My thoughts on Beast Wars so far

Wow, I just finished watching Season 3 as well. Overall, I loved it and I think the tight storyline and character interaction is superior to the original US Cartoon.

However, some things I was disappointed with...

[SPOILERS AHEAD for those that have not watched it]

- Rhinox and Inferno seemed underdeveloped for characters that lasted for most of all three seasons
- The end fight between Optimus and Megatron was kinda disappointing, Optimus was made out to be weak and hardly tough enough.

- Certain references, such as Megatron donning a judge's wig in the trial of Quickstrike, and the references to animosity between cats and mice, implies Cybertronian culture has strong similarities to Human culture, something that I do not find credible (but there may be things I am not aware of)

- Plagiarism of Christian eschatological thought in the Covenant of Primus (references to "alpha and omega", and lifting parts of Revelation 12). Not a major problem, but I had hoped for more creativity (i.e. at least come up with your own quotations and prophecies perhaps?)
[END SPOILERS]

I realise when watching / reading fiction, a certain amount of suspension of disbelief is required. So I did my best to overlook those points, and found the show to be quite enjoyable. :)

Good to hear you enjoyed BW. For me, it is the best written cartoon series to date.

In regards to the ending, that was a rush job given that the writers were only given notice of cancellation just a 3 episodes before the end of the 3rd season, specially when they were gearing towards a 4th. Due to this, there was a mad rush to address as many loose plot points as possible and condense it all into a rather sudden ending. Given their short notice I think they did a good job even if somewhat clunky. The reason for ending the show was that Hasbro wanted to move things into Beast Machines - we all know how that ended...

To address your points:

Point 1 'Rhinox': I was satisfied with how this character turned out, we got to see his regular benevolent and wise side as well as his darker, more sinister inner self. He also breaks the mold on having the largest, strongest character as a wise and intelligent character rather than the typical cartoon brute.

Point 2 'End fight': I think the problem here was the mad rush to end the series.

Point 3 'judge': Those are merely gags but if you want to justify it in canon - BW era Cybertronian culture takes place after the great war (G1) in which humans played a significant role. Naturally one would expect certain aspects of human culture influencing cybertonians. You can see that in G1 with Jazz and Blasters behavior. The Decepticons were also influenced as seen with the battle chargers in the Marvel comics as well as Skullgrin. Keep in mind that BW draws from an amalgamation of both the G1 cartoon and Marvel G1 continuities.

Point 4 'Plagiarism': Religious parallels is a well known Furmarism and that particular episode was written by none other than Simon Furman :). Since Primus was a major plot point in Marvel G1 which was surrounded with many religious and fantasy parallels, it makes sense to have the Covenant of Primus although personally, it wasn't my favorite aspect of the show.

#1: The writers initially killed Inferno off at the end of Season 2 -- hence why we saw him _disintegrate_ during The Agenda. However Hasbro was not ready to remove a Mega class toy from the show, so insisted that Inferno remain. So he effectively remained on Hasbro's behest. Having said that, I think he was still a pretty neat character. :)

#2: Not sure if you know this Sam, but Season 3 was finished in a hurry. As you know, Forward and DiTillio are the kind of writers who draw story elements out over a very prolonged period of time (much like Furman did during G1). They'd already completed writing half of Season 3 when Hasbro suddenly dropped the bomb and told them that it would be the final season of Beast Wars and to wrap everything up. They had to suddenly tie up all kinds of loose ends -- some of which were never resolved (e.g.: the famous deleted scene about the ultimate fate of G1 Megatron's spark). It's something we've often seen Hasbro do before in the past.
e.g.:
+ The Rebirth: Originally written as a five part pilot (much like Five Faces of Darkness for Season 3), Hasbro suddenly informed David Wise that it had to be reduced to a 3 parter and gave him a massive list of characters^toys that had to be introduced during the story, most of them within the first episode (hence why a lot of characters just appeared for a few seconds without really contributing much to the story (e.g. Sixshot, Fastlane, Cloudraker et al.).
+ The G1 comics was abruptly axed by Hasbro -- which frustrated Furman who was instructed to introduce Action Master Optimus Prime by the final issue despite the fact that Furman had just killed Optimus Prime five issues before!
+ I believe Hasbro gave Furman more advanced notice for the cancellation of G2, but he still wasn't thrilled about being axed again, hence why he created the name "Jhiaxus" ("Gee, axe us"). ;)
...so under the circumstances, I think Season 3 was reasonably well written.

#3: I agree wholeheartedly with you, Sam. It's something that bugs me with _most_ TF writers (even Furman who I still consider my favourite). Writers like Bob Budiansky, Alex Kubalsky and Roberto Orci were/are better at writing Transformers as being otherworldly aliens. ;) "The boy's pheromone levels indicates he wishes to mate with the female."

#4: Furman (and other writers like those on Beast Machines) frequently plagiarise from various religions, not just Christianity. Thus Transformers theology draws from several different Earth religions such as Zoroastrianism, Hinduism/Buddhism, Daoism as well as incorporating some schools of philosophy such as Aristotle's Phronesis etc.

Thanks for the responses guys. :)

When watching the two-parter Nemesis, I did feel that things were taking pace faster and thought it was rushed, however I didn't know it was because Hasbro wanted to wrap things up.

