Sorry, not going to take the time to read through the posts, but I still feel like throwing my 2 cents in.

 

The biggest failings of Beast Machines, in my opinion at least, is that (1) it followed an excellent show, (2) fairly significantly deviated from TF themes and established BW characterizations, (3) poor original characters getting more limelight that the good original characters, (4) had writers who apparently had no idea of who their primary, secondary, or even tertiary markets were, (5) was overly dramatic to the point where even soap opera actors found it to be over-the-top, (6) pretty repetitive, (7) a little too heavily laiden with new-age non-sense, and (8) a truly horrible ending.

 

I'll elaborate on each one:

 

(1) Not much to elaborate on with this one.  BM followed Beast Wars, the show viewed by most TF fans currently posting on TF boards to be the best.  This is by no means a fault or shortcoming of Beast Machines, but it had much bigger shoes to fill than say, Energon.

 

(2) Beast Wars Rattrap was a self centered pragmatist who also happened to be perhaps the most resourceful and clever of all characters.  These traits, added to his self confidence and sharp tongue made him an excellent character.  BM Rattrap was a whiny, helpless Starscream who contributed nothing, and whose stelar dialogue from BW was now sentimental crap in BM.

 

Beast Wars Black Arachnia was a badass femme fatale, who had emotional longings, but damn if she was going to let anyone know that.  BM Black Arachnia was a damsel in distress.

 

Rhinox was a brilliant, philosophical, warrior poet, who kept the warrior aspect of himself under lock and key, but watch the F' out when he let that warrior free.  Tankor was clever, but basically a watered down, brutish version of what he used to be.  I understand Skir wanting to have a prominent character be corrupted and do a 180 degree swing, and had he done a better job of setting it up and fine tuning the back story and Rhinox/Tankor's reasoning, then it could have been quite good.  But I just didn't buy what Skir/Isenberg were selling with that half-assed soul-bearing explanation that Tankor gave to Primal.  Some people did, I guess, but not me.

 

Beast Wars Silverbolt was chivalrous, naive, and utterly devoted to Black Arachnia.  So I guess it's fitting that since BA was reduced to being a doting girlfriend, Silverbolt should now be the bad boy who needs emotional rescuing.  Like with the Rhinox/Tankor situation, I recognize the potential for a great story there.  Silverbolt corrupted and reprogrammed to serve Megatron, BA helps him to discover his true self.  But, again, like with the Rhinox/Tankor situation, it just wasn't done well.

 

Beast Wars Primal was an idealistic and inexperienced captain, but he was ready to take action and throw down when the need arose.  BM Primal was a Buddhist monk who sat there spouting non-sensical, non-implementable, and instruction-lacking suggestions in his attempt to re-take the planet.  BW Primal was a green officer who slowly grew into his potential, BM Primal was a eunich.  This also goes into explaning (7).

 

I didn't like BM Cheetor, but he really wasn't that big of a deviation from his BW character in the sense that he was in a constant state of maturing.  My main gripe is that he seemed to be 17-ish at the end of BW, and seemed to be 14-ish in BM.  But compared to the other changes to the BW cast, this is very minor.

 

(3) Nightscream is often referred to as the 'Carlos' of Beast Machines.  Remember that kid from high school who just wasn't very bright and was physically weak, but despite this did his best to be a sarcastic smart ass to everyone?  You felt bad for him, knowing that his anti-social remarks were simply a defense mechanism used to compensate for his own short-comings, but though you felt for him, and even stepped in and defended him from others, you couldn't blame the other kids for flushing his head in the toilet.  That was Nightscream.  I guess that since they neutered Rattrap, they needed to fill the role of the smart ass.  But being neither clever nor witty, Nightscream just lacked the 'smart' part of the equation.

 

Botanica was just flat out boring.  The concept wasn't bad, Maximal returning from a vegatative world and possessing a vegatative alt mode, but beyond that she just wasn't worth watching.  Yeah, it gave Rattrap a love interest, but Rattrap was just more interesting when he ate garbage and longed to frequent strip clubs.

 

Jetstorm, Obsidian and Strika were genuinely very good characters.  Despite this, these guys got a fraction of the air time that weaker characters got.

