Dinobot (BW)


 * Dinobot is a Predacon and Maximal from the Beast Era portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.



Dinobot is a Predacon ruled by honor. He lives to die gloriously in battle. When he aided Megatron in the theft of the Golden Disk under the order of Cryotek, Dinobot believed he was in the pursuit of endless glory. But when he and his Predacon peers crashed on what seemed to be the wrong planet alongside a Maximal exploration vessel, he rebelled against Megatron and joined the Maximal team. It would be an uneasy alliance, fraught with turns of loyalty and turns of Shakespearean phrase.

Beast Wars
Voice Actor: Scott McNeil (US), Keiji Fujiwara (Japan)

When Megatron stole the Golden Disk and fled to prehistoric Earth, Dinobot was among his followers. But immediately after crash-landing, Dinobot turned on his leader, claiming that he had led them to the wrong planet. Unfazed by the tirade, Megatron had Scorponok blast him, and he left Dinobot for dead.

Focused solely on Megatron's destruction, Dinobot sought out the Maximals and attempted to take command of that group. He forced Optimus Primal into a fight to the death, which was interrupted by a Predacon attack. After Dinobot helped the Maximals, Optimus accepted him into the fold - not as a leader, of course, but still as a valued team member. This didn't sit well with the other Maximals, particularly Rattrap, but over time the two became a strange sort of friends.

Dinobot provided not only brute force, but an understanding of the enemy: When Terrorsaur infiltrated the Maximal base, Dinobot feigned a desire to team up with him and overthrow Megatron. Lulling him into a false security, Dinobot eventually took care of him with the trash disposal unit - all without firing a shot, and the other Maxies never even knew.

But through it all, Dinobot had only one true loyalty: to his personal sense of honor. This he described as Predacon in nature, although he often appeared far nobler than his former comrades. Still, he was really no Maximal either; his ethics stemmed from his hard, warrior outlook. Always the first to call for action, he was often the recipient of Primal's lectures. For instance, when the Maximals unexpectedly created a transporter to the Predacon base, Dinobot demanded they send a bomb to destroy them all. Primal, however, insisted on a thirty-second timer to allow them time for evacuation, along the theory that if they lose their base, they're helpless anyway - no need to kill them outright.



As time went on, Dinobot inevitably became attached to the Maximals. When a Cybertronian probe was detected, he helped his teammates attempt to contact it, despite the fact he dreaded a return home. After all, he was a criminal even in Predacon terms, and he had no hope for a warm Maximal reception. Thus, when the Maximals later thought that Megatron's band had been destroyed, Dinobot elected to remain on Earth while the Maximals repaired their ship and launched it. However, just as Dinobot wandered off to explore the world that had become his, he stumbled across the not-so-dead Predacons, who attacked the Axalon and grounded the Maximals once again.

Despite his increasing loyalty to the team, his violent heart occasionally created rifts. Most notably was his reaction to Tigatron's pacifism: When the tiger tried to leave the Maximals in grief over the accidental death of his best friend, Dinobot argued vociferously with the "coward." He simply could not comprehend what Tigatron was saying: that in order to stop the fighting, someone had to lay down his gun. Dinobot could only see desertion, and for that he nearly killed Tigatron, who refused to fight back. But Primal interrupted before any damage was done, and Tigatron later came back to battle to save Dinobot from a Predacon attack, making the whole point moot.

The confrontation with Tigatron revealed more than just Dinobot's warrior ethic. He explained to Tigatron a bit of his motives for turning against Megatron: He feared that if Megatron used Earth's energon supply to wage a new war, Cybertron would burn as a result. But, of course, Dinobot had helped Megatron steal the disk in the first place, the stated goal having been to find energon. This appeared to be a contradiction (or massive change of heart) on Dinobot's part, but later revelations would fill in a larger picture.

The catalyst for these insights would be the destruction of the Planet Buster moon and most of the energon deposits, making it obvious that they were on Earth after all. Dinobot broke into the Predacon base and stole the golden disks. He gave the Vok disk to Rhinox, but the Voyager disk he hid from both sides. He knew that it contained information about the future, and it cut to the core of his being: "If the future is indeed immutably foretold, then my demise is but moments from that confirmation, for I could not live if not the master of my fate."



