Although popular in the 1980s, Transformers was struggling as the 90s approached. The line was rebranded Generation
2 with new toys,
a new cartoon and new comics,
but its popularity continued to wane. Hasbro
handed off production of the line to their newly-acquired Kenner division to
try their hand at revitalizing the toys.
 |
| The next generation of Transformers: the original Beast Wars line. |
The first thing Kenner did was ditch the whole vehicle and machine angle
of the transformations as well as various group subdivisions that had been
introduced. Instead, they had the Transformers change into realistic-looking
animals with a size-class system. Unlike the previous toys, these were highly
articulated and all components could be concealed within a transformation
instead of leaving loose parts around. Dubbed Beast Wars, the original storyline had the newly-christened Maximals and Predacons fighting on modern
day Earth like the prior series, but that soon changed.
When the first
line of toys proved a success, Hasbro commissioned Mainframe Entertainment to bring the line
to life in a new animated series. Beast
Wars: Transformers was developed by Larry DiTillio and Bob Forward as the first completely CGI Transformers
series. The Generation 2 cartoon and commercials did make use
of some CGI, but as it recycled episodes from the original Transformers cartoon
it was mostly traditional animation.
The series followed as the Maximals and Predacons crash-landed on a
primitive planet rife with pure raw Energon—the
substance that powers Cybertonians. However, it was too much of a good
thing and could cause them to short-circuit after prolonged exposure. To combat
it, both sides scanned the planet’s surface for lifeforms and adopted them as
their alternate forms to shield them from the Energon. As the series
progressed, it was revealed that the Maximals and Predacons were from 300 years
in the future of the Transformers mythos and had somehow teleported back
in time to prehistoric Earth where the Autobots
and Decepticons still slept
after their own crash-landing, awaiting reactivation in the modern day of 1984.
 |
| The Maximals. |
Because of the expense of creating a new character model, the roster was
decidedly smaller than other Transformers
media; allowing for a greater focus on character development. The Maximals
were led by Optimus Primal (Garry Chalk), who had taken the form of a
silverback gorilla. Under his command initially were the intelligent Rhinox
(Richard Newman), a rhinoceros; recon expert Rattrap (Scott McNeil), an African
rat; and youthful and inexperienced Cheetor (Ian James Corlett), a cheetah.
 |
| The Predacons. |
The Predacons were led by Megatron (not to be confused with the
Decepticon version of Megatron,
voiced by David Kaye), a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Begrudgingly under him were Scorponok (Don Brown), a scorpion; Terrorsaur (Doug Parker), a Pteranodon; Tarantulas (Alec Willows), a tarantula;
Waspinator (McNeil), a wasp; and Dinobot
(McNeil), a velociraptor. To allow for additional characters to be introduced
as they were created for the toy line, a subplot was added that showed the
Maximal ship ejecting unformatted protoforms
into orbit (these were blank slates at the beginning of a Cybertronian’s life
cycle awaiting programming into the kind of bot they will be). A competition
arose between the factions to retrieve a protoform when it fell to Earth and
program it to their respective side.
 |
| Cheetor on the run. |
Running in syndication from 1996-99 over 52 episodes, the show was initially
dismissed by long-time Transformers fans
over the abandonment of the vehicle modes, but the mature writing, darker
themes, strong characters and increasing callbacks to previous incarnations
gradually won them over. The show also fully defined the protoforms and
introduced the concept of the spark,
which was essentially the soul of the Transformers. The show and toys found
additional success when it was exported to Japan, leading to the creation of
two Japan-only spin-off shows: Beast Wars Second and
Beast Wars Neo, which
were accompanied by toys produced by Takara (the producers of the original toys
the Transformers line was spawned
from, now known as Takara Tomy).
Beast Wars was a tremendous
success for Hasbro; consistently at the top of sales charts for the duration of
its life. However, Hasbro wanted to keep the line from going stale like the
original line had done and opted to revamp the franchise once again. They
decided to integrate vehicular Transformers with the organic ones to produce
the line Beast Machines. As such, a
new cartoon was put into development to help promote the shift.
 |
| The new Maximals: Optimus Primal, Black Arachnia, Cheetor and Rattrap. |
Mainframe was retained as the production company for the show, but very
few of the personnel involved in making it a success was. Beast Hunters, as the series was originally to be titled, went into
development for FOX’s Fox Kids programming block;
making it the first Transformers series
to be made for a network rather than syndication. Because of their good
relationship with FOX in the production of Godzilla: The Series, Bob Skir and Marty Isenberg were brought on
as the showrunners and head writers, which caused them to pass up their “dream
project” of working on an Avengers cartoon
(which may have been a good thing as that cartoon became the widely-panned Avengers: United They Stand).
