Beast Wars/Awesome

• The final stand of Dinobot in "Code of Hero": after lots of thoughts and reflections in the second season, Dinobot sought his own destiny, and singlehandedly defeated all the Preds, which were destroying a valley where the first humans were living, with his last hit being the destruction of the Golden Disk, ruining Megatron plans. The last scenes, including his epic last words, the mourning of his comrades, his funeral, and his legacy in the protohumans are among the best scenes in the entire Transformers franchise (and arguably all of Western Animation), let alone the series.

"The question that has haunted my being has been answered: The future is not fixed. My choices are my own. And yet, how ironic, for I now find I have no choice at all. I am a warrior. Let the battle be joined."

• • He then fights Megatron and the Predacons with a rock on a stick and makes it look good.
  • A personal favorite moment:

Quickstrike: "What's a warrior without... weapons, huh?"
Dinobot: "A warrior still!" *punches him out*

• • What made it even more awesome was the fact he beat them all even though he wasn't a Transmetal.
  • Megatron's speech to him, and how he says it, after Dinobot took out all the other Predacons deserves a mention. The fact that he was wrong about the last bit kind of deflates Megatron:

"My ears are burning, yeeessss... why Dinobot, what a delightful surprise! Let's see, where are we now? I have the Golden Disc. I have the power to change the future. And the only remaining obstacle in my path to unimaaaaginable glory... is yourself. Exhausted, damaged beyond recovery... defeated."

• • Also, the crowning moment of the crowning moment: Dinobot's truly and utterly epic Heroic Sacrifice.

Megatron: "What could you possibly do?" *Aims tail gun at Dinobot*
Dinobot: "Improvise." (whacks stick onto a rock, smashes his new-formed stone hammer into Megatron, grabs the Golden Disc, and obliterates it with an eye-laser that takes the last out of him)

• • To say nothing of his downright epic last words:

"Tell my tale to those who ask. Tell it truly, the ill deeds along with the good, and let me be judged accordingly. The rest... is silence."

• • Optimus Primal's eulogy:

Optimus Primal: "He lived as a warrior, and died as a hero. Let his spark join the Matrix, the greatest of Cybertron."

• • If you take into account the Time Travel implications... Dinobot singlehandedly saved past, present and future Earth AND Cybertron.
  • There's a piggybacking CMOA with the hominid who finds Dinobot's stone hammer. He uses it to open a coconut. The snake from the beginning of the episode rears up to attack. The hominid whirls to face it and accidentally bashes the snake in the head, stunning/killing it; either way, it goes down hard. The hominid looks at the weapon in his hand with sheer awe, then lifts it to the sky and shouts in triumph as the camera zooms up away from him into space. Of all the characters in Beast Wars, Dinobot would appreciate the irony of that the most, as he seems to be the one with the most knowledge of human culture, quoting Shakespeare among other things.
    • Oh, Dinobot appreciated it greatly... if you pay attention to the final pan up, you'll see that one of the stars in the night sky (where Dinobot's spark had flown after leaving his body) gives off a brief, bright gleam. This was supposed to be even more blatant in the first draft of the script, with a "ghosted" Dinobot watching the hominid approvingly.
    • Said hominid Took a Level In Badass after that. When Megatron sends a pack of cyber raptors out as a test in the third season, they end up separating him from two kids in his tribe. Later on, when Cheetor, Blackarachnia, Optimus, and Silverbolt are pinned down by the same raptors while bringing the kids home, the hominid pops out of nowhere and kills one. Granted, he hit the control unit and it's not like he knew that would do the trick, but it was still badass considering he had fought it once before and ran.
  • A decade after the Beast Era has come to a close, at Bot Con 2010, voted by fans over monumental characters like Grimlock, Soundwave, Shockwave, and Jazz, THE WARRIOR'S toy joined the Hall of Fame, the greatest of Hasbro. So, he really did join the greatest of Cybertron.
  • Even though Dinobot's entire rampage is awesome, one moment that particularly stands out is the very start: He sneaks up on Inferno and almost completely bisects him with his sword. Then he uses his body as a shield and forces Inferno (by grabbing onto his gun-wielding hand) to shoot Blackarachnea down before shooting his own head off. Definitely a contender for the most graphic 15 seconds of cartoon violence ever aired for children.
• Ravage has two such moments:
  • During his intro, he blasts the weapons out of all the Maximals' hands while cloaked.
  • Then, when he switches sides, transforming into his cassette mode (with the classic sound effect) and blaring a rock ballad as his ship starts blasting (only thing that would've made it even more badass would be if the original Transformers theme played... something that would have happened, had the show's creators gained the rights to it).
• Also in "The Agenda", the Maximals are holed up in the Axalon, their shields being pummeled by a vastly superior Predacon warship and Rampage. Rattrap finally gets sick of waiting, and everyone's favorite spy/demolitions expert/gunner/Jerk with a Heart of Gold then proceeds to drive off a convenient ramp made of debris, out of the ship and into the air, where he lands on the enemy ship and tries to burn his way in with a futuristic welding torch... and when THAT fails, he transforms into a "stainless steel rat" and CHEWS his way through, just as Tarantulas is arming the ship's ludicrously oversized missile of death. He greets Tarantulas with "a pair of belly bombs with your name right on them... eat 'em and weep!" Tarantulas FREAKS OUT as he is blown up (he got better), and the 4+ million year old Decepticon warrior Ravage defiantly meets his end as he is caught in the blast (he didn't get better... or did he?). THEN as the ship plummets out of control, Rattrap rides the giant missile a la Slim Pickins, and the ship stops it crashing just before it crushes Rampage. The Ax Crazy Nigh Invulnerable Predacon proceeds to laugh... until he realizes the missile is STILL ARMED, and it launches mere seconds later, hitting him at point-blank range. Rattrap rides out the giant explosion joyously until he is caught in Rhinox's arms, and the eternal Deadpan Snarker has to end this CMOA with...

