Beast Qars
Chris Richard
Beast Wars: Transformers (titled Beasties: Transformers in Canada)[1] is an animated television series that debuted on September 16, 1996 and ended on May 7, 1999, serving as the flagship of the Transformers: Beast Wars franchise. It was one of the earliest fully CGI television shows.[2] The series is set in the future of the "original" Transformers franchise, 300 years after the events of The Transformers, and features the Maximals and Predacons, descendants of the Autobots and Decepticons respectively.[3] While engaged in battle, small teams from each faction crash land on an unknown planet, and must find a way to return home while continuing their war.
The Beast Wars TV series was the first Transformers series to feature computer-animated characters, and was produced by Mainframe Entertainment of Vancouver, British Columbia; its story editors were Bob Forward and Larry DiTillio. The production designer for the show, Clyde Klotz, won a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation in 1997 for his work on Beast Wars.[4]
A sequel television series, Beast Machines: Transformers, aired from 1999 to 2000. Additional Beast Wars limited comic book series have been released by Dreamwave Productions and IDW Publishing.[5]
The two main factions of "Transformers" in Beast Wars are descendants of the two main factions in the original cartoon: the Maximals are the descendants of the Autobots and the Predacons are the descendants of the Decepticons. (In the sequel series Beast Machines, the process during which Autobots and Decepticons became Maximals and Predacons is referred to as "The Great Upgrade".)
The leader of the Predacon team is Megatron, a namesake of the original Decepticon commander. He and his forces are a splinter group on the hunt for powerful crystals known as Energon. They do this with the aid of an artifact known as the Golden Disk and Megatron's stolen ship, the Darksyde, which is equipped with a transwarp drive. A Maximal exploration ship, the Axalon, led by Optimus Primal, is sent to stop them. Together the ships plunge through a time/space phenomenon created by the transwarp device during their battle in space, and crash-land on a mysterious planet.
The planet is found to be rich in deposits of raw Energon, in such extreme amounts that it proves to be poisonous to both factions' robot forms, forcing them to take on alternate organic forms for protection until their robot forms are needed. Thus the robots take on the beast forms of recognizable animals including mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, amphibians, dinosaurs, and invertebrates.
The teams are divided between the "good" Maximals and the "evil" Predacons, equivalent to the traditional Autobots and Decepticons. Most of the Maximals are based on mammals, birds or fish, while the Predacons are based on reptiles, amphibians or invertebrates. Dinobot changes sides, starting as a Predacon and becoming a Maximal, and was later recreated as an artificial Predacon clone by Megatron in season 3. Additionally certain "Predacons" like Inferno and Blackarachnia were created from Maximal protoforms, but were fitted with Predacon shell programs, fighting instead for the Predacons. For the Maximals, the emphasis is on team spirit and good-natured arguing, especially from Rattrap, but the Predacons argue and battle for leadership, which impairs their effectiveness against the Maximals.
There have been two Beast Wars video games. The first game, Beast Wars: Transformers, was released for the PlayStation and PC. It is a third-person shooter, based on the first season of the show, in which players control either the Maximals or the Predacons in a series of missions to undermine the other faction's attempts at gaining enough resources to win the war between them and escape the planet. The PC conversion added a multiplayer feature that allowed up to 8 players to play over LAN, with its own playrooms in the MS Gaming Zone. The playrooms were shut down in 2006.
The second game, Beast Wars Transmetals, is a fighting game based on the second season released for the PlayStation and Nintendo 64 by BAM! Entertainment. Most of the cast-members from the show reprised their voice-roles.
