Double Dinobot

	; "Hmm. He looks good, but is he tasty...?"
	"Double Dinobot"
Season	1
No. in season	14
Production company	Mainframe Entertainment
Airdate	November 5, 1996
Written by	Rowby Goren
Directed by	John Pozer
Animation studio	Mainframe Entertainment
Continuity	Beast Wars continuity
	Watch this episode on YouTube

Megatron creates a non-transforming clone of Dinobot in an effort to disable Sentinel.

Synopsis

Isn't he cute?

Megatron creates a Velociraptor clone based on the DNA of the Maximal Dinobot, Clone One, which also possesses a copy of Dinobot's mind.

Terrorsaur attacks the real Dinobot while on patrol, leading the Maximal into a cave where a swift move allows Terrorsaur to escape and bury Dinobot in a cave-in. Meanwhile, Clone One is sent to infiltrate the Maximal base in his place. Clone One tells Optimus Primal that there's a Predacon camp in Grid Omega and insists Primal himself should go. Primal instead sends the Clone and Rattrap to fix the camp's exact location.

What's funnier? Seeing someone falling off a log, or causing someone to fall off a log and then laughing at them for falling off.

Rattrap transforms to attack the alleged base and almost discovers the Clone's inability to transform, but stands down when the Clone reminds him this is a recon mission. Rattrap is puzzled by this uncharacteristic show of restraint, but stands down. While crossing an open lava flow, Clone One kicks the bridge out from under Rattrap, apparently sending him to his death.

In the meantime, the real Dinobot digs himself out of the rubble in the cave.

This is what really wiped out the dinosaurs.

Clone One returns to the Axalon (now crewed only by Optimus Primal) and fakes an injury, telling Primal that they discovered the Predacon camp under cover of a "stealth device" and Rattrap is trapped. Despite having just received a report from Rhinox that Grid Omega shows no signs of Predacon activity, Optimus Primal activates Sentinel and leaves to rescue Rattrap. Clone One struggles to deactivate the shield without Dinobot's authorization codes and is repeatedly shocked by Sentinel, who recognises him as Dinobot, but doesn't detect a Maximal spark.

Optimus Primal and Cheetor rendezvous in Grid Omega, where they pick up Rattrap's trail. Rattrap, who landed on a chunk of rock, rides it along the lava flow, but is forced to leap for his life when the flow becomes a lava waterfall. He lands up on a ledge and then grenade jumps back to stable ground, where he encounters Cheetor and Primal and informs them of "Dinobot"'s treachery.

Meanwhile, the real Dinobot returns to the Axalon and deactivates the perimeter shield. Clone One believes he has finally succeeded and summons Megatron. The two Dinobots come face to face and are momentarily baffled as their identical reflexes cause them to mirror one another's reactions. Clone One realizes the situation first and attacks, but Dinobot transforms and challenges his clone to a fight. Discovering that his double cannot transform, Dinobot returns to beast mode and the two fight on equal terms. The Clone is losing ground, but a lucky blow appears to knock Dinobot unconscious. Clone One eagerly goes to meet Megatron, not realizing that Dinobot was playing roboto-possum.

"...Mmmm, he was quite tasty."

Dinobot poses as his clone and greets Megatron outside the base and flatters his ego while discovering his plan to ambush the Maximals as they return from Grid Omega then use their own defense grid to finish them off. Dinobot activates the perimeter shield just as Megatron is walking through it, shocking him badly. Megatron initially believes the clone has betrayed him just as Dinobot did, but is cheered to learn that's not the case. With the arrival of the other Maximals, Megatron retreats.

The Maximals survey the damaged command center in dismay and inquire what happened to the clone. Dinobot informs them that it is gone for good...and was 'quite tasty'.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Maximals	Predacons
Dinobot (6) Optimus Primal (7) Rattrap (8) Cheetor (9) Rhinox (10)	Terrorsaur (1) Waspinator (2) Megatron (3) Scorponok (4) Clone One (5)

Quotes

"At last, an end to the boredom!"

—Dinobot, delighted to be attacked

"Peaceful as an R-chamber. Looks like old chopper face is seein' things."

—Rattrap

"I just knew I smelled a rat... and it wasn't even me!"

—Rattrap jumps to the wrong conclusion.

"What in the Inferno are you?"
"What you might have been, had you not betrayed Megatron."

