The Reformatting

Escaping from strange new foes and unable to transform, the four surviving Maximals encounter a mysterious supercomputer which remakes them into a new kind of Transformer.

1 Synopsis
2 Featured characters
3 Quotes
4 Notes
5 Home video releases

Synopsis

Stukk as munky.

On the metal-and-steel planet of Cybertron, a single flower grows out of a tear in the street. Suddenly, a gorilla races past, pursued by a horde of Tank Drones. Strangely, Optimus Primal has lost his Transmetal properties, on the run in his organic beast mode. After a couple minutes of cat-and-mouse, Optimus decides to face them down and prepares to Maximize. But his beast mode parts refuse to move and he screams in pain as he is tortured by electrical shocks.

Suddenly, his eyes glow and he receives a strange signal from an alien source. He sees a monorail vehicle nearby and swings away from the drones, and finds another one of his missing comrades—Rattrap. Rattrap explains that he has had a lot of trouble transforming as well and has no memory of returning to Cybertron after the end of the Beast Wars and the capture of Megatron. They escape from the transport after the drones blow it to pieces and Rattrap tries to use his command code repeatedly, resulting in nothing but shocks and pain.

Fortunately, Cheetor leaps out of nowhere, covering the eyes of one of the drones and tricking it into destroying one of its counterparts. Cheetor is hoping to find a CR chamber and use it to eliminate the transformation lock virus that plagues them all. Rattrap points out that Cybertron seems to have changed a lot in their absence. There's no time to argue, as new tank drones are readying a renewed assault. Plunging into a hole, the Maximals bounce on a web that belongs to Blackarachnia, who's stuck in a similar predicament.

Nor-mal view! Nor-mal view! Nor-mal view! NOR-MAL VIIIIIEEEEEEWWWW!!!

Optimus Primal decides that the best course of action is to head deeper underground, away from the attention of the Vehicon drones. As they descend on Blackarachnia's web, they head deeper into the bowels of Cybertron, passing abandoned cities. Metal and steel give way to ancient stone construction. Eventually, Blackarachania's webs run dry, and all four of them plunge into complete darkness. Determined not to die, Primal throws a piece of scrap metal, shattering some kind of covering and revealing a wall of flames springs up. Undaunted by this seeming threat, Optimus walks straight through them, revealing the Oracle, an ancient, legendary supercomputer. At the Oracle's urging, Primal enters the computer.

At the Oracle's urging, Primal attempted a Care Bear Stare.

Assaulted by strange visions, Primal is instructed to "restore the balance". The Oracle urges him to remember that "the seeds of the future lie buried in the past", before declaring that it is time for him to begin his "reformatting." Optimus Primal emerges as a technorganic Transformer, a perfect blend of the organic and the mechanical. The other Maximals are impressed by the upgrade, and before long Cheetor, Rattrap and Blackarachnia exit the Oracle, also in new, technorganic bodies.

As the Oracle winks out of existence, a squadron of Cycle Drones charge into the Oracle chamber. The Maximals try to transform, but nothing happens. Optimus realizes, much to Rattrap's dismay, that the Maximals will have to relearn the lost art of transformation. Blackarachnia suggests that they'll have to fight with what they've got, and so the Maximals take the fight to the Vehicons in their beast modes. Rattrap punctures tires with his teeth, Cheetor pounces on one of the drones, and Blackarachnia uses her webs to snare another. As he clobbers a pair of Vehicons, Primal is shot, loses balance, and plunges into a pit. Panicking, a voice from the Oracle reminds him that "to unleash the warrior within, he must tame the beast without."

I change bodies faster than a nerd changes socks.

Finding his inner balance, Optimus manages to transform. A blue light engulfs his body as it morphs into a powerful new robot mode, equipped with jets. Grabbing the nearest Drone, he demands answers... but gets none. His anger has made him lose his center, and he converts back to beast mode. Awed, Cheetor expresses his interest in this new transformation style. Optimus declares that they must re-learn the art of transformation if they want to fight the Vehicons on an even footing.

Meanwhile, a mysterious figure watches the battle in the citadel and vows to destroy the "impure" organic Maximals. It's Megatron, now the supreme ruler of Cybertron!

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Maximals	Vehicons	Others
Optimus Primal (1) Rattrap (3) Cheetor (4) Blackarachnia (5)	Tank Drones (2) Cycle Drones (7) Megatron (8)	Oracle (6)

Quotes

"Hey! You just slagged your own guy! That's deep-freeze cold!"

—Cheetor does not approve of team kills

"Everyone underground!"
"What makes you think it's any better down there?" [a tank nearby explodes] "I withdraw the question."

—Optimus and Rattrap debate where to retreat.

"The Great Transformation awaits, Optimus Primal. Prepare to be... reformatted. Remember this; the seeds of the future lie buried in the past. To unleash the warrior within, you must tame the beast without. Seek the balance, Optimus Primal. Transform your destiny. Transform and transcend..."

—The Oracle, being all mystical

"Uh, boss, do these upgrades come with a warranty?"

—Rattrap after discovering they still can't transform.

"The first robots who came to Cybertron had to learn how to transform. It took discipline, purity of spark, and years of practice."
"News flash for ya, monkey boy: WE AIN'T GOT YEARS!"

—Optimus and Rattrap.

