Other Voices, Part 2

« Beast Wars: Transformers ep 26 »
Here we go again...
"Other Voices" Part 2
Airdate	April 1, 1997
Written by	Larry DiTillio
Directed by	Ezekiel Norton
Animation studio	Mainframe Entertainment
Continuity	Beast Wars continuity

As the alien machine begins destroying the planet's energon, Optimus devises a desperate plan to destroy the device.

French title: Les Voix d'Autre Monde - 2^e partie ("The Voices from Another World - Part 2")

French-Canadian title: Les Voix 2 ("The Voices 2")

Japanese title: 平和を守るために・・・ (Heiwa o Mamoru Tame ni... "To Protect the Peace...")

Latin-American title: Otras Voces Primera Parte

Italian title: L'arrivo - Parte 2 ("The arrival - Part Two")

Brazilian title: Outras Vozes Parte 2

Synopsis

Beautiful things never turn out good.

Out on patrol, Cheetor and Tigatron stare in awe at "the light at the end of the world," as the alien machine continues powering up in space. Primal makes contact and orders them to return to base. Rattrap is pessimistic about their chances of survival, but Primal assures him that Rhinox will find a way for them to survive.

The alien bungalow finishes transferring power to the moon, and in a flash, the aliens depart: "Termination sequence engaged. Return to Nexus Zero."

Megatron and the Predacons observe this from their base. Confronted with a machine intended to destroy them, Megatron activates a special program and scans the Maximal base, locating the spiders and Inferno within.

Tarantulas is nearly finished converting a stored stasis pod into his escape ship. Blackarachnia observes that it's a little cramped for two... but, weapon drawn, she has no intention of sharing the ride. Inferno arrives just then, blasts her, and sets Tarantulas on fire, knocking him out. Back at the Predacon base, Megatron detects the aborted flow of data to the stasis pod ship and reacts with fury.

A girl that can handle a gun, awesome!

Inferno starts to examine Tarantulas's work, but is attacked by Blackarachnia, who eludes him with a display of gymnastics before blasting him with his own gun. Picking up Tarantulas's cyber-link goggles, she forms a link with the unconscious Tarantulas to obtain the data needed to finish the pod ship—but finds that staring into the abyss of the spider's mind means that it also stares back...

The Maximals arrive at base, alarmed to find the shields down. Inside, they find Rhinox and Dinobot cyber-webbed to the ceiling. Primal sends Rattrap and Airazor to bring in their unwelcome visitors.

Megatron observes the data flow resuming, just as the altered moon opens fire on the planet with a broad, blinding power ray. Primal charges the Maximal base's shields as the external temperature begins climbing and deduces that the aliens intend to ignite the energon deposits. Megatron notes that this will obliterate the entire planet, an incredibly ruthless strategy that he rather admires. He assures his panicked troops that Tarantulas will save them, albeit inadvertently.

Stasis pod or coffin? At episode's end no one's sure.

Blackarachnia finishes the pod ship, only to be discovered and held at gunpoint by Rattrap and Airazor. With Rhinox still out of commission, Primal is beginning to despair, when Rattrap summons him to the stasis hold. Primal is impressed by the ship and immediately orders Blackarachnia to change the command codes to respond to him. He intends to fly the ship up to the Planet Buster and detonate the transwarp cell to destroy it. With little alternative, Blackarachnia complies.

Worst in-flight movie ever.

Soon all is ready, and Primal has poignant parting words with his worried crew before sealing the ship and launching it. Megatron scans the launch and notes with delight that Primal is flying the vessel. Primal soon reaches the Planet Buster, starts the ignition sequence, and gives the order to blow the hatch seals. But the hatch is sealed and locked! Megatron appears on his comm screen to gloat that he'd come up with the exact same plan—only in his version of events, the ship's pilot goes "up with the ship." As the timer counts down to zero, the Maximals frantically wait for Primal to make his escape. Primal pounds on the sealed hatch, to no avail. As the Maximals wonder what is going on, Blackarachnia tells them it's too late... in Tarantulas's voice.

The transwarp cell explodes, and high above the planet, the Planet Buster is annihilated... along with the pod ship and Optimus Primal.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Maximals	Predacons
Cheetor (1) Tigatron (2) Optimus Primal (3) Rattrap (4) Airazor (5) Dinobot (cameo) (13) Rhinox (14)	Terrorsaur (6) Scorponok (7) Waspinator (8) Megatron (9) Tarantulas (10) Blackarachnia (11) Inferno (12)

Quotes

"Sufferin' circuits. What could it be?"
"The light at the end of the world."

—Cheetor and Tigatron, watching the Planet Buster power up

Airazor: "Cheetor and Tigatron are coming."
Rattrap: "Oh, terrific. Now, we can all get reduced to hot-burning slag together."
Optimus Primal and Airazor: "Shut up, Rattrap!"

"That'll teach you to back-shoot a widow."

—Blackarachnia, after shooting Inferno at point-blank range

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!
Waspinator: Waspinator not want to be destroyed! Waspinator has plans!
Scorponok: Megatron will save us!
Megatron: I think not. I've reserved that task for Tarantulas.

—The Predacons react to the Planet Buster.

Blackarachnia: We—I did it!
Airazor: Hooray for you.
[Blackarachnia finds herself held at gunpoint.]
Blackarachnia: Did you know we have a truce?

Primal: Every one of these alien structure has been designed for a specific purpose, Rattrap. This one is busy, and I'm betting I can fly close enough to take it out.
Rattrap: With what? One of your famous "We can do it" speeches?
Primal: A transwarp explosion.
[Dramatic Pause]
Blackarachnia: Hahaha! You'll blow yourself to atoms!
Primal: If it saves this planet, it'll be worth it. If not, I'm no worse off.

