret Police. His insanity isn't an act though. Despite this, Megatron lets Tarantulas come back later, because he needs his scientific expertise to win the war.
- Unusual Euphemism: Several, considering that the main cast are robots, not humans. Common examples are Rattrap's "Oh, for bootin' up cold!" and the general-purpose expletive "Slag!"
- Verbal Tic: Megatron's constant habit of tacking "Yeeesss" onto his sentences. Likewise, he also says "No" quite frequently.
- Waspinator has a tendency to pronounce s's as z's and draw them out, resulting in things like pronouncing his name as "Wazzzzpinator". He also has a habit of devolving into muttering that sounds like buzzing. Notably, the writers hated the way he spoke so much, both because it was annoying and it ate up a lot of time, that they resorted to quickly knocking him out of fights so they wouldn't have to deal with him.
- In the Japanese dub, almost everyone (mainly Rhinox, Dinobot, Tigatron, Silverbolt, and every member of Megatron's predacons) had a phrase that they would end their sentences with, usually a gag based on their beast mode.
- Vile Villain, Laughable Lackey: Once Waspinator's role as a Butt-Monkey was established, he had this dynamic with the more serious Megatron.
- Villains Out Shopping: Various episodes had the villains not devote all their time and energy to plotting. Megatron would do things like play with his rubber duck or brush the teeth of his T-Rex head. He also once interrupted a game of cards between Inferno, Waspinator and Quickstrike to demand a status report.
- Vitriolic Best Buds/Volleying Insults: Rattrap and Dinobot regard each other as friends but also can't resist ribbing each other.
- Was Too Hard on Him: Zig-zagged in "The Web." In the ending, Optimus apologizes to Cheetor for reprimanding him too harshly, only for Cheetor to say no, he was right to tell him because he was being too impulsive, and from that day forward, "this cat's a team player."
- We Will All Be History Buffs in the Future: Subverted here, of all places. The Predacons are all history buffs, but due to some Big Brother cover-up Hand Wave, the Maximals aren't, instead treating their history as (roughly) Arthurian lore. This proves useful in an earlier episode, when the spark of Starscream drops by for a visit, and attempts to bullslag his way into the Predacons' good graces with a false story of his role in The Transformers: The Movie, but falls apart into Fridge Logic when Ravage shows up, reminding us that the Transformer race is Really Seven Hundred Years Old, and thus are able to have several living witnesses of events that happened millions of years ago to verify the facts for them.
- Weaponized Landmark: The Standing Stones are actually a communicator beacon/containment grid for the Vok. Also, the second moon.
- Wham Episode Fallout:
- The Season 2 premiere, "Aftermath", has all the characters on both sides of the Maximal/Predacon war dealing with Optimus Primal's Heroic Sacrifice at the end of Season 1 in order to stop the Vok from incinerating the planet, as well as the released Energon wave that transformed several of the characters into their Transmetal forms and killed Scorponok and Terrorsaur.
- The Season 3 premiere, "Optimal Situation", deals with the aftermath of Megatron's attempt to obliterate history itself by damaging Optimus Prime while he's on stasis. As a result, Optimus Primal is forced to take Prime's spark onto himself. Also, as a result of Blackarachnia's machinations and undoing of Megatron's plans, she's fatally wounded by the latter, prompting her High-Heel–Face Turn once she's healed.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: The Stasis pods. In the first episode, the Maximals release the stasis pods to prevent them from being damaged from crashing on the planet, and at least two dozen can be counted. Considering the few number of new characters introduced and the dud stasis pods used for other purposes, it's possible several stasis pods remained around the planet's orbit by the end of the series without the Maximals mentioning them.
- "Other Voices (Part 1)" established that all the pods fell out of orbit when the Planet Buster was activated. The ones that weren't recovered were likely either destroyed when they crashed or were/became blanks. Expanded material, especially the comics, showed that many of the pods were recovered and activated by the Maximal spy Razorbeast and the Predacon general Magmatron, becoming many of the toy characters who didn't make it into the show and had their own adventures after the Beast Wars and during/immediately after Beast Machines.
- Where's the Fun in That?: In the episode "Beast Wars (Part 1)":Dinobot: Their defence shields are down! Destroy them!
Megatron: Now where's the fun in that? - Witch with a Capital "B": Tarantulas occasionally refers to Femme Fatale Blackarachnia as "witch." And no, this show does not use magic...
- Sometimes when show is broadcast the word "witch" is replaced with "widow," likely due to this trope.
- With Us or Against Us: "Law of the Jungle": after Tigatron's departure from the Beast Wars (until the Preds make him return to the Maximal side), there is a short dialogue between him and Dinobot:Dinobot: That is the law of the jungle. The hunters and the hunted. Scrap or be scrapped.
Tigatron: Animals hunt to survive!noteDinobot: And what do you think war is about?! Maximals may believe in peace, but Predacons...you do not really know the Predacons. We...they live for the glory of conquest. If Megatron takes the energon wealth of this world unopposed, he will begin a war that will destroy Cybertron and shatter galaxies, until only one side survives. It has been this way for millions of stellar cycles, ever since the Autobots and Decepticons began the Great War.Tigatron: Peace will never come until someone agrees NOT to fight!
Dinobot: The Predacons will not allow it! They'll destroy or reprogram you.
Tigatron: They won't find me...
Dinobot: I found you...
Dinobot jumps to Tigatron with his claws.
Tigatron: What are you doing?!?!
Dinobot: If you are not with us, you are against us! - Work Info Title: If you don't go into this expecting a show about beasts and war, you have only yourself to blame.
- World of Ham: Yeeesss.... Between Megatron, Inferno, and all the characters voiced by Scott McNeil, there is surprisingly still plenty of scenery left for all the other characters to chew.
- You Can't Fight Fate: Subverted. After getting a disk that shows a history of Earth from the perspective of the future, Dinobot is torn on what to do with it. If experimenting with the disk proves that this trope is in effect, he will have no choice but to kill himself in the face of realizing he is not "the master of (his) fate" and there is no such thing as free will. Later, he witnesses Megatron testing the disk: He blows up a mountain whose image is recorded on the disk, and the image on the disk changes accordingly, proving that fate can be fought and one's actions and choices are not predetermined or set in stone. In this moment, Dinobot at last knows that he is the master of his own fate...though as Megatron intends to abuse this discovery to change history for the worse, Dinobot's sense of honor means there is only one course of action left to him.
- Your Size May Vary: Averted; unlike most Transformers shows, the approximate size of the characters remains consistent. One of the benefits of 3D animation.
- You're Insane!: Tigerhawk says this to Tarantulas when he learns about his plans to destroy the Ark and risk destroying the entire timestream in the process.Tigerhawk: You're insane.
Tarantulas: So they saa-aay! Wbrrwbrrbbppth! - You Shall Not Pass!: Tigerhawk pulls one of these when he faces off against the Decepticon warship, the Nemesis.