 |
| Megatron in charge. |
The series’ premise came from an outline by Marv Wolfman, despite
fellow comic book veteran Steve
Gerber turning in a “wildly original take on Transformers” (as described by then-Mainframe head Dan Didio). The show would
center on the Maximals returning to Cybertron to find it under
the control of Megatron. Hasbro wanted to add a spiritual dimension to the show
to try something new with the franchise, and Skir came up with the idea that
there should be a quest to find a balance between nature and technology, rather
than the cliched dominance of one over the other. That led to the overreaching story arc of
restoring vegetation to Cybertron’s surface, which had previously been an idea
in the original Marvel Comics treatment. It
would become the first Transformers series
to take place entirely on Cybertron. It also further expanded on the concept of
the sparks, their transformative abilities, and the overall lifecycle of
Transformers. The series ended up marking the definitive end of the Generation One
continuity (another thing fans weren’t happy about).
Both Didio and Hasbro discouraged Skir and Isenberg from watching old
episodes to achieve the freshest take possible, and Didio felt Beast Wars was too continuity-heavy.
Skir and Isenberg also passed that edict down to their writing staff, of whom
only Wolfman and other fellow comic scribe Len Wein had previously
worked on Beast Wars. Wolfman, in
particular, was brought on because Skir felt he was owed some work since they
ended up using his initial outline. However, this edict was soon ignored as
Hasbro began requesting elements of prior continuity for inclusion in the show,
and some of the writers looked at what came before to drop references. Along
with Skir and Isenberg, the writers included Michael Reaves, Steven Melching, Rodney Gibbs, Brynne Chandler Reaves, Meg McLaughlin, Brooks Wachtel and Nick Dubois.
 |
| The Maximals in robot form. |
Returning from Beast Wars was Optimus
Primal, Rattrap, Cheetor and Predacon-turned-Maximal Blackarachnia (Venus Terzo);
all of whom suffered from memory loss and were reverted to their debut beast
modes (they had gotten some technological
upgrades as Wars progressed). The
Predacons were replaced by Vehicons:
a legion of heavily-armed military Transformers led by Megatron. At the head of
Megatron’s army was Jetstorm (Brian Drummond), the immensely cocky head of the
Aero Drones; Tankor (Paul Dobson), the slow-witted and immensely powerful
leader of the Tank Drones; and Thrust (Jim Byrnes), the dark and brooding
leader of the Cycle Drones and loyal to Megatron above all others. It was
eventually discovered that Jetstorm, Tankor and Thrust all contained the sparks
of Silverbolt (McNeil), a fused wolf and eagle hybrid with an overdeveloped
sense of morality and justice, Rhinox and Waspinator, respectively; removed by
Megatron and placed in Vehicon bodies.
 |
| Botanica joins the team. |
Other characters included Nightscream (Alessandro Juliani), a vampire bat
traumatized by the Vehicon occupation; Savage/Noble (Kaye), a purely organic
Transformer created when Megatron tried to rid himself entirely of his bestial
side; The Oracle (Carol Savenkoff), an ancient
computer that allowed Optimus to communicate with the AllSpark (the source of life for all
Transformers); and Botanica (Kathleen Barr), who could transform into a mobile
plant. Megatron’s forces would soon be bolstered by Obsidian (Dobson), who
fought for whoever was in control of Cybertron, and his consort Strika (Patricia
Drake), one of the greatest generals in Cybertron’s history. None of the good
guys used guns--another first for Transformers--as Skir preferred to write heroes who didn’t rely on them.
 |
| Vehicon generals Tankor, Jetstorm and Thrust. |
Beast Machines: Transformers debuted
on September 18, 1999 on FOX, with music composed by Robert Buckley and a theme song, called “Phat Planet”, by Leftfield.
Much like Beast Wars, Beast Machines was
largely hated by their target audience—so much so, that Skir and Isenberg
received death threats from Transformers fans.
