Reflections on Beast Machines [SPOILERS, duh...]

[Gutsman Heavy]

I having just finished Beast Machines I can see how it pissed off so many:
Nightscream (*shudder*)
Megatron's sudden anti-beast mode agenda (I swear he used to love his beast modes, especially the dragon...)
Cranky pants Silverbolt
I can also see how the ending rubbed a few the wrong way...

oh and of course the whole techno-organic angle.

I'll get this out of the way (light the torches and get out those pitchforks!) I like the techno-organic stuff, it seemed a logical evolution of the beast modes
.
1. Basic, organic beast mode, 100% robot on the inside, then
2. Transmetal, robotic beast mode, more organic bot mode, then
3. Transmetal 2, organic and robotic influence on both modes, and finally
4. Beast Machines techno-organic bot and beasts.

hell even pretenders (G1) seem to foreshadow the organic end to some extent. (In the IDW-verse anyway)

The show had its issues, pacing, the always on the run stuff can get boring, and the new cast were mostly lacking in character, Vehicons boring... untill Rhinox came back, sure he came back evil, but as if he wasn't already! He made on hell of a predacon! and explosive fart attacks are against the rules of war!

the biggest design flaw was that the beast modes and the bot modes didn't even look like they transformed into each other and the toys suffered massively due to that.

but there was some good that came out of it, Savage/Noble was an interesting concept, being a 100% organic transformer. It also cements BW Megatron as the greatest villain in the Transformers G1 continuity family, he enslaves the whole of cybertron! If that don't get you bad-ass points nothing will!

Overall not the greatest series, nothing on the G1 or Beast Wars series, but a mostly satisfying conclusion to the G1 continuity family.

[kup]

I have said my bit on Beast Machines on another thread.

All that I will say here is that its a good series but it pissed me off to no end as a Transformers series and a continuation to Beast Wars.
________
HONDA CM91

[GoktimusPrime]

Nightscream (*shudder*)

I don't really have a problem with Nightscream.

Megatron's sudden anti-beast mode agenda (I swear he used to love his beast modes, especially the dragon...)

Yeah... Megatron is an example of one of the characters who developed/evolved along an illogical path in transition between Beast Wars and Beast Machines. Essentially, BM Megatron is an entirely different character from BW Megatron. Aside from BM Megatron's sudden hatred for organics, there's also his saviour complex. BW Megatron admitted that he was evil and revelled in his villainy. BM Megatron on the other hand sees himself as Cybertron's saviour and sees the Vehicon cause as being a just one for the greater good of Cybertron and all Transformers.

Cranky pants Silverbolt

BM Silverbolt is teh emo. And yeah, it sucks. Even his voice actor reckoned it sucked - he seriously needed to build a space bridge and get over it.

I can also see how the ending rubbed a few the wrong way...

The inherent problem with the ending is that it boxes the whole G1/G2/BW/BM continuity into a corner. Unless you're willing to continue the whole technorganic story, how else are you going to continue from that? You could undo it and revert Cybertron to being technological again... but that would render the entire Maximal cause and Optimus Primal's sacrifice meaningless. (-_-) It might be possible to somehow try to revert Cybertron to being technological whilst still justifying the Maximal's cause and Primal's sacrifice - but it wouldn't be easy. It's a lot easier just to reboot a new continuity.

The basic notion of technorganicism isn't fundamentally a bad one... the main problem is that the ending with Cybertron being a technorganic world (which was an inevitable ending really) just leaves future writers with no real options to go from there. In fact, Transformers Universe, which ran concurrently with Beast Machines and continued after the show ended, took the story off-world after the ending of BM!


"Nice garden... let's get outta here!"

[i_amtrunks]

It had it's flaws, and weak characters. I could handle that.

The changes to established characters (as others have already mentioned) is what drove me bonkers, Megatron's changes could be from a long flight being exposed to Transwarp and all other kinds of radiation, but the others?

Animation and modelling was good, but the show was always a touch too dark, I had to turn up the brightness to see much of the series properly.

The writers did back themselves into a corner, and I agree with Gok 100% it is just easier to start from scratch with new series rather than work around BM's ending.

[roller]

nightscream was dead annoying

as for Megaton, ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh brilliant tingly brilliant


rhinox/tankor- awesomness "Organics do not belong on this planet!!!" "You the maximals and even megatron himself are destined to failure!!!"


As for the ending, they had to do something radical like turn it into an organic planet, because, at the start of g1 and g2 the narrator says the transformers are "not life as we know today" thus that means that the tfs are/were destined to become some weird lifeform. Yeah thats right and you know it!


Universe is the sequel to BM

i heard news that they may revive the Transtech designs

[GoktimusPrime]

Some characters were followed on well from BW, whilst others weren't.

In my opinion, ones which were followed on badly were...

Megatron: As mentioned before, entirely different character in BM than he was in BW. Still a cool villain, but just not the same Megatron!

