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Every two weeks, Seibertron.com brings you a Top 5 list related to all things Transformers written by me, your fellow editor, or a guest like this week's Optimutt. These are personal opinions (just like movie or game reviews hosted by sites are still just the opinion of one person) so what matters most is what you guys think of the topic or list, and I hope to see your own lists or comments on omissions and ranking. Let's have fun! All previous lists can be found here.
Top 5 Best Beast Wars Catchphrases
Beast Wars. To many in the Transformers fandom, they are the two words that started two decades of love and joy. For countless others, it was the series that reinvented the franchise and brought the concept of transforming alien life forms back into existence. Not only did the line provide toy fans with ball-joints, transparent elements, colorful chromey bits and beasts, beasts, and more beasts, but it brought a whole new television show along with it.
Beast Wars (or Beasties to you Canucks out there) the cartoon was the first fully-digitally-animated Transformers cartoon. Produced by Mainframe, its renderings of its beasts evolved in very visible and interesting ways over the three years of the show’s existence. Unlike the original Transformers cartoon, which tried to include as many of its toys in as many of its cartoons as possible, Beast Wars focused instead on a small cast that carried on the tradition of fantastic voice acting established in the G1 cartoon. This excellent voice acting, coupled with the deeply character-driven story-telling headed up by Larry DiTillio and Bob Forward, made Beast Wars a wonderfully memorable series that even after 20 years is still celebrated as one of the finest examples of Transformers media since its inception.
Today, I’m bringing the voice acting and the excellent scripts together to look at one of the greatest elements of the Beast Wars, in
The Top 5 Beast Wars Catchphrases!
5. “For the Colony! / For the Royalty! / Burn!” Inferno (Jim Byrnes)
When a crashed stasis pod is damaged, it leads to the faulty wiring that erroneously attaches the social habits of the beast form to the protoform inside. As the beast form is that of a worker ant, this creates in Inferno an implacable drive towards the protection of his home, which he calls his “colony, and everything he does is in service of his “queen.” Couple that obsession with his love of making things burn, and we’ve got a walking Catchphrase. But wow is he a fun character.
4. “Well, that’s just Prime.” Optimus Primal (Garry Chalk)
Right from the first episode, this statement was one that was mostly used by the Maximal’s commanding officer as a sarcastic statement depicting poor humor with an unfortunate situation, but every once in a while, it really did evoke the awe and wonder that some situations called for. Though it’s never totally clear just what is so “Prime” about it all.
3. “We’re all gonna die.” Rattrap (Scott McNeil)
With his Brooklyn accent and world weariness, Rattrap has been a little bit of everything, seen a little bit of everything, and pissed off everyone he has ever met. At least twice. Vocal and a better complainer than an American student in a classrom, Rattrap sure knew how to interject. Of all his quotes, none better described what he lived for than the simple avoidance of this particular fate. And often to very amusing responses from those around him.
In Beast Wars, we got multiple nods to the Generation One cartoon: Starscream’s ghost, the Ark, the Nemesis, but none hit us with as much force as Ravage’s appearance in the series. At the end of Season Two, in “The Agenda,” Covert Agent Ravage (who was the original Decepticon infiltrator before being reformatted into a Predacon) appeared, and was convinced by Megatron that his mission was the same as the original Megatron’s mission. During a point that elicits fangasms all over the world, this covert kitty screams this phrase before transforming into his classic cassette mode. Few moments in any series ever convey the kind of sheer joy that this one unleashes.
1. “Yesssss…” Megatron (David Kaye)
What? Did you really think that anyone said anything with as much grace and sweeping grandeur as Megatron? Or was it conceit that drove you to consider something less ubiquitous than his signature statement? The only thing even remotely so abundant in this series are the diodes of Waspinator littering the ground after any encounter with the insect. Spoken more than one hundred times in the three seasons, and amounting to nearly 4 minutes of screen time, nothing could even remotely be so… defining of the show. No.
Honorable Mentions:
“Shut up, Rattrap!”
From Primal to Cheetor, Megatron to Dinobot, and even in a wonderfully-played joke, Rattrap, himself, just about every single member of the Beast Wars said these two wonderful words to Rattrap. Sometimes, it was a variation of it, and more often than not, it was precipitated by his trademark “We’re all gonna die,” comment, but whatever the reason, the obnoxious rodent certainly knew how to get on everyone’s nerves.
“I need no help hunting Predacons. And I prefer to hunt alone.” Tigatron (Blu Mankuma) As I’m classifying catchphrases here as things that people say again and again, this doesn’t actually count. Instead, it would count as more of a motto that sums up Tigatron’s essence. A loner and a hunter, the Bengal tiger was one beast of incredible love for his planet, and ferocity against those who would spoil this place. And if this really was his catchphrase, man, that would just be chilling.
So there you have it! The catchphrases that we will forever associate with the colorful cast of Beast Wars. Agree? Disagree? Feel free to give your two Golden Disks’ worth in the comments below. Special thanks to everyone on Youtube who posted the collections of the amazing vids on the site.
"I couldn't put it down," Eliot Vohy about Escape from the Spotlight.
Pretty good list. I wouldn't have Ravage's phrase on there, he only said it once (or maybe twice) so it's not really a catchphrase. Something from Waspinator or maybe Rhinox should be in its place. However, I would place "Well, that's just Prime." at #2 behind "Yeeees."
