Savage Noble
| This article is about the Beast Machines episode. For the organic Transformer, see Noble (BM). |
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 Puff, the magic dragon, lived by the sea... | ||||||
| "Savage Noble" | ||||||
| Season | 2 | |||||
| No. in season | 2 | |||||
| Production company | Mainframe Entertainment | |||||
| Airdate | February 16, 2000 (Canada) August 19, 2000 (USA) | |||||
| Written by | Len Wein | |||||
| Directed by | Greg Donis | |||||
| Animation studio | Mainframe Entertainment | |||||
| Continuity | Beast Wars continuity | |||||
The Maximals discover two strange new organic creatures, but what secrets do they hide?
Synopsis
The Maximals stare up at the giant floating head of Megatron. Rattrap despairs, waiting for the hammer to drop, then is shocked when nothing happens. Primal suspects that, for some reason, Megatron can't do anything.
Nightscream hauls Blackarachnia up for a closer look; both are repelled by an energy field, but Primal again suspects it's purely automated.
Optimus sends the others to find Jetstorm and Thrust, while he attempts to contact Megatron's Spark. Nightscream leads the group to one of his old hangouts, a big, generator-filled room with a waterfall. Blast-marks on the walls show that the Vehicon Generals were fighting someone or something recently. The Vehicons themselves attack just then, with Thrust vowing vengeance for the ambush.
The two teams exchange words, with Blackarachnia still trying to reach Silverbolt within Jetstorm. A fight is about to break out, when an eerie howling distracts the group and finally convinces the Vehicons that the Maximals didn't attack them. Cheetor leads the others off in a hasty retreat. The Vehicons follow as something massive, spiky, scaly, and four-legged lumbers in the shadows behind them. The group pauses a moment later to observe the beast, a dragon-like creature with spikes on its wings, lips, nose, claws, legs, torso, you name it. They retreat as it begins a firebolt-spewing advance.
Elsewhere, Optimus goes on a spiritual hunt. He enters the Spark/astral/whatever plane, calling out to his old foe. He's answered by Megatron's bellowing voice; insubstantial visions of Megatron's head surround him, laughing, mocking, screaming....and the vision ends. Primal suspects that whatever he just contacted wasn't a sentient mind.
Cheetor, meanwhile, orders the group to stand down, not wanting to destroy the creature before they can figure out what it is. Jetstorm isn't happy about taking orders from Cheets, but the creature easily repels his and Thrust's attacks, knocking them out. A random shot buries the Maximals long enough for the creature to escape.
The Maximals track the creature to higher levels in the generator plant, and there discover a wolf-like creature hiding shyly in the shadows. Nightscream suspects the beast is another survivor, like him. The Maximals offer friendship, and the creature introduces himself as Noble and recounts (in a very familiar fashion) the story of the Vehicon invasion. Noble fell into a pit and awoke in his current form.
Further pleasantries are interrupted by a strafing attack by Jetstorm and Thrust, hunting for the dragon, Savage. But before the Maximals can even worry about defending their new friend, he disappears while their backs are turned.
Cheetor contacts Optimus, who still hasn't found any trace of Megatron. The group goes hunting for Noble. They find the dragon-creature, growling ferociously. Nightscream is convinced the beast has done away with Noble and leaps to attack. Only Blackarachnia's quick thinking keeps him from getting blasted with fire-breath. The group follows as the creature flies off, since they can't leave it loose in Cybertropolis.
Primal arrives and orders the group to split up to cover more ground. Rattrap eventually finds the beast, which has him cornered and petrified. To his relief, it chooses to ignore him. Cheetor hems the beast in by chopping down a bridge, and the others stop it from the other direction. Primal begins to approach the beast, offering understanding and compassion. The Vehicon Generals arrive and find the beast surrounded, but the dragon bats them away with a tail-slash, sending them over the horizon. After a long moment of carefully approaching the beast, Nightscream touches Savage and calms him enough for him to transform...into Noble. The two creatures are one, a beast-to-beast Transformer.
Primal vows to help Noble, even as Noble warns that he can't control his other half. Nightscream reassures him, and Noble smiles to himself—just a bit ominously, yesss...
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Maximals | Vehicons | Others |
|---|---|---|
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Quotes
"I'm going in for a closer look."
"Isn't he ugly enough from here?"
- —Blackarachnia and Nightscream discuss Megatron's giant head.
"Get it through your CPU! That program has been deleted. I'm Jetstorm. PERIOD!"
- —Jetstorm shouts at Blackarachnia. Meanwhile, the wire in his forehead is about to explode.
"We don't know what this thing is or where it came from - We're not going to find out by destroying it."