Unlike Wars, it would be years before
some of that hatred would lift. Fans were generally put off by the much darker
and humorless direction Machines took,
and the inconsistent personalities of the characters between the shows. For
instance, Optimus became an anti-technology guru and a fanatic at times;
Rattrap was made a virtual coward; Silverbolt was no longer goofy and noble but
grim and vengeance-driven; and Megatron was much grimmer with no sign of his
previous agendas. Others felt the message behind the show, technology vs.
nature, was ham-fisted and overly forced. Also, because of the serial nature of
the show, it made it hard for new viewers to jump on at any point to become
hooked.
 |
| Tankor/Rhinox stands with the Maximals. |
And it wasn’t only the fans that didn’t like the show; it was largely
reported that most of the returning actors weren’t too happy with it either. McNeil,
who enjoyed the series, had mentioned that Chalk was known to throw angry fits
between recording sessions because of the directions the show took. Simon Furman, the writer of
Marvel’s UK
and US Transformers comics notable for his epic
and dark storytelling, felt that the show was too dark and serious for a
kid’s show. Despite all the negative attention, one thing that was usually
agreed on is that Mainframe stepped up their game with continuing improvements
to the visuals and character movements in comparison to Beast Wars.
The series was translated and broadcast in several countries around the
world, but it was the Japanese version that’s of special note. It wouldn’t be
until 2004 that Beast Machines would
be localized for broadcast in Japan as Super Lifeform Transformers: Beast Wars Returns. The
translation was headed up by Yoshikazu
Iwanami, who had also handled the Beast
Wars dubbing, and took the series in a dramatically different way than the
North American version. The overall dub was done in a humorous and satirical
manner, completely changing the personalities of the characters (Nightscream
became a flaming homosexual stereotype), adding chants to the Vehicon drones
every time they were on screen, and ignoring key plot points for the sake of
goofy adlibbing (such as failing to conceal the real identities of Thrust and
Jetstorm by having the same actors and personality traits for Waspinator and
Silverbolt used). Characters would also have comedic conversations over the
main titles and credits. The Japanese version of the show kept the same music,
but added the song “Megatron
Ondo” by Yukio Hibariya and Taku Unami, with
Megatron actor Shigeru Chiba
reprising his role for speaking portions. The song was included on the Japanese
album Transformers Song Universe released by Columbia Music Entertainment.
 |
| The North American DVD release. |
The series has been released to home
media in various countries by various companies. In the United States, Rhino Entertainment released the complete
series in 2006. It was later re-released by Shout!
Factory in 2014. Sony Home
Entertainment released two season sets in the United Kingdom, France,
Germany and Spain between 2007 and 2009. The UK release also saw the first
season broken up into two volumes, as did Australian and New Zealand with both
seasons. Geneon Universal Entertainment
released the show in Japan across seven volumes, as well as a box set.
 |
| Art for IDW's The Ascending. |
Beast Machines made the leap to
comics with 3H Productions’
Transformers Universe, scripted by Furman with stories by Glen Hallit and Dan Khanna. The book was made in part with the Official
Transformers Collector’s Club and available at each annual BotCon. Unfortunately, 3H lost the Transformers license after the third
issue was published, leaving the story unfinished. Fun Publications would publish the four
completed pages from #4 in one of
their magazines in August of 2007, and then an illustrated text story
that November that completed the story once and for all. The complete script
for #4 was leaked into a Transformers message
board around the same time. Transformers: Beast Wars: The Ascending from IDW Publishing in 2007, also by Furman,
provided some lead-in to Megatron’s eventual conquest of Cybertron.
The Beast franchise was revisited in 2023 with the 7th installment of Hasbro and Paramount Pictures’ live-action Transformers movie series. Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, written by Joby Harold, Darnell Metayer, Josh Peters, Erich Hoeber and Jon Hoeber, and directed by Steven Caple Jr., serves as a sequel to 2018’s Bumblebee, which itself served as a prequel/soft reboot of the original movie series directed by Michael Bay. Set in 1994, the Maximals’ home planet came under attack by the planet-eating Unicron (Colman Domingo) and his heralds, the Terrorcons and Predacons, leading to a small faction of them escaping to Earth using a Transwarp Key. When museum intern Elena Wallace (Dominique Fishback) discovered half of the key, she drew the attention of the Terrorcons and the Autobots. The film featured Optimus Primal, Rhinox, Cheetor and Airazor, voiced by Ron Perlman, David Sobolov (the only actor from the cartoon), Tongayi Chirisa and Michelle Yeoh, respectively. Scorponok also appeared, but as an army of drones that became scorpions.
No comments:
Post a Comment