Rattrap: My hero. *smooch*
Rhinox: Oh, get down. *drops Rattrap*

• • Ending a CMOA with a Crowning Moment of Funny? Why not?
  • While we're on the subject of "The Agenda", Megatron brings the second season of Beast Wars to a cliffhanger: He shoots Optimus Prime in the face. Prime, not Primal, THE Optimus Prime! The epic speech he gives while doing it is just the icing on the cake.

"The Autobots... lose, evil... TRIUMPHS, and you... YOU NO LONGER EXIST!"

• • Most villains make a cliffhanger by defeating the heroes. Beast Wars Megatron makes a cliffhanger by negating the heroes' existence.
  • Newly upgraded Optimal Optimus in the very next episode gets a rather nasty dig in when a fight is about to break out in the main bridge of the Ark, with all the G1 cast still in stasis lock all about.

Megatron: "You wouldn't dare fire in here! It might upset history."
Optimal Optimus: "We'd have four million years to clean you off the walls, Megatron. I might risk it."

• Another Beast Wars moment. The part where they messed with our expectations in the series finale:

Megatron (sounding somewhat Genre Savvy): Well, let's hear it, the usual "destiny and honor" speech.
Optimal Optimus: Speech this! *(powerfully punches Megatron)*

• • Also from the series finale (which was more or less one big Crowning Moment for everyone involved):

Megatron (quoting the Covenant of Primus): And there came a hero who said, "Hurt not the earth, nor the trees, nor the seas, nor the very fabric of time." But the hero would not prevail!
Optimus: Finish the quote, Megatron! "Nor would he surrender!"

• • Dinobot 2 from the series finale:

Megatron: What?! What possible reason do you have to disobey me?! I am your master! I am your creator!
Dinobot 2: And I... have my honor!

• • Then theres the fact that that Rhinox saves the day....BY FLYING A FREAKING SPACESHIP INTO THE COMMAND CHAMBER OF THE NEMESIS.

Rhinox: For everything that ever was. (Cue battle cry)

• • And then there was Waspinator's brief crowning moment of awesome where he defected from the Predacons—about five minutes from when the other Predacons were killed in one fashion or another. The last shown of the series shows him being worshipped by the protohumans. "Waspinator happy at last."

"I said NO! Dragon-bot command you, Sub-commander Kiss-Butt! Dragon-bot not command Waspinator! Not anymore! Waspinator sick of being evil! Sick of being Predacon! And Waspinator especially sick of being BLOWN TO SCRAP ALL THE TIME!!! Sooo, Waspinator quit! As of now. Which means Ant-Bot and Two-Head can just pucker their mandibles, and plant big, wet, juicy ones right here on Waspinator's big... FAT... STRIPEY..." (gets blown up)