 

(4) Beast Wars was presented in a way that EVERY demographic could enjoy.  Action-packed, slap-sticky, fun and quickly paced for the kids, well thought out and deep for the 12+ group, romance for the chicks (and the romance was allowed to evolve at a natural pace - well, natural for TV - and not forced in there like the Rattrap Bottanica crap), and at no point did it take itself too seriously.  With BM, the sky was always falling, and there was far too much preachy over-dramatization.  Goth kids must have been what Skir/Isenberg had in mind when writing this show.

 

(5) Every thing had to be dramatic.  Bits of dialogue which really didn't seem that significant were delivered in an over-the-top fashion with dark, broody music behind it.  Don't get me wrong, I love drama and cliff-hangers and do or die situations, but BM tried to force feed direness into situations that just weren't that dire.

 

(6) A good number (I dare say the majority) of episodes followed this pattern:  Primal and Maximals in underground base, Primal spouts philosophical mumbo-jumbo, Cheetor mumbles something about taking the fight to Megatron, Primal tells him to settle down, Cheetor leads other Maximals out on some attack run, they get discovered, techno-music starts, Vehicons arrive en-masse, chase scene covers the better part of the episode, lots of explosions, Primal intervenes and helps Maximals to escape, Maximals are once again in their underground base, and Primal ends it with a philosophical 'I told you so' speech.

 

(7) 'Be the transformation', and other stupid crap that came out of Primal's glowing lips was just unlistenable for me.

 

(8) I like that Primal and Megatron killed each other in the final battle, but the reformatted Cybertron was just not a good direction to take in my opinion.  Honestly, it wouldn't have been a good starting point for the next TF line to pick up from.  Plus, the cheering multitudes just was too F'n corny for me.

 

Also, one thing that others might be pissed at BM about, whether conscious or sub-consciously, is that it lost nearly all the ground gained by BW for the TF line.  BW started out on piss-poor channels at piss-poor times, but despite these obstacles it grew quickly in popularity.  The show was so good that the largest childern's network at the time (Fox Kids) started courting it.  Unfortunately for BW, the benefits of being on the large network came as the series was drawing to a close, but it did set up its successor perfectly.  BM would be seen by millions of viewers right from the get-go.  Had BM been a better show, it would have been more popular, and Hasbro would have been more inclined to stay with a larger writing budget.  But BM neglected their target audience, got poor ratings, and the investment in writing staff for Hasbro just didn't pay off.  So, now we've been dealing with mindlessly bad anime for the last several years. 

 

That can be seen as Skir's legacy, which in turn could account for the low opinion of him in the TF community.

 

My two cents.

meh, I could respond, but I don't have the energy for it.

 

Beast Wars is overhyped anyway IMO.

I think largely, the problem with the BM show was just not a lot of people got it. I can understand where Madhammer is coming from, and it does make sense, but you have to really look at things. BM is like the Shakespear of Transformers..

 

I do agree with what you've said in short.. give or take a few things. My biggest complaint about BM was that it was just so smurfin heavy all the time. I miss the humor.. I can't laugh at BM in the way I can laugh at BW.. and I really think they could of cut a little bit of all the direness out.

 

What I would of done though, is atleast have some Predicons survive BW besides Waspinator. I mean, we still had Tarantulus' story to be told in actuallity.. I think if they had the same writers as BW, BM would of turned out slightly different.

 

.....

 

Oh but there's worse versions of Cybertron out there than turning it green peace.. I know in one of the Japanese versions of BW they actually ended up blowing it up in the end.

 

What I wanna know though... if the oracle intended TFs to have an organic nature, then why did they just go back to being vehicles in Transtech?

My Beast Machines so far:

 

Cheetor

Rattrap

Motorcycle Drone

Thrust

Jetstorm(Ultra)

Megatron

 

I want Megahead Megs and Deluxe Jetstorm.  The ultra is too damn big.  It's still pretty cool though.  I also want the re-painted Strika and Obsidian.

