I can’t really think of a weak episode or a character I didn’t like, Beast Wars was that good.

I can think of multiple S1 episodes that weren't good. The one with Rhinox having gas is one of them.

Every show has an episode like that. Heck, G1 had some even worse.

 

It was called "Season 2".

Yeah, I'm the same way...Transformers = cars and machines. But after these posts I might check it out

I'm telling you dude, I was the exact same way until I watched Beast Wars. It is DEFINITELY worth watching. I highly recommend it. And I'm a G1 fan from way back. That's what I grew up with, but Beast Wars is just too good not to appreciate. :thumb

Overall Beast Wars is the best story ever written for a Transformers television series.

 

Octavian Prime: Ben Yee's contribution was fairly peripheral - he assisted in providing G1 information to the writers. As did a lot of other fans such as Hooks, M. Sipher etc., all of whom have been given kudos to in the show ("sub-sector Hooks" and "coordinates M-Sipher"). Furman only wrote the last episode. The majority of the show was written by Bob Forward and Larry DiTillio who used people like fans and Furman to help bolster their knowledge of Transformers... they really went out of their way to do a lot of research into G1 and G2 (because they knew next to nothing about Transformers before they started writing Beast Wars) and that's part of what makes Beast Wars so cool.

 

Shadow ES: "The Low Road" is also my least favourite episode, but only because it is just so goofy. Having said that there's nothing terribly flawed about the episode - it's not downright ridiculous or full of continuity plot-holes like oh-so-many G1 episodes. Clone beams my arse! But a lot of fans like the light-hearted nature of that episode.

 

I can't emphasize enough how important a small cast was to the quality of that show. You have more time to develop a small team of 5-6 individuals than in a show where you introduce a new character every week and have 50+ characters to draw from. But then, you don't get to sell as many toys that way.

That is true, which is why the movie only focused on a small cast of characters.

 

Mind you, that's not the real reason why Beast Wars had a small cast - it was because CG animation is expensive! In much cheaper cel animation, you see a lot more characters appearing in the show, almost the entire line can appear in cel animation.

 

It is possible to feature a large cast and still have a quality story - the idea is to keep the focus on a small group at any one time. By X-Men 3 we had a fairly large cast of mutants, but a cast that was gradually built over the trilogy, and even then the focus was on a limited core number of characters. The G1 comics were the same - featuring much more characters than the G1 cartoon ever did, but usually focusing on a limited cast in any issue. That's of course part of the reason why Transformers were often very ruthlessly and wantonly killed off all the time in the G1 and G2 comics! Oh look! Nightbeat just got devoured! Mmm! ;)

 

 

What are you talking about? I have had Seasons 2 and 3 for a couple of years now. I was simply stating that I was re-watching Season 1.

You did say that you were re-watching Season 1 but didn't say that you'd already seen Seasons 2 and 3. I thought that if you'd already seen all of Beast Wars that you would've already fallen in love with the show long ago.

 

Yeah, I'm the same way...Transformers = cars and machines. But after these posts I might check it out

I never really had that problem... Transformers have always had animals ("Primitives") in it - and in G1 did feature organic elements.

 

Beast Mode!

 

Organics!

 

G1 Technorganics! Haw!

BW is my favorite TF show. Best part about it, and Beast Machines, was that it wasn't done by the Japanese and there wasn't an egghunt for cyberplanet keys or minicons, and so on...

Is there a major difference between BW and BM?

What are you talking about? I have had Seasons 2 and 3 for a couple of years now. I was simply stating that I was re-watching Season 1.

You did say that you were re-watching Season 1 but didn't say that you'd already seen Seasons 2 and 3. I thought that if you'd already seen all of Beast Wars that you would've already fallen in love with the show long ago.

You thought wrong.

Is there a major difference between BW and BM?

Beast Machines is the sequel to Beast Wars where the Transformers have left prehistoric Earth and returned to Cybertron. The Maximals with technorganic beast modes battle the Vehicons, who all have vehicle modes (beasts vs machines = Beast Machines).

