Dark Designs

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Heeeeeere's Johnny!
"Dark Designs"
Season	1
No. in season	13
Production company	Mainframe Entertainment
Airdate	November 4, 1996
Written by	Ian Weir
Directed by	Owen Hurley
Animation studio	Mainframe Entertainment
Continuity	Beast Wars continuity
Watch this episode on YouTube

Megatron captures and reprograms Rhinox into a Predacon. It doesn't turn out very well.

Synopsis

In some usual rocky terrain, the Maximals are disappointed to learn that their day's expedition has been a waste of time, as the energon they were searching for is inaccessible. Rattrap whines, saying the situation couldn't get worse, prompting an attack from the Predacons. The Maximals are at a clear disadvantage, but Rhinox triggers a rockslide that crushes all the Predacons.

What a catch.

Optimus Primal commends Rhinox's intelligent tactics, and the Maximals begin their return to base. Megatron also determines that Rhinox is a major threat to his operation and orders Tarantulas to capture the large Maximal. When Rhinox is a distance behind the other Maximals on the road home, the spider captures Rhinox and knocks the rhino out with some cyber venom.

Shocking footage reveals Hasbro's use of test animals for its redeco machinery.

A while later, the Maximals noticed their large comrade has disappeared. Rattrap activates his communicator, and are able to listen through Rhinox's communicator, overhearing the events in the Predacon base where Megatron uses "the Transmuter" to turn Rhinox into an evil Predacon. While the Maximals are concerned, Optimus Primal plans to wait a while before the Maximals make an effort to rescue their friend, yessssssss...

In the Predacon base, Megatron, and his new underling, Evil Rhinox, get down to plotting on how they can use Rhinox's knowledge to destroy the Maximals—but some technical problems with Megatron's computer halt the planning session. Rhinox is sent to check up on Scorponok's repair of the system (which was secretly vandalised by Rhinox). With no witnesses, Rhinox drops several tons of hardware onto Scorponok. When Scorponok's flattened body is found later by Megatron and Waspinator, they have no clue who committed the crime.

Mmm, I feel like turkey tonight.

Waspinator deposits Scorponok into a CR chamber for repair, but flying away, Waspinator is hit with a heavy piece of weight pushed by Rhinox. The impact drives Waspinator into a state of dementia. This time, Rhinox's attempt at homicide is witnessed by Terrorsaur, who meets with Rhinox in private. There, Rhinox declines Terrorsaur's offer of partnership and insists that Terrorsaur stay silent. Later, Megatron discovers that Tarantulas and Blackarachnia have been poisoned. Still oblivious, a furious Megatron shouts out his confusion.

Outside of the Predacon base, Cheetor figures out Optimus Primal's plan: leave Rhinox as he is, so he'll run roughshod over the Predacons. But knowing that Megatron will eventually wise up, the Maximals get ready to mount a rescue. At the same time, Scorponok has been repaired, and he tells Megatron what happened to him. Megatron concludes that his little experiment has gone wrong, and decides to end it—and Rhinox as well.

So purple is a primary color to Predacons, right?

Megatron confronts Rhinox, and assigns Scorponok and Terrorsaur to disarm the new recruit. By mentioning Terrorsaur's plotting, Rhinox is able to get the two Predacon goons to fight each other instead of himself, leaving them as easy pickings. With those two taken care of, he opens fire on Megatron, causing the Predacon to fall off his hover platform.

Rhinox taunts Megatron with a speech about who's the boss now, but Rhinox has stepped into the range of the Transmuter. Megatron reactivates the machine, converting Rhinox back to his regular good self. The Maximals blast their way into the base. Optimus Primal battles with Megatron, slicing off one of the Predacon leader's arms. A stray shot from the still demented Waspinator hits the Transmuter, and the Maximals grab Rhinox and evacuate while the Predacons take cover to avoid being harmed by the exploding machine.

