Code of Hero

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The rest... is silence.
"Code of Hero"
Season	2
No. in season	9
Production company	Mainframe Entertainment
Airdate	March 9, 1998 (Toonami), April 25, 1998 (syndication)
Written by	Ian Weir
Directed by	Bob Forward
Animation studio	Mainframe Entertainment
Continuity	Beast Wars continuity
Packaged with	Dinobot
Watch this episode on YouTube

Dinobot makes the ultimate sacrifice to save those who are still to come.

Synopsis

In a wild valley, a group of primitive hominids forage for food. A Giant Snake attacks two of their number, and the anthropoids are helpless to stop it...

"I have no other choice, I have dishonored my comrades."

At the Axalon, a haunted Dinobot meditates on his sword... and holds its blade ominously over his chest. But after a long moment of tension and hesitation, he casts it aside with a growl of frustration.

Rhinox has been calculating the path of the Transwarp Wave from the Planet Buster's destruction—it's traveling through time at an accelerated rate, and will reach Cybertron in the "present", thus alerting Cybertron to their location. Optimus Primal fears Megatron has made similar calculations, and the group realizes they need to increase their defenses.

Dinobot, still somber, runs into Rattrap, who nearly goads him into a fight over his turning the Disk over to Megatron. Rattrap stalks off, concluding that he'd thought Dinobot was at least forthright. Dinobot is left to reflect that his past actions cannot be undone... but they "may yet be mitigated". He arms himself and heads off into the wastes.

On aerial recon, Cheetor observes Megatron and Rampage out for a stroll. They drive him off with some damage, but Cheetor calls in the sighting to Dinobot, who promises to follow up.

At his lair, Tarantulas has captured a tasty antelope for his dinner. But as he creeps up to the struggling beast, Dinobot bursts out of the ground, holding him at gunpoint and demanding to know what information is on the Golden Disk. Tarantulas doesn't know—there are no more copies remaining, and Megatron is keeping the Disk on his person at all times. Still holding him at gunpoint, Dinobot uses Tarantulas as his unwilling ride.

The hills are alive, with The Sounds of Earth!

The anthropoids scatter and panic as Megatron flies overhead and lands. Rampage sneers that the Maximals will soon arrive from Cybertron, and that he anticipates Megatron's imminent demise. Megatron admits that's very likely... but only if history remains as it is.

Megatron explains that the Golden Disk contains images recorded in the future, including one of a nearby mountain. Megatron has Rampage destroy the mountaintop. After a moment, the image on the disk changes to suit the altered reality, to Megatron's delight. Dinobot observes all this with dawning dread: Megatron has the power to change the future.

The valley they are standing above, Megatron explains, spawned the human race. Their interference helped the Autobots win the Great War, thereby allowing the Maximals to rule over the Predacons today. But Megatron has a different history in mind. Summoning the rest of his troops, he orders them to annihilate the valley and its inhabitants. With the anthropoids destroyed, the human race will never have existed!

A picturesque image is required before a dramatic death.

While Dinobot's back is turned, Tarantulas blasts him; Dinobot reciprocates by squashing him under a rock. Dinobot contacts Optimus, who orders him to maintain position, but Dinobot knows there is no time to wait. With his questions answered, Dinobot is ready to face his destiny.

Dinobot moves in to attack the entire Predacon force single-handed. He blasts Inferno and Blackarachnia (stabbing the former for good measure), stomps Waspinator, forces Rampage's cannon to backfire (using Waspinator's head), and pummels Quickstrike (with his bare hands), but loses his weapons, suffers considerable damage, and drains most of his energy supply. His computer warns him that he must enter stasis lock to survive... a command which Dinobot overrides.

Megatron confronts the damaged warrior, gloating over his near-total victory; when Dinobot starts to attack, Megatron reveals an anthropoid captive. The hostage is enough to make Dinobot halt; Megatron rebukes him for weakness. But Dinobot is a warrior still. Forging a makeshift hammer from a rock and stick, he knocks the Disk out of Megatron's hand and frees the anthropoid. With the last of his energy, he summons one final optic blast, shattering the Disk.