—An ape's gotta do what an ape's gotta do.

[After the other Maximals have volunteered to pilot the stasis pod in Primal's place.]
"Well, what about you, Rattrap?"
"Hey, suicide ain't in my job description."

—Optimus Primal and Rattrap

Primal: Cozy.
Blackarachnia: Just like a coffin.

—Encouraging words for anyone getting into a stasis pod.

Rattrap: Just in case you don't come back...can I have your quarters?
Primal: No.

—Rattrap's version of a final farewell.

"Do Maximals always talk such slop?"
[Airazor punches her out]
"My sentiments exactly."

—Blackarachnia and Rattrap

"Oh, you Optimuses do love to sacrifice yourselves, don't you? Well, fortunately, this time your foolishness will destroy you and your Maximals. The Beast Wars are over, Optimus. You lose."

—Megatron

Primal: MEGATROOOOOON!

—KHAAAAAAAAN!

Notes

Technical/animation glitches

• When Blackarachnia grabs Inferno's gun, she clips into Inferno for a spit second.
• During Airazor and Rattrap's search for Blackarachnia, Airazor's gun floats in her hand when they jump into a hallway, and then gets "stuck" in her armpit as they walk towards the camera. Meawhile, her hands are posed grasping at nothing.
• As Optimus Primal lies back into the stasis pod, his shoulder pads are much smaller than they usually are. This was done to avoid clipping with the sides of the cramped stasis post model.
• When Megatron gloats to Optimus at the end of the episode, his hands seem to be switched, with his right arm ending in a normal hand instead of his beast-mode head. (It's easiest to see when Megatron is laughing triumphantly at the end of his speech.)

Continuity errors

• How exactly did anything organic survive the heating of the entire planet?
• When Blackarachia and Tarantulas attacked Dinobot in the previous episode, they caused him to fall through the glass of the elevator on the right hand side of the Axalon's command center (from Dinobot's perspective). In this episode, the smashed elevator glass has been switched to the other elevator on the other side of the room.
• The piece of cyber-webbing Airazor steps on when she exits the elevator was not present during the close up of Rattrap as he complained about the missing Rhinox and Dinobot.

Transformers references

• Megatron's line, "You Optimuses do enjoy sacrificing yourselves", is a reference to the original Optimus Prime and his numerous deaths.
• When Tigatron volunteers to pilot the stasis pod ship, he says, "I owe this world." This refers to his grief over what happened in "Law of the Jungle". It may also refer to his decision to destroy the Vok's self-propelled-completely-peaceful-heavily-armed-floating-island-paradise-of-death in "The Trigger, Part 2".

Trivia

• At the script stage, this episode had the subtitle "Termination Day".
• When Tarantulas angrily dismisses Blackarachnia while attempting to work on the stasis pod, he is voiced by Scott McNeil (doing an impression of Alec Willows's Tarantulas) for two lines.
• This episode is the first of two where Inferno refers to Megatron by name rather than as "Royalty" or "my queen."
• A planned but never-produced Generation 1 cameo was planned for "Other Voices" Part 2. The intent was for Megatron to gloat to Primal while the latter was trapped in the stasis pod—by projecting an image of the Autobot leader, Optimus Prime, on Primal's viewscreen as Primal raced for the false moon and met his demise.
• When you see the little parts of Primal flying towards the camera near the end of the episode, you can see Optimus's head fly at the screen very quickly with a distressed look on his face.
• In Madman Entertainment's Beast Wars Season 1 DVD set, on a commentary track for this episode with fan consultant Ben Yee and story editor Larry DiTillio, fellow story editor Bob Forward popped in to explain the significance of the slang term "slag". He explained that he looked up on refineries as he figured that robots would be made of steel, and one of the waste byproducts of creating steel was an unusable detritus called slag, which he thought would be an appropriate swear word for robots to use.
• Why couldn't Optimus just blast his way out instead of pounding the hatch? Firing his weapons might have damaged himself, but at that point it was better than the alternative.
• If one listens closely, just as the pod is entering the false moon, you can actually hear the sound of Optimus' arm-cannon firing, and glass shattering. It appears that he attempted to do just that, but too late to actually escape.
• Inferno's got the moves in this episode! During his fight with Blackarachnia he pulls off all sorts of kung fu moves and even does a little Jet Li roundhouse kick. This still surprisingly dosen't keep her from blowing his head off though.

Home video releases

All releases listed are in English audio unless otherwise noted.

VHS

1998 — Beast Wars: Super Lifeform Transformers — To Protect the Peace... (Pioneer LDC) — Japanese audio only.
2001 — Beast Wars: Transformers — The Beginning: Vol. 4 (Universal)

Laserdisc

1998 — Beast Wars: Transformers — Predacon Edition (Pioneer LDC) — English and Japanese audio.

DVD

2000 — Beast Wars: Transformers — DVD Box (Pioneer LDC) — English and Japanese audio.
2003 — Beast Wars: Transformers — The Complete First Season (Rhinomation)
2005 — Beast Wars — Classic Episodes: Volume 4 — The Predacons Advance! (Alliance Atlantis) — English and French audio.
2005 — Beast Wars — The Complete First Season (Alliance Atlantis) — English and French audio.
2006 — Beast Wars: Transformers — Season 1 (Madman Entertainment)
2009 — The Transformers: Beast Wars — Complete Collection (Madman Entertainment)