Nemesis Part 2
From Transformers Wiki
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 It had a good run, but Beast Wars never did want to live forever. | |||||||||
| "Nemesis Part 2" | |||||||||
| Season | 3 | ||||||||
| No. in season | 13 | ||||||||
| Production company | Mainframe Entertainment | ||||||||
| Airdate | May 7, 1999 | ||||||||
| Written by | Simon Furman | ||||||||
| Directed by | Cal Shumiatcher, Steve Sacks | ||||||||
| Animation studio | Mainframe Entertainment | ||||||||
| Continuity | Beast Wars continuity | ||||||||
 Watch this episode on YouTube
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Megatron has possession of the Nemesis, and the Maximals need a last-minute miracle to defeat him as the Beast Wars come to an end.
Contents |
Synopsis
Megatron has raised the Nemesis from its watery grave and has begun a random attack on everything in sight, all the while quoting the Covenant of Primus. After telling Rhinox to "deploy Operation Eternity", Optimus Primal and Tigerhawk attempt to fight it off, but their weapons don't even scratch the hull. Tigerhawk tells Primal to rally the Maximals and that he will remain to fight. On the Nemesis, Dinobot is commenting that his spark has changed and feels complete. Aspects of the original Dinobot begin to emerge. He admires Tigerhawk's defense. Tigerhawk is able to damage power on several decks, limiting Megatron's offensive options to using the fusion cannon, which he uses to destroy Tigerhawk. Going to the anthropoid settlement, Megatron prepares to destroy it. Dinobot objects, asking where the honor is in such an act, but Megatron fires anyway, killing Inferno and Quickstrike in the process.
At Mount St. Hilary, the Maximals are preparing a last-ditch strategy—bring the Ark online and fight the Nemesis. However, the ship has been offline too long, and Rhinox and Blackarachnia are having trouble restoring power. The Nemesis arrives, but Tigerhawk's attack, as well as the wasted attack on the anthropoids, has depleted its energon reserves, and the fusion cannon requires time to recharge. Megatron activates its tractor beam, and Primal enters the Nemesis. He and Megatron duke it out, but the Predacon clearly has the advantage. On the Ark, the Maximals manage to get the engines on line, but they burn out almost instantly. Rattrap proclaims that they are all going to die, and for once, no one tells him to shut up. Instead, the characteristically stoic Rhinox simply responds with "Yup".
However, Dinobot, disapproving of Megatron's actions, sends a message to the Maximals of an Autobot shuttle stored in the Ark. Megatron orders Dinobot to fire, but he refuses, stating that he has his honor. In a last bid to save them all, Rhinox pilots the shuttle on a collision course with the Nemesis's bridge, crashing through the viewport and going out the other side, dragging Megatron along. Optimus urges Dinobot to save himself, but he simply bids farewell to Primal and remains as the bridge explodes around him. As the Nemesis crashes, Primal rejoins the other Maximals.
Sometime later, after repairing the shuttle and rigging a transwarp cell to it, the Maximals leave Earth for Cybertron. Optimus, piloting the ship, declares that the Beast Wars are over, and memorializes the Maximals who fell during the war. Rattrap, however, is more happy to be going home and points out that they won't have to see Megatron 'til they get there, as the Predacon is tied to the hull of their shuttle. As the shuttle enters transwarp, the scene shifts to the anthropoids, who have built a village and are using parts of Inferno and Quickstrike in a ritual to celebrate their new leader...Waspinator.
Waspinator declares that he is "happy at last".
'Til all are— waaaaait a cycle...
Featured characters
Characters in italic text appear only in video footage.
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Maximals | Predacons | Anthropoids |
|---|---|---|
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Quotes
"'I am that which is, which was, and is yet to come! And you will know my name is Megatron when I lay my vengeance upon you!'"
"You have already read the Covenant of Primus?"
"Just the good parts."
- —Megatron and Dinobot
"I'll say one thing for my namesake, he liked his artillery big and plentiful. Now, where was I? Ah yes, mindless destruction! Good for the spark, I always say."
- -Megatron, commenting on the Nemesis' firepower.
"Quickly, go to your fellow Maximals. Prepare them! If Megatron destroys the Ark and its occupants, history as we know it will unravel."
"You can't stop that thing alone."
"Perhaps, but it is my destiny to try. I will hold the line here. Go!"