Afterward, the Maximals relax. Rhinox admits that the Predacons have some serious personality problems, and the Maximals have a big laugh. Except for Dinobot.

Featured Characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Quotes

"There's more than one way to skin a cat... so to speak."

—Rhinox, realizing that Cheetor is standing right there.

"Close the file on Optimus Primal... and delete!"

—Megatron is apparently referencing another Mainframe series.

"Better dead than Pred."
"Some of us have survived the experience, furball."

—Cheetor and Dinobot discuss the benefits of being a Predacon.

"Oh, I'm being real careful. See, I'm on this side, and it's all gonna fall that way."

—Rhinox, shortly before dropping a pile of crates on Scorponok.

"Idiot! What have you done?!"
"Idiot does not respond! Idiot is comatose!"

—Megatron and Waspinator inspect Rhinox's handiwork.

"He's a smirker! Mangle!"

—Scorponok re: Terrorsaur

Waspinator: "Destroy all Autobot-b-bot-bot-bot-bot!"
Megatron: "Waspinator, what are you buzzing about?"
Waspinator: "Waspinator? Negative-negative-negative! I am Shrapnel, Decepticon hero-o-o-o!"
Blackarachnia: "Shrapnel? That was a Decepticon from the Great Wars three centuries ago! He's wacko."
Waspinator: "Wacko? No, Wonko! Wonko the Sane!"

—The Predacons watch Waspinator, who has obviously flipped his lid.

"Well, what do you know? I win. Reprogramming me was the worst mistake you ever made cause now that I'm a Predacon, I'm just a little too crafty for you."
"Yes, I see this now."
"It's called irony, sport. I take over, and you head straight for the recycling bin. Yessss."
"So it would seem. And even now, Rhinox, you're teaching me a valuable lesson."
"Yeah? What's that?"
"Sometimes, Predacons gloat too much!"

—Rhinox and Megatron

"Like you're three gigabytes of attitude on a two-gig hard drive. No wonder they've got personality problems!"

—Rhinox on being a Predacon

Notes

Script timeline

• First draft: 12th March 1996
• Second draft: 26th April 1996
• Finalised: 12th June 1996
• As Air: 29th October 1996

