The Catalyst
From Transformers Wiki
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| "The Catalyst" | ||||||
| Season | 1 | |||||
| No. in season | 12 | |||||
| Production company | Mainframe Entertainment | |||||
| Airdate | December 11, 1999 | |||||
| Written by | Robert N. Skir Marty Isenberg | |||||
| Directed by | Steve Sacks | |||||
| Animation studio | Mainframe Entertainment | |||||
| Continuity | Beast Wars continuity | |||||
Rattrap uses a catalyst program to accelerate the growth of the plants at the Maximal stronghold, and Blackarachnia learns the truth about Thrust.
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Synopsis
The Maximals have set up a system to keep their orchard supplied with the organic goop provided by Cybertron, and are holding a memorial service for Rhinox, unaware that they're being spied on by Tankor. Tankor is also spying on Megatron, who asks Jetstorm and Thrust what happened to the third of his Vehicon Generals prior to his apparent death. The Diagnostic Drone informs Megatron about the discovery of the Key to Vector Sigma, and Tankor's subsequent overloading while using it. The Drone suggests attaching copies of the Key to the drones and using them to purge Cybertron of all organic matter. When Megatron asks what it'll do to his beast mode, the Drone says it will be eliminated, and inadvertently begins to repeat Tankor's ramblings about how it will also drive Megatron mad, before covering his blunder. Although suspicious, Megatron orders the key be attached to Aero and Cycle Drones and tested on a Maximal, much to Tankor's annoyance.
Rattrap uses the ancient computers to run a planet-wide search for more organic goop, but is interrupted by Blackarachnia, who needs the goo herself to try to turn Thrust back into Silverbolt. Rattrap reluctantly lets her take the sample.
Meanwhile, the Diagnostic Drone is taking Jetstorm and Thrust on a wild goose chase on Tankor's orders. Tankor intends to give Megatron a change of heart.
Rattrap has had some measure of success, turning up a catalyst program. He returns to the orchard, where the catalyst dramatically increases the plant-growth, and he's carried into the air by vines. Optimus Primal, Nightscream and Cheetor turn up to rescue him from the clutches of the plant life.
Blackarachnia locates the searching Vehicons and attacks, seizing Thrust and carrying him off. The Aero Drones zap her web line with the keys they're carrying, and she's forced to detach, falling to the ground.
Optimus tells Rattrap to try his experiments on a small scale next time, but the other Maximals think he's wrong and that the fast-growing vines would be a great weapon against Megatron. Optimus goes to commune with the Oracle while the others clear up.
Up in the city, Blackarachnia knocks out Jetstorm and the Diagnostic Drone before leading Thrust to a more secluded location where she traps him in a web. Dosed with goo, Thrust reverts to his old personality—Waspinator. Waspinator explains that he got bored on prehistoric Earth and flew back to Cybertron, which—at least according to him—"took forever." Blackarachnia is more than a little disappointed that he's not Silverbolt, but they're interrupted by Jetstorm, who knocks the container of goo from Blackarachnia's hand and is dosed with it. Jetstorm's old personality comes out, and this time it's Silverbolt.
Rattrap admits to Cheetor and Nightscream what the spider's up to. Nightscream volunteers to get Optimus, but Cheetor has other plans. Optimus, meanwhile, is having problems accessing the Oracle.
Diagnostic Drone reports failure to Megatron, but he's been monitoring the situation anyway. The drones zap the huge vine with their keys, changing it to technomatter. The Maximals leap off before they're infected, but Rattrap announces they have to sever the vines to stop the infection spreading to the orchid and Cybertron's organic core. They race alongside the vine, chasing the infection until it reaches the orchid. Optimus spots the problem and frantically begins breaking vines. He succeeds, and rounds on Cheetor for disobeying orders, before informing him that he believes the Oracle has been tampered with.
Tankor, through the Diagnostic Drone, convinces Megatron to load the Key into all of the tank drones, and muses to himself that it's all thanks to the catalyst program he let Rattrap find.
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Maximals | Vehicons | Predacons | Others |
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Quotes
"And so we pause, to reflect on our departed friend Rhinox, rather than the enemy Tankor he became. For all possibilities exist within our sparks, and each of us is vulnerable to the path of darkness."
