Beast Machines

Episode 8: Revelations Part 2 (of 3): Descent

SPOILERS AHEAD

SYNOPSIS:

Three basic points of this episode:
1) Tankorr was Rhinox (confirmed suspicion)
2) Megatron took over Cybertron before the Maximals arrived
3) The Maximals were "devolved" from their Transmetal bodies

Another dream sequence -- Primal is chasing down sparks drifting along
a forest floor.  The Maximals wake him as Primal dreams of tentacles
capturing him and Megatron appearning.  Apparently, the Oracle was
trying to tell Primal secrets when the Maximals interrupt.

Primal ticks everyone off.  Cheetor leads a mission to go on the offensive.
Quotable reply: "Who are we going to offend today?"
Black Arachnia wants to save Thrust but doesn't tell the rest why.
Cheetor makes an executive decision and goes after the slowest -- Tankorr.

The Maximals sneak up on a loading facility where Tankorr is bossing
around his drones to speed up the work.
Nightscream keeps Jetstorm occupied, BlackArachnia pleads with Thrust,
Cheetor fights off the Tankorr drones, and Rattrap shuts down Tankorr
and taps his memories.

There, Rattrap sees various memories which he thinks are his own.
He watches them returing to Cybertron on the Autobot shuttle.
He sees Megatron break free and vanish in the time-stream during turbulence.
He watches at Cybertron appears but starts firing.
Then he witnesses their flight from the Tankorr drones.  The drones
lob canisters of green gas that "devolve" them from their Transmetal
bodies into their original beast forms.
He sees Silverbolt captured and a drone closing in on the viewers eyes.
The reflection on the drone is of Rhinox!

Thrust disables BA under Jetstorm's supervision.  Nightscream fights
off Thrust but Jetstorm picks up the extractor and removes BA's spark.
The show ends with the desperate scene closing on BA's spark taken from
her body.

Previews of the next show show BA with Primal in the Oracle (or trance
state).  Their is a brief scene of the Maximals surrounding Tankorr and
BA is there so they probably get her back in the 3rd part.


DESIGN NOTES:

The voice over saying "Beast Machines" seems to be back for good.
I'll probably quit commenting on this from now on.  :)

Quality and story line is improved over the first part.

Animation mistake?  When we first see Thrust, he's without his yellow
"general markings" on his arms.  He gets them back the 2nd scene (but
looses them when he "overdrives" - the arms are, of course, the exhaust pipes).
When he rushes BA, he has the yellow markings back.

Heavy use of Season 3 forms.  Mainframe is getting more milage out of those
Transmetal 2 bodies that got so little air-time.  Just think, we
can have whole flashback episodes with upgraded graphics (shadows,
explosions, etc) with our favorite "Beast Wars" stars.


IMPRESSIONS:

So now, we're going to have even more divided fans.
First we had:   G1 rocks/ BW s*cks
Then:           What's G1? / BW rocks / BW s*cks
Now we'll get:  BW rocks / BM s*cks (except when their showing BW)
Maybe a few:    BW rocks / BW s*cks (and desicrates BW)

*SIGH*  I must be a "sheep" since I love all three series.
No I've got reasons to love BW and BM, maybe I'm a llama!


ANSWERS:

Many revelations indeed!
Cybertron has clouds.
Thrust remembers who he used to be - Silverbolt.
Rattrap taps into Tankorr to find Rhinox's memories.
Megatron can corrupt a spark and reprogram minds to become a "different
entity" but can't seem to wipe all memories.  We saw Megatron delete
Tankorr's memories in Ep 4 but perhaps that was RAM, not ROM.
*Shrug*  Perhaps Megatron cannot totally eradicate memories
carried by the Spark itself.

Megatron had plenty of time to conquer Cybertron since he fell
from the timestream in mid-flight.  This probably propelled 
him to a time _way_ before the Maximals arrived on Cybertron.

Many on ATT figured out that Tankorr was probably Rhinox.

I ventured that the virus either devolved Transformers or attacked
the Transmetal technology.  Previous episodes supported that the
virus prevented transformation.  So either the virus does both or
the 1) virus prevents transformation and 2) the green gas devolves.
In other words, two seperate weapons.  The first, a programmatic virus,
the second, a biological weapon.


FINAL NOTE:

I'm really missing "Big Guy".
FOX is still juggling it's Saturday FoxKids schedule.
All these schedule shifts better not equal me missing any BMach episodes!

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