Sorry to cut you off but the fact that we can analyze something doesn't actually prove anything. You can analyze literally anything, it doesn't have to be good. The analysis itself is not proof of anything, it's what you're analyzing that provides the proof.

 

Perhaps I wasn't clear, but since you seem insistent on pedantry, I'll attempt to clarify. (And I wasn't saying anything about good or bad in my post.) The content itself has the nuance to favor a granular dissection in the first place, since the work was written with those elements in mind, and those elements are what proves that the show exhibits greater complexity when compared with many contemporary examples of Transformers media.

 

I'm loving all the analysis going in this thread, keep 'em coming guys.

 

I agree... just the way you worded it before made it sound like just the act of analyzing made it so rather than what we're finding from the analysis.

 

Im not a fan. I just watched the series last month on Tubi.

The Good:
+Over all Story Arc was good
+Individual Character Story Arcs and Development were decent.
+The story concepts were thought provoking
+Good interpretation of Cybertron
+Vehicon Designs were decent
+Tankor was a corrupted Rhinox
+Voice acting was the same as BW

The Bad:
-I hate the Maximal Designs (HATE THEM)
-The Maximal characters arent great. They are all annoying in their own way.
-Not a fan of the reformatting rather than transformation
-It seems all they do in each Episode is run and then destroy all the vehicons
-The individual episodes never feel like something is accomplished. Each episode is simply a continuation into the next one.
-The Vehicon Generals’ personalities are over the top and a bit annoying. Thrust was okay.
-Once Tankor became an evil Rhinox, he was killed off too quickly.
-Megatron isnt much of a participant to anything. So oniy the incompetent vehicons are the antagonists and they are too stupid to be interesting.
-The confusion of the initial situation is very off putting.
-How Megatron was able to beat the Maximals to Cybertron and actually take over is very poorly explained (imo). Its unsatisfying.
-Why was Megatron so anti-organic all of a sudden? He didnt seem to have an issue with it on Earth.
-There are very few characters introduced so its always the same annoying characters.

While watching the episodes, I found myself wanting more and more for the seasons to just end. I didnt find them particularly fun or enjoying. I simply wanted to get through it.

I wouldnt recommend the series. But to each their own.

 

Megatron is a tyrannical mastermind and the leader of a new world order, why would he have a need to engage in combat himself? That's like complaining that Emperor Palpatine doesn't personally hunt down rebels. Regardless, the final battle with Primal more than makes up for this.

 

I like s2 better maybe because in s1 the Maximal were in a Loosing battle, Almost lost hope and Optimus became a organic fanatic but in s2 the Maximals got their shit together (mostly Optimus) stop Megatron and save the sparks.

 

I won't comment on the rest but this one actually makes some sense.
Megatron can't control techno-organic life even with his absolute control over everything on Cybertron. So for a psychotic control freak with a god complex like him, this cannot stand. He wanted to purge his organic half because emotional outbursts tended to cause him to transform uncontrollably and lose control of his Vehicon drones, and obviously he can't have that if he wants to be the eternal god emperor of Cybertron (and probably the universe).

 

Maybe killing a real Panda by Accident made Megatron hate organics lol.

 

I mean, these are down to taste and I get that, but I feel like complaining that the Maximals are 'annoying' is unclear and dismissive.

Because they're four individuals against four million? That's the whole point, minor victories are fleeting and hopeless. They defeat a squad of Vehicons, and in a few moments Megatron has more ready to go. That's why the Maximals have to find "big wins" over Megs instead of just beating his troops, because they could destroy them all and he'll make more just as fast. It can't just be a straight-up battle ala BW.

Contrast to a show like TF Prime, where Megatron has a massive army of Vehicons, but never deploys them en masse to hunt the Autobots down, instead just waiting for them to pop up and sending small squads that are easily beaten. Megatron keeps amassing armies and never does anything with them, unlike BM Megs. Power scaling comes with trade-offs, and BM wisely adhered to its scale in order to better represent a hopeless conflict that required faith and strength of spirit over strength of body and forces. Otherwise we'd be asking "how are the good guys really the underdogs?" like in Prime.

I mean, that's called serialization. Also, it depends on what you mean by "accomplished," as every episode either has a narrative step taken, or character development. I'm not sure what you'd want out of a serialized story? Or do you just not like serialized storytelling? (which is a totally fair opinion to have)

Again I feel like is vague and dismissive. "Annoying" can mean anything, and they were no more over the top than any Predacon.

I feel like keeping him around would've unnecessarily complicated the idealistic feud. Tankor and Megatron had the same goals, each just wanted to be in charge. While interesting for a bit, it was surplus to the larger story as season 2 went on. Tankor served his purpose.

I mean, that's the whole point. He's the puppet master, not the puppet, and I have a hard time accepting the idea that he doesn't participate in anything. Especially in the second season when he downloads the Oracle from Primal.

