So does anybody know why the Beast wars Transformers are the size of humans? Aside from Optimal Optimus, they are all tiny compared the g1 Transformers. Is this a continuity mistake? That would mean that most of the Transformers on Cybertron are now all human sized. Granted, I understand that there beast modes have to adapt to prehistoric earth creatures. So that means they would have to be smaller, but I don't understand why Megatron (being a T-rex) is only the size of G1 Prime's head. It doesn't make sense to me. Anyone care to discuss this?
I think it's a combination of them having beast modes and also to show that they sort of viewed G1 Optimus/Megatron/etc. as heroes and revered them like they were gods, kind of.
An in-fiction explanation would probably be because of energy shortage. In the Marvel comics (and later DW) the micro-masters were explained as a development to save fuel/energon. The TF's on Cybertron were suffering because of lack of energon. By downsizing their bodies while at the same time optimizing them, the TF needed less energon to function. The BW bodies are then nothing more then the species wide adaption of this proces. (The Maximal upgrade program according to the 3H Wreckers comics.) One could also argue that because of their visit to Earth they learned that not every planet was inhabited by large mechanical beings, so being smaller they could blend in more. The Autobot pretenders may look like humans, but they're a bit too tall to fit in a human population. (In japan they apparantly shrunk in their shells.) By making them smaller and making it possible to adopt an organic altmode (a further development of the pretender shells) they could even be in disguise on planets without mechanical shapes. Out of fiction...probably just to make them blend in better with the environment.
The Maximals and Predicons purposely downsized from Autobot and Decepticon size (presumably at the same time they altered their faction names) long before the Beast Wars series takes place.
It started happening in that 3H comic from one of the old botcons (Springer and some others were getting ready for the upgrade) The Micromaster stuff has been confirmed since they were introduced in Marvel comics, and in Dreamwave too
It's specifically mentioned/established durring Beast Wars that Transformers downsized to save energy as tech advanced after the Bot/Con War ended. It was expanded on in the 3H Wreckers stuff. Though I havn't read it in awhile I remember the Dreamwave MtMTE profile books implying Beast Warriors as an off shoot of Pretender and Micromaster tech (which was the same downsizing for fuel savings). -ZacWilliam, very well established in canon basically.
The great upgrade... Great Upgrade - Transformers Wiki Optimus Primal talks with Optimus Prime - YouTube Megatron calling Autobots archaic energon guzzlers. BW: Megatron kills Optimus Prime - YouTube