Animation and technical errors

• The animation and continuity in the opening scene is janky even by early Beast Wars episode standards, a fact the jumpy editing and excessive use of shaky-cam do their best to hide. Some goofs in the sequence:
  • Rhinox's Energon scanner disappears from his rhino mode leg.
  • While Rattrap tempts fate, Dinobot's rear-end is messed up, with his tail sticking out at a very awkward angle and its base being all scrunched up.
  • When the missile blows Cheetor away, his feet momentarily sink into the ground. After he hits the rock face, his limbs all twist around and clip through each other and his (non-animated) tail. After he lands, one of his back legs ends up ponting toward his back, and his front left paw slowly makes a 360° turn. His head rotates near 180°, crinkling his neck into a thin strand.
  • During Cheetor's stunt, Rhinox and Primal are not animated in one shot, failing to react to the explosion in any way.
  • One of Tarantulas' feet is situated on thin air during the fight, and is also painfully twisted. In some of his full-body shots, his foot seems bent normally, but he's still floating.
  • All other Maximals aside from Cheetor and Rhinox are missing in one shot. Also, the river on the screen's left appears to gradually disappear.
  • Following this, Dinobot's left leg remains clipping into the cliff side for much of the scene, and his spinning shield also sinks into it.
  • In the closeup on Rhinox's chain gun, Dinobot's eye beams are extremely thin, too close to each other, and colorless. The latter two issues get fixed a moment later, but the beams remain way too thin. Some shots later, they're too close again.
  • There's a few empty, blue gaps in the background scenery during the shots focusing on Tarantulas.
  • Scorponok's lower body is clipping straight through the boulder he's supposedly hiding behind. His feet and a tiny speck of his knee poke through, and his left claw also clips into it at times. Also, his eyes are red.
  • Megatron's thigh is clipping through his knee and shin.
  • A gap appears between Dinobot's head and neck when he's looking up.
  • While Dinobot and Rattrap argue, one shot shows Optimus up and well, despite having been shot down a bit earlier.
  • As Rhinox attempts to blast apart the rock above the Predacons, Megatron's aim is way off, shooting far away from the Maximals (see the animated .gif above).
  • There's no damage on Primal when he gets shot down. But afterwards, his whole body looks beat to scrap. He somehow turns back to normal just before the Maximal revert to beast mode.
  • When he chastises Rhinox for his aim, Cheetor is standing in between him and Optimus. In the next shot, Cheetor is gone.
  • During Megatron's "Close the file..." line, what look like Dinobot's eye beams are shooting off into the distance behind the Maximals.
  • After the whole firefight is done, the river in the bottom of the canyon isn't animated for a few shots.
  • What do seem to be moving, however, are the textures on a background cliff as Rhinox says "Looks clear."
• When Rhinox terrorizes, he's suddenly not shackled anymore. He's standing like normal, clipping through the shackles.
• As the camera pulls out after Megatron introduced their new teammate, both Tarantulas' and Scorponok's feet are sunken into their floating platforms. Also despite cackling in this shot, Tarantulas' mandibles don't move.
• When Cheetor reacts to the news, the spots on his torso are messy-looking.
• As Rhinox compliments Megatron's setup, the latter's left-hand clips through the left armrest of his throne as he sits.
• When Megatron moves the crates off Scorponok, after having been supposedly flattened in the previous scene, only his head is conspicuously flattened, while his body is otherwise intact.
• While Terrorsaur watches Waspinator bouncing around, the top part of his neck is jutting through his head. It stays so in his following scene too.
• Blackarachnia's floating platform is clipping into Megatron's legs as the dazed Waspinator flies about.
• After Rhinox is done walking down a corridor, the texturing on his "skirt" completely changes.
• The joints on Rattrap's arms slip apart when he expresses his worries about Rhinox outside the Pred base.
• When Scorponok explains what happened to Megatron, he lowers his tail. In the next shot, it's above his head again.
• When we see the Maximals conversing near the Predacon base for the second time, all of them are floating. This is most noticeable on Dinobot, who looks like he's standing in the lava flow. Rattrap's lower arms are also twisted around again.
• Megatron's toes are sunken into his platform when he greets Rhinox.
• When Terrorsaur is about to attack Rhinox, he's missing his Pteranodon feet, and so his legs end in stubs.
• As Scorponok paces toward Rhinox, his right shoulder is turned upside-down, with his scorpion leg kibble sticking out above it instead of being on his back. His eyes also shift between red and yellow throughout the scene.
• When Terrorsaur tosses Scorponok over himself, Rhinox is missing from the back.
• After Rhinox disposes of Megatron's two goons, he keeps laughing with his mouth closed.
• As Megatron struggles to stand up while Rhinox gloats, his left arm panels keep clipping through each other.
• When the Maximals bust into the Pred base, Cheetor begins talking, but his mouth only starts moving when we cut to a closeup of him.
• Waspinator's damaged chest is suddenly pristine after Cheetor shoots him down.
• When Dinobot throws his sword at Scorponok, he keeps growling without opening his mouth.
• As Optimus swings his blade around, crying "Nooo!", the blade slices clean through his own neck. Ouch.
• When Megatron dives to the floor to launch Optimus, his beast mode head can be seen lying on the ground, before it is severed.
• After he's cut off Megatron's beast head, Optimus' left leg twists around for a frame before popping back into shape.
• Megatron's arm gets severed at the bicep. But when he talks to Terrorsaur a bit later, his arm is intact down to his elbow, with part of his lower arm still attached.