• Rhinox was built on the Crowning Moments of Awesome. First and foremost, there was the entirety of the episode where Megatron turned him into a Predacon and Rhinox proceeded to use his intelligence to tear apart the entirety of the Predacons in his attempt to become their leader.
  • He wasn't doing that to become leader. It was all For the Evulz.
  • For me, Rhinox's greatest moment was the entire episode "Dark Journey," where he, Cheetor, Rattrap, and Dinobot are blinded far away from the base. Rhinox keeps his head far better than any of the others and leads them a good part of the way home so they can be rescued. The trip also involves him flinging a giant snake into the distance, and meditating to tell the others where to aim when Waspinator and Terrosaur attack.
  • Rhinox standing in a huge pile of shell casings from his guns in "The Low Road". Made all the more awesome when he quips that he "can't hold them off forever." Also doubles as Crowning Moment of Funny.
  • When Megatron locked the Maximals out of the Ark, Rattrap can't hotwire the doors to open. Cue Rhinox getting pissed, pulling out the Chainguns of Doom, and blasting the control panel to oblivion. The doors crack open, and Rhinox starts trying to pull it open manually, putting dents in the doors from just his raw strength.
    • Three Words: Chainguns of Doom. Any time these come out, something awesome usually follows.
  • Rhinox grabbing Dinobot by the throat, picking the taller bot off his feet and telling him he's in a bad mood. Few things scare Dinobot. A pissed off Rhinox is one of them.
  • He also brought Optimus Back From the Dead. USING. HIS. MIND.
  • Oh, and he also won the Beast Wars, flying an Autobot shuttle through the command tower of the Nemesis and capturing Megatron. In times of peace, he enjoys nature, long walks on the beach, and the occasional Tolstoy.
• Blackarachnia out-Starscreaming The Starscream himself:

Starscreaminator: You've betrayed me!!
Blackarachnia: I studied with the master.

• • Basically the entire episode is a CMOA, solely for the fact that the G1 character Starscream appears (and possesses Waspinator).
• Basically any scene where Rampage gets to appear and show just what he's made of. From taking a brutal amount of firepower to slugging it out with Depth Charge.
  • "Bad Spark." That is all.
• Any scene where Depth Charge gets to show up and kick ass.
• Let's combine the two and have Depth Charge driving a spike of raw energon through Rampage's spark--and Rampage letting him with a maddened laugh.
  • Depth Charge's final speech is a masterpiece of Crowning Awesome -- hammy and over-the-top and yet so cool. It's also notable as the ONLY time in Beast Wars, and one of the very few times in Transformers full stop, that a Maximal (or Autobot) actually kills one of the bad guys.

"RAW Energon! Right through your twisted Spark! Take it! TAKE IT STRAIGHT TO THE PIT! You sickening piece of slaaag!"

• A double-whammy with a scene between Depth Charge and Optimus Primal during Feral Rage. Optimus's nerves are being worn after his chum Cheetor has been involved in a freak-accident that's left him mutated, near dead and missing. Depth Charge was present, but he's not giving any answers. Optimus orders him to tell him what really happened, to which Depth Charge replies "You hauled me in for THAT? Ask the cat.", before turning to leave. Tempers flare as Optimus yells at him, only for Depth Charge to yell back. Keep in mind that Depth Charge's whole hand is as wide as a few of Optimus's fingers, to lend scale. Optimus finally loses it and forcibly shoves Depth Charge into the wall and threatens to rip his brain out and find out what happened manually. For the first time in the series Optimus has really lost his temper with a crew member to the point of violence, and his victim is half his size. How does Depth Charge reply? With a cool and sarcastic "Well, since you asked so nicely...". Optimus finally losing it on insolent crew members (and on Depth Charge in particular, who is a complete ass to everyone) coupled with Depth Charge refusing to lose his cool in the face of an angry Autobot-sized robot makes for a great moment of awesome for two characters.
• Blackarachnia fights Inferno in "Other Voices, Part 2". A little context: Transformers has never been fantastic with female characters, ranging between The Chick to The Ditz. And Inferno, a demented, cackling pyromaniac courtier with giant steel teeth, was awesome. But when he goes up against Blackarachnia she utterly schools him, in one of the best fight scenes in TF history. BA wasn't just the 'token female'; she was smart, capable, strong, and, let's face it, kinda sexy.
  • Also: a lot of "Proving Grounds" falls into this category, with Blackarachnia effortlessly outwitting and outfighting Dinobot II at every turn. When a show runs to sell toys, it means a lot when a cool 'old toy' bashes the hell out of a shiny new one. No wonder she's the quintessential Dark Action Girl.
    • Effortlessly? Were we watching the same episode?
  • Even moreso: Blackarachnia's toy is a purple repaint of Tarantulas. Despite being a spider, she doesn't resemble him even slightly, and guess what color she isn't? At all? She effectively didn't have a toy when she took on the new toy and won. (Later she'd get to play with the Transmetal Driver and her new form got a toy.)
    • From that episode, her Transmetal debut, which was also the first time she transformed with the Maximals' "Maximize" command, signifying her choice to become a full member of the team. You'd have to see it in context, after everything that had happened, but it was quite a moment.
• Blackarachnia gets one in her first episode. Optimus has just been shot out of the sky, so she moves in for the kill. Cheetor shoots the gun out of her hand, so she starts purposefully marching toward him in an Unflinching Walk. He charges and keeps firing, hitting all of the spider arms from her beast mode, which double as machine guns. When she's close enough, Blackarachnia hits him with a literal face-breaking kick, flooring him in a single attack. That pretty much set the tone for the rest of the series.
• Silverbolt also has one in "Proving Grounds": while pretty much dead on his feet, he uses Dinobot II's hologram generator to fake him out, just like Dinobot II had done to Blackarachnia at the beginning of the fight.
• Rattrap taking out Waspinator, Inferno, and Dinobot II with a single ball of mud. All based on the idea of hominid Una, as well.
• Silverbolt showing Tarantulas just what happens to bots who actually manage to harm Blackarachnia. It's a very good thing he's usually so reserved.
  • To elaborate on this one a bit: Tarantulas killed Blackarachnia (She got better). Silverbolt loses it. The Bird-Dog then hunts him down and almost impales him. If Rampage hadn't showed up when he did, he would have been dead. He does get used as a human shield though.
• How has Tigerhawk not been mentioned? Granted he was there for only a few episodes, but in the first episode alone he destroys the Predacon base, sweeps away every one of them except Megatron, who he defeats with almost no effort. He one-ups himself in the final episode when he takes on the Nemesis, one of if not the most powerful Decepticon warship in history all by himself and actually manages to both hold it off for a little while.
• "Look! Down in the sky! Is it a bird?" "Maybe a plane?" "Nah! It's Optimus!" And thus, Optimus Primal literally catches a falling starship and lowers it safely to the ground all by himself. Complete with heroic music.
• Air Razor got two during the few episodes she was in:
  • Her very first scene, she goes from the brink of death as a protoform to full blown action girl in seconds. She out flys, out fights and dismantles Terrorsaur, asserting herself as the dominant aerial warrior.
  • Breaking into the Predacon base to retrieve a piece of stolen technology, destroying the Predacon's defenses with a shockwave created by the sheer speed of her dive, in beast mode no less. She even deliberately walks into, and destroys, Megatron's booby trap guarding the thing she was after, joking the whole time about how predictable it was.
• Inferno is practically built on these, but his best came in The Agenda: Part 2. He went kamakazie on Primal and Cheetor by igniting a raw energon deposit after succumbing to energon build-up. All while cackling like a madman.

