A large mountain containing the precious mineral Energon is discovered. This finding leads to a brawl between the Maximals and Predacons. – Netflix
“Beast Wars: Part Two” is an episode about trumped-up stakes. It starts with a fight over a canyon that we know isn’t dangerous for Optimus—we’ve already seen him fly—and segues into a “race” toward a mountain-sized Energon crystal that even the stupidest viewer knows is too large for someone to just snatch and stick in their pocket.
It also highlights the double-duty of the series, with the A-plot set pieces functioning as transparent demonstrations of how you might play with these toys at home. Optimus fights with swords, with a shoulder-mounted missile turret, and as a gorilla. But throughout it all, writer Bob Forward (is it funny that he wrote the series premiere? Because “foreword?”) manages to sneak in a decent B-plot where Dinobot joins the team and adds an extra element of internal conflict for the Maximals.
Things pick up where we left off on last episode’s cliffhanger, with Dinobot flexing his “bearings of chrome steel” by challenging Optimus to the right to lead the Maximals. The setup doesn’t really work, because Dinobot is literally the only person on the planet who even remotely respects the idea that a gauntlet, once thrown, must be taken up. But after a brief argument it somehow leads to a duel anyway, which fortunately does good work towards summing up Dinobot’s nuanced character.
The rule of action cartoons decrees that the antihero is always the coolest member of the team, and Dinobot is no exception. His raptor is the best animal of the first-round draft picks, he’s the most eager to commit murder, and he’s voiced with an over-the-top reptilian snarl by Scott McNeil (Wolverine on X-Men Evolution and the better of Piccolo’s English voice actors on Dragon Ball Z). But what makes Dinobot so wonderful is that he is monumentally obtuse, driven almost entirely by process rather than outcome, and utterly unable to comprehend any other way to act.
Dinobot cuts through the machinations of the two main forces because his actions are always guided by how they will make him see himself rather than what it will accomplish. He seems like he’s playing a part and trying to maintain fidelity to that part even at the cost of everything else—and this is before he starts quoting Shakespeare. It’s a weird role, and even the characters on the show barely even pretend to understand his complicated code of honor, but it’s fun to watch.
As a sidenote, I had forgotten how much Rattrap openly dislikes Optimus at this point in the show. Spoiling Optimus’ square-jawed leader moments with pessimistic quips is par for the course, but here he declines to lift a finger when Dinobot threatens to murder the guy, even though it would put him in no discernable danger.
It all makes me feel very sad for Megatron, slumming around with his second-rate toadies. So far, Dinobot is the only one in his lot to get any characterization, and he’s already playing with the other team. Waspinator has that weird third-person schtick, and boy if Alec Williows doesn’t play Tarantulas’ creepy mad scientist voice for all its worth, but they’re not even quite up to 1-dimensional personalities. Not that it’s needed—the plot is just about the most simplistic that Beast Wars’ mythology could possibly deliver, and all you need to know is that Predacons like Energon and hate Maximals.
The uncovering of a mountain-sized Energon crystal, and the race to get to it first, is possibly even more tone-deaf than last episode’s conflict (which originated when Cheetor tried to run really fast). Forward seems content to rely on Trans Fans remembering what Energon is and why it’s important, because he never explains either. The few hints we get about the logistics involved in capturing the crystal—Tarantulas alone has the skill to segment it, and he has to do it in beast mode to avoid being lethally irradiated—suggest that the Maximals have a few months to kick around before the Predacons can even make use of the stuff.
Even if he does get all the Energon, I’m still not sure how Megatron will even get any use out of it with a broken ship. Does Energon help fix ships? And if so, why don’t the Maximals seem to want any for themselves? A fight over resources could be interesting if I knew any of the details, but as stated it all smacks of video game win/lose conditions.
The mountain-o-Energon does have the redeeming feature of forcing the robots to fight each other in Beast Mode, the centerpiece of which is a King Kong showdown between the big bosses. Optimus slugs Megatron with his damned dirty ape paws and Megatron sinks into Optimus’ leg like it’s a soup bone. That has got to be the most gruesome thing that will happen on this show for quite awhile. Too bad Optimus’ leg wound looks like his body is just an electron cloud wrapped in gorilla skin, because some twisted metal would have been pretty gnarly.
The whole tone comes across as a very premature grasp at fate-of-the-world stakes, especially when Megatron seems willing to blow himself to hell over it. It’s very out of character for him to just flip the chessboard in frustration instead of recoup and restrategize. But I have to say, the slow spiraling close-up on his paralyzed body, his blank expression seeming to welcome his coming death, is pleasantly disturbing. It’s nice to see the freedom of CG give way to these cool shots. (There’s another great one where the camera tracks Optimus’ missile 180 degrees until it blows away two Predacons.)If Megs had to go this way, in circumstances that added more gravity to the moment, I wouldn’t mind.
Now that we know everyone’s names and their motivations to kill, I’m eager to move on and get into the routine of the plot-driven one-off episodes. Next episode gives one of the Predacons a little more spotlight, and it turns out he’s a terrifying serial killer! I wonder which one? (Arachnophobes, skip ahead to episode four.)
Side notes:
- Optimus swinging Megatron by the tail Bowser-style may be one of the biggest convergences ever in the world of dino wrestling: this episode originally aired less than two weeks before Super Mario 64′s American release.
- The quality of dialog would take a massive leap forward if they could just avoid the word “shall.”
- Rattrap dishes excellent robo-slang. “Oh, for bootin’ up cold!” I might just start listing those instead of these random notes.
- Dinobot’s sword and shield are the shittiest weapons I’ve ever seen.
- Looking back, the 1990s were a good decade for raptors.
Beast Wars in review 