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Season Two, Episode 9: Code of Hero
Reviewed by Blackjack

Episode Review

”The rest is silence.”
The technical errors aside, this episode is wonderfully done. The dialogue is perfect, with Dinobot’s Shakespearian quotes being wonderfully done, and Megatron’s master plan not disappointing the audience. Dinobot’s heroic last stand is a little clunky, but is memorable. Megatron, Dinobot and Rattrap are all simply wonderfully characterized in this episode, and the function of the Golden Disk is revealed. ‘Code of Hero’ is one of those big event episodes. Rattrap’s another well-characterized one, with his biting remarks nicely complementing Dinobot’s silent ruminations. I like how Dinobot seems to be contemplating suicide in the first scene.

Dinobot’s death might be one of the few heroic, memorable deaths that is memorable to me (another notable one being Scorponok’s original death in the Marvel comics). Megatron’s mockings of Dinobot, as well as the anguished cry of ‘I was soooo close’ when the Maximals arrive, are simply fantastic. In season two, Megatron is starting to build up into a proper mastermind, with his own distinctive poise and style, from the goofy serious villain in the first season, and the brutality against the proto-humans is one of the best examples of it. Sure, you don’t see dismemberment (this is a children's show after all) but the trees burning and everything, with dead bodies… it’s definitely more mature than G1. This is one of simply the best episodes in Transformer lore. Kudos to the voice actors and animators for this excellent episode.

Notes

First appearance of the proto-humans. The final appearance of Dinobot and the Golden Disk. The last appearance of Rhinox’s beast mode, amusingly enough.

Dinobot’s infamous last words ‘the rest is silence’, are taken directly from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. When he initially leaves the base, his line ‘a deed, once done, cannot be undone’ is a misquote of Shakespeare’s ‘what is done cannot be undone.’

Megatron’s master plan is finally revealed, with him using the Golden Disk to change history. Killing the humans would probably mean that the ancestors of the Witwickies and people like Chip Chase would be killed. He had apparently not shared this plan with anyone. Instead, the others thought that he was merely looking for energon (Dinobot in the first episode)

Rampage crushes a butterfly as the Predacons enter the valley to destroy the humans. This might be a reference of the short story ‘a Sound of Thunder’ by Ray Bradbury, in which a time traveler steps on a butterfly and drastically changes the future of humanity.

When Rampage aims his cannon at Dinobot, the POV seems similar to the gun-barrel viewpoints from James Bond movies.

Silverbolt, Cheetor and Optimus Primal fly in the missing man formation. In a bit of foreshadowing, three birds fly past Dinobot’s window in the beginning.

Code of Hero is the first episode that was directed with storyboards (done by series writer Bob Forward), instead of being directed on-the-fly. The series’ writers admitted that they did Dinobot’s death since it seemed to flow with the story, and to prevent more characters from being shoved off abruptly (like Terrorsaur, Scorponok, Tigatron and Airazor), so Dinobot gets the ax.

Goofs

The door of Dinobot’s quarters is noticeably smaller than Dinobot himself. This is because the CGI model of the Maximal base is made at a different scale to the character models.

When Rattrap is working at the wall panel, his right forearm is backwards for a scene.

When Dinobot laments about Megatron’s power being limitless, Megatron and Rampage could clearly be seen on the cliff behind him, implying that Dinobot is out in the open, exposing himself in front of both Predacons.

As Quickstrike approaches Dinobot, his left lower leg is backwards.

Rattrap is in his original pre-Transmetal body at Dinobot’s funeral. Bob Forward said that he could not believe how the production team (who had viewed the scene nearly a hundred times) could miss the error.