I finished watching the whole Beast Machines series a few weeks back. Didn't like it. It was a lot better than when I saw a few episodes of it as a kid, but that's not saying much. Only thing I liked were the admittedly awesome Vehicon Generals.
I always thought Megatron would move on to conquering worlds after he had converted everything on Cybertron and had cured himself.
I think that's reasonable. Taken as a direct sequel to BW, the large changes, particularly in personalities, are very jarring and don't seem to naturally follow what we last saw at the end of BW. Taken as a different direction and more of a reimagining, using basic concepts and characters from BW, I find it far more palatable. I think Botanica was unfairly given short shrift and less opportunity to develop as a character beyond the "earth-goddess" cliche' other fictional characters like Storm are often pigeonholed into. The very fact that she was apparently never intended to be a toy doesn't seem to help matters, either. Nightscream is well...Nightscream. I don't think I've seen a single person here defend him. What was it about the little nuisance that grated so? The whining, the emo attitude and hair, the frankly horrid-looking design (even Silverbolt didn't seem so bad to me), the over-abundance of "special" powers? Anyone else got more? - Coeloptera
This is how I feel about Star Trek: Enterprise. I liked BM a lot if for no other reason than it finally gave something other than just "chase the mcguffin".
Nightscream is the Wheelie of the beast era. Just look at BW, how many Predacons tried to scrap Megatron and take over?Plus as seen from Primal and his group, the other Maximals wouldnt been so happy with Megatron taking over. As for Rhinox, I think the Vehicon program had more to do with it. Must like in BW when Megatron turn him into a Predacon. Same spark, just new programing. Without the program deleted like with Silverbolt, it was like a fusion. In BW, if Rhinox would had stayed Predacon. The Maximals would had been his next target. As what happen in BM, he went after both Primal and Megatron's groups.
Nightscram is horrid. Every aspect about him is just a deliberate attempt to make him unlikable. I'm sure of it.
I took the change as Megatron's tampering with Rhinox's spark. Same with Silverbolt after he snapped out of Jetstorm, only he despised himself after what he seemed to enjoy doing.
Rhinox in Beast Machines was a twist that I enjoyed. There's that one episode of Beast Wars which showed Rhinox corrupted, Beast Machines Tankor basically picks up on that and runs with it. It's a great little bit of continuity which works nicely. I'm not so fond of some of the other character interpretations, but the end product is a great story which delves into the motivations of these characters.
TBH...BM is actually an interesting show with a deep and edgy plot...it just at times doesn't feel like Transformers. When I think of TF, I think of robots that turn into things fight other robots with guns and fist, but this show was way different than that.
Rhinox in BM......made me want to tear up. I mean, the ULTIMATE betrayel. I knew Tankor was Rhinox, but I didn't know THIS would happen!!!!
I am probably the biggest Beast Wars fan on earth. I'm not kidding. I hated beast machines when it first came out, but you have to give it a chance and after a while you really do understand it. It is much more intelligent than beast wars and any other transformers series out there (although i still like BW better than BM). You have to look at it from an adult/intellectual point of view, kind of how you would look at and analyze a novel. It really is not a kid's show by any means. Part of the reason I think it failed and is not accepted by the majority of transformers fans is because most of us were kids when it first came out and we didn't understand it. Now that we're older we have to give it a second chance and look at it from an adult point of view. If you do that then i'm sure you will enjoy it.
I found it hard to accept that Rhinox would turn against his former team-mates too. It just didn't seem like the Rhinox of BW at all. I kinda pity BM for the criticism it receives from alot of us. It was a very thoughtful and well-written show, full of deep, philosophical themes. It's just a shame that it seemed to differ too much from BW in terms of tone and characters. Where BW was fun, lively, full of action and and had characters we loved, BM was depressing, jarring and altered our beloved BW characters too much. I was actually glad that Depth Charge was spared from the embarrassment of appearing in BM. I prefer to remeber him in his BW form. Plus, i always thought the whole techno-organic idea was a bad one. Most of us prefer to think of Cybertron as a technological planet with robotic inhabitants.
I think I recall hearing (I could be wrong) that Megatron's Drones were to be used as a last line of defense under his minds direction for some threat coming in season two (or the series that followed Transtech) that Megatron had found out about...what that threat was supposed to be I don't know if it was ever defined. But I was wondering if Unicron was coming back...or maybe a return of the Vok. And before its asked I have no idea where I recall hearing that...its just somewhere on the edge of many things I've read.
