So yeah, some spoilers here obviously.  

Being born in '86, I missed G1 on television but managed to get my hands on some VHS tapes and toys, and even some of the late-run comics. I never really got into Beast Wars, and I thought the whole concept of transformers that weren't kickass stuff like jets, trucks, tanks and cars was a bit stupid. In short, I firmly fell into the 'TRUKK NOT MUNKY' category and didn't look back.

Then a couple of years ago I came onto this site and ended up reading Shane Anderson's 'Obsidian's Lament' and though "Wow, this isn't so suck." I still heartily rooted for the Vehicons of course, but it opened up my rather closed mind just enough so that when last week I saw a DVD of Beast Machines Season 1 I bought it.

"What the hell," I thought, "Transformers is Transformers after all, and if it sucks I'll only have wasted a few quid."

I finished it 2 days ago, and you know what? I bloody loved it. Sure, the CG looks rather dated now, but wow. Mass Transformer genocide? That's dark man. Internal mental torment on the part of our hero? Yup, got that. Megatron actually winning for once? Nice! Desperate fight against impossible odds? Check. One of the goods guys from the previous series turning against his comrades? Awesome! (I've never seen a full episode of Beast Wars, but I gather this Rhinox chap was a big deal). I do find Primal's constant sermonising and hippy claptrap a little annoying, but I happily put up with it if it gets me more Beast Machines.

I'm now going to have to wait until I can get my hands on Season 2, and rest assured I will find it. Consider this Geewuner officially reformed through the power of Beast Machines.

 

Beast Machines is my least favorite of the series. I'm a Japan Geewunner myself, but being born in 1983 I found myself as part of the 'rerun generation' of G1 Transfans. My Powermaster Getaway was my Wheeljack and Rev was Chip Chase in an Iron-Man suit (I had quite the imagination). I'm not a huge fan of Beast Machines mainly because of the whole 'Zen Monkey' aspect.

"I am Transformed." No. Just... no. Cybertronians developed transforming as a form of technology - not a form of religion. Beast Machines made it appear that unless you were a simplistic Vehicon, you were required to be spiritually above anyone else to transform. That's crap if ya ask me. Also I'm not a fan of the lack of weapons - how the hell are you going to assign a guy that hates guns to write a story about two warring giant alien robot factions?

As I said above, this is my least favorite series. There's a couple of high points in it, but not enough to where I can clearly remember any. Also... towards the end, when Megatron chose a new body... what the HELL was he thinking by using Optimal Optimus? He had EVERY SINGLE CONSTRUCT IMAGINABLE and he chose OPTIMAL OPTIMUS?! What a tool! Why didn't he pick Shockwave, or Sixshot? Hell - he could have roflstomped the Zen Monkey as Powerglide, even.

Beast Machines. WTF.

~Z

"I am transformed." - what Beast Wars said after being reformatted into what Rhinox leaves on the ground after eating beans.

 

Glad you enjoyed it; Beast Machines is my favorite television series by light years. It tends to generate quite the polar reaction in people, which you'll see as this thread unfolds.

But yeah... betrayal, genocide, hopelessness, religious fanatacism. Hardly your run-of-the-mill kids show. It's the last time I could look at a TF show and take it "seriously" as an adult viewer.

 

I'm sorry.

 

Beast Machines was exceptionally well-written and animated. My third favorite TF series (behind Beast Wars and TFA), easily. Many people knock the ending and the whole Hippie Primal thing, but I thought it was a fitting end to the saga.

 

Congrats. Beast Machines, IMO is the last platable TF cartoon show. I really like the darkness of it. Still not a big fan of the ending, but it was fantastic overall.

 

Another successful convert. Yessss.

This was actually one of the selling points of the series to me. Megatron dominates the protagonists all the time.

Megatron explains his reasoning fairly soundly. Either way, Megatron "ROFLSTOMPED" Primal regardless.

 

I know a lot of people hate on beast machines but i really enjoyed it. It was way better then A/E/C era stuff imo.

 

every body loves it

 

my sentiments exactly.

 

BM was interesting to me. While I liked the over all story. Some of the characters new styles did kinda annoy me. Like the deal with Rattrap being cripple.