On February 8, 2011, Shout! Factory announced that they had acquired the rights to the series and planned to rerelease it.[10] They rereleased season 1 on DVD on June 7, 2011[11] as well as a complete series set on the same day.[12] Both releases contain extensive bonus features including interviews, featurettes and special 24 page comic book, "Transformers Timelines: Dawn of Future's Past." Season 2 & 3 were rereleased on October 4, 2011.[13]
In a 2011 retrospective of the Transformers franchise, IGN commented that while Beast Wars used the same basic story template as previous series in the franchise, it "featured some of the best writing and story development in a Transformers series".[16] Reviewing the season 2 DVD release, DVD Talk similarly remarked that Beast Wars used the same basic story as the 1984 Transformers series, but stood out from other series of its time by delivering messages to children without becoming preachy and utilizing considerable continuity, both from episode-to-episode and eventually with the 1984 Transformers series. The reviewer said the animation was dated by modern standards but the interesting and fun story content outweighed it.[17] In a review of the season 3 DVD, the same critic praised the season's more rapid pace and darker tone, and said it was arguably the best season of the series. He concluded, "Beast Wars may have been a marketing tool for Hasbro, but it also told some good stories without pandering to the lowest common denominator."[18]
The show was succeeded by Beast Machines: Transformers, with a new creative team in charge of production. The traditionally animated Japanese series Beast Wars II and Beast Wars Neo were created to fill the gap while the second and third seasons of Beast Wars were being translated into Japanese (called Beast Wars: Metals).[16] Several comic books and video games were also produced. The show's production companies, Mainframe Entertainment and Alliance Atlantis, are also the same creators of the world's first ever computer-animated TV series, ReBoot, which ran from 1994 to 2001.
In June 2017, producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura stated that a film adaptation of Beast Wars was not in plans, as he explained: "I'm probably not the one to be asking that question to because I don't get Beast Wars, but you know, thankfully I'm not the only vote on it. I've never quite understood, they kind of feel like incompatible to me, you have animals, robots, we're used to cars."[19] Both a follow-up to Bumblebee, and an adaptation of Beast Wars were reported to be in development, written separately by Joby Harold and James Vanderbilt, respectively.[20][21] It was later reworked as a hybrid adaptation named Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, which is a sequel to Bumblebee and featured the Maximals, the Predacons, and the Terrorcons.[22] The film was released on June 9, 2023.
In 1998, Beast Wars did its own self reinvention. The cartoon and toy line introduced Fuzors, robots that transformed into hybrid beasts (like a scorpion combined with a cobra) and Transmetals, who were robots with organic parts that transformed into Full Metal Beasties with bonus vehicle modes.
Just for fun, here she is with some of my other Blackarachnias. I only took a robot mode photo, though, because I hate transforming Kingdom BA and my Takara Legends BA broke while she was in storage. Be careful if you have that toy, because it will eventually break at the elbow because of the flimsy translucent plastic.
Dinobot is a blue, metallic green, and gold robot velociraptor. As with Blackarachnia, the detailing is nice, including hydraulics, panels, ridges, vents, joints, and some nice red paint for the eyes. His teeth and claws look pretty menacing, too.
Like many fans, I always had a soft spot for Scorponok. He made himself his own best friends in the form of robotic bees that launched out of his claws and was loyal to the end. He also had a cool look about him. I missed him when he was gone.
Again, there are some great details here, especially on the claws. The tail itself is great, with an absolutely wicked jagged and barbed stinger. That thing looks like it hurts. The eyes are also picked out in a nice pinkish-red paint that contrasts nicely with the maroon body.
You may be here because you saw the above image on social media and its follow up post(s), if not you can skip to the next paragraph. While the image above was posted as a light hearted April Fool's Day gag, the figure itself is real in so much that it is not a digibash but a real action figure custom that I commissioned. The April Fool's Day gag was actually an afterthought. Getting the figure made was a three month saga that you can read about below.
Back in December 2020, The Allspark revealed scans of several unreleased Beast Wars Transformers action figures. These appeared to be focused on a never-produced McDonalds Happy Meal campaign and featured figures as bizarre as "Auto roller" style beasts and a Megatron that transformed into a multi-armed dragonfly. One of my favorite concepts from this set of images was Beast Wars Megatron transforming into a sea turtle (image below credited to Robotic Planet Toys in Instagram)! The simplicity of the design clearly pointed to this being planned as a Happy Meal toy, but I immediately saw opportunity and latched onto the idea of having a custom made.
Off to ebay I went and purchased a sacrificial Beast Wars Snapper and Megatron crocodile figure. Next, my awesome friend Trent Troop put me in contact with fellow fan and customizer Shawn Tessman to make this dream come true. During his off hours Shawn worked his magic based on the artwork shown on Allspark.
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