How "ReBoot" Predicted The Future But Got Left Behind

I found this article and thought it interesting enough to share. Its mainly about Reboot but there is a tiny meantion of Beast Wars. Those shows dont look like much now but in the days of square TVs it was impressive. Love it or not Beast Wars kept Transformers alive through the 90s. Mainframe I think deserves a good bit of credit for helping with that. You can easily see animation improved through the series and i think helped its success. So I ask does Mainframe have a honored place in Transformers history?

 

I honestly thought this was going to be an article about Mainframe the character.

And now i really want to see an entire article about him.

 

Pretty nice article, thanks for posting it here.

I definitely think Mainframe is part of TF's history, as much as Polygon pictures.

 

I skimmed through the article. Here's just the bit about Beast Wars.

"At the end of ReBoot’s first season, another 12 episodes were ordered, and a second season premiered in the fall of 1995. At the same time, they struck a deal with toymaker Hasbro to make Beast Wars, a computer-animated series based on the Transformers line of toys. Though ReBoot was a hit, it was expensive to make, far outstripping what they made from the show. They needed steady cash flow to keep the lights on — not to mention training new animators and investing in new technology. So they signed additional deals to develop shows for toy companies including Trendmasters to Mattel.

Unlike ReBoot, it was service work. Mainframe did what the toy companies wanted, which wasn’t always as fulfilling as working on a concept they owned. But the goal with these projects was to make money, not art. Mainframe needed cash to subsidize its founders’ real ambition: to make Hollywood films."

I was under the impression that Mainframe where given a very long rope and took a lot of creative liberties and that most their communication with Hasbro was done through fan consultant Ben Yee?

 

I remember a story claiming Blackarachnia's looks came from the designer/animator being dragged (maybe put 'dragged' in quotes) to a strip club for inspiration. From this article, it would appear that strip club has a name.

 

They were, I don't know where this article is getting this idea that it was some detached chore. It's highly documented on BWTF that Beast Wars was pretty much only mandated insofar as which toys needed to be in the show. (Ironically the most exciting parts of the show were the new characters and bodies and how they were introduced)

 

If they acknowledged that Mainframe were given enough freedom to put some passion into making BW, they'd have to acknowledge that a show designed to sell toys to boys was good. We all know that such an idea would be laughed out of the chatroom by most geeks.