Pretty sure liking Beast Machines isn't rare anymore, it was shocking and different when it came out but a lot of time had passed since then for fans to leave their initial reactions behind and give it a second chance.

 

It doesn't make much sense, but I love it.

 

I think a lot more people have warmed up to it throughout the years. In my case though, I just prefer it over Beast Wars. So when i say I’m in the minority opinion, it’s that.

It doesn’t have to be for one to enjoy it!  

 

But I think about its plot holes...Too much.

For example:

1. How were there Earth based animals on Cybertron?

 

beast machines fucking rocks. its biggest detriment, the diametric opposite of the problem i have with most other new TF media, is that it had to use established characters and follow up on a show that had collectively rocked the socks off a generation of fans who thought their property dead or relished to obscurity. it had totally new redesigns, a new take on transformation and what a transformer could be in design and in concept, and the characters were placed in a totally alien situation with a lot of polarizing characterizations that fluctuate between "ok, X is by and large themselves still" but with some characters it is kind of grey whether it's even the same character at that point. of the new characters, only nightscream was bad, but holy shit was he bad. strika and obsidian weren't as charismatic as the first three generals, but they had a good presence and i liked their dynamic with thrust. they kinda suffered for having to be introduced as an already short show was wrapping up though.

amazing show, though. i think that's by and large the majority opinion from those who actually sit down and watch it knowing what to expect, but the initial hesitant reactions are (usually) understandable. not bothering to give any TF media a shot is a shame (KP excluded lol) tho if only for knowledge's sake so i wish more people would just adult up and watch it before putting their foot in their mouth with "it bad cuz ugly, i only watched the first 4 episodes!!!"

 

The show isn’t perfect by any means. I do think they should’ve gotten out of their way to fix it. Still plot holes or no, I love Beast Machines!

 

As do I.

 

Depends on if they were really "Earth based." All we saw were skeletons, with the only clear complete example being a bat which was gigantic, so it clearly wasn't a real Earth bat. (not even prehistoric bats got that big) Technically it could've just been an alien species that coincidentally looked a lot like an Earth bat, and no character was hyper-specific enough to argue calling it a bat.

 

The designs are out there but I think it fits well with the tone of the show. I prefer Thrust, Jetstorm and Tankor over them to. I liked Tankor’s personal story arc. The fact that he was Rhinox created a philosophical debate within Optimus if he wanted his friend back to normal.

 

I hated Beast Machines when it came out, but having given it a second chance when I rewatched it last year I've come to the point where it's better than I originally thought and a solid show overall. At the current point I'm at in my rewatch (midway through Armada) I've watched 11 "series" (including Zone and the two-episode Robot Masters OVA set) and it sits right around the middle in 6th, fractionally behind RiD 2001/Car Robots. For me this was mostly carried by the much stronger 2nd season over an extremely inconsistent 1st one (mostly from the first half of the first season. Most of the problems I had with the show were in the first 7 episodes, after which point it stabilized into something that was quite good overall.) In fact if I were to break down everything I watched by season where such distinctions exist (mostly in the western shows since anime are used to contained single runs or "Sequel series" continuations in lieu of new seasons, Beast Machines S2 is arguably the 3rd best thing I've watched, trailing only the 1st season of G1 and the 2nd season of Beast Wars. It was much more tightly plotted and it felt like they course corrected after some of the bigger gripes I had with the early portion of the series, finding a better story and character groove.

On the plus side it embraced its chance to be different. It offered a unique story, unique lore, different and original takes on new characters, its own very unique and stylized art design, etc. The art in particular I think deserves a lot of praise for both its uniqueness and its adherence to that vision. The slick, smooth, almost rigid color palette helps establish the cold mechanical nature of Cybertron and there are a lot of shots and stagings that remind me of classic propganda posters or dynamic, thick-lined, ink-heavy animation with high-contrast. It has a sort of stylized comic book sensibility in using those inspirations and that carries through into some of the elements such as comics-style multi-panel displays or splash page style setups.

Things like this:







I also appreciated some of the characters that the show brought in. Botanica was a hell of a risk (and I'm mildly amazed they got away with using a character as a primary cast member when they were never intended to have an accompanying toy) that paid off, and the Vehicon generals were either tons of fun (Jetstorm, Thrust) or intriguing (Strika, Obsidian). Nightscream sucked, but the less said about him the better.

That said it wasn't a perfect shows and had a lot of issues that gnawed at me. As much as I commend the art style, the characters, especially the Maximals, are mostly ugly, ugly, ugly with some dumb and ungainly design choices like Rattrap's oddly youthful face and silly wheels, Blackarachnia's tiny pointy non-feet, Silverbolt's big googly eyes (that robbed him of some of his pathos), and basically everything about Nightscream. Also the brief bit of time where we see the old Beast Wars beast mode models during the premiere they somehow all look markedly worse than they did in Beast Wars itself in spite of the 4 year march of time and tech improvements for the animators.

