History Headscratchers / BeastWars

[[WMG:WesternAnimation/BeastWars]]

*** Actually, the golden disk that Megatron was using in Code of Hero was the disk from Earth, A.K.A., the Voyager golden record. It was providing information like the newspaper in ''Film/BackToTheFuture'', as the information contained was altered by Megatron's actions.

** The concept of name changes in the {{Transformers}} franchise is a whole can of worms in and of itself, and mostly occurs for the sole purpose of [[MerchandiseDriven selling toys]]. WesternAnimation/BeastWars, for all the effort that went into downplaying the series' toy-oriented aspects (and, in this troper's opinion, succeeding), still falls victim to this. In the pilot, everyone who arrives on Earth, bar Optimus and Megatron, rename themselves based on their chosen beast forms, with wonderfully corny dialogue like "Hey, I'm a cheetah! No, wait... I'm CHEETOR!" They changed their names simply because "Cheetor", "Rattrap", "Rhinox" and so forth were the toys names. Likewise the term "Transmetals" "caught on" because said sub-line of figures were on the shelves. Same for Rampage - though at least in his case, when he and Depth Charge meet again in "Deep Metal" the latter refers to him as X (and does so throughout the third season), with "X" replying:

* In "Double Jeopardy", where did Blackarachnia go at the end? Megatron claimed that she went missing. However, she couldn't have gotten very far -- the Energon overload would have forced her to change to beast form eventually. And since Cheetor shot her spider legs off, she wold have been legless in her black widow form.

* In "Double Jeopardy", how did Cheetor keep missing Blackarachnia's torso and head at point blank, hitting her spider legs instead? She didn't even make any efforts to dodge, she simply walked toward him.
* Also in "Double Jeopardy", where did Blackarachnia go at the end? Megatron claimed that she went missing. However, she couldn't have gotten very far -- the Energon overload would have forced her to change to beast form eventually. And since Cheetor shot her spider legs off, she wold have been legless in her black widow form.

** The prequel comics showed that they all had vehicle forms before. Weirdly tiny vehicles considering their relative size to their ancestors, but vehicles nonetheless.

** The Maximals are part of a crew of explorers. They were meant to go to alien worlds and study their environments. Since they aren’t likely to have too many alien worlds with naturally occurring wild sedans, the Cybertronians of their era have been upgraded to allow them to take realistic beast mode disguises to replace the obviously mechanical ones their ancestors used. The new beast modes include a rudimentary mimic of the animal's digestive system to let the Transformer gain chemical energy from its diet as space faring crews can't expect every planet to have energon deposits to fuel up on once their supplies get scarce. It also helps sell the disguise aspect of their organic beast modes to mimic the behavior of the real animal.

** As for Dinobot, there wasn't time. The ship was exploding at the moment. If Optimus couldn't run or fly close enough to grab Dinobot and escape, he’d never be able to call someone else, wait for them to arrive, and then have them fly over and get Dinobot. Even if he did, we're still talking about Dinobot II here. While he had started to regain the original's code of honor, he's still not the original. We have no idea what he could do after all was said and done. The original Dinobot was clear that there was no life waiting for him back on Cybertron after his crimes. Dinobot II would have even less chance of acceptance from either Maximals or Predacons. If anything, he would face the same fate as his "brother" Protoform X. All and all, dying in battle with honor as he did is probably the best fate Dinobot II could have hoped for and exactly what he would want.

* Aside from RuleOfCool, why did Megatron become a Dragon or even a Transmetal 2 for that matter?bl Was he a Transmetal 2 or was that just coming off of the toyline name? Does that make Optimal Optimus transmetal 2 as well? Would the result have been closer to Optimal Optimus if he had not been thrown into the lava?
** He's never actually called a Transmetal 2, no. And neither is Optimal Optimus ever called a Transmetal for that matter, even though the toy labels him as one. Chalk it up to the inconsistency between toy and media thats plagued Transformers from day one. As for how, he transformed because he had the Spark of the original Megatron inside him, same as what happened to Optimus. And unless the original Megatron somehow influenced Beast Megs' new dragon form (despite there being no indication of such a thing), then him becoming a dragon was simply because the toy did and the cartoon had to follow suit.
** Megatron was under a number of unusual circumstances during his mutation. It's possible that the dragon mode was created by a combination of a "compromise" between his T-Rex form and G1 Megatron's weapon mode and a forced adaptation to the magma for his own survival. It's a huge stretch, but we are working backwards from a toy that had already dictated that he somehow become a mythical creature when nobody else did.
** And if you REALLY wanna get fan-wanky, Megs' TM2 toy would later be redecoed in blue and become the character Cryotek. Later fiction would establish Cryotek as a Cybertronian mobster who took Megatron under his wing and taught hm everything there is to know about being a Predacon/criminal/jerk. So just maybe Megatron chose his old boss' beast mode, either as a form of respect (unlikely, since he stabbed Cryotek in the back first chance he got) or in a 'student surpasses the master' kind of way.

** Different form of Energon, it seems. Future TF series (particularly TF Prime) would introduce other variations, like Tox-en (poisonous) and Red Energon (speed boosts), so its not unreasonable to think the same here.

** Because thats what his toy was, so the show had to follow suit. At least a hoverboard is kind of a lateral move from the rockets he had before, so he could keep flying when necessary.

* How come Transmetal Optimus Primal transformers into a ''blue gorilla on a hoverboard''? Aside from the gorilla part, isn't that rather random for his character?

** As for Dinobot, there wasn't time. The ship was exploding at the moment. If Optimus couldn't run or fly close enough to grab Dinobot and escape, he’d never be able to call someone else, wait for them to arrive, and then have them fly over and get Dinobot. Even if he did, we're still talking about Dinobot II here. Even if he started to regain the original’s code of honor, he’s still not the original. We have no idea what he even could do after all was said and done. The original Dinobot was clear that there was no life waiting for him back on Cybertron. This one would have even less on top of being a clone carrying half the spark of Protoform X.

** The Maximals are part of a crew of explorers. They were meant to go to alien worlds and study their environments. Since they aren’t likely to have too many alien worlds with naturally occurring wild sedans, the Cybertronians of their era have been upgraded to allow them to take realistic beast mode disguises to replace the obviously mechanical ones their ancestors used. Since they can’t expect every planet to have energon deposits to fuel up on once their supplies get scarce. It also helps sell the disguise aspect of their organic beast modes to mimic the behavior of the real animal.

** Optimus was flying in for a suicide mission. The Nemesis was tearing the entire mountain up and had previously vaporized their most powerful flyer. Anyone flying up their would be blown to bits if they made a slight mistake. Optimus flew up alone through its grinders with the hope of doing anything at all to either disable the ship or at least by the others some time to get the Ark to safety. He’s not willing to drag anyone else with him to almost certain death.
** As for Dinobot, there wasn’t time. The ship was exploding at the moment. If Optimus couldn’t run or fly close enough to grab Dinobot and escape, he’d never be able to call someone else, wait for them to arrive, and then have them fly over and get Dinobot. Even if he did, we’re still talking about Dinobot II. Even if he started to regain the original’s code of honor, he’s still not the original. We have no idea what he would do after all was said and done. Even the original Dinobot was clear that there was no life waiting for him back on Cybertron. This one would have even less on top of carrying half the spark of Protoform X.

*** My bad. new idea: The Nemesis a war ship that took scans of the enemy vessel while it was attacking. It detected it because the Ark wasn't trying to hide its existence, it's just an emergency shuttle whose existence was lost in the interim millions of years and was probably presumed destroyed or accidentally jettisoned when the Ark crashed.