Continuity errors

• Megatron describes the Transmuter as being "mega-cycles in the design." Since a mega-cycle is akin to about an hour, it seems odd that Megatron would use that particular term instead of a larger unit of time.
• Near the end of the episode, Evil Rhinox shoots Megatron's kneecaps, making it very hard for him to stand up. Yet Megatron has little trouble standing or moving around in the big fight with the Maximals that happens soon afterward.
• It's a bit of a cartoon standard, but whilst the bad guys find it nearly impossible to actually kill any of their opponents, capturing one is a piece of cake.

Continuity notes

• Megatron says that he might have "underestimated the rhinoceros" after falling to Rhinox's quick wits during the initial battle. Apparently the decking he received off the Maximal last episode wasn't enough to impress him.
• Gadgets and powers:
  • Rhinox is using the same tricorder-esque thingamajig he used last episode, but this time he's using it to detect energon.
  • In addition to the bombs, grenades, and lockpicking kits, Rattrap also has a tracking device in his forearm which he can use to home in on a comm device. He's basically a walking Swiss-army knife.
• Blackarachnia says that the Great War occurred "three centuries ago", giving us our first indication as to the time zone the Maximals and Predacons hail from. It's notable that she uses the English term rather than a Cybertronian one, as by this point in the series we have finally settled on "cycles" for all other time measurements.

Transformers references

• A lot of them, thanks to Waspinator!
  • After suffering a head injury, Waspinator babbles that his name is Shrapnel, an Insecticon from the pre-Beast Era portion of the Generation 1 continuity family. He proceeds to stutter and repeat words in a semi-accurate reference to the distinctive speech pattern that Shrapnel had in the G1 cartoon, which saw him repeat the last word of his sentences, sentences.^[1]
  • Waspinator-as-Shrapnel describes himself as a "Decepticon hero", and one of his many non-sequiturs is the phrase "Destroy all Autobot-bot-bots!"
  • Just after getting shot down by Cheetor, Waspinator delivers the classic TF slogan "More than meets the eye."
• This is the first episode to clarify what the "Great War", first alluded to back in the first episode, actually is — the Beast Era term for the original Autobot-Decepticon conflict.

Real-world references

• Cheetor's line "Better dead than Pred" is a paraphrase of the old 1950's anti-Communism slogan "Better dead than Red".
• Immediately following saying that he is Shrapnel, Waspinator claims that he is "Wonko! Wonko the Sane!" and salutes the audience before punching himself in the head. In addition to being a fictional character created by the sci-fi comedy author Douglas Adams, it is a tribute to Transfan Ben Yee, whose online username at the time was Wonko the Sane.
• The scene where Optimus Primal proudly brandishes his swords before an unimpressed Megatron lazily shoots him down is reminiscent of the famous duel between Indiana Jones and the Cairo swordsman in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Dinobot pushing Scorponok into his rotor blade weapon echoes the demise of the German engineer later in the movie.

Trivia

Grapety purple edition not sold in stores. Or anywhere else, for that matter.

• Oddly enough, there are no purple and silver redecos of Rhinox.
• Rhinox gains evil, red eyes in beast mode upon being transformed into a Predacon. His robot form already has those, however, so to underscore his evilness in that form, his eyes are circled with silver rings that connect to the ridge over his forehead. The effect is similar to "dark circles" under a human's eyes.
• Megatron only ever refers to Rhinox by name while he's a Predacon. Before and after his reprogramming, Megatron refers to Rhinox either as 'Rhinoceros' or 'Maximal'.
• Both Optimus and Rhinox say "Yeeessssss..." in a very similar manner to Megatron. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
• When the enraged Scorponok jumps over Rhinox to get to Terrorsaur, his scream is recycled audio from when his claw was blown off its wrist back in "The Probe".
• Apparently Megatron didn't learn his lesson, because he'd go on to reprogram Rhinox again in Beast Machines. Guess what happens...

