I like the Techno-Organic vibe. Except Rattrap having no weapons and having wheels as legs.

Plus Megatron being on the harness all the time & later stealing Optimal Optimus' form as his own.

The Maximals lack allies and Vehicons? There should be at least a few who would choose to turn against Megatron's ambitions.

Maybe even revive some Predacons into Vehicons since Waspinator became Thrust.

Can the Oracle also revive dead Maximals into Techno-Organic?

 

Sounds like these are moderately important details at best and not a "complete rewrite".

 

Uh, yeah, little problem with Vehicons going against Megatron. Only the Vehicon generals have sparks. The rest are mindless machines, which is why the Maximals have no problem blowing them up. And Tankor did choose to turn against Megatron, but Megatron was able to remote hack him and make him turn back to his side - and that was before Primal awakened Rhinox and his subsequent turn to madness.

Were I rewriting Beast Machines, there's a major detail I'd incorporate from Beast Wars - the Tripredacus Council.

They were a loose end that was never addressed, and with their plans thwarted by the Maximals in the past, they'd logically be resorting to new methods. In this case, they'd be the creators of the virus Megatron used to become the ruler of the planet. The way I envision it - Megatron breaks free as normal, ending up back on Cybertron before the Axalon crew returns. He is then captured by the Tripredacus Council, who decide to use him as the patsy in their scheme to conquer the planet and build their Cybertronian Empire, subjecting him to reprogramming to make him think he's in control while they pull the strings from behind the scenes. This would be used to explain the seeming disparity between his Beast Wars persona and Beast Machines - that is, his seemingly sudden hatred of techno-organic life and attempts to purge his Transmetal 2 form (though this isn't necessarily as sudden or out of nowhere as I used to think - a pure machine Cybertron can be easily brought under his control, but he can't control techno-organic life, hence his attempts to purge it). But this is Megatron we're talking about, he doesn't stay in their control for very long. His true self breaks through the reprogramming but he chooses to play along with their plans, playing the long game until he can properly usurp them.

I'd probably play up Rhinox going mad from what Megatron did to him to turn him into Tankor a bit more, since the intent wasn't that he was crazy but that he had simply seen each side of the argument and made his own choice to go in Megatron's direction (though with plans to usurp him).

 

Would a redemption arc for Predacon Waspinator (similar to Blackarachnia joining the Maximals) work? I’ve always felt sorry for poor Waspy.

 

1. Rattrap needs to be more badass and less bitch.
2. B.A. needs to re assess her priorities. It's great she wants her lover back, but not at the expense of everything that ever was.
3. Rhinox should have been able to join the maximals again, that was too sad for him.
4. Optimus needs to be a little less crazy religious zealot.

5. BONUS, DINOBOT IS ALIVE HAS MIRACULOUSLY MADE HIS WAY BACK WITH WASPINATOR.   Like, seriously had to watch my fav character die 2x in BW.

 

I agree with all of the above! Rhinox should’ve survived and been reformatted into a techno-organic rhinoceros.

 

How Godfather 2 should be rewritten:

1. Fredo should have been smarter and not such a wimp. Who cares if it's not true to his character?
2. Kay should not have gotten an abortion. She should have given Michael more time to legitimize the family and their marriage another chance.
3. Michael should not have had Fredo killed, that was too sad for him.
4. Michael should have been less single-minded and ruthless in chasing his goals. He should have been nicer and less obsessed.

These are my ideas of how to ruin a terrifically-written story and suck all the life and drama out of the characters.

Beast Machines is about the last iteration of Transformers to need any kind of rewrite.

 

The only thing I’d change about Beast Machines is to give it a comic book series focusing on toy characters that did not appear in the show.

 

My thoughts exactly.

Beast Machines doesn't need to be rewritten, it needs to be re-animated. Despite still holding up visually due to intelligent direction and making the most of the CGI at the time, a lot of the show's major plot elements failed to be properly conveyed visually, mostly in regards to the techno-organic. The Maximals represent what techno-organisms should look like, a smooth fusion of organic and mechanical. Even if you don't like the designs, visually they feel like perfect, harmonized blends, especially Cheetor and Botanica. Yet the techno-organic trees, vines, and Cybertron itself at the end more resemble the Transmetal II patchwork aesthetic of messy organics with torn away sections revealing technology beneath. You'd think a techno-organic world would be more like the Maximals themselves, functionally and visually balanced, but animation limitations of the time meant the very core concept of the show's new mythology had to be compromised into just re-texturing of everything into blue and green. I never thought anything with that style looked techno-organic, it looked more like it was covered in badly mixed paint.

About the only part of Beast Machines I'd personally like to see changed is the character of Nightscream, simply because I find his petulant and insufferable among a cast of fairly nuanced and more mature characters. I would've loved to see the original idea of him as a Newt-style female character who's near silent from the trauma of experiencing Cybertron's takeover first hands.