But my biggest problem was with the transition between Beast Wars and Beast Machines. Or rather the lack of it. We start and it's an indeterminate amount of time after the end of Beast Wars, but given what we pick up on it can't be that long (maybe the gang has been running around Cybertron without memories for anywhere from a few hours to a few days, but I highly doubt it's been more than a week or so just based on the pace that the show sets. But somehow in that brief time their personalities all take radical shifts. Optimus becomes obsessive to the point that he falls easily into Oracle-induced religious zealotry. Rattrap reverts to a level of self-interest and cowardice far beyond even his most cynical me-first BW season 1 beats. Blackarachnia is stripped of her Predacon edge and her sort of weary roll-with-the-punches survivor's outlook and becomes a fretting, angsty hope addict. Rhinox's reemergence comes with a new personality that is entirely at odds with everything we've known about him but is also clumsily handled in a way that was apparently not supposed to be the result of brainwashing except that it's often played like it was (and it would've made more sense if it was too), and Megatron's calculating bond villain grandiosity is reduced to rote robo-nazi fanaticism.

I could've been OK with this if it was made clear this was the result of months of them being on the run and systematically broken by it. But instead it's like everything goes to hell for a short period and everyone changes to the point that you could be forgiven for not recognizing they're supposed to be the Beast Wars characters except for the names and voices (and initial BW model designs). But this is perhaps an issue with the short nature of the series because that sort of compression also rears its head in issues where characters manifest or master their powers or new abilities in no time flat, even at times in direct contradiction to how things are supposed to be operating (such as transformation. When everyone learns to transform in their technorganic bodies, it's said that it happens if they achieve balance. Rattrap's inability to transform comes from his constant angst over his useless and defenceless nature. But Silverbolt ends up having no issues transforming even though he's a walking bundle of emo, running-eye-shadow angst and grimness at pretty much all times)

There are good characters, don't get me wrong. Cheetor and Silverbolt get interesting, compelling arcs. Though Silverbolt's is hampered by how late it starts and how goofy he looks. That said I was also kind of disappointed that getting Silverbolt back meant the end of Jetstorm because it traded the most fun character for a much more dour one.

Ultimately it's a show that I applaud for its daring originality and the best aspects of its tightly plotted story, but I also think that it could've used a little more time in the oven for the ideas to bake to completion and maybe one more season so that it could've stretched out some of its more rushed aspects.

For me it ended up as a very solid show and better than I thought at first, but it's not in my top tier of shows.

If anyone cares I do break down every episode (with large amounts of MST style flippant mocking, but don't let that distract from the fact that I'm trying to give honest opinions, not just snark and needle) in the rewatch thread here, along with the usual cast of supporting posters from other threads. Community TF Cartoon Rewatch Thread - Phase 6: Beast Machines

 

Beast Machines in retrospect was a great take if a little flawed. It didn't always land but it tried new things, had a unique look and the intro tune was quite a bop. Similar to the old meme on the boards that Wheelie was the worst thing ever then Energon IronHide came along and it was fun to rag on him till the movie twins hit the scene. In that regard Beast Machines was the worst thing ever till less impressive shows came along and now that we've got the Tour-de-force that is WFC, so now BM looks like fine art.

 

Back then when TFP was new. I often debated what was the better show. BM or TFP. Since the mood of TFP reminded me so much of BM. I think I preferred TFP more because it reminds me of G1 at times. BM is still great though.

It’s strange how Beast Machines never got a third season. Especially when Hasbro has a rule of three going on.

 

I am not a fan at all of Beast Machines, well I mean of the show. But, I absolutely loved the toys, especially the OG Tankor.



The Beast Machine toys are fantastic, with some amazing, distinct designs. The Maximals are cyborg-animal robots, and the vehicons are various drones. It had a lot of very creative designs. The Beast Machines Blackarachnia, is my favorite version of the figure, with the light piped 8-eyes.



With it's various choice in flavors:



I even like the McDonald's toys.



Remember when McDonald Transformers used to transform?

The whole line is full of creative designs, and since they're not very well liked, they do tend to be really cheap to collect.

Air Attack Optimus is awesome.



The toys are creative, unique, bizarre creations, unique to just that innovation of Transformers. Everything Transforms is currently not doing. Today, it's all G1 this, G1 that. How many times do we need to see Optimus transform into the same truck? But, Beast Machines we had 4 different variations of the ape design, each distinct from the other.

I'd gladly go back to the Beast Machines era now.

 

I want some BM for the Generations line.

 

I think the whole No S3/Canned Transtech is tied maybe to a push to follow the trend for more anime-like shows that had grown in popularity. Transtech would have been compared to it's contemporaries very out of place and even dated when you look at how many other popular CGI action shows had come and gone during the 90's. From a business perspective RiD and the next show Armada proved that it wasn't a bad idea at all to jump on the Anime band wagon.

I think really with toy lines like Legends really now might be a cool time to revisit Transtech toys just for the niche factor and celebrating an era that had it not been for the fanbase's interest would have been forgotten.

 

I want Generations to end, and Transformers to focus on new things, future things. It's time to bury the past.

 

Yeah I believe Hasbro wanted to cash in on the anime craze at the time so they created RiD and Armada.