"Tell you what, pussycat, we'll bring you back the biggest pieces and you can ask 'em anything you want."
- —Cheetor and Jetstorm, shortly before the Vehicons get their butts kicked.
"Nice teamwork, Maximals! You catch 'em, we fillet 'em!"
- —Jetstorm, shortly before getting his butt kicked again.
Notes
Animation and technical errors
- When the two Vehicon Generals approach the Maximals, Thrust clasps his fingers together, causing them to clip into the barrel of his built-in blaster.
- Nightscream's ankle-wings occasionally clip through his hands as he hovers toward the surrounded Savage.
Continuity errors
- Noble's "story" about his origin seems to be deliberately based on Nightscream's own account of how he became a bat, to play on his sympathy. Later episodes will reveal that Megatron is in control of Noble... but how did Megatron learn about Nightscream's origin?
- As the Vehicons rush headlong towards Savage, Thrust and Jetstorm address him by name... almost immediately after Cheetor declares that "we don't know what this thing is." It seems, however, that Jetstorm and Thrust have come up with the name for the dragon, as a means of taunting it. Noble picks up on this when he names himself, as the diametrically opposed Dr. Jekyll to Savage's Mr. Hyde, an opposition that isn't entirely true.
- Cybertron apparently has waterfalls, which is at odds with Blackarachnia's statement that there is no water on Cybertron in "The Key". Granted, it could be a different fluid like Energon or liquid coolant.
Continuity notes
- This is the first episode of the whole series to take place entirely and unquestionably in the daytime, as all previous episodes (possibly save for "Forbidden Fruit", which never showed a view of the sky) were set only at night.
- When Optimus attempts to make contact with Megatron's spark, he is tormented by numerous heads modelled on Megatron's original and Transmetal designs from Beast Wars.
- Nightscream shows a lot of character development here; compared to the sullen, withdrawn kid from Season 1, Nightscream is the first character to try and welcome Noble into the Maximal fold.
- Stock footage from "Survivor" is used to illustrate Noble's story.
- Gadgets and powers:
- Blackarachnia uses a web-parachute in beast mode. Don't think too hard about the physics here.
- Rattrap has invented some communications devices. It is rather odd that he's never thought to use these before, especially since their old bodies were equipped with built-in radio networks.
- Blackarachnia's usual web-discs are shown to have explosive properties.
Real-world references
- The title "Savage Noble" is a play on the "noble savage" of the eighteenth-century cult of primitivism, in which New World "savages" were seen as innocent and unsullied, the core goodness of their humanity free of the chains of civilization and technology. The "savage noble" inversion might suggest the opposite oxymoron: someone so civilized he has become a monster. Not only is that literally true in this episode, where the cogent Noble is prone to turning into the animalistic Savage, but the next episode would reveal him to be secretly Megatron trapped in a hated organic form, yearning for access to the technology that would set him free.
Trivia
- Unusually, this episode starts off with a cliffhanger - Blackarachnia falling off the Grand Mal- before the episode titles.
- This marks the first time we see a Cybertronian use an obscene hand gesture, in which Thrust actually flips Cheetor the bird. Granted, Thrust only has three-fingered claws for hands. It was still a shocker nonetheless.
Foreign localization
French
- Title: "Noble Sauvage" ("Savage Noble")
German
- Title: "Der Drache" ("The Dragon")
- Original airdate: December 16, 2000
Italian
- Title: "Uno strano Transformer" ("A strange Transformer")
- When, in English, Rattrap calls the Vehicons "Vehiclowns", in Italian he actually calls them "Vheicons", despite being used as singular. This is even stranger considering that in the Italian dub the word "Vehicon" doesn't change in plural form.
Japanese
- Title: "Kaibutsu no Nayami" (怪物の悩み, "The Anguish of the Monster")
- Original airdate: December 25, 2004
Mandarin
- Title: "Shuāng Lóng Yī Tǐ " (双龙一体, "Two Dragons in One Body")
Brazilian Portuguese
- Title: "Noble Selvagem" ("Savage Noble")
Spanish
- Title: "El Buen Salvaje" ("The Noble Savage")
Home video releases
- DVD
2005 — Super Lifeform Transformers: Beast Wars Returns — Volume 4 (Geneon Entertainment) — Japanese audio only.
2006 — Beast Machines: Transformers — The Complete Series (Rhinomation)
2014 — Transformers: Beast Machines — The Complete Series (Shout! Factory)
2007 — Transformers: Beast Machines — Season Two: Volume One (Sony)
2007 — Transformers: Beast Machines — Complete Season Two (Sony)
2009 — Transformers: Beast Machines — Intégrale Saison 2 (Sony) — French audio only.