—Dinobot meets Clone One

"Ooh, your brilliance is an inspiration to me!"
"Oh, you are an enchanting creature! I may just clone the rest of my troops."

—Dinobot posing as his clone, to Megatron

"You're disgusting."

—Optimus expresses his thoughts of Dinobot's actions

Notes

Script timeline

Second draft: 4th March 1996
Finalised: 6th June 1996
Revised: 20th June 1996
As Air: 4th November 1996

Animation and technical errors

With all the focus on Dinobot's beast mode, not to mention Clone One's rather theatrical body language, this episode really demonstrates the limitations of their CG model. It contorts in strange ways and continuously clips through itself in various places.
When the bolts and rivets fly off the cloning chamber, there's no screw-holes remaining in their place, the metal remains intact.
When Clone One is called a "ZombieBot" by Scorponok, and when he growls and bites at him, Tigatron's scream is heard instead.
As Dinobot approaches the cave Terrorsaur flew into, for a moment the "camera" clips into some rocks on the right side of the screen.
More of an oddity than an error, but due to the angle the shot was rendered in, as Dinobot transforms into robot mode to enter the cave, you may notice how his robot torso and sword miraculously appear in shrunken form behind or above (but clearly separate from) his dinosaur mode, before merging with the rest of his body to complete transformation. Later, as he tries to fight his clone, the robot torso correctly appears from within the beast's body.
When Terrorsaur creates a cave-in to trap Dinobot, the latter briefly clips through the screen as the "camera" pulls out. His left hand then passes through his sword, and as he hurries into the cave, he clips into the screen again, very briefly giving us a view of the insides of his animation model's head.
When Megatron orders the clone to go, his left hand clips completely through the console on his seat.
The circular compartment in the middle of the table that Rattrap emerges from has a very pixelated rim around it.
After Clone One has kicked Rattrap's log off the ledge, he begins to leave, but instead of turning and beginning to walk convincingly, his body just awkwardly kinda contorts itself before the shot cuts.
When Rattrap grabs a hold of the ledge after escaping the lava fall, he seems to have a double-hand: one which holds onto the rock and one that's actually attached to him. You can see the two hands' joints merging in and out of each other as he hangs there, and the stationary hand's joint even stays there as he pulls himself up.
When Rattrap blows his way out of his predicament, the smoke of the explosion is very blocky and low-res.
When the clone opens wide to snap at the real Dinobot, the inside of his maw is really messed up, and the lower part of his jaw folds over itself.
During the clash between the Dinobots, the one who gets launched forward by the chair has some very weird things going on with his body. Namely, it gets so distorted, that the point where the legs meet the torso seemingly turn inside out, and flesh that wasn't there before (or afterwards) juts out of his sides. Also, while barely noticeable, his left arm jumps out of position for just a frame a few seconds before the chair hits him.

Continuity errors

Phase One of Megatron's plan is basically "kill Dinobot", a job he dispatches Terrorsaur to take care of with seemingly no worry that he will fail. He doesn't normally display this level of faith in Terrorsaur's abilities. (Also, if "Kill Dinobot" is that easy, then the next phases should probably be "kill Rattrap", "kill Cheetor", etc.)
Although Clone One failed in this particular situation, the overall experiment was a success. One wonders why Megatron didn't just create a whole herd of Dinobot clones. Even in Beast Mode, they'd be useful for boosting his numbers. (For that matter, if all it takes is a small, easily obtainable piece of DNA, we run into the same problem that we had back in "A Prime Problem"... why not clone Primal, or himself?)
Although this episode necessarily takes place after the introduction of Sentinel in "A Better Mousetrap", when Dinobot activates the perimeter shield to betray Megatron, the appearance of the shield is that of the old green one, rather than the new silver one.

Continuity notes

The Beast Warriors possess DNA, either instead of or in addition to the CNA that other versions of Cybertronians have. Presumably this stems from their organic beast modes; Beast Machines would confirm that their beast modes incorporated organic material.
The chamber Dinobot's clone was created in appears to be an extensively refitted Predacon R-Chamber.
Dinobot makes a couple of references to the still-to-be-renamed Inferno.
Rattrap gets to co-op Primal's catchphrase when he lets out a sarcastic "that's just prime" after finding out that the clone has been left in the base alone.
Gadgets and powers:
- Rattrap once again makes use of the grenades stored in his forarms when he does his rocket-jump trick with the boulder.
- More of a skill than a power, but this episode establishes than Megatron is really quite good at this whole cloning business. He will do it at least twice more.

