A new Beast Wars Line

[Verno]

As Aaron Archer stated at BotCon this year, due to the suprising result of Dinobot being voted into the TF Hall Of Fame above the likes of Soundwave, Shockwave, Jazz and Grimlock, the concept of Beast Wars is worth a revisiting.

This both excites and concerns me.

Beast Wars was highly successful. From dubious beginnings, it flourished into a re-energising force for the entire franchise that no-one could really have seen coming.

But why was it so successful?

It was the TV show. And more importantly, the characters within it. The 3D animation was sweet, as were the story lines and over-arcing journey of the whole thing. This was a different type of Transformers show.

Even now when I (eventually) tell new people I meet who are around my age (24) they can recall the show with fond memories from when they were younger, and what is perhaps more amazing is that the bad guys are perhaps loved more than the good guys, which is an amazing turn of events.

And as everyone knows, I love the toys. But it is that connection to character that drives my liking of them. I only collected the 30 show incarnations to start with. Why would I want ones that weren't in the show? But after IDW put out the 1st Gathering issue, I raided my stock of non-show characters and more than doubled my collection in an instant.

So why should the thought of new BW toys raise concern in me?

Because the success came from those 25 minute toy commercials called episodes. And I very much doubt Hasbro would bankroll another show like it. So how could a fledgling line like this survive? On nostalgia and fans buying them? No way. A tie-in comic? Not likely. There wouldn't be the support for a fully blown Beast Wars line. How many figures are in a line these days? There were 40 released under BW in the 1st 2 years. None of them as stupid as a Night Watch Optimus Prime or Going To The Shops Bumblebee or some other unneccesary repaint, they were 40 seperate toys for the most part. Hasbro see that it just wouldn't be economically feasable to do release a specific line.

Whats more likely to happen in my opinion? Homage figures, tied into a filler line. We've seen it with Dinobot and Cheetor in the Universe line. Unlike the deluxe sized Optimus Primal and Megatron that came out with the 10th Anniversary, these toys were designed to be similar to their original selves, yet a new take on the notion, where as Optimus and Megatron were just Cybertron repaints waiting to happen, perhaps designed with that 1st in mind.

So we currently have another filler line with Generations. Figures that don't fit in with the Movie will be slung into the line to keep a healthy supply of Tfs on the shelves while the next movie is being made.

And I have no problem with a few Beast Wars homages being thrown in there too. And if you think about it, you're not likely to see Transmetals, Transmetal 2's or Fuzors getting a reworking, it would be the original models. Of which there were 14, 2 of which you could already consider to have been done.

The argument was much strong in my head last night as I was trying to get to sleep, I should have written down all the other thoughts I was having. Basically I'm concerned that the good name of Beast Wars would be tarnished with some half-assed, childish looking attempt at a new line. Animated meets Beast Wars. *Shudders* Give us some more in the style of Universe Cheetor and Dinobot and I think everyone will be happy to see BW back again.

[SharkyMcShark]

I don't see your point really. The success and quality of a toyline needn't be dependent on the quality of the TV series - look at Energon and Cybertron.

Surely as a Beast Wars fan you'd rather have a mediocre television series and an entire toyline than two mediocre toys in a filler line, like we've already had?

Also, re the Megatron and Prime molds that got redecoed in Cybertron, during the design process there was still uncertainty surrounding the 10th Anniversary line so they made them compatible with Cybertron's key gimmick as well, just in case the worst case scenario came to pass.

[Verno]

I don't see your point really. The success and quality of a toyline needn't be dependent on the quality of the TV series - look at Energon and Cybertron.

Our opinions of 'success' must differ a lot

[1orion2many]

I don't think the BW line would have had the impact it did if the original show was mediocre, would you want the new generation of kids be subjected to a degraded version of BW television series? I know I wouldn't, If they do a new series and do it right then surely the popularity of the series would increase. Increased interest in a series normally means Hasbro will put more effort into (fingers crossed) a more diverse and better designed toy line.

[SharkyMcShark]

But that could be said of any Transformers TV series, not just Beast Wars.

[Ode to a Grasshopper]

Personally I'd rather have a few decent homage figures than a revamped, probably substandard, BW TV series. Animated's demise was bad enough, to see the same thing happen with BW redux would be horrible, unless it was crap in which case I'd rather it just didn't happen.
And I totally agree, it does seem unlikely we'd get Transmetals, and very unlikely we'd get TM2s or Fuzors.

[Hursticon]

And I totally agree, it does seem unlikely we'd get Transmetals, and very unlikely we'd get TM2s or Fuzors.

Which is a pity because one of my favourite figures was Transmetal 2 Dinobot!.

I feel that a show should not even be attempted because they'll never be able to recapture and write the magic they had at the time.

Personally, I think they should just continue to do Homage figures as they can invest more time and effort with individual figures than trying to do an entire line of figures.

Mind you, I wasn't really sold on the Cheetor and Dinobot figures released under Classics/Universe 2.0, they just seemed... I don't know... annorexic? - probably not the right word but they just didn't feel right to me.

[Verno]

Mind you, I wasn't really sold on the Cheetor and Dinobot figures released under Classics/Universe 2.0, they just seemed... I don't know... annorexic? - probably not the right word but they just didn't feel right to me.

I personally don't own them and agree with you that they are little 'different'. But the cheetah actually looks like a cheetah, or more like a cheetah anyway, not some stocky housecat, though the bulk worked on the original Tigatron figure.

With the improvements of technology and design, if they gave new moulds a crack hopefully more of the robitics would be hidden and by the same token the robot modes would have less beast kibble.

[Gutsman Heavy]

I loved the universe BW figs, I'll happily take more of 'em! AND A WALRUS!

[griffin]

Not sure what Aaron was smoking, but we've already had 2 revisits of Beast Wars by Hasbro - the 10th Anniversary set of 6, and the Universe set of 2.

Both seemed to be succesful enough to warrant more, or at least had enough sales statistics for them to investigate it further.
Implying that it was a surprise to him that there was fan/consumer support for Beast Wars is a bit disappointing, because it suggests his interests lie with Gen1 (what he grew up with) and Armada onwards (what he designed) - leaving a big Beast Era gap that he seems to have no interest in. If he's one of the people deciding the direction of TFs, we will only have him focussing on the eras he cares about, and put a half-assed effort into the Beast Era, that he seems to have ignored, both during its release and 2 subsequent revisits.