His desire to discover whether the future could be changed kept him focused on Megatron's actions. When Predacon installations were placed in a Voyager-disk-like pattern, Dinobot remarked, "So, Megatron, your plan proceeds even without the disk." This apparent knowledge of Megatron's plans had two implications: It explained Dinobot's original allegiance to the thief, which had nothing to do with energon-gathering. And it gave him reason to rejoin Megatron's circle as the possibility of the original plan's fruition reemerged.

Thusly, he resubmitted himself to Megatron's command, but the Maximal influence still showed itself. When he was pitted in a deathmatch against Quickstrike in a bizarre test of loyalty, Dinobot subdued his foe but refused to kill him, offering to train him instead. But Megatron accepted the prodigal son anyway, as long as he returned the Golden Disk. Dinobot complied. He admitted to himself that he might be sacrificing his own race, but "either way I will know the truth at last."

After the artifact was back in Megatron's hands, Rattrap attacked and was quickly immobilized. As a final test of allegiance, Dinobot was ordered to kill his former teammate. This task proved too much for him, and he turned once again on the Predacon leader. Megatron retreated with the disk in his possession, and it's implied that Dinobot then revealed Megatron's plan to attack the Ark to Optimus.

After contemplating suicide and getting berated by a hurt Rattrap for his betrayal, Dinobot decided to set things right. He tracked Megatron down and found him testing the Voyager disk. Megatron had discovered a mountain whose image was recorded on the disk, and was blowing the peak up just as Dinobot arrived. From a distance, Dinobot saw his greatest hope and worst fear simultaneously: The disk's image changed. Thus, Dinobot's future was his own... but Megatron had virtually limitless power.



When the Predacons launched an attack on a tribe of proto-humans, attempting to destroy the future human race, Dinobot singlehandedly took all the Predacons on. Ignoring the damage he took, the warnings of his own internal computer, and the danger to himself, Dinobot defeated everyone save Megatron. Mocking the weakened Dinobot, Megatron tallied the score firmly in his own favor. He had unimaginable power via the disk, the valley of the proto-humans was in ruins, and he had hostages. Refusing to quit, Dinobot jammed a rock through a stick and attacked with the makeshift hammer. This caused Megatron to drop the disk, which Dinobot blasted to pieces with his last bit of energy. The effort cost him, and a short time after the rest of the Maximals arrived, Dinobot's spark left his frame.

He was given a hero's funeral, with his body cremated as the Maximal fliers executed a Missing Man formation. His legacy remained even with the anthropoids, who found his hammer and used it as a weapon.

Dinobot died as he lived: a fighting lizard paraphrasing Shakespeare. "Tell my tale to those who ask," his last words had been, "Tell it truly&mdash;the ill deeds along with the good&mdash;and let me be judged accordingly. The rest... is silence."

Except then Megatron cloned him.

Beast Wars

 * Dinobot (Deluxe, 1996/1997)
 * Japanese ID number: C-4, VS-4




 * Part of the first wave of Beast Wars product, Dinobot transforms into something kinda resembling an organic Utahraptor. His tail detaches and separates to form a gear-powered spinning-blade weapon, while the central "tail bone" separates to be used as a sword.  The entire assembly can store in robot mode by flipping down the tail-mount and pegging the blade's base to the peg on his lower back.  Like all early Deluxe-and-up Beast Wars toys, he has a "mutant mask", halves of a dino-skull that flip up to cover his more robotic head.


 * The original Dinobots shipped on cards with "rocky"-shaped bubbles. Later (and more numerous) assortments moved to a smooth, rounded bubble, leading the first packaging type to become sought-after collectibles on the secondary market.


 * In Japan, Dinobot was available both individually and in a "Vs" set with Tarantulas. This version was identical to the Hasbro version. In January 1997, Takara redecoed many of the Beast Wars toys and re-released them in slightly more show-like tones; Dinobot actually got less tan to his dino-skin (moving further from the show model), and his helmet was painted in metallic gold. It is unknown if this version was also sold in a Vs set.


 * It should also be noted that this and the Fox Kids redeco, as well as some other versions of this mold, had the robot mode's biceps on the wrong arms, with the skin-like texture inside and the weight-reducing cavities on the outside. Later molds, such as the 10th Anniversary release, had this error corrected.


 * This mold was used to make... lots of guys. Beast Wars Grimlock, Dinobots Grimlock, Beast Wars Neo Hardhead, Dinotron, and Thrustor.