But I cant complain too much, atleast then I had my factions and characters I grew up with. Then the dark times came.

 

Yeah, BM is one of those things that the vast majority will either love or hate, depending on which aspects they focus on. The show tried to do something different, which always alienates a lot of the fans (see: masterforce), but also results in something completely unique. I always felt they tried to do some really interesting concepts, but sadly fell short of accomplishing them, and as a result, the show suffers. There's certainly a lot of applaud, but more than enough to criticize, even in the same aspects of the series.

 

Glad you are enjoying the show, it's a well done series overall.

But now that your mind is open, you must watch Beast Wars. Trust me, just go hunt down the series as soon as you can. Beast Wars is amazing.

 

never much liked the series much myself, but then i never even managed to get all the way through.

i could put up with the marginal reboot, the new models, and even the stuff that grated against my geewunner sensibilities*, but it was - i think - about five episodes in it dawned on me that i wasn't enjoying it in the slightest, and was still waiting for the good stuff. i'm assured the good stuff happened eventually, but i'm not going to sit through six, seven, eight, whatever episodes i'm not enjoying to get to a few i actually do enjoy.

not saying BM is bad, just that i personally didn't enjoy it enough to persevere. With that in mind - and i'm not against BM or anything so silly, i just didn't like what i saw of it - would any of the guys who did enjoy it suggest i watch it all the way through or if i didn't like the first half dozen episodes am i unlikely to like the rest?



*i shed those off years ago thankfully.

 

It's odd, then, that you describe yourself as a "Japan Geewuner", when it was the Japanese series that introduced the idea that Transformers needed to LEARN how to transform. It's not religious - the idea behind BM is that at some point, the Transformers replaced this moment of concentration with an onboard computer that manually took care of reconfiguring the Transformer's body. This, then, explained BW's previously-unseen-in-western-fiction use of spoken command codes. When the Maximals lost these computers in their technorganic reformatting, they had to re-learn the mental rigors of twisting their bodies into shapes that were not their normal ones and holding them there. Vehicons, then, could transform easily not because they were "simplistic", but because they still had the onboard computers, and required the spoken command codes ("Afterburn", "Pulverize", etc).

 

That is awesome. I personally like the series myself. Nice to see someone else opening their mind up to other parts of the TF universe.

 

Glad you enjoyed it or are continuing to enjoying it. It's a really good series.

 

Nicely said sir.

I recently went back to watch all of BW and am 8 or 9 eps into BM. I've gotta be honest though-- I'm enjoying BM a lot more. It is HEAVY compared to Beast Wars, and appropriately developed the characters. Don't get me wrong-- season 1 of BW had some great character development, and season 2 had some awesome plot, but season 3 was a bit of a letdown and felt rushed. Like season 1 it introduced a lotta new/reformatted characters, but unlike season 1 it didn't have much time to develop it all.

My only complaint is that it seemed unlikely that Megs could conquer the entire planet after reaching Cybertron ahead of the Maximals.

 

Most issues people had with Beast Machines seem to fall under it being 'too different', either in concept (visual designs of the techno-organic Maximals, the basic goal of the techno-organic to win out over Cybertron) or compared to Beast Wars (differences in writing tone and character portrayals). Doomboy has a somewhat unique perspective as someone watching Beast Machines but not Beast Wars (not much anyway), so viewing is not based on expectations formed from BW. Personally, I find BM almost anime-adventure-like in the way it structures its overall story. Whether that's a good or bad thing depends on the viewer.

Going just on the cartoon(s), it's not clear how much time Megatron had to set up and carry out his plans. (anywhere from weeks to decades) If you factor in the IDW Beast Wars comics, It might not have been a very long time between Megatron arriving on Cybertron before Primal's Maximals, but Cybertron was also largely wrecked at that point, making the job easier.

 

A THOUSAND TIMES YES.

The first time I watched it, I did it over a long weekend... season one on Saturday and season two on Sunday; seeing it in two big chunks like that made it feel like a mini-series. I'm pretty sure if I had been watching it when it was airing, I would have been bored with it. Seeing the whole thing start to finish in one shot worked really well for me.