I feel like I'm repeating myself, but is that not the point? The Maximals are themselves confused and missing memories. That's literally complaining that the mystery plot is mysterious.  

I can't disagree with this in that it's a personal opinion thing. I don't feel we needed to see exactly how Megatron developed and unleashed the virus, just that he did, but I can't say you're wrong for wanting to see that actually happen on screen.

"Annoying" seems to be a favourite word of yours.   I mean, yeah the cast was small, but that's because each character had a story and an arc. Yeah they could've padded out the show with minor characters that didn't do anything, but would that have made it any better? Or would it have distracted from the plot and character arcs that were there?

I mean, the show basically says this outright. Megatron hates "organics" because they represent life, free will, and independence, things that he can't control, just like he can't control his own beast mode.

I think people misconstrue Megatron's rhetoric as fact. He didn't want a perfect Cybertron because he hates organics, he hates organics because they run contrary to his ideal of a perfect Cybertron. Primal even goads him on this, showing him that he's the very thing he hates. "Organics" might as well be a synonym for "humanity." Megatron rejects his organic side, JoJo, in order to be one with the world he conquered, rather than it being something he's always hated or drove him to do what he did.

 

It had a character called Botanica, who was a plant that turned into a flower. Neither beast nor machine. Fail.

But seriously, I suffered through the first season because I found the first two episodes actually enjoyable, but it got progressively worse from there. I gave the second season a chance but gave up on the show 2 or 3 episodes in. I remember thinking, they rushed the end of Beast Wars, for... this? Ungh. To this day I still haven't gone back to watch the rest of season 2, other than a few clips to see how the show ended. Ungh again.

Oh and it hands down has the ugliest character designs in all the franchise. It remains the one series I don't have any toys of, as the figures were pretty bad too. Well, I don't have any Rescue Bots either, but that's for babies so that doesn't count.

 

Well, no, they rushed the end of Beast Wars because Hasbro floundered on whether it’d get a fourth season or not. Tigerhawk’s truncated appearance and quick death are a result of this indecision.

 

The character designs killed it for me. It's hard to develop hatred for something you can't even watch for longer.

Y'know... It's a visual art. Visuals are important.

 

Beast Machines to me was just a zeitgeist thing. The Matrix was all the rage alongside New Age beliefs and 1st year basic philosophy.

The main issue was it was a direct sequel to Beast Wars and the shift in tone, wasn't always a better one. Characters we'd known for years were now suddenly religious zealots or brooding loners.
That's what annoyed people. If it had just been a standalone series it might have been better received. That's just an often perceived problem with sequels to much beloved series e.g. Legend of Korra, TF RID 2015, Boruto etc

 

Brooding loners yes. But there was a reason for that which made sense in universe. It wasn't just a sudden shift for no reason.

And it really annoys me when people refer to them as "religious" cause there's no religion in the series AT ALL! There was actually more of a religious aspect to Beast Wars when they introduced the Covenant of Primus at the end of the series and started reciting verses from it like a Priest on Sunday.

Primus is often referred to as a God in the Transformers fiction and the Covenant of Primus is essentially their Bible yet no one has a problem with this. Beast Wars also first introduced the concept of the Well of AllSparks as the Cybertronian afterlife. But people often look at Beast Machines which has no clear analog to religion and calls that religious??? Beast Wars was already religious and MORE SO than Beast Machines so that really doesn't make sense to complain about "suddenly being religious" when it actually did the opposite.

That said... while I can see the analogs between Primus/God, the Covenant/Bible, and the AllSpark/Heaven and Hell I don't think that's even exactly religious. Real life religion is based on faith without evidence. In the transformers universe there's actually evidence that those things literally exist. Primus is just a giant robot they threat as a god. It's not so much a matter of does he exist or not... well depending on the continuity in most fictions I don't think they've ever literally shown Primus as an actual character. But the AllSpark is an actual real thing that is known and proven to exist. It's not just a belief they speak about that we never get to see.

That's what makes a religion it's something that's said to exist but there's no real evidence that it does. So by that standard, Beast Machines is the LEAST religious series out there since we know the Oracle is actually a real thing that exists in this universe. It's also just basically a super computer but they kind of portray the Oracle in a sort of ambiguous way that could interpreted either way. So basically the show is not actually religious, if you're interpreting it that way that's more to do with you than the show itself.

 

I'm just going to quote TFWIKI on the description of Technorganics:

[QUOTE="Representing the next evolutionary leap in Transformer life, technorganic Transformers possessed a suite of abilities that bordered on the supernatural.[/QUOTE]

So even though there were machine elements involved, a lot of it (technorganic abilities, the Oracle) was considered beyond normal scientific explanation. The visions in particular are a religious experience because A) only Primal as them b) the others have to believe in Primal's visions but they have no proof they're real.