 * Dinobot (Happy Meal Transmetal, 1998)


 * Part of the second McDonald's Beast Wars Happy Meal promotion, Transmetal Dinobot transforms into a metal velociraptor. his molding looks more like a Transmetal 2 than a normal Transmetals, though.


 * Dinobot (Fox Kids) (Deluxe, 1999)

Beast Wars 10th Anniversary

 * Dinobot (Tenth Anniversary Deluxe, 2006)


 * This release is a redeco of the original Dinobot toy, though its "show-accuracy" is questionable at best, with and excessively dark (faintly bronzed) brown base-colour and oddly using blue on his kneepads, metallic green on his rib-like shin ridges, and inexplicably substituting the red interior of his rotor weapon with blue.


 * Beast Wars 10th Anniversary Dinobot came with the left arm to the "build-a-bot" figure Trans-Mutate, plus a DVD containing the obvious Dinobot episode, "Code of Hero".


 * Dinobot
 * Japanese ID number: TM-05

Timelines

 * Darksyde Dinobot (Dawn of Futures Past multi-pack Deluxe, 2006)


 * Part of the five-toy BotCon 2006 exclusive boxed set (along with Cheetor, Optimus Primal, Rattrap and Rhinox), "Darksyde Dinobot" is a redeco of the Cybertron Longrack mold, itself a retool of Armada Hoist. Dinobot uses almost all of Longrack's new-mold parts save for the head; Hoist's was a dead ringer for Dinobot in the first place.  He transforms into a Cybertronic excavator.  Inserting a Cyber Key or Golden Disk Key into his shoulder assembly unlocks a shovel-punch attack activated by pressing on the plunger mechanism above the key port.  Like Longrack, he does not come with a Mini-Con partner (dammit).


 * The original version of this mold was also used to make Universe Ransack.

Beast Wars 10th Anniversary (Japan)

 * Dinobot (Deluxe, 2006)


 * Celebrating Japan's (one year later than the West) 10th anniversary of Beast Wars, this version of Dinobot is another redeco of the venerable tooling. While definitely more show-accurate than the Hasbro 10th Anniversary version from the previous year, some of its color-scheme decisions favor the robot mode, such as bronze/gold shoulder joints. The effect of this however is to have a less consistently colored beast mode than the Hasbro version. It is worth noting that even this version lacks the medium blue used for the base of the show model's lower legs and torso (though this may be due to them being on the same sprue as his "lightpipe" and mutant helmet), so the "ultimately totally show-accurate-colored" version has still yet to be done.


 * Perhaps most significant of all, however, is that this version of Dinobot finally has a mouth, though it is in the form of a paint operation, rather than a newly-sculpted head.

Merchandise

 * Dinobot mini bust (2007)




 * In 2006, First 4 Figures announced a seven-inch tall mini-bust of Dinobot, featuring his upper torso mounted upon a Maximal pedestal. He was sculpted by Ryan Bailey and is limited to 1,996 pieces. He is based upon his animated appearance, mounted on a silver pedestal adorned with the Maximal sigil.


 * As of writing, this product has not been released yet.

Trivia



 * It's been rumored that Dinobot's first toy borrowed some molding from an unproduced Kenner Jurassic Park dino. There's no evidence at all to support this, however, and is incredibly unlikely to begin with.




 * An actual (IE non-McDonald's affiliated) Transmetal Dinobot apparently made it to concept art stages, but not much further. It would have been notable for having the lamest "transport mode" of all the Transmetals if produced, however.  Several elements of the design were recycled on Transmetal Terrorsaur.


 * The Timelines "Darksyde Dinobot" color scheme is actually based on his Tenth Anniversary toy.


 * Some fans humorously refer to Dinobot's spinning blade weapon as a "Rotate Blade". However, both the full-length version of the first Beast Wars toy commercial and a later commercial (starring Dinobot, Waspinator and Tarantulas) refer to the weapon as being his "spinning Veloci-Rotor blades".


 * Dinobot was second under Megatron before rebelling....probably because he was the only one who knew one end of a blaster from the other


 * It's interesting to note that almost every single character in the Beast Wars gets thrashed twice as hard as Dinobot in his final battle and yet they all came back good as new. Some rarely even have to bother with Stasis Lock.  Funny, that.