Maximal, No More
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| "Maximal, No More" | ||||||
| Production company | Mainframe Entertainment | |||||
| Airdate | November 23, 1997 | |||||
| Written by | Patrick Barry | |||||
| Directed by | Trenton Carlson | |||||
| Animation studio | Mainframe Entertainment | |||||
| Continuity | Beast Wars continuity | |||||
With the contents of the Golden Disks weighing heavily on his mind, Dinobot must decide which side of the conflict he truly belongs to.
- Japanese title: やめます! (Yamemasu!, "I Quit!")
- Latin-American title: Maximal, Nunca Más
- Italian title: Il tradimento ("The betrayal")
Synopsis
Within the Maximal base, Dinobot compares Predacon installation locations with the symbols on the Golden Disk, and observes that Megatron's "plan proceeds, even without the disk." He ponders his fate should Megatron succeed, and wonders if he is willing to betray his Predacon heritage. Optimus contacts him for a survey mission, and Dinobot puts his research aside for the moment.
Later, he rides vehicle-mode Rattrap into Predacon territory, musing as he does that "there is always battle here". Rattrap ain't buyin' it, until Inferno bursts out of the ground and attacks. Inferno and Dinobot square off, while Rattrap gets the drop on Quickstrike. Silverbolt moves to assist Dinobot, but Waspinator shoots him down, causing him to crash into Dinobot, deactivating them both.
Inferno carries Dinobot off to the Predacon base, but Rattrap takes out Waspinator before he can carry Silverbolt away.
At the Predacon base, Megatron is eager to chat with his former comrade-in-arms. Dinobot breaks free and reaches Megatron, sword in hand, but the guns of the other Predacons prevent him from doing any damage. Before the fight can continue, however, Dinobot offers to change sides. Unconvinced, the Predacons finally settle on a "Predacon challenge" to test Dinobot's loyalty. Quickstrike is selected as an opponent, an invitation he readily accepts.
Rattrap goes hunting for Dinobot, sending Silverbolt back to call in Optimus.
After a brutal fight, Dinobot triumphs over Quickstrike. Megatron orders Dinobot to finish him, but Dinobot refuses, saying Quickstrike is an able fighter. Megatron accepts this, then demands that Dinobot return the golden disks. The alien disk is in Rhinox's hands, but the other is hidden from both sides. Megatron orders it returned immediately.
Rattrap observes Megatron and Dinobot flying past, and follows. At the mountaintop grotto, Dinobot uncovers the Golden Disk, and, with some trepidation, returns it to Megatron, wondering as he does if he's dooming his race. Megatron is about to run him through when Rattrap arrives, blasting Megatron aside—but Dinobot in turn blasts Rattrap.
Megatron orders Dinobot to finish off Rattrap as a final test of loyalty. After a long moment of hesitation... Dinobot turns his sword on Megatron instead, telling him that his ambitions are insane and will destroy Maximal and Predacon alike. With Optimus and Silverbolt incoming, Megatron retreats.
Dinobot confesses his betrayal to Optimus. Having foolishly believed he wanted to share in Megatron's imminent victory, he now wishes to fight with the Maximals till they win or are destroyed. Optimus accepts this, but leaves the final call up to Rattrap, who finally relents after some obligatory insults.
Dinobot tells Primal he has a matter of great importance to discuss... back at base. Dinobot's final punishment is having to hitch a ride on Rattrap back to base.
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Maximals | Predacons |
|---|---|
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Quotes
"Stand your ground, traitor!"
"You're on my ground, insect!"
- —Inferno and Dinobot
"That 'bot sure does talk peculiar."
- —Quickstrike calling the kettle black.
"Waspinator not serve. Waspinator RULES! Eheheheheheh!"
- —Waspinator in his manic phase.
"Eeh, I love that guy."
- —Rattrap, after tricking Waspinator into disabling himself.
"Treachery keeps the wits sharp."
"Indeed—and yours are razor-sharp."
- —Megatron and Dinobot
Megatron: Inferno, aid Quickstrike.
Inferno: Yes, my Queen.
Dinobot: I was not aware you had given yourself a new title.
Megatron: [quickly] The ant has some faulty programming.
[Rattrap shoots Megatron] "Looks like I got here just in time!"
"Wrong, as usual!" [Dinobot shoots Rattrap]
"...did I miss something?"
- —Rattrap's attempt to rescue Dinobot goes wildly awry.
"Your ambition has made you insane, Megatron. It will destroy both Maximal and Predacon—and all who came before!"
- —Dinobot
"You can't trust him, and he smells bad. Then there's the teeth; you ever seen him eat?"
- —Rattrap calling the kettle black.
"Maximal taxi on the way home! You need a ride?"
"So, I am to be punished after all!"
- —Rattrap and Dinobot
Notes
- Lots of hint-dropping about Megatron's grand schemes in this episode. On the surface, it seems that Dinobot is dreading Megatron's plan to alter history by attacking their stasis-locked Autobot ancestors—"it will destroy Maximal and Predacon alike, and all who came before".
- However, the matching locations of Predacon installations (presumably the same jamming towers seen in the previous episode) seems more related to the alien arrival which happens in the next episode, "Other Visits", as the jamming towers result in Tigatron and Airazor's abduction, and otherwise play little or no part in the history-altering scheme.
- Even after changing his activation code, Dinobot has never actually said "terrorize" to transform into his robot mode.
- Cheetor and Rhinox do not appear at all in this episode.
- The consequences of this episode will haunt Dinobot until the day he dies.
Technical/animation glitches
- Waspinator can be spotted without his stripes.
- Dinobot's beast mode texturing often appears to be very low resolution in this episode.
Transformers references
- This is the first episode that you can see Clone One's skin hanging on the wall in Dinobot's quarters.
Real-world references
- Dinobot begins the episode by looking at a comparison of Megatron's outposts and the Golden Disk on a computer screen. Just after this, some Cybertronix text appears on the left. Translated to English, it reads "they killed kenny those bastards".
- When the view through Rattrap's scanner is shown, a small wedge of cheese can be seen in the bottom right corner.