I think largely, the problem with the BM show was just not a lot of people got it. I can understand where Madhammer is coming from, and it does make sense, but you have to really look at things. BM is like the Shakespear of Transformers..

 

I do agree with what you've said in short.. give or take a few things. My biggest complaint about BM was that it was just so smurfin heavy all the time. I miss the humor.. I can't laugh at BM in the way I can laugh at BW.. and I really think they could of cut a little bit of all the direness out.

 

What I would of done though, is atleast have some Predicons survive BW besides Waspinator. I mean, we still had Tarantulus' story to be told in actuallity.. I think if they had the same writers as BW, BM would of turned out slightly different.

 

.....

 

Oh but there's worse versions of Cybertron out there than turning it green peace.. I know in one of the Japanese versions of BW they actually ended up blowing it up in the end.

 

What I wanna know though... if the oracle intended TFs to have an organic nature, then why did they just go back to being vehicles in Transtech?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Gaqlvatron Blew Up Cybertron in Headmasters, but not compleatly, it kinda looked like the second deathstar after he got through with it, Cybertron was rebuilt by Battlestars.

I think largely, the problem with the BM show was just not a lot of people got it. I can understand where Madhammer is coming from, and it does make sense, but you have to really look at things. BM is like the Shakespear of Transformers..

 

I do agree with what you've said in short.. give or take a few things. My biggest complaint about BM was that it was just so smurfin heavy all the time. I miss the humor.. I can't laugh at BM in the way I can laugh at BW.. and I really think they could of cut a little bit of all the direness out.

 

What I would of done though, is atleast have some Predicons survive BW besides Waspinator. I mean, we still had Tarantulus' story to be told in actuallity.. I think if they had the same writers as BW, BM would of turned out slightly different.

 

.....

 

Oh but there's worse versions of Cybertron out there than turning it green peace.. I know in one of the Japanese versions of BW they actually ended up blowing it up in the end.

 

What I wanna know though... if the oracle intended TFs to have an organic nature, then why did they just go back to being vehicles in Transtech?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I can understand why people think the show is heavy. Compared to other TF shows it's definitely the darkest of the bunch. But compared to anything else it really isn't at all. There were a lot of funny moments in BM for me; they just weren't the goofy Three Stooges kind of humor you would find in BW.

 

And really, when you think about it the situation in BM *is* pretty dire. In BW you had two small, evenly matched teams. In BM you have a handful of Maximals against the entire planet and Megatron as a genocidal tyrant. I'm not going to deny that the show was probably too much for kids, but I'm not a kid.

 

P.S. Diesel, if you can find it, you want the Sonic Attack Jet. :thumb

In my opiion, Beast Machines was a good how with a lot of potential. The trouble that as stated before,was that Beast Machines was TOO dark for most people, which started the Fandom War and ended around RID.

In my opiion, Beast Machines was a good how with a lot of potential. The trouble that as stated before,was that Beast Machines was TOO dark for most people, which started the Fandom War and ended around RID.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That's what cracks me up. Look at all the fanfics and the sigs and the user names you see floating around here. More angst than a goth convention. And then they complain that a TF show is too dark....

He was bad at plot twists, Rhinox being Tanker would've made a great plot twist... if it actually made sense, if we actually saw WHY he wanted to be Tankor. Same with Jetstorm/Silverbolt.

 

And most people didn't want to see cybertron as techno-organic, becuase they didn't believe it was possible. :P

 

But then again, Minerals (metals) have to come from rocks anyways. >_> And there was that old G1 episode where they found techo organic things that the quintessions made underground in cybertron. X.x

He was bad at plot twists, Rhinox being Tanker would've made a great plot twist... if it actually made sense, if we actually saw WHY he wanted to be Tankor. Same with Jetstorm/Silverbolt.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

What's not to understand? He's still trapped in Tankor's body just like Blackarachnia was stuck with Tarantulas' Predacon shell program in BW. And as we know from watching "Dark Designs", when Rhinox gets turned evil, he starts to want power. Who knows why - some dormant aspect of his personality, perhaps.

 

Anyway, I would think that Silverbolt provided all the insight we needed into what it was like to be a Vehicon. That's why he emerged so scarred.