- —Optimus Primal's eulogy to Rhinox.
"Your glorious army will shine less brightly without his guiding... can I have his tank drones?"
- —Jetstorm, that greedy son of a...
Diagnostic Drone: "My scanners indicate a Maximal signature right in this vicinity."
Jetstorm: "If it's so close, why can't we-"
Computer: "Maximal signature detected."
Diagnostic Drone: "What?"
- —The hunt takes an unexpected turn.
"Nooooooo. Doggie-bot not here."
- —Waspinator's first words when reactivated in Thrust's body.
"Fleshy-bots worship Waspinator day in, day out. Waspinator bored. Fleshy-bots beg Waspinator not go, but Waspinator miss Cybertron. Took forever, but waaaaaay worth it. Now Waspinator cooooool biker-bot. Hardly ever get blown up and... Hmmmmmm... Chick-bots diiiiiig brooding loner bit."
"You mean I risked everything to save this... this... scrapheap?!? Eww!"
"That mean spider-bot not go steady with Waspinator?"
- —Blackarachnia and Waspinator, the wrong Scott McNeil character.
"Blackarachnia. Oh, dark poison of my heart!"
- —Silverbolt's first words when reactivated in Jetstorm's body.
Notes
Technical or animation errors
- Optimus plants a "seed" at the beginning of the episode that's very clearly a full-grown fruit, not the inner husk we saw in "Survivor".
- During Megatron's conversation with the Diagnostic Drone at the beginning of the episode, his scar switches several times between his left and right eyes.
- When Megatron orders to test the Key on the Maximals, the Diagnostic Drone suddenly appears with beat-up texturing and its model is low-res. This is actually a reuse of a shot from the end of the episode, but in both cases its blockiness is an error.
- As Tankor expresses his frustration over Megatron not taking the bait, his left arm is clipping through his chest.
- A small, gray piece of CGI is visible on the bars of the vent-cover that Jetstorm and Thrust blow up, in the exact same spot where a hit flash later appears. It's probably the object responsible for the "bullet hit" effect, just not emitting any light. Could be seen as a random speck of dust, though.
- As he breaks through the vines that have entangled Rattrap, Optimus's arms are bent at a strange angle.
- After Rattrap has subdued the plants and we cut back to the Vehicon search party, as the "camera" cranes up, the shadows of an aero drone squad on the side of the building remain static. They only start moving when the drones themselves finally come into view.
- When Rattrap explains Blackarachnia's plan to Cheetor and Nightscream, his body turns low-res, save for his head.
- When Waspinator's slammed against the wall, but before the organic goop on his chest actually dissolves, Thrust already has his normal eyes back and his chest is clean.
- And yet again, as Cheetor and co. rescue Blackarachnia, the bodies of all four Maximals are very low quality. Similarly, the vines themselves appear segmented or smooth depending on the shot.
Continuity errors
- It seems unusual that Megatron would threaten the Diagnostic Drone with a spark extractor, seeing as how it doesn't have a spark to begin with.
- So Waspinator was able to break through Vehicon programming when facing Blackarachnia but Silverbolt either never was or just didn't, and he never did later even when his true love was directly appealing to him? This raises worrying questions about either Waspinator or Silverbolt, especially the latter as he'll later admit how much he loved being a murderous villain...
- Silverbolt and Waspinator seem unaware that they are in Vehicon bodies with drones at their command. This is odd, considering that Rhinox was fully aware (or so he claims) within the body of Tankor, and even more so when Silverbolt feels guilt when he finally returns to the Maximal fold (although these can both be chalked up to the Maximals tampering with their respective programming). Even a few seconds before Waspinator acts oblivious to his command over the drones, he confesses "Chickbots dig brooding, loner bit!", acknowledging his role as Thrust. Huh?
Continuity notes
- Cheetor brings up the fruit from "Forbidden Fruit" as an example of when Optimus misinterpreted the will of the Oracle.
- The computer console Tankor uses to send Rattrap the information about the catalyst program is the same console that was first seen at the back end of the underground amphitheater in "Revelations Part II: Descent".
- Silverbolt and Waspinator's Beast Wars personalities emerge in this episode, albeit for a few minutes.