Except he wasn't a bitch, not at the end. Rattrap was a character who always let his gun do the talking, but even whilst being courageous he always complained and nay-sayed in BW. He wasn't exactly a stunning beacon f bravery, more like bravado, and he lost that all when he was given a "useless" body by the Oracle. He was tested to see if he was actually a brave warrior or just relied on his gun to get him out of problems. Of course it turned out that yes, he was courageous, and he didn't need a gun, and was arguably more useful as tech support and saboteur as he ever was as a gunslinger.

I'm confused by this, because that is exactly her character arc in a nutshell. She starts heartbroken and obsessed with recovering Silverbolt in much the same way he was obsessed with saving her, except much like every other character in the show she is tested time and again, and once her attempts to recover him do put them in danger Primal gives it to her straight. After that she never puts the team at risk again, and becomes a lot more strategic in her attempts to save him. (and thus, more successful. I mean after she finds out SB is Jetstorm she no longer goes out of her way to recover him until she has a surefire way to do so)

But if he did, then where would the sacrifice have been? Sure it's nice to want all the surviving characters from BW to make it out alive and well, but that's the reality of war. Rhinox was still redeemed in the afterlife, but he still committed evil as "Tankor" and paid the price. It was sad, it was very sad, but that's the point.

Okay now I'm really confused. Again, this was Optimus' entire character arc. His zeal nearly destroyed Cybertron itself, and he was almost willingly damned to Transformers purgatory before the Maximals (and Rhinox) convinced him it wasn't to late to change his fanatic ways. And he did. That's like, I dunno, complaining that you have to make a sandwich before you can eat it.

Everything you complained about is an arc, a storyline with ups and downs that completes as the show concludes. There'd be no character arcs or development if everyone just got over their issues right away, or never had them. That's what makes the show engaging to watch, you want to see what will happen to these (really fucking ugly) people who are having to put up with so much shit. As much as I love Beast wars, one criticism that could be made is that the characters never feel all that bothered by their predicament. Sure they all want to go home, but nobody really seems like being shipwrecked on an alien world is that much of a drag. Beast Machines really makes the heroes feel screwed. They're back home, sure, but said home is a distorted shadow of what they know, under siege and under rule by their worst enemy, and it's just the four of them (later seven) against a literal never-ending army of soulless machines. I'm surprised they managed to come out as emotionally stable as they did.

 

We will never get a Transformers show as ambitious as Beast Machines ever again and I feel like any changes done to the story would do way more harm than good. I still think BW, BM, and Animated will always remain the best Transformers series and find all of them great the way they are.

Also Jetstorm needs a Generations update because he is such a great character.

 

He asked how you would "rewrite" the show. You know make it completely different than how it was. Which is what I did. He didn't ask "what did you like about it". He asked if you can make the show what would you do different. You are just disagreeing with everything I would personally do different about the show to make it a different show/plot.....

You argued how it all worked and you enjoyed about it, but that wasn't what this thread was about. If I was writing a fanfic of the show, this is how I would change it. You just brought it back to how it all worked. I mean obviously, that is how the show went, glad you liked it. I enjoyed it, but if I was to rewrite it, that is how I would change it. Isn't that negating the whole point of this thread?

 

How about resurrecting Dinobot to help the team? He can help out Optimus as they both can connect to the Oracle.

And Tarantulus maybe also to involve himself with Megatron?

 

Only thing I'd change would be Nightscream, or at least his design since that dated 90s hair style they gave him always irrationally annoyed me.

 

At the end of Beast Wars he did say he was sick of being evil and sick of being blown up all the time right before being blown up for the last time in the entire series. So yes he could have a redemption arc. Beast Machines seemingly forgot about this scene or maybe because he doesn't get blown to scrap all the time as Thrust, decided that being evil does pay after all.

 

Why though?

 

But that's what I'm saying, all your changes would make the show worse. I know that's you saying how you'd write it, that's just what I think about your rewriting of it.

And yet at the end of Beast Wars he was seen ruling the protohumans. Plus, like you said, as Thrust his life as a henchman was way cushier.

 

And then he got turned into a tiny wasp with his Vehicon head, once again cementing his place as the universe's chew toy.

 

In case that wasn't clear when I said he was blown up for the last time in the series I didn't mean he was finally killed for real, I just meant it was the last time we'd ever see him blow up and then he some how manages to pull himself back together as he always did.

 

Just to add more twists and more development.

plus what if Tarantulus’ spark somehow survived and placed in one of the new Vehicons. He’ll take advantage of the surroundings and find ways to replace Megatron as new leader. And Tripredicus council needs to be known again.

And what if Galvatron was born when both sparks of Megatron and Tarantulus get fused?

 

So was it constructive criticism? I made an AU BM fic series on AO3 and as far as kudos go the 1st in the series has more kudos than all my fics. So, I mean, there must be people oit there who like my ideas.