Nearly mad with frustration, Megatron flees as the Maximals arrive. Rattrap gasps in horror at the sight of his comrade, while Cheetor douses the flames of the burning valley. The Maximals gather around the fallen Dinobot, but it is too late to help him. Optimus assures him that he has saved untold lives yet to come. Dinobot exchanges a final round of barbs with Rattrap; he asks them all to tell his story truthfully, both the good and the bad, and allow him to be judged accordingly. "The rest is silence." With that, the proud warrior dies. Rattrap leads the others in a salute as Dinobot's spark leaves his body, with Primal wishing it on to the Matrix, there to join Cybertron's finest.

Old soldiers don't die, they just fade away...

The next morning, the Maximals hold a funeral for Dinobot. The fliers soar through the air in a salute, as Rattrap and Rhinox dissolve Dinobot's remains.

At the valley, a curious anthropoid (presumably the same one Dinobot rescued) finds Dinobot's hammer. He soon figures out how to use it to help gather food... and to fend off predators, such as the giant snake. The anthropoid's yell of triumph echoes through the valley; and high above, a brief flicker appears in the void of space.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Quotes

"Remember that transwarp cell explosion?"
[Primal just glares]
"Okay, stupid question..."

—Rhinox has a once-in-a-lifetime lapse in intelligence.

"The rodent's words give off the stench of truth. Destiny has one great test in store for us all. Has mine already come and have I failed it? A deed once done cannot be undone, but perhaps, it may yet be mitigated."

—Dinobot embarking on his destiny

"The question that once haunted my being has been answered. The future is not fixed, and my choices are my own. And yet, how ironic... for I now find that I have no choice at all! I am a warrior... let the battle be joined."

—Dinobot, realizing his destiny

"One lonely turncoat, battling on against impossible odds." [Wipes fake tear] "I'm almost touched! ...Fortunately, such moments pass quickly. Quickstrike, scrap him!"

—Megatron, observing Dinobot's solo fight to save the valley.

"What's a warrior without weapons, eh?"
"A warrior still!"

—Quickstrike totally underestimates Dinobot.

"Hmm, my ears are burning! Yesss! Why, Dinobot, what a delightful surprise! Let's see, where are we now? I have the Golden Disk, I have the power to change the future, and the only remaining obstacle in my path to unimaginable glory... is yourself. Exhausted. Damaged beyond recovery. Defeated."
"Not just yet!"
"Ah-ah-ah!" [Megatron reveals a bound proto-human] "One more step, and it's raining bits of early anthropoid, yesss." [Dinobot hesitates] "Oh dear, how positively Maximal of you. You were weakened before you started, Dinobot. Weakened by compassion."

—Megatron confronts the severely damaged Dinobot.

"Oh, please! Face it, Dinobot! You're old technology, obsolete. What could you possibly do?"
"Improvise."

—Megatron is about to find out that Dinobot has one more trick up his sleeve.

Optimus Primal: "Well fought, my friend. You saved the valley. You saved the lives of those who live here... and of those who are still to come."
Dinobot: "Then... there is nothing to regret."
Rattrap: "Like I said, you're just a blasted, slag-spouting saurian, but... it's nice to know where you stand."
Dinobot:"Upwind of you, for preference, vermin. ...Tell my tale to those who ask. Tell it truly, the ill deeds along with the good, and let me be judged accordingly. The rest... is silence."

— Dinobot shares last words with his comrades

"He lived a warrior, and died a hero. Let his spark join the Matrix, the greatest of Cybertron."

—Optimus Primal's eulogy for Dinobot

Notes

Script timeline

• First draft: 15th September 1997
• Second draft: 22nd September 1997

Animation and technical errors

Maybe it's Packrat?