For...the....RROOOYYYALTTTYYY!!!

• • Even better, this was originally intended to be his Dying Moment of Awesome before Executive Meddling kicked in - you even see him disintegrate! And it led to the discovery of the bloody ARK! For these reasons, there's quite a few fans who agree he should've been offed here, instead of his anti-climactic death-by-Megatron in the finale... GOD-dammit!
• A bit of a meta-example also involving Transformers Generation 1: The two-part finale involves Megatron finding and gaining possession of the Nemesis, Decepticon Megatron's warship and the flagship of the entire Decepticon space fleet, a gargantuan battlecruiser bristling with weapons (it was originally discovered by Tarantulas, who had been refurbishing it and even added a transwarp cell). As an added nod, the Nemesis is found on the floor of the ocean in the same position the Decepticons' second ship and base ended up in throughout the first two seasons. Megatron proceeds to raise the warship and unleash hell upon man, bot, and beast alike, until Rhinox pilots an Autobot shuttle through the bridge, causing the Nemesis to veer of into the distance and disappear below the horizon... and crash into a hillside in South America, where it would be discovered by Decepticon Megatron in the G1 episode "Microbots" and its power source removed for his own use.
• Optimus's return from his brief bout with the deads in "Coming of the Fuzors II". The other Maximals are brutally damaged, out of ammo, and about to be descended on by the bolstered Predacon forces. Before they can strike the final blow, a massive explosion grabs everyone's attention. The Predacons look on in shock and horror before the camera pans up to the new and improved Transmetal Optimus Primal. He then proceeds to single handedly crush the five Predacons without a scratch.
  • Also in that episode, Silverbolt does a Heel Face Turn and and blows Megatron off a cliff. "Consider that my resignation from the Predacons!"
• Cheetor got one fighting Blackarachnia. She has completely defeated him in hand-to-hand combat, and has him pinned on the ground. She loads her gun with a "cyber-venom" dart and fires point blank at his face. Cheetor catches it, and throws it back into her head. It can be seen here
• After years of being the chew toy of the universe, Waspinator finally got the respect he deserves. The bug has joined the Hall of Fame, beating out Grimlock and Shockwave to get there.
• The Old West-style showdown where the episode ends with Dinobot, Cheetor and Rattrap facing off against the Predacons. Dinobot even brought a BFG for the fight.
• Megatron in "Bad Spark". Welcome to the BEAST WARS RAMPAGE!