- This episode reunites all of the surviving Predacons of Beast Wars (not counting Megatron). Blackarachnia and Silverbolt originally started off as Predacons but later aligned themselves with the Maximals during the series, and Waspinator quit in "Nemesis Part 1".
- The remains of Quickstrike and Inferno can be briefly seen at the start of Waspinator's flashback, which hearkens back to their fate at the very end of "Nemesis Part 2".
- Nightscream isn't keen on chasing Blackarachnia's spark "again", referring to his pursuit of her kidnapped spark in "Apocalypse".
- This episode is the first to refer to both the Cycle Drones and the Tank Drones by name.
- Gadgets and powers:
- Rattrap's tail is equipped with a detachable clamp.
- Blackarachnia's webs are capable of conducting her electrical blasts, allowing her to effectively taser Jetstorm.
- Rattrap's face mask comes with a cute lil' squeegee attachment.
- He also deploys a pulse generator in robot mode.
Transformers references
Real-world references
- Nightscream refers to Blackarachnia as "Miss Spider", referring to the children's book character of the same name.
Trivia
- From this point on, Thrust stops helping Blackarachnia and she (and the other Maximals) show no interest in bringing him over. Admittedly Waspinator has said he likes being Thrust, but it does seem like they're not intending to reformat him because he's annoying and was never on their side to begin with. Harsh...
- When people had asked if Waspinator was coming back, Bob Skir had replied "Waspinator, when last seen, was king of the cave-people... Why in the world would he want to leave there?". What a sneaky man![1]
- Some fans have interpreted the flashback scene of Waspinator being forcibly evicted from the proto-human tribe via slingshot as the method by which he was launched into space and made it back to Cybertron, and subsequently gotten angry about that. If you are one of those people, slap yourself repeatedly until you stop thinking that.
- In 2013, Bob Skir mentioned that he'd like to tell the story of Waspinator's voyage back to Cybertron, joking that Waspinator's odyssey must have been "worthy of Homer".
- In 2019, Marty Isenberg further complicated things by stating that the anthropoids evicting Waspinator from their tribe via catapult was a completely unscripted bit of levity inserted by the animators! He also noted that this was probably his favorite episode of the series.[2]
- Corey Burton provided the voice over promo for this episode on Fox Kids.
Foreign localization
French
- Title: "Guerre Techno-Organique, Partie II" ("Techno-Organic War, Part II")
German
- Title: "Vector Sigma"
- Original airdate: December 13, 2000
Italian
- Title: "Guerra techno organica (seconda parte) - Il catalizzatore" ("Techno organic war (second part) - The catalyst")
- Instead of calling Blackarachnia "ladybug", Jetstorm weirdly calls her "insect woman" (donna insetto).
- Surprisingly, Nightscream once calls Blackarachnia by her Italian name despite the dub of this series using English ones (this happens when he calls her "Miss Spider" in English). Still, it was possibly meant to be a nickname since her Italian name is just the English one shortened.
Japanese
- Title: "Seimei no Mizu" (生命の水, "The Water of Life")
- Original airdate: December 12, 2004
Mandarin
- Title: "Cuīhuàjì " (催化剂, "The Catalyst")
Polish
- Title: "Katalizator" ("Catalyst")
Brazilian Portuguese
- Title: "O Catalisador" ("The Catalyst")
Spanish
- Title: "Guerra Tecno-Orgánica, Parte Dos: El Catalizador" ("Techno-Organic War, Part Two: The Catalyst")
Home video releases
- DVD
2005 — Super Lifeform Transformers: Beast Wars Returns — Volume 3 (Geneon Entertainment) — Japanese audio only.
2006 — Beast Machines: Transformers — The Complete Series (Rhinomation)
2014 — Transformers: Beast Machines — The Complete Series (Shout! Factory)
2007 — Transformers: Beast Machines — Season One: Volume Two (Sony)
2007 — Transformers: Beast Machines — Season One: Volume Two — Revelations (Sony)
2007 — Transformers: Beast Machines — Complete Season One (Sony)
2009 — Transformers: Beast Machines — Intégrale Saison 1 (Sony) — French audio only.
References
- ↑ Bob Skir FAQ from 12 October 1999
- ↑ Marty Isenberg at TFNation 2019