As you guys have pointed out, I think given the situation it was the best the writer(s) could do.

My complaints for points 3 and 4 mainly stem from my desire to see more _difference_ between Cybertronian culture and human culture. As they are aliens, I didn't want things to be always the same or similar. For example, I thought at least the "Covenant of Primus" could have been a datadisc of some sort instead of a book. I believe the comics handled this aspect better.

Going to watch Beast Machines now ... I've heard it's not as good as Beast Wars though. :0

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Originally Posted by Sam

My complaints for points 3 and 4 mainly stem from my desire to see more _difference_ between Cybertronian culture and human culture. As they are aliens, I didn't want things to be always the same or similar. For example, I thought at least the "Covenant of Primus" could have been a datadisc of some sort instead of a book.

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Or a Cube. ;)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sam

I believe the comics handled this aspect better.

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You mean the Beast Wars comics? Yeah. Of course, the comics don't have to appeal to young kids at the same time -- and I think that's the reason why we had all these familiar Earth elements in Beast Wars. The story needed to engage children as well as adults.

Also, the Beast Wars cartoon did fundamentally exist to sell toys - whereas the comics were created after the BW toyline concluded so they had much more creative freedom. Hasbro effectively dictated which characters were to be inserted or removed in the cartoon. Because of the cost of CGI animation certain CGI character models (remember that each Transformer = 2 models) had to be removed to offset the introduction of new models/characters - thus maintaining a status quo. There's never more than about a dozen characters in Beast Wars at any one time. Compare this with the Japanese cel animated Beast Wars Second and Neo series which were able to introduce every single character from the toy lines

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sam

Going to watch Beast Machines now ... I've heard it's not as good as Beast Wars though. :0

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that whole engaging kids thing? Beast Machines throws that out the window. :) It is a rather adult story. The visual effects and animation are a LOT better than Beast Wars though (everyone has shadows!!). I think I should hold back on further commenting about Beast Machines until you've watched it.

With Beast Machines you should probably approach it not as a Transformers fan but a general cartoon fan. Also don't expect a logical continuation of the characters - It may be in continuity but due to different writers and radically different style, some characterizations have been changed a fair bit from BW.

It is a good story overall, much better than most contemporary cartoons in general but it isn't a good Transformers cartoon.

:(Rattrap is an absolute shocker as well as some of the other main characters in BM, they completely screwed up the main personalities on them to something close to being opposite to what they were in BW:(

I concur, the character utilisation is abysmal but the BM story I didn't mind too much, I wasn't a fan of the Art style either - Beast Wars is the far superior style in my opinion considering the only thing better at the time was Toy Story.

As it was said, it's certainly a good cartoon, unlike the puke kids have today, but a pretty poor Transformers cartoon.

BM had a few episodes/ideas I thought were great, but all up it's still going into the "And then he woke up and it was all a dream" sub-canon in the Odieverse.

Spoilers ahoy from hereon in...

I did like the Tankor saga, and Botanica was an interesting concept. The Diagnostic Drone was just beautiful, especially when Megs kicks the invading Maximals butts. Strika was awesome and has become one of my favourite TF characters - having a tough, smart, competent butch fembot for a change was great, especially as a contrast to Blackarachnia. I really wish we'd seen more of her in Animated (and gotten Team Charr/Team Rodimus toys dammit). The toy of Blackarachnia (I have the Universe repaint, pity about the colors) is awesome IMO - it's crazily poseable and looks sweet in both modes.
I only really have two major objections to BM, namely the organic world schtick (not that TF lore is especially great or consistent) and the characterisation. BW Megatron is easily my all-time favourite Transformer character, and the way BM portrayed him really ticked me off. Basically, he didn't feel like BW Megs except for a few episodes, mainly the last few - the first time I really thought of him as the Megs I know and love was when he scraps the Drone.

Still, it is worth watching at least once, and for some episodes a few times over.

SPOILERZ















Odie: The organic world thing has been around since G1 -- but G1 indicated that Cybertron had evolved from an organic world into a mechanical world (much like Gobotron or Gorlam Prime, although the Transformers are entirely mechanical, not cybertronic). The problem with technorganics isn't so much any conflict with existing continuity, but:
#1: It's a unorthodox concept which was wrought with controversy (Bob Skir received death threats and claims of "ruined my childhood!" long before Michael Bay!). The alt modes (especially the beast modes) are so abstract and obscure looking that Hasbro felt the need to include a text description telling us what they were meant to be! In Beast Wars you would see Ultra Optimus Primal and you knew straight away it was a gorilla. You look at Transmetal Megatron, yep, that's a dinosaur. Beast Machines Optimus Primal's card has the word "gorilla" printed on the bubble! And I still don't know what the hell Geckobot's meant to be! (O_o) And who didn't laugh and/or cry when they first saw Silverbolt?!?
#2: the fact that it boxed Transformers continuity into a dead end and has since elicited almost all post-BM writers to do continuity reboots because nobody wants to pick up where BM left off!

The only way you could continue from BM would be to either continue with the technorganic concept (which would not be popular in my estimation) or undo it (as you said, "it was all a dream." :D