Motto:"Victory if nothing if you don't enjoy everything leading to it."
I gotta admit, the timing of this "Best of" episode is pretty epic.
Not only do we recently get the passing of the series co-creator, Larry DiTillio to mourn, but we also get a release of the stunningly beautiful work of art that is the MP Megatron.
Mr. DiTillio, thank you so very much for helping to make these characters so iconic that every time we look at Megatron's purple puss, we can't help but hear Kaye's signature "Yesssss...."
Also, special shoutout to the people out there who compiled and shared these videos on Youtube! I did not do them, but certainly enjoyed them tremendously as I was compiling this list. Almost as much as I did just now, reading and watching these clips once again.
To anyone out there who have never watched Beast Wars, I welcome you to find some other catchphrases that I missed!!!
"I couldn't put it down," Eliot Vohy about Escape from the Spotlight.
Ravages is an odd choice as it is barely said (tho cool when it was, just like Optimal Primes 'roll out' callback), 2nd choice would definitely be any combination of 'slag', 'slag them' etc before Hasbro got all weird and stopped calling Dinobot Slag by his name -yet whilst going on to naming a toy Spastic.
Motto:"“You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” - Harvey Dent in The Dark Knight"
Weapon: 16 Cannons
forgot a couple "Even when I'm good, I'm still bad" -Blackarachnia this one should replace what was put for inferno's "For the glory of the Royalty!" -Inferno's battle cry
Motto:"Can't do a job halfway. What's worth doing is worth doing well, I say."
Weapon: Saber Blade
Blastback wrote:Sometimes crazy works should have gotten a mention
kurthy wrote:"why universe hate waspinator?" is a glaring omission. That would be my no. 2 after yes. Probably keep 3-5 the same.
Ultra Markus wrote:forgot a couple "Even when I'm good, I'm still bad" -Blackarachnia this one should replace what was put for inferno's "For the glory of the Royalty!" -Inferno's battle cry
Guys, ordinary lines of dialogue only ever spoken once (regardless of how cool they were) =/= catchphrases.
Ravage did speak "Decepticons Forever!" at least twice, first as his battle cry and then as his dying words, and with the same fervor each time, as though it was an ideal his truly lived by. It was also spoken by him as a his victory cry in the Beast Wars: Transmetals PS1 game.
"When there's gold feathers, punch behind you!!"
Shadowman wrote:This is Sabrblade we're talking about. His ability to store trivial information about TV shows is downright superhuman.
Caelus wrote:My wife pointed out something interesting about the prehistoric Predacons. I said that everyone was complaining because transforming for them mostly consisted of them just standing up-right. She essentially said, 'So? That's what our ancestors did.'
While Cheetor does use a ton of throw away one liners, I’m pretty certain that “ultra gear” is used a number of times. Airazor even references that it’s a sort of catch phrase of his when she first encounters Inferno. I also think “jumping gyros” might have been thrown out a couple of times.
Motto:"Can't do a job halfway. What's worth doing is worth doing well, I say."
Weapon: Saber Blade
Zeedust wrote:"Beast mode!" too obvious?
Sabrblade wrote:
Blastback wrote:Sometimes crazy works should have gotten a mention
(snip)
Guys, ordinary lines of dialogue only ever spoken once (regardless of how cool they were) =/= catchphrases.
Primal actually did say that one twice ("Power Surge" and "Other Voices, Part 2"), though I'm not sure twice is enough either.
I kinda feel like his second use of it was like a sort of callback to the first, as a means to pay tribute to the season as a whole and to show how far the series had come by that point, since at the time that the Season 1 finale was being made, it was still up in the air as to whether there would be a Season 2 or not, hence the little "The End?" text shown at the very end of the episode.
"When there's gold feathers, punch behind you!!"
Shadowman wrote:This is Sabrblade we're talking about. His ability to store trivial information about TV shows is downright superhuman.
Caelus wrote:My wife pointed out something interesting about the prehistoric Predacons. I said that everyone was complaining because transforming for them mostly consisted of them just standing up-right. She essentially said, 'So? That's what our ancestors did.'
A solid list. Let's be honest, if we were talking top lines of dialogue, the list would likely be filled with Dinobot and Rampage. Not every character had memorable dialogue and catchphrases. That isn't a slight against the scripts, just a point of fact.
My number one has to be "That's just Prime." I still use it today. And my favorite catch phrase from Inferno is "Yes my Queen" to Megatron. I would also take out Ravage's line and add "Why Universe hate Waspinator?" or "Jumping Gyros!"
Who says Cybertron Optimus can't hold his matrix with two hands?
Ravage's catch phrase was my absolute favorite from the list: it was a brilliant call back to the original series and the line verbalized that the beast wars show was a part of a continuing/progressing story; a part of a world greater than itself. Also, to note: the first time Ravage said "Decepticons Forever" he did so right before he transformed into a tape with the original transformation sound which at the time had not been heard or used in the States for a decade.
I also might be slightly biased as Ravage was my first ever transformer. I made sure to get the X-9 Japanese exclusive years ago. Despite my wonderful wife's disapproval of having any Transformers in the bedroom, X-9 Metals Jaguar "Ravage" stands safely in his box on the dresser; ironically for his character, Ravage is doing the opposite of keeping a low profile and is out in the open. And if you're curious, my G1 Ravage is siting inside Soundwave on a shelf in my son's room. Decepticons Forever indeed!
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