• The interior of the Axalon, and thus the doors to Dinobot's quarters, were made at a different scale to his character model, so he could not actually fit through the doorway. Bob Forward explained that it had to be faked by a cut.
• When Rattrap is working at the wall panel, his right forearm is backwards and remains thus until he is grandly gesturing.
• As the "camera" zooms in on Tarantulas when he stalks up to the trapped gazelle, the background remains static instead of zooming in with him.
• When Megatron is flying over the proto-human valley, his legs are missing and his body has very little detail. It's especially noticeable when he flies towards the camera and transforms into robot mode-at which point his legs appear out of nowhere.
• As the Maximals head out, Rhinox's running animation is being played unnaturally fast to keep up with the others.
• As Quickstrike approaches Dinobot, his left shin is backwards.
• At Dinobot's funeral, Rattrap is in his pre-Transmetal body. On the Madman DVD commentary for this episode, Bob Forward could not believe how the production team (who had viewed this scene at least a hundred times trying to get everything right) did not notice the fact they used the wrong Rattrap, and yet every fan did.
• Towards the end of the episode, a mechanical thud can be heard when the snake hits the ground, making it sound as if the snake is made of metal.

Continuity errors

• In this episode, the Voyager Disk resembles an old record (complete with being labeled "The Sounds of Earth") instead of the design used since its appearance in the first episode. Given its origin as a record in a canister, however, it's possible that Megatron has simply taken it out of its case to test his theory of time-meddling.
• It doesn't make any sense for Rhinox to say that the Transwarp wave is "moving into the future at an accelerated rate." The "rate" would only matter to an observer traveling with the wave; no one at the origin or destination would notice how long it took the wave to get from ~2,600,000 BC to 2321 AD.
• As with most of Megatron's plots to alter the timeline, the plan to destroy the human race before it evolves has a critical deterministic error; if he succeeds, then the golden disk would never have been created by NASA in the future. Megatron could never have acquired it, and thus would not have the foresight to attempt to destroy the human race, and then the human race would have evolved as normal, creating the golden disk in the future... and so on and so forth. Apparently, time travel in Beast Wars isn't subject to the grandfather paradox!
• Rattrap mentions that Dinobot would be up against six Predacons when there was a total of seven. (Out of universe, this is likely for the audience's benefit, in case they weren't keeping track.) Either he had totally forgotten about Tarantulas, somehow heard Dinobot defeating Tarantulas over his open comlink, or assumed that Tarantulas would still not be working with Megatron.

Continuity notes

• Dinobot is, of course, still dealing with the fallout of his temporary defection, as seen in "Maximal, No More".
• Rhinox refers to the transwarp wave, which was caused by the destruction of the Planet Buster in "Other Voices, Part 2".
• Tarantulas mentions that Megatron doesn't want anyone downloading more copies of the disk's data, referring to Blackarachnia's little heist in "Coming of the Fuzors (Part 2)".
• As the Maximals travel to the valley to try to help Dinobot, they pass several Metal Hunter flowers, the only time these were seen after "Other Visits (Part 1)". This time the flowers were inactive.
• Gadgets and powers:
  • Megatron can turn his tail-weapon into a record player by retracting the tip.
  • Optimus Primal can fly in robot mode, although he apparently prefers to fly around in beast mode.
  • Cheetor can spray fire-extinguisher foam while in beast mode.

Transformers references

• Megatron states that it was thanks to humans that the Autobots won the Great War, likely referring to the exploits of the Witwickys. Apparently nobody bothered to remember the contributions of the Nebulans.