Rhinox/Tankor: WTF? He was momentarily evil in Beast Wars because he was reprogrammed by Predacons. I could understand Tankor and Jetstorm being evil under Vehicon "brainwashing"/reprogramming - but after Rhinox's full free will and natural persona was restored, he continued deciding to be a bad guy and more importantly, that the Vehicon cause was right. BUH?! Since when? Rhinox's hatred toward organics is as illogically formed as Megatron's as neither of them ever displayed any disdain toward organics in BW. And making Rhinox so aggressive, hostile and megalomaniacal was entirely out of character for him... where did all that come from?! (o_O)

Rattrap: Again, I found BM Rattrap to be a very different character from BW Rattrap. It was as if BM Rattrap had suddenly been given Cheetor's BW Season 1 persona in terms of being impatient, reckless and inherently insecure. Totally contrary to BW Rattrap who might have been a smart alec who consciously objected to the war, but was a loyal and very competent warrior - and when occasion called for it - commander. I didn't like how BM Rattrap went to Megatron for an upgrade because he found his robot mode restrictive... BW Rattrap would've found a way to cope with it and optimise his robot mode's capability... he was always very adaptable - such as when he managed to hack Sentinel in "A Better Mousetrap" and in "The Agenda" when his torch ran out of juice, he just transformed into rat mode and used his teeth! This timid whining Rattrap we see in BM is a far cry from the gung-ho MacGuyver Rattrap we saw in BW.

Characters which I thought were followed on well were...

Cheetor: I reckon his was the best character in terms of a follow on from Beast Wars. In BW Season 1, he was the kid - reckless and impulsive always trying to prove something. Season 2 he started was less impulsive/reckless but still in awe of the other Maximals as 'the kid.' Season 3 = Cyber Puberty, he was an awkward teenager, growing from a boy into a man (figuratively speaking). In Beast Machines, he was like a young adult - similar to being in your early 20s when you feel mature and capable, but nobody is willing to give you a chance because you lack experience. And when Cheetor took over from Primal, he proved himself as more than a capable leader - earning the respect of his fellow Maximals as their commander. And even after Primal resumed leadership, I found that it was interesting that Cheetor would openly challenge Primal's leadership decisions. BM Cheetor's story really is a tale of coming of age. And aside from cognitive/emotional maturity, his physical skills and prowess also peaked. In BW he just ran fast in beast mode. In BM he not only ran fast in robot and beast modes, but he could fight fast! Remember that BM came out not too long after Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace where a lot of scifi fans got really excited over what I reckon were the best light sabre duels in the entire saga (Jedi vs Maul = teh roxxors!) - and to see Cheetor fighting with his dual sabres with similar speed and ferocity (e.g.: deflecting & reflecting enemy laser blasts!) was really awesome!

Blackarachnia: BM saw her final evolution as the Maximal she was always intended to be, shedding off the last of her vestigial Predacon nuances. Again, it was a logical progression from what we saw in BW where Silverbolt slowly but surely turned Blackarachnia from evil to good... although in BW she still always carried a bit of a bad streak - which became more subdued when she became a Transmetal 2 (where she lost her Predacon Shell Program). So it was natural for her to evolve into a full goodie by BM. I also really liked how the tables were turned between her and Jetstorm/Silverbolt - in BW it was Silverbolt who rescued Blackarachnia from the "dark side" and turned her to good, and in BM it was Blackarachnia who had to do the same for Silverbolt!

Silverbolt: Okay, as much as I always complain about Silverbolt being the Maximal emo, the fact that he became that way wasn't necessarily a bad thing in terms of logical character development. As Silverbolt explained, in BW he had a strict code of honour which he lived by - but as Jetstorm Megatron stripped him of his honour and allowed the darkness in his heart to surface, show him a dark side of himself that he hated. Essentially Megatron had emotionally raped him. So it's little wonder that he would become so angry and embittered afterwards. So the fact that he became that way wasn't so bad... the bad thing is that it dragged on for too long and made the character uninteresting for most of Season 2. Had he just gotten over it after one or two eps, that'd be fine... but the fact that he dragged on about it until the very last episode... bleechh.

..and characters which I didn't think were good or bad progressions from BW...

Optimus Primal: Meh... okay, he's all upset because he blames himself for losing the Beast Wars and allowing Megatron to enslave and conquer Cybertron. I can understand him being riddled with that kind of guilt and having it emotionally overwhelm him - the same thing happened to Optimus Prime in G1 who was occasionally overwhelmed by the guilt of bringing the Transformers' war to Earth. But the difference is that, for the most part, Prime didn't allow this guilt to overwhelm his judgement as Autobot commander whereas Primal more often did, driving him to religious fanaticism and nearly causing the destruction of Cybertron!! :/

Thrust/Waspinator: I liked how Waspinator decided to actively maintain his Thrust persona even though he didn't have too! That was kewl considering how he was getting sick of being the butt of everyone's jokes at the end of BW. Of course, his final fate was a joke anyway, eheheheheh.

Universe is the sequel to BM

Kinda. Universe started off running parallel to BM - e.g.: BM Wreckers, Dinobots etc., but after the BM series finished, the Universe story continued, becoming a sequel. And as I said, in its "sequel phase" the story just moved off world!

i heard news that they may revive the Transtech designs

I think they already have - I've heard that Cybertron Ransack was based off abandoned designs for Transtech Rattrap, and of course, Ransack was repainted as pre-BW Rattrap for BotCon.