Primal and his crew are ideologically driven and his crew in particular have to have faith.

 

Was Beast Machines cel shaded?

 

But it wasn't sudden. The reason I take issue with these sorts of claims is it acts as though these changes came out of nowhere, when the show makes it very clear why and where they came from. Primal literally found God, and God commanded him to undertake its holy work, and from guilt and desperation grew a reliance on the Oracle that ran unchecked and became fanaticism, of which he was severely punished for it before realizing the error of his ways and being given a second chance to do the right thing. Silverbolt lived a tortured existence, forced to watch from inside himself as he reveled in villainy and sadism, things he despised all his life as a Maximal, and could not forgive himself or face the one he loved believing he was this cruel person. It changed him, as such a trauma undoubtedly would, it'd be weird if he was just totally fine afterwards, and would downplay if not invalidate the very purpose of putting the character through such hardship.

You're not wrong in that they changed, but it was not as "sudden" as you think. I think if these characters all resembled their previous forms the change would be easier to digest. But even though I think the designs are not that bad, a character changing the way they behave (even if it's completely natural and understandable) and also looking completely different is what makes people feel like the change was much more dramatic and arbitrary than it was.

No it wasn't, it just employed flatter textures/lack reflectivity and rendered its shadows far darker and harsher to give the appearance of a two-dimensional series.

In fact it could be seen as the precursor to the very idea of cel-shaded CGI.

 

Any sufficiently advanced technology is virtually indistinguishable from magic.

No they're not because A. Primal actually has them and isn't making them up to lead on his followers. B. There is proof given when Primal reformatted them. It's not like when someone claims to have super natural abilities but can't demonstrate said abilities. Or when they do demonstrate abilities it only works on "true believers" which is code for "This person is a plant who was paid to go along with everything I say" and that's a different definition of "plant" than Botanica. That just means while they'll never openly admit that they know each other and are working together, they are collaborators.

An example is a person saying they can heal the blind. The "plant" would be a person pretending to be blind who comes in with everyone and makes themselves part of the crowd but he or she knows what's going to happen. The person is going to do some mumbo jumbo and "cure" the blindness they never had in the first place... but then when he can't do the same thing for a person who is actually blind it's because "you just need to BELIEVE, you don't BELIEVE yet!" Yeah because you have to prove you can you do it... not just on one person who's clearly a paid actor, but on EVERYONE.

Primal successfully reformatted EVERYONE not just one person who agreed to pretend behind closed doors, all of the Maximals were "transformed" they all know it's possible, no "belief" necessary.

No, there wasn't cel shading wasn't really a thing yet.

 

Yes beast machines was fucking cybertronian dog shit. This is hands down my most detested transformers show to date.

I’m definitely not a beast wars fan in the slightest but oh my god I’ve NEVER seen a transformers show so damn AWFUL IN MY LIFE. Oh my primus where do I start! This entire show is a MESS!

So apparently megatron accidentally ended up at cybertron way before the maxmals did and somehow took over cybertron all by himself? HOW THE HECK DID HE ACHIEVE THAT? wouldn’t the entire cybertronian population retaliate against him before he even has a chance? There are no predacons or decepticons on there so how? It’s so lazy. And I HATES the idea of cybertron originally being an organic planet and that it needs to have some stupid balance or whatever which is comepletky pointless because I’m sure logically speaking that THERE ARE MILLIONS of organic planets in the universe and not artificial ones like cybertron so no matter what there will never be a balance. Maybe I’m just overthinking this shit. The thing I found about cybertron appealing is that it’s an entire planet made out of technology and metal and beast machines just reckoned all of it. And of course I fucking hate the ending with cybertron turning everything and everyone to techno organ is like the maxmials ugh.

Speaking about the maximals there designs are SO DAMN CREEPY! And gross for that matter. I feel like I want to puke my guts out all the time I see nightscreams hideous wrinkly face and how unsettling rattraps exposed organs and bones meshing with all the robotic parts and how all his fleshy bits looks like it’s rotting away. And there faces are so damn uncanny, especially blackarachia,nightscream and rattrap. The only maximal designs “passable” was primal and Cheetor.

The vehicons on the other hand are alright I guess. There designs are bizarre and out of the box like the bayformer designs but less complicated and don’t look like scrapped up shit with legs. I would have liked them more if there designs were more closer to a traditional cybertronian design. And hey megatron is actually an intelligent intimating villain again and not some fucking joke like in cyberverse.

The plot is boring as shit. It tried to make a strong compelling darker narrative but falls flat like transformers prime. They comepletely fail at right with repetitive fight and run routines for 80% of the fucking show. At least transformers prime mixed shit up a bit with different storie lines.

The only things I can praise about his show is the lack of humans, mature tone, the show taking on cybertron, the vehicons and the music. But other than that this show is a low 2.8/10