Venturing into Beast Wars - what to start with first?

[Autocon]

As I shall wait till I ask your thoughts on which bw toys you want to buy

[Hursticon]

Arrrrrrrrgh....I've had enough exams and quizzes for my life!!!

Hehe, just kidding dude; I want you to enjoy the series, not rue it.

Theme song...errrrr...at the moment I'd say I'll get used to it, just like I have got used to the G1 theme song and now I find it pretty awesome!

Ah ok, fair enough.

I thought the theme was rather cool as it is an evolution, musically, of those that came before it IMO.
See, you've got the Original G1 Theme which was rather catchy and stuck in your head (My parents remember it to this day ), but then it was taken to the next level when it went Metal with the 1986 Movie Theme and then with the Beast Wars theme, it drops 99% of the lyrical content for simply 2 words but it takes the Metal and mixes it with some Jungle Beats making it sound hella cool!
(The Beast wars theme not being all too dissimilar to these guys )

At least to me anyway.



*I think I'm going to have to upload some better quality BW intro vids to Youtube, they're all crap quality otherwise.

[Firestorm]

once you've watched some more I will have many questions

[Arcee]

As I shall wait till I ask your thoughts on which bw toys you want to buy

I already know that I want Hursti's Optimal Optimus for sure.

I thought the theme was rather cool as it is an evolution, musically, of those that came before it IMO.
See, you've got the Original G1 Theme which was rather catchy and stuck in your head (My parents remember it to this day ), but then it was taken to the next level when it went Metal with the 1986 Movie Theme and then with the Beast Wars theme, it drops 99% of the lyrical content for simply 2 words but it takes the Metal and mixes it with some Jungle Beats making it sound hella cool!
(The Beast wars theme not being all too dissimilar to these guys )

At least to me anyway.



*I think I'm going to have to upload some better quality BW intro vids to Youtube, they're all crap quality otherwise.

I absolutely LOVE the 1986 movie theme. I've got no idea it's Metal though...ask me anything about modern music and I guarantee you I don't know the answer. All I know is what I like and what don't...

But yeah, sometimes it just takes time, especially if it's a new genre to me.

[liegeprime]

Well if your gonna start ventruing into the toys, prolly get the ones that appeared in the series show itself, those alone are quite satisfying even if you wont be completing the whole line - just the ones who appeared in the show

[Verno]

Well if your gonna start ventruing into the toys, prolly get the ones that appeared in the series show itself, those alone are quite satisfying even if you wont be completing the whole line - just the ones who appeared in the show

I comepletely agree. For the longest time I was perfectly happy with the 31 show toys.

But then I caved in...

[Hursticon]

I comepletely agree. For the longest time I was perfectly happy with the 31 show toys.

But then I caved in...

Yep, me too.

[1orion2many]

BW is my favourite series by far followed by G1 and RID. I don't know why these people say they caved in about the figures, They were always going to buy more than the show characters but didn't want to admit it. Hope you enjoy the series Arcee, my favourite all time ep is in the second series which I think a few people like, You'll see when you get there

[GoktimusPrime]

Gorilla's name's still Optimus Primal for some reason...not Optimal Optimus. Or they are not the same TF character to begin with...I've no idea. Will sure find out as it goes. I'm eager to see him upgrade into that later powerful form and then supposedly he'd be like Prime and swept all the Predacons.

The explanation really comes from the toyline, but there is a bit of show info there, so I've spoiler tagged it just in case...

The toy was originally called Optimus Primal - first as a Basic Class bat, then as a Ultra Class gorilla, then Mega Class Transmetal -- it wasn't until he became a Super Class gorilla/jet/buggy that he was called "Optimal Optimus". In the cartoon the character's name remains as "Optimus Primal" and doesn't change to Optimal Optimus (although Megatron refers to him as "Optimal Optimus" once as a reference to the toy's name). So basically Optimal Optimus is the name of the Super Class quad-moded toy (who also appears in Season 3), but was never really the name of the character himself

Theme song...errrrr...at the moment I'd say I'll get used to it, just like I have got used to the G1 theme song and now I find it pretty awesome!

Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of the Canadian series theme song. Beast Wars II has the best theme music IMO (although the worst animation and story - 'cept for the movie).

I comepletely agree. For the longest time I was perfectly happy with the 31 show toys.

But then I caved in...

Yeah. Long time BW fans already know this, but for those who may not, the reason for this is:

+ CGI animation is heaps expensive, thus Hasbro could only afford to support a limited cast number in the show. This is why many characters are killed or in other ways removed or changed in the show to keep the number of character models who appear in the show at a limited amount at any one time. e.g. Terrorsaur and Scorponok were thrown into lava just before the two Fuzors appeared

+ Consequently Hasbro would often select good figures to appear in the show (e.g. Silverbolt and Quickstrike are easily the best of the entire line of Fuzors (not hard, I know )

+ Having said that, Beast Wars produced a LOT of good toys and it just wasn't possible for Hasbro to include them all into the cartoon... so little surprise many fans did pick up a lot of great figures that never appeared in the cartoon. In fact, the toy line was already boasting impressive toy sales _before_ the cartoon came out (in fact, it was because the toys were selling so well that prompted Hasbro to commission a new Transformers cartoon - the first for Hasbro's market in a decade). So it comes as little surprise to me that people who are "retro collecting" Beast Wars now would also be drawn by a lot of non-show toys... because there were just so many great figures out there that, once you become a fan of Beast Wars, you can't help but realise that the toys who appear in the cartoon are like the tip of the iceberg. And most toys that didn't appear in the cartoon have eventually appeared in the comics anyway. Look at B'Boom (or Apache)... freakin' awesome toy... transforms from heavily armed robot to mandrill to battle platform! Sweet! Insecticon is just a lovely Basic figure... etc etc etc.