Code of Hero
Title card via TFWiki, fan-archive fair use
Dinobot, haunted by his betrayals, sacrifices himself to save a tribe of early humans, the franchise’s finest half-hour.
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...
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 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.
—Rhinox has a once-in-a-lifetime lapse in intelligence.
—Dinobot embarking on his destiny
—Dinobot, realizing his destiny
—Megatron, observing Dinobot's solo fight to save the valley.
—Quickstrike totally underestimates Dinobot.
- 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!"
- 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.
Screencaps via TFWiki (Teletraan I), used under fan-archive fair use.