 

Beast Machines is the best Transformers show and it's sad that in all likelihood it will never be surpassed and nothing will even come close ever again.

 

And even if they were Earth animals, there's a fairly decent explanation already present - Quintessons. The five faced squids explicitly experimented on ancient Cybertron according to the cartoon continuity of G1, before it was a mechanical planet, and left behind all kinds of things that were buried beneath the surface. I'm more surprised Beast Machines didn't include the Trans-Organics, given how they're pretty much the precursors of techno-organic life.

 

Rhinox's personality shift was the result of brain-washing though. Or rather the result of the very difficult conundrum that, much like the Oracle and Allspark, feels distinctly Transformers in nature in ways nothing but a sentient race of robots could create. Namely: what counts as free will to a machine that can have its entire personality rewritten on a whim? What is a decision and what is a directive?

If there's one issue I had with Beast Wars it was how vague "reprogramming" was. A few characters in BW are "reprogrammed" and never seen as anything other than their true personalities. No attempt is made to save them or change them back except by Silverbolt to Blackarachnia. A reprogrammed Transformer is treated as they always were, despite it being common enough to be easily done to Maximals in stasis. (Dinobot even once threatens that the Predacons would reprogram Tigatron if he refused to fight them) The sole exception was Rhinox, who was reprogrammed to disastrous effects, and Blackarachnia. The latter of whom was restored to proper Maximal status and... it's not clear what it actually did. Likewise Quickstrike featured no reprogramming and happily chose the Predacon ranks, so it's nothing so pedestrian as a simple mood shift as was seen with Rhinox. Reprogrammed robots are still fully dynamic individuals with wills and agency, and Blackarachnia was famously disloyal despite being programmed to be a Predacon. The whole concept held very little weight and by all metric amounted to nothing.

Beast Machines, by contrast, put the practice under a microscope. By having two Maximals forcibly reprogrammed with completely different personalities, we see the actual mechanics and detriment such a process does to their psyche. Both Rhinox and Silverbolt experienced severe trauma due to being forced to live as different individuals that fundamentally disagreed with their true personalities. Silverbolt became someone who enjoyed cruelty, Rhinox became a frustrated dullard. Both trapped inside their own minds, their world views warped through the lenses of entirely different people. Rhinox himself describes it almost as a sort of torment. (which it certainly sounds like it would be)

The problem runs deeper than just the mental mutilation of their friends, but in showing the ease of which the core facets of a person's entire identity can be whimsically rewritten, it calls into question the ability to have free will at all. They are, after all, machines. This is Megatron's belief, and he demonstrates it well with these reprogrammings. Primal, however, believes in the spirit and Spark's ability to choose for itself and have that agency. He can't reprogram Rhinox back because what does that do? Is he just recreating the old personality back? Is Rhinox just a bunch of ones and zeroes to be re-arranged at whomever's whim? If he's advocating for a free Cybertron and, more importantly, the idea that they are truly living beings with minds and souls of their own, he has no choice but to accept Rhinox for who he is and trust, and hope, he'll come around. Otherwise, as he put it, he's literally no different from Megatron, enforcing his own will and idea of Rhinox's identity over his actual choices.

It's a shame that Rhinox didn't return to his true self until after he died, but I also feel like it would've severely undercut this dilemma if he somehow had. Rhinox returning to his "old self" as he joined the Allspark only reaffirmed Primal's belief that the physical world is only temporary and that the Spark, the soul, still retains its true life. The physical body is not unimportant, but only when their time comes and a Transformer returns to the Allspark do the limitations of the physical world dissipate. (like programming) That's what makes them more than machines, and that's what makes Primal's beliefs actual beliefs. He has to have faith in things he cannot prove and cannot see, because that's what faith is.

The original story idea was that Rhinox would simply choose, of his own volition, to agree with Megatron. This bit of BTS trivia gets passed around and some people think that it was what the final show intended but it wasn't. The actual conflict is far more uncomfortable and nuanced, and rather pointedly sets Megatron and Optimus Primal's ideologies against each other rather than simply be a story about Rhinox going bad. You see this in some of the best bits of cinematography as Primal reaches out to Tankor's Spark and walks a grassy field laid out like a circuit board. He encounters Rhinox who initially speaks with the same frustrated, fragmented dialogue of Tankor, only to launch into a tirade as his body flashes between his own and Tankor's. I think the best visual is the shot of the two struggling as they're attached to the same Spark. I think people seem to think Tankor was somehow a false personality, easily expunged or discarded, probably because of how simple-minded and comparatively short-lived he was compared to Thrust or Silverbolt, but he was every bit the individual Rhinox was, and when Rhinox's buried self was reawakened they merged into one being. That's why it was at odds with Rhinox's old personality, because it wasn't the old Rhinox.

Which is honestly sad. BM is great but I don't consider some impossible to jump bar. It's deep and has a lot of great themes, but these aren't things modern media can't also achieve in their own way. There's just no attempt whatsoever to do so.

Beast Machines just had the balls to take risks and the talent to follow those risks to the best of their abilities.