- —Tigerhawk and Optimus Primal
"Hmm, I suppose, given my imminent godhood, these primitives should really be beneath my intention. Ah, still, no score is too small to settle, I always say."
[stops Megatron from activating the weapons] "You would turn the full fury of this mighty warship on a lone anthropoid?! Tell me, Megatron, where's the honor in that?!"
[growls] "You dare use the h-word to me?!"
"I…I apologize. I merely felt our power should be conserved for…the larger battle."
"Duly noted...and ignored!"
- —Megatron and Dinobot
"Well, come on, let's have it. The usual 'destiny and honor' speech."
"Speech this!"
- —Megatron gets decked by Optimus Primal
"'And there came a hero who said, "Hurt not the earth, nor the seas, nor the trees, nor the very fabric of time." But the hero would not prevail'".
"Finish the quote, Megatron. 'Nor would he surrender!'"
- —Megatron and Optimus Primal
"Destroy them!"
"...Negative."
"What?! What possible reason could you have to disobey me?! I am your master! I am your creator!"
"And I...have my HONOR!"
- —Megatron and Dinobot
"Waspinator happy at last."
- —The most well known ending of all. Until he gets chased away.
Notes
Script timeline
- First script: 16th November 1998
- Second draft: 22nd November 1998
- Finalised: 22nd November 1998
- As Air: 27th March 1999
Animation and technical errors
- As Tigerhawk is about to be overwhelmed by the fusion cannon, it cuts to a reaction shot by Dinobot, whose "monocle" is on the wrong eye.
- In the same scene, Tigerhawk is shown being stripped apart to a skeletal structure by the beam, but is shown fully intact before the beam finally destroys him.
- When Optimus returns to the Maximal base and tries to communicate with Tigerhawk, his right wing is missing.
- At one point, Optimus tears his wing off and tosses it to jam the giant grinder mechanisms on the bottom of the Nemesis. However, in the next scene in which he appears, his wing has been replaced with no explanation.
- The conduit Blackarachnia splices with Rattrap's tail can be seen in an earlier scene with the tail already installed.
- As the Maximals await their doom inside the Ark and Rattrap comments on how they're "all gonna die", he's missing his robot mode "backpack".
- Megatron apparently transforms to dragon mode off-screen, transforms back to robot mode on-screen before the scene cuts away, then when next we see him, he is in dragon mode again!
- For most of the episode, Optimus is missing the "blast shields" that he usually wears on either his forearms or shoulders. He tends to have them when he's in vehicle mode, but not consistently.
- When Megatron grabs Optimus Primal by the head during the battle on the Nemesis' bridge, Primal's suddenly got his missing blast shields back. They go missing again in the very next scene.
- In the final battle scene, Dinobot is flipped horizontally. (See first glitch.)
- Bringing us full circle with how the planet tended to look in season one, the shots of Earth from space look nothing like the planet should. (See picture above.)
- As in the previous episode, Scott McNeil's name is misspelled as "Scott McNiel" in the credits.
Continuity errors
- Although it was cut from the final episode for time, the script called for Generation 1 Megatron's spark to be removed from Megatron and placed back in its proper body before the Maximals leave Earth. This very brief scene was animated and can be seen on the Beast Wars Season 3 box sets produced by Kid Rhino and Madman Entertainment.[1] It should be noted, however, that despite the cut, Optimus's lines from that segment were still included in the episode, albeit used in a different context.
- Furman later wrote the short story "A Meeting of Minds", which is mostly set between "Master Blaster" and "Other Victories" but includes a short epilogue effectively recounting the events of this deleted scene. Almost two decades later, Ask Vector Prime claimed that the deleted scene was "canon".
Continuity notes
- Was Dinobot's spirit influencing Dinobot II, or was something else going on? After Dinobot flashes between himself and the original Dinobot, his voice no longer has the electronic effect. The 2010 Transformers Hall of Fame competition would eventually say that Dinobot's "consciousness" was influencing him. "Dark Glass" provides a more direct explanation but it was ultimately not produced.
- There are echoes of musical cues from "Code of Hero" playing as Dinobot starts to recall the life of the original Dinobot.
- As they leave Earth, Optimus Primal asks the survivors to reflect on the Maximals who lost their lives in the conflict, implicitly referring to Tigatron, Airazor, Depth Charge, and Dinobot.
