BEAST MACHINES: TRANSFORMERS
(FOX, September 18, 1999-November 18, 2000)
Mainframe Entertainment, Hasbro
MAIN CAST:
For the history of Transformers, check out the post here.
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.
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| 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 the
Transformers. However, it was too much of a good thing and could cause the
Transformers to short-circuit after prolonged regular exposure. To combat it,
both sides scanned the planet’s surface for lifeforms and adopt 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 Transformer mythos and had somehow teleported back in time to
prehistoric Earth where the Autobots
and Decepticons still slept
after crashing, awaiting reactivation in the modern day.
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| 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.
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| 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. A competition arose between the factions to retrieve a protoform
when it fell to Earth to program it to their side.
Running in syndication from 1996-99 over 52 episodes,
the show was initially dismissed by long-term 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 as 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.
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
(that cartoon became the widely-panned Avengers: United They Stand).
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| Megatron in charge. |
The series’ premise came from an outline by Marv Wolfman, despite
fellow comicbook 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 and to not include any human characters. 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 a fresh take, 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.
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| The new Maximals: Optimus, Cheetor, Rattrap and Blackarachnia. |
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), Rhinox and Waspinator, respectively, removed by Megatron
and placed in Vehicon bodies.
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| 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.
Skir preferred to write heroes who didn’t rely on them.
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| 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.
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| 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 look and movement of
the show in comparison to Beast Wars.
The series ran for two seasons of 13 episodes; the
second subtitled “Battle for the Spark.” Hasbro loved the series and wanted it
to continue for a third season, but Skir and Isenberg had always approached it
as an “epic novel” and felt the story was sufficiently told in 26 episodes.
That, mixed with the more extreme fan reactions, led to them declining Hasbro’s
offer. Hasbro had planned for the new season to tie into the next evolution of
the Beast line called “Transtech.” This series would have
further combined the beast/vehicle aspects by having the characters’ vehicle
forms feature aesthetics related to their beast forms. Without the show,
amongst other economic factors, Hasbro decided to scrap the line. Instead, they
chose to work closely with Takara for the first time in creating a new line
that returned to the basic robots and vehicles concept that would eventually
become Transformers:
Armada. In the interim, Hasbro imported the anime Transformers: Car Robots (known as Robots in Disguise in North America) and its related toyline.
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
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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
EPISODE GUIDE:
Season 1:
“The Reformatting” (9/18/99) – The Maximals find themselves somehow
back on Cybertron unable to transform out of Beast Mode.
“Master of the House” (9/25/99) – The Maximals get their
transformation abilities back as they learn that Megatron has taken over the
planet and intends to wipe out organic life.
“Fires of the Past” (10/2/99) – Searching for their memories puts
Blackarachnia and Rattrap against Jetstorm, Thrust and Tankor.
“Mercenary Pursuits” (10/9/99) – Rattrap discovers a virus that will
help him transform—the only problem is, once he starts he can’t stop.
“Forbidden Fruit” (10/16/99) – The Maximals discover a strange new
Maximal and a fruit tree, both impossible on Cybertron.
“The Weak Component” (10/23/99) – Lacking weapons when he finally
transforms, Rattrap makes a deal with Megatron.
“Revelations, Part I: Discovery” (10/30/99) – The Maximals discover
the shells of the missing Transformers while Blackarachnia is convinced
Thrust’s spark was Silverbolt’s.
“Revelations, Part II: Descent” (11/6/99) – Cheetor tries to restore
Rhinox’s spark in Tankor while Blackarachnia loses hers to Jetstorm.
“Revelations, Part III: Apoclaypse” (11/13/99) – Nightscream tries to
retrieve Blackarachnia’s spark and Optimus makes contact with Rhonox’s.
“Survivor” (11/27/99) – Megatron has Nightscream kidnapped to learn
his secrets.
“Techno-Organic War Part I: The Key” (12/4/99) – Tankor discovers a
weapon that can turn organics into cybernetic metal and uses it on Nightscream.
“Techno-Organic War Part II: The Catalyst” (12/11/99) – Rattrap
discovers a program that can speed up the growth of plants on Cybertron.
“Techno-Organic War Part III: End of the Line” (12/18/99) – Megatron
sets a doomsday weapon that will wipe out all organic life on Megatron.
Season 2:
“Fallout” (8/5/00) – Destroying Cybertron leads Optimus to learn their
whole purpose was to bring organic life back from Earth to balance the planet.
“Savage Noble” (8/19/00) – The Maximals are being stalked as they try
to recruit the Vehicons.
“Prometheus Unbound” (8/26/00) – A supposed ally sabotages the
Maximals’ attempt at infiltrating Megatron’s base.
“In Darkest Knight” (9/2/00) – Blackarachnia revives Silverbolt.
“A Wolf in the Fold” (9/9/00) – The Maximals are infected by a virus
that turn them into enemies.
“Home Soil” (9/16/00) – A new robot crashes on Cybertron and Optimus
turns her into the Maximal Botanica.
“Sparkwar Part I: The Strike” (9/23/00) – Megatron unleashes a new set
of generals on the Maximals.
“Sparkwar Part II: The Search” (9/30/00) – The Maximals search for
missing sparks in order to defeat Megatron.
“Sparkwar Part III: The Siege” (10/7/00) – The Maximals find the
sparks and race to prevent Megatron’s ultimate Ascension.
“Spark of Darkness” (10/28/00) – Megatron is defeated, but a new
threat lurks on Cybertron.
“Endgame Part I: The Downward Spiral” (11/4/00) – The Maximals gather
to protect the sparks from a tyrant.
“Endgame Part II: When Legends Fall” (11/11/00) – The Maximals prepare
to make their final stand.
“Endgame Part III: Seeds of the Future” (11/18/00) – Optimus and
Megatron engage in their final battle.
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