Dinobot's Old Technology is an infamous Beast Wars fanfiction written during the early days of online fandom by one named MG-Dinobot. A straight rewrite of the episode "Code of Hero" (often considered the best in the series) in script format with very little changes, it was followed by several sequels that had more original plots.
However, MG-Dinobot reportedly had a cursory at best knowledge of English and "translated" his writing word for word with a dictionary, with predictable results. Several lines from the fics quickly became memetic within the fandom, to the point that the series most infamous line (quoted above) was referenced in the AllSpark Almanac, and is the caption
for his picture on TFWiki.net.
An archive of the fics can be found here, and a Dramatic Reading of it by none other than Xander Mobus (and company) can be found here.
Tropes used in Dinobot's Old Technology and its sequels include:
- "Blind Idiot" Translation: The entire thing was translated word for word from French to English by someone not fluent in the latter, and it definitely shows.
- Came Back Wrong: Dinobot is resurrected as Mega-Rex, who's now a murderous maniac with a questionable combination of animals for his alt-mode.
- Due to the Dead: "Optimus Primal bring back Dinobot's body to the Maximal base and destroy it, WITH HONOR!"
- Left Hanging: The last chapter ends with the appearance of Airrazor and Tigatron in a new, more powerful form.
- Mix-and-Match Critter: Mega-Rex is a "Ty-Rex"/snake/ant hybrid while Death Blade is a bird/shark one.
- Non Sequitur: While contemplating his fate, Dinobot cannot resist dropping random exposition that has absolutely nothing to do with the situation at hand.Dinobot: rrrrr.....I think the time is come for the final battle of my life...mmmm...I know that I will die, but if my calcule are right, less than 10 steses pods had not crashed to the earth during the alien blast.
- Reading The Stage Directions Outloud: Due to the combination of script format and poor grammar, some of the characters appear to be doing this.Rampage: Hahahaha...You will be destroy lizard head. Dinobot jump on Rampage and blast him with his sword but
- Rouge Angles of Satin: The main source of humor. Several words are also left with their French spelling.Rattrap: huh, maybe chopper face have changer his activation code again.
- Script Fic: The story is written in script format.
- Series Continuity Error: In the first chapter, Megatron states that "Rhinox is death". However, Rhinox is alive and well in the last chapter, with nobody commenting on his revival.
- Spell My Name With An S: Silverbolt's name is repeatedly spelled as Silverboalt.
- The Starscream: Terrorsaur betrays Megatron only two lines after declaring his allegiance to him. That must be some kind of record.
- Translation Train Wreck: As stated in "Blind Idiot" Translation above, the story was translated from French to English by someone with a tenuous grasp on the latter language, which results in such lines as:Optimus Primal: Cheetor, Silverboalt and I will fly those ground for found some stases pods or BLAST some Preds, and you Rattrap, stay at the base. [sic]
- Unexplained Recovery: Just how Dinobot is resurrected as Mega-Rex is never explained.
- Word Salad Title: Which seems to be a garbled reference to one of Megatron's lines in "Code of Hero" ("Face it, Dinobot, you're old technology! Obsolete! What could you possibly do?").
- Written Sound Effect: Explosions are written as "BOOM!" rather than described word for word.