Transformers references

Clone One addresses the Predacon leader as "Mighty Megatron", a phrase often in the original cartoon to describe the Decepticon Leader.

Real-world references

Megatron creates the Dinobot clone in the middle of a dramatic lightning storm, as is tradition when cartoon super-villains use mad science to create life. The references are less subtle next time.

Trivia

Clone One's skin will later be seen on the wall of Dinobot's room.
Megatron was extremely pleased to learn the clone had not betrayed him. Had Dinobot led him to think his clones were unreliable, it probably would have saved the Maximals a lot of trouble.... Ah, hindsight.
When Dinobot first encounters his clone, and the two mimic each other's movements, it is perhaps a reference to the famous mirror scene from the Marx Brothers movie Duck Soup.
While the Dinobot clone is trying to deactivate Sentinel, a holographic Maximal logo appears with Cybertronix writing under it saying "who is this putz scally user". Then the shot changes to behind the projection as some more text appears next to a diagram that says "hey ian go f**k yourself", making one wonder what either Ian James Corlett or Ian Pearson did to piss off an animator. Then the words 'Merv Griffin' display.
When Dinobot's eyebeams are pushing against Megatron's own laser fire, smoke begins to bellow from his cheek vents to imply an overload.

Foreign localization

French

Title: "Le Clone" ("The Clone")

After telling the Maximals he ate the clone, Dinobot's burp is replaced by him saying "Tralalilalère", an onomatopoeia without a real meaning, that can be used either to boast after winning something, or to replace a vulgar word. Optimus Primal's phrase "You're disgusting!" is then replaced by him repeating "Tralalilalère?" and all the Maximals laughing after this. Desire to keep French kids classy or private joke among the French voice actors, we will never know.

Title: "Double DinoBot" (Canada)

German

Title: "Der geklonte Dinobot" ("The Cloned Dinobot")
Original airdate: 4 July 1998

Primal's line "You're disgusting!" was changed to "Where are your manners?"

Italian

Title: "Il vero e il falso" ("The Real and the Fake")

When Rattrap and Clone One get close to lava, the narrator says: «Megatron's plan is going on well: the real Dinobot was neutralized, but his lookalike wants to get inside the Maximal base». It looks like this line was misplaced since, at that time, Clone One already got inside the base, and Megatron's plan started showing some problems. The line would make more sense right after the real Dinobot was trapped.
Instead of saying: «Clone One to Megatron», Clone One simply says: «Clone calls Megatron». Because of this, Clone One's name is never pronounced.

Japanese

Title: "Dinobot ga Futari ni?" (ダイノボットが二人に?, "Two Dinobots?")

Original airdate: 21 January 1998
For comedic effect, the Clone Dinobot speaks with a whiney, high-pitched voice rather than an identical copy of Dinobot's tone (which seems like it would be a dead giveaway that he's a fake, but hey). In fact, he also gets Dinobot's verbal tic wrong. Rather than hiss and repeat the noise -da, the Clone Dinobot instead wheezes -de. One other unique aspect of the Clone Dinobot's voice is his distinctive, incredibly goofy laugh. Something along the lines of, Goooo hoo hoo hoo hooooo.
When the real Dinobot reveals his ruse to Megatron near the end of the episode by transforming, Megatron laments, "So, you have killed my adorable clone. And he was so cute...".
In this version, Dinobot ate his clone with julienned cabbages and bell peppers with some mirin, salt and pepper.

Portuguese

Title: "Dinobot Duplo" ("Double Dinobot")

Spanish

Title: "El Doble de Dinobot" (America, "Dinobot's Double")

Mandarin

Title: "Zhēn Jiǎ Kǒnglóng" (真假恐龙, "The true or false Dinobot")

Home video releases

All releases listed are in English audio unless otherwise noted.

VHS

1998 — Beast Wars: Super Lifeform Transformers — There are 2 Dinobots? (Pioneer LDC) — Japanese audio only.
2001 — Beast Wars: Transformers — The Beginning: Vol. 3 (Universal)

LaserDisc

1998 — Beast Wars: Transformers — Predacon 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)