Foreign localization

French:

• Title: "Sombres Dessins" ("Dark Drawings")

• When Waspinator thinks he is Shrapnel, he calls the Autobots "Autorobots". This will be corrected for the next episodes, regaining the classic "Autobot" name. However, the Decepticons will be called "Decepticors" until the end of the dubbed episodes.

• Title: "Sombre Modèle" (Canada, "Dark Model")

German

• Title: "Finstere Absichten" ("Dark Intentions")
• Original airdate: 28 June 1998

• The dub neigh-completely misinterprets Waspinator's concussion-induced babbling. As in the French dub, he calls the Autobots "Autorobots". Both him and Blackarachnia then refer to Shrapnel not as a Decepticon, but as an old artillery projectile from the Great Wars.

Italian

• Title: "Strani progetti" ("Strange Designs")

• Injured Waspinator's dialogues are completely changed: instead of thinking he's Shrapnel, planning to destroy the Autobots, he says he's gonna become the Predacon leader.

Japanese

• Title: "Rhinox Ōabare!" (ライノックス大暴れ!, "Rhinox Rampages!")
• Original airdate: 14 January 1998

• As the Maximals limp away from the opening battle, during the shot that follows Rhinox from behind (focusing largely on his rump), Rhinox thinks to himself, "I have a sexy butt". Not making this up, we swear.
• When Waspinator is injured by Rhinox and starts going bonkers, he does not take on the identity of Shrapnel. Instead, he identifies himself as "Ultramask the Third" (ウルトラマスク三世). Blackarachnia explains that Waspinator is mixing up his "TV heroes" (likely Ultraman, Tiger Mask and Lupin the Third).

Of course, to accommodate the pop culture gag, that means the translation completely eliminated Blackarachnia's speech about Decepticon ancestors and all the world-building it provided.

• As Scorponok recounts his accident to Megatron, he whimpers and sniffles like a rueful child confessing to a parent. Scorponok was previously shown to be a blubbering crybaby in "Double Jeopardy".
• After Rhinox makes his joke about Predacons and all the Maximals roll over with laughter, instead of just snarling in anger, Dinobot shouts, "They're all idiots!"

Portuguese

• Title: "Projetos Sombrios" ("Dark Projects")

Spanish

• Title: "Oscuros Designios" (America, "Dark Designs")

Mandarin

• Title: "Hēi'àn zhī Xīn" (黑暗之心, "Dark Heart")

Home video releases

VHS

1998 — Beast Wars — Beasties Escape (Alliance Video)
1998 — Robots-Bêtes — L'Évasion (Alliance Video) — French audio only.
1998 — Beast Wars: Super Lifeform Transformers — The Destrons Make Drama (Pioneer LDC) — Japanese audio only.
1998 — Beast Wars / Robots-Bêtes Three pack (Alliance Video) — Available in English or French audio.
2001 — Beast Wars: Transformers — The Beginning: Vol. 2 (Universal)

LaserDisc

1998 — Beast Wars: Transformers — Maximal Edition (Pioneer LDC) — English and Japanese audio.

DVD

2000 — Beast Wars: Transformers — DVD Box (Pioneer LDC) — English and Japanese audio.
2003 — Beast Wars: Transformers — The Complete First Season (Rhinomation)
2011 — Beast Wars: Transformers — Season 1 (Shout! Factory)
2011 — Beast Wars: Transformers — The Complete Series (Shout! Factory)
2005 — Beast Wars — Classic Episodes: Volume 2 — The Saga Continues! (Alliance Atlantis) — English and French audio.
2005 — Beast Wars — The Complete First Season (Alliance Atlantis) — English and French audio.
2006 — Beast Wars: Transformers — Season 1 (Madman Entertainment)
2009 — The Transformers: Beast Wars — Complete Collection (Madman Entertainment)

References

External links

Official uploads (Japanese)

• Beast Wars Again re-airings:
  • "Rhinox Rampages!" on YouTube
  • "Rhinox Rampages! (Part 2)" on YouTube