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So yea, yesterday I was at a local electronics store where I found the previously announced Beast Wars German DVD box set by Pandavision so I picked it up!

A few facts beforehand:

• This is the first time Beast Wars has ever been released on home video in Germany, not counting the pilot episodes Beast Wars Part I and II that where released as pack-in VHSs (remember those) and I believe those where in English.
  
• This is the first DVD release of the full first season of Beast Wars in Europe.
  
• It's the full first season and it's handled in a very respectable way.
  
• Beast Wars is awesome.

translation of the back of the box wrote:The Predacons, the descendants of the insidious Decepticons, land on a mysterious Planet in search for the super fuel Energon. Optimus Primal and his Maximals must prevent by all means that Megatron and his henchmen get their hands on this substance, because with the Energon they can fulfil their plan of ruling the Universe.

"Beast Wars", Hasbro's Dinosaur heavy reboot of the Transformers franchise, is regarded by many fans, even today, as the best Transformers series of all time. The ground-breaking usage of 3D computer animation was honoured with the Emmy®-Award for outstanding achievements in animation.

How's that for a DVD box back!

As for the box itself, it's a digipack, and contains all 26 episodes on 5 discs, in both English and German language. There are however no subtitles or special features save for four character art-cards using edited screen-shots.

The episodes are uncut and uncensored, well they are slightly cut since they are missing the ending credits but that's all they're missing.









The video and sound are good, I have no complaints with either, the picture is crisp and clear, sadly it's so clear and crisp that you can sometimes see imperfections in the 3D models and the separate parts they're made from. Sometimes you can also tell that the background textures are of a lower quality than the character models, but that's not a fault of the DVDs.

The menus are pretty nice, simple and functional. the main menu of each disc shows the different episode titles contained on the disc (in German) while clips from the episodes are shown with the theme song.





The video uses the German title cards, even when the English track is selected, this is kinda annoying but for those who don't read German, the DVD box contains a list of all episodes in German alongside the original English titles in brackets.

If you live in Europe and have no way of watching the US or Australian releases this is a good alternative, so should you be interested in importing this and don't know any German, here's a little help in using the DVDs:





Looking at the box, the way it's made and presented, ant the promotional inlay for other releases, I say there is a good chance that Seasons 2 and 3 will also see release even if they haven't been dubbed into German.

Now excuse me, I still have a few episodes to watch!

Excellent review.

Though, mentioned these being uncut save for the end credits. What about the commercial bumpers? Were those left intact or are they gone too?

And what of the title sequence? Is is the short version or the full version?


I ask since both the Kid Rhino and Shout! Factory DVDs were missing the