 

BW--><--BM

Being born in 86, it was around the time of beast wars that transformers really intrigued me. Dont get me wrong; My first toys were g2, but it was beast wars that i associate a lot of my childhood with. remember seeing a new beast figure in the store and how thrilled you were when your parents said you could have it? and opening it to discover it was even cooler than it looked in the picture on the cardboard backing of another one? and getting a figure and WISHING they had made it look more like it did in the show? but loving it anyway, because it WAS in the show? and remember how intense it was when a new stasis pod crash landed on earth, revealing a mashugga cool new character that you couldnt wait to see as a toy?

 

I LOVE BEAST WARS!!!!!!!!!

Is there a major difference between BW and BM?

The two shows are very different, despite having the same cast, voice actors, and animation company. The story in BM is a direct continuation of BW, but it has an entirely different focus and tone. Whereas BW was fairly G1-ish in its approach (both sides have a base, both attempt to thwart the others' plans on a weekly basis, etc.), BM was conceived as a single story to be told in 26 parts. BM is also a very dark show, not just because Mainframe was finally able to add shadows to the animation. The Maximals are on the run for the majority of the series, and victories are rare. The characters themselves also undergo significant changes over the course of the series. It's really not like any other Transformers series, and there was a huge fan backlash against the show when it originally came out. So I guess what I would say is that it's definitely worth checking out, but expect it to be very different from what you're used to seeing.

 

Personally, I love it (viz.: my avatar). It's my favorite Transformers series by far. I grew up with G1 and I enjoy that for the occasional nostalgia trip, and I also really enjoyed Beast Wars when I saw that on DVD, but to me Beast Machines is just beyond. It appeals to me on an artistic level, in terms of the design, direction, and writing. I can't really say that about any other TF series.

Beast Machines...

 

PROS:

+ Some absolutely stunning animation and special effects, much improved CG over what we saw in Beast Wars (yay! Shadows!).

+ The most adult story ever written for Transformers with some really heavy and interesting theo-philosophical themes running throughout. The goodies don't always win (Beast Wars was like that too though). The plot is heavily based on philosophies such as Aristotle's Phronesis, Daoism (Yin = beast, Yang = machine) et al.

+ Some nice character development, such as the final maturation of Cheetor, the final realisation of Blackarachnia as a heroic character etc.

+ Still solidly rooted in G1 - the story outline was co-written by Marv Wolfman, who was a writer on the G1 cartoon and Beast Wars. The story features a lot of elements from G1 and although it pushes the envelope in terms of "conventional" Transformers stories, it never directly contradicts pre-established G1/G2/BW canon.

+ Speaking of G1, Beast Machines is arguably the only Transformers series where a Megatron actually believes in and achieves (and attempts to maintain) G1 Megatron's tech specs motto: "Peace through tyranny."

 

CONS:

+ "I just felt like running." - Maximal Gump

+ In some areas there is way too much exposition. "The seeds of the future lie buried in the past." <--prepare to have this line hammered into your skull! If you thought that Ben Parker's power/responsibility line was overdone in the Spiderman movie then you ain't seen nothing yet!

+ Show models are notoriously toy-inaccurate.

+ This is a really dark and heavy story - which in some ways is good. But some people complain that it lacks light-hearted moments. Coupled with the heavily adult nature of the story and toy-inaccurate show models, this show arguably fails as a marketing device for the Beast Machines toy line (which is what the show was meant to be, let's face it).

+ Speaking of being bleak and depressed - one of the Transformers in this series is a freakin' EMO!

+ There is some bad character development... some of the Transformers feature entirely different personalities from what we saw in Beast Wars... personalities which have changed for no apparent logical reason.

+ The story boxes itself in making it quite difficult for future writers to ever continue from where the show leaves off, which is probably why we've never seen the story continued - the BotCon/Universe comics do continue the story but only by doing so in a way that's been elicited by the boxed-in nature of the BM story. Sorry if that doesn't make much sense but I'm trying to avoid spoiler leakage. ;)

 

Either way, it's worth a watch. Borrow/download a copy... watch it and decide if you want to purchase a copy to keep or not. Or buy it and watch the whole thing within 7 days so you can refund it if you don't like it.

 

I personally prefer Beast Wars, but I do like Beast Machines too. :)