Cheetor: "Awesome transformation, big bot!"
Rattrap: "So, what's your secret?"
Optimus: "I... understand."
Blackarachnia: "Great. That makes one of us."

—The postmortem on Optimus' transformation.

"So, Optimus Primal and his Maximals have survived afer all. See how they contaminate the perfection of Cybertron with their mongrel beast forms. So wretched. So misshapen. So... organic. I will destroy them."

—Megatron has an organic hate boner now. When did this happen? Who knows.

Notes

Animation and technical errors

When Optimus tackles the Tank Drone, he partially clips through it.
After the ground has gotten a hole blown into it, the shot of the second Tank Drone group advancing on the Maximals is a mirrored version of the first, so their cannons are on the wrong side.
Before he jumps into the hole, Rattrap's shoulders get pretty distorted due to the crouching pose he's in.
When the trio lands in Blackarachnia's web, all the debris that was falling with them in the previous shots is gone.
As they depart from the webbing, the Maximals are mostly walking on air, with their feet only occasionally stepping on the strings.
When the newly reformatted heroes ready themselves to face the Cycle Drones, Primal's left forearm-guard clips into Rattrap's front leg.
As it chases after Cheetor, the lens-flare effect of the Cycle Drone's headlight is still visible when Cheetor's head blots out its source.

Continuity errors

After transforming, Optimus is shown hovering over the middle of a pit, but on reverting to beast mode he's hovering on the edge of said pit.

Continuity notes

Unusually for a Transformers television show, Beast Machines began in medias res, with Optimus and company stranded on Cybertron and on the run from Vehicons. Where are Rhinox and Silverbolt, how did Megatron manage to escape the shuttle, and why is everyone back in their original beast modes? Nothing's made clear here, but later episodes will flesh out the events that took place between the finale of Beast Wars and the beginning of Beast Machines.
Rattrap mentions that his last memory is the Maximals taking a shuttle home to Cybertron, recapping the end of "Nemesis Part 2".
Gadgets and powers:
- Rattrap can crawl up walls, Spider-Man style.
- Cheetor's beast mode can bounce from wall to wall at super-speed.

Transformers references

As they descend through Cybertron's layers, the Maximals pass buried cities. Primal theorizes that they're the ruins of earlier civilizations.
Optimus says that the first Transformers had to learn to transform before it became second nature to the robotic races. This might be a reference to the original cartoon, most notably "Five Faces of Darkness, Part 4", which depicted transformation as a wartime innovation rather than an innate ability.
Optimus also mentions that the first Transformers came to Cybertron, and that the Oracle foretold their arrival. While this statement certainly gels with later revelations in the series, the significance of this origin story has never really been explored in other Transformers media.

Real-world references

Rattrap mockingly refers to one of the Tank Drones as a "Tin Man".
As the Maximals struggle in the darkness, Rattrap implores Optimus to come to his senses with "Ground Control to Major Optimus," referencing the 1969 David Bowie song "Space Oddity."
During Optimus Primal's visions, a group of black monoliths are briefly seen, a nod to the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Additionally, the close-ups of Optimus while interfacing with the Oracle, intercut with his POV zooming through abstract visuals, are very similar to the movie's infamous "trip" scene.
When Cheetor tackles the Cycle Drone in the tunnel, there's a brief shot that resembles the iconic Akira bike slide.

Trivia

Although the Maximals' original beast modes from Beast Wars are shown in this episode, the models have been reskinned completely. Alterations include Optimus Primal's fur being brown instead of grey, Rattrap's feet being dark orange instead of pink, Blackarachnia's stripes are removed, and Cheetor now has black circles around his eyes and his spots are more angular and stylized.
It was from this episode that the term "reformatting" passed into general use amongst Transformerdom.
A special advance screening of this episode was held at BotCon 1999, where it received an overwhelmingly positive reaction.

Foreign localization

French

Title: "Remise à Zéro" ("Reset to Zero")

German

Title: "Das Orakel" ("The Oracle")
Original airdate: December 2, 2000

Italian

Title: "La riformattazione" ("The reformatting")

When the Maximals say: «Maximals, maximaze!» they use a singular verb, like if "Maximal" was the name of a single character.

Japanese

Title: "Densetsu no Fukkatsu" (伝説の復活, "The Resurrection of the Legend")
Original airdate: November 6, 2004

Mandarin

Title: "Chóngxīn Géshìhuà" (重新格式化, "The Reformatting")

Polish

Title: "Amnezje I Reformacje" ("Amnesions And Reformations")

Brazilian Portuguese

Title: "A Reformatação" ("The Reformatting")

Spanish

Title: "La Reforma" ("The Reformation")

Home video releases

All releases listed are in English audio unless otherwise noted.

DVD

2004 — Super Lifeform Transformers: Beast Wars Returns — Volume 1 (Geneon Entertainment) — Japanese audio only.
2006 — Beast Machines: Transformers — The Complete Series (Rhinomation)
2014 — Transformers: Beast Machines — The Complete Series (Shout! Factory)
2007 — Transformers: Beast Machines — Season One: Volume One (Sony)
2007 — Transformers: Beast Machines — Season One: Volume One — Reformatting (Sony)
2007 — Transformers: Beast Machines — Complete Season One (Sony)
2009 — Transformers: Beast Machines — Intégrale Saison 1 (Sony) — French audio only.