Real-world references

• The Golden Disk that Megatron stole from Cybertron and kicked off this whole mess is revealed to be one of the two Golden Records aboard the Voyager deep-space probe, specifically "The Sounds of Earth". That said, this Golden Disk can apparently play video. In the real world, there's also no image of a mountain on the disc.
• As the Predacons jump into the valley to destroy the hominids, Rampage crushes a butterfly. This evokes the famous Ray Bradbury short story "A Sound of Thunder", in which a time traveler in the past steps on a butterfly, thus dramatically altering the future of humanity.
• When Dinobot is leaving the base, he comments that "a deed, once done, cannot be undone", a slight modification of the Shakespearean quote "what is done cannot be undone".
• Dinobot's final words, "The rest is silence", are taken directly from the final words of the title character in Shakespeare's Hamlet. (The entreaty to tell his story is also taken from earlier in Hamlet's death scene, although rephrased.)
• Right after Dinobot crash-lands on Waspinator, Rampage points his cannon at Dinobot. The brief image from within the cannon's barrel appears similar to the gun barrel views from numerous James Bond movies.
• Beast Wars story editors Bob Forward and Larry DiTillio worked various references to the online Transformers fandom into the series. In this case, Cheetor citing Tengu Sector was a reference to the screen name of Rob Gerbracht, who went on to become one of the writers for the Wreckers comic book series.
• The final shot of the episode—a anthropoid discovering the power of tools and triumphantly hurling his weapon into the air, followed by a pan into space—is evocative of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Trivia

• Beast Wars co-story editor Bob Forward drew storyboards for this episode. Not only is it the only Beast Wars episode to be directed by the series's writers, but it is also the only episode to be done up in storyboards rather than being directed on-the-fly. Bob Forward worked in person with the Mainframe animators for this episode.
• The original storyboards were auctioned for charity at a BotCon.
• According to Bob Forward, Megatron's transformation sequence had to be reconstructed to be able to show his transformation from underneath for one shot. Previously, the animation only "worked" when seen from eye-level or above.
• In a bit of foreshadowing, while Dinobot is contemplating suicide, three ravens fly past his window in the missing man formation, which the Maximal fliers use in their salute to him at his funeral. The formation was also used when three anthropoids were wandering through the forest prior to the Predacon attack.
• During the recording of this episode, Scott McNeil was attempting to deliver Dinobot's last words, but was continually interrupted by the recording crew's laughter. He is reputed to have said while still in character, "Do you mind?! I'm trying to die here!"
• When Dinobot dies, his Spark escapes his body, and proceeds to slowly rise into the air until the scene transitions. This phenomenon had never been seen in Transformers fiction prior, as opposed to the body turning gray as the character expired first seen in The Transformers: The Movie, nor would it ever be seen again in the show as future characters died. The idea would not be used again until many years later in the Prime Wars cartoons.
• According to McNeil, Dinobot knew he was going to die five episodes before he did, as right up until the last second, he believed Dinobot to only be "cartoon dead" as opposed to "dead dead". Technically, he wasn't wrong.
• When originally broadcast in the United Kingdom, this episode was edited, with Dinobot's contemplated suicide completely excised and his hallway altercation with Rattrap cut down to only a fraction of its actual length. In the latter case, this seems to serve no other purpose than the elimination of the word "slag", and Dinobot's dying exchange with Rattrap was likewise altered to purge the word.
• It's no surprise that a DVD containing this episode was packaged with Dinobot for Transformers: Beast Wars 10th Anniversary. This is the only post-Season 1 episode included with any 10th Anniversary figure.
• Bob Forward considers this to be his favorite Beast Wars episode, as well as the "The Agenda" three-parter.^[1] Larry DiTillio has also admitted it's the best episode of the series, despite acknowledging that he had almost nothing to do with it.
• This is the last episode to have Rhinox appear in beast mode. For the rest of the series, Rhinox remains in robot mode.
• The pistol Dinobot uses to interrogate Tarantulas is nearly identical to Rattrap's.
• At a BotCon 1998 panel, Bob Forward revealed and showed on a VHS tape that before Robert Buckley composed the proper score for Dinobot's final stand, it was animated to a Beast Wars version of the Mortal Kombat theme.

Foreign localization

French

• Title: "Code du Héros" (Canada, "Code of Hero")

Italian

• Title: "Un grande eroe" ("A Grand Hero")

• Instead of saying: «The rest is silence» Dinobot simply says: «And now leave me in peace».

Japanese

• Title: "Abayo!" (あばよッ!, "Farewell!")
• Original airdate: November 24 1999

• In a shocking display of restraint on director Yoshikazu Iwanami's part, the excessive adlibbing, satirical 4th Wall jokes and major script changes are kept to a relative minimum. Instead, this episode tries (tries) to adhere to the somber tone of the original English language version. Still, though comparatively restrained in its use of adlib gags, there remain plenty to be had...
• When opening fire on Cheetor, Rampage constantly howls threats and insults at the Maximal. As the episode "Bad Spark" was released theatrically in Japan and was not broadcast on television as a regular part of the series, this episode is the "introduction" of Rampage to Japanese viewers.
• While exiting his secret lab to retrieve his dinner, Tarantulas jabbers incessantly to himself as he makes sure the coast is clear. He mentions that his left is clear, his right is clear, his rear is clear and above him is clear, then while rambling about never being too careful, that's when Dinobot bursts out from the one direction he hadn't checked; below himself.
• When Megatron lands to check out the mountain near the valley of proto-humans, he giddily tests his echo out with a loud "YAHOOOO! (yahooooo! yahooooo!)"
• In what is unfortunately one of the worst examples of adlibbing in this dub, when Rampage aims his cannon at Megatron and Megatron's head can be seen in close-up through the scope, Megatron continues to speak... with his mouth quite visibly shut. While the English version relied on silence and facial expressions to get the point of the scene across (Megatron's accursed smugness and Rampage's resigned anger at being helpless to wipe the smile off his face), the Japanese dub turns it into a prattling conversation as Rampage talks about shooting Megatron right then and there and Megatron (in the close-up with his lips closed) warning him of the consequences.
• The drama and suspense of the Predacons laying waste to the proto-human valley is completely undone by the fact that the characters comically scream their vocal tics every time they fire their weapons.
• The final commercial bumper for this episode is dedicated to Dinobot. Whereas in the past, the featured character would scream their name during the bumper, Dinobot instead offers a quiet and reserved, "Hello. I am Dinobot."
• In addition to the incessant screaming of their verbal tics, the Predacons make various asides throughout Dinobot's rampage through their forces. Blackarachnia sarcastically remarks to Inferno as they gun down proto-humans "Well this isn't petty at all, is it?" After getting blown up by Rampage's cannon, Waspinator whimpers, "How cruel..."
• Dinobot's final words to Rattrap, rather than a friendly jab, is instead a reconciliation of their partnership, as Dinobot tells him that they made a good duo. His final words to the group are the same as in the English version, save for the ending. Rather than "the rest is silence", Dinobot instead says, "Thank you. Farewell..."

Mandarin

• Title: "Yīngxióng Běnsè" (英雄本色, "Nature of Hero")

Portuguese

• Title: "Código de Herói" ("Code of Hero")

Spanish

• Title: "El Código del Héroe" ("The Code of Hero")

• Title: "El Código de un Héroe" (America, "The Code of a Hero")

Home video releases

VHS

1998 — Beast Wars: Transformers — Bad Spark / Code of Hero (KB Toys)
1998 — Beast Wars: Transformers — Series 2 / Volume 3 (Siren Entertainment)
2000 — Beast Wars: Super Lifeform Transformers: Metals — Huh? The Face? (Pioneer LDC) — Japanese audio only.
2001 — Beast Wars: Transformers — Volume 7 (Universal)

DVD

2000 — Beast Wars: Transformers: Metals — DVD Box 1 (Pioneer LDC) — English and Japanese audio.
2004 — Beast Wars: Transformers — The Complete Second Season (Rhinomation)
2011 — Beast Wars: Transformers — Seasons 2 & 3 (Shout! Factory)
2011 — Beast Wars: Transformers — The Complete Series (Shout! Factory)
2006 — Beast Wars: Transformers — Season 2 (Madman Entertainment)
2009 — The Transformers: Beast Wars — Complete Collection (Madman Entertainment)

References