Transformers references
- The Nemesis uses a tractor beam, which it had also used to snag the Ark in Generation 1 media.
- The Ark's engines ignite one after another, not simultaneously; this matches how they were shown to ignite in More than Meets the Eye, Part 1.
- "In the darkest hour, there will be a light," a line from the Covenant of Primus most likely derived from "Light our darkest hour" in The Transformers: The Movie.
- Speaking of that movie, Primal's declaration of "This has to stop! At any cost" mirrors Optimus Prime's declaration of "Megatron must be stopped! No matter the cost".
- Though possibly coincidence, Megatron's line "Duly noted... and ignored!" rings similar to a quote by the original Megatron.
Real-world references
- Megatron targeting grid 3H was a shout-out to 3H Enterprises, then-organizers of BotCon.
- The lines Megatron reads from the Covenant of Primus bear some similarities to lines from English translations of the Bible of Earth's humans.
- One of Megatron's Covenant of Primus quotes bears stronger resemblance to the paraphrase of Ezekiel 25:17 in the film Pulp Fiction than it does to the original Bible quote.
- The anthropoid celebration, with the jubilant primitives happily using the parts of their defeated enemies as musical instruments, is reminiscent of the Ewok celebration in Return of the Jedi.
Trivia
- In an interview, Furman stated he was approached at BotCon 1998 to write a "G1-centric" episode, and worked closely with Bob Forward on what would become "Nemesis" (they originally weren't sure who'd write which part). Various ideas were pitched, but for reasons of budget and a lack of a fourth season meant everything needed to be wrapped up here; one key decision was to ensure the core cast "got a good send off, one that didn't leave them in limbo". Bob would do most of the Dinobot writing. [1] Despite the rewrite to turn this into a series finale, Forward and Larry DiTillo learnt "too late" that they were being replaced after Season 3 "to tie up all the threads".[2]
- Kid Rhino's Season 3 box set contains an animatic with additional footage cut out from the final episode (presumably to save time). One of the edits shows Optimus Primal tearing a transwarp cell from the Nemesis' control deck prior to telling Dinobot to save himself. The transwarp cell is visible in the (finished) episode in Primal's hand as he escapes the exploding Nemesis, and is later seen installed on the controls of the Autobot shuttle, explaining how the Maximals were able to travel through both space and time and return home.
- In the early plot of the episode, the Maximals successfully launch the Ark itself, instead of an Autobot shuttle. Also, Dirge, Ramjet and Thrust would have reactivated, ramming into the Nemesis instead of the Autobot shuttle.
- This episode addresses the Teletron vs Teletraan pronunciation debate. When Blackarachnia refers to it as "Teletron-1", Rattrap annoyedly corrects her with "Teletraan". Blackarachnia dismisses him presumably because she's got more important things to worry about than how to pronounce the computer's name.
Foreign localization
French
- Title: "Némésis 2" (Canada)
Italian
- Title: "Destini - Parte 2 ("Fates - Part 2")
- The recap off-screen voice says: «In the previous episode of the Beast Wars...», titling the series by its English name instead of the Italian one, and saying "the Beast Wars" like if "Beast Wars" was the name of a group of characters.
- Unlike in English, the Italian dub always managed to get the correct pronunciation of Teletraan's name, instead of "Teletron". Still, the dialog between Rattrap and Blackarachnia about the misnaming is kept the same as in English, making Blackarachnia the only character who ever pronounced the name wrongly in this dub.
Japanese
Portuguese
- Title: "Nemesis Parte 2" ("Nemesis Part 2")
Spanish
- Title: "Nemesis Segunda Parte" (America, "Nemesis Second Part")
Mandarin
- Title: "Zhèngyì de Jiéjú" (正义的结局, "End of Justice")
Home video releases
- VHS
2000 — Beast Wars: Super Lifeform Transformers: Metals — Happy? This Should Do It (Pioneer LDC) — Japanese audio only.
2000 — Beast Wars: Transformers — Volume 4 (Universal)
- DVD
2000 — Beast Wars: Transformers: Metals — DVD Box 2 (Pioneer LDC) — English and Japanese audio.
2004 — Beast Wars: Transformers — The Complete Third 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 3 (Madman Entertainment)
2009 — The Transformers: Beast Wars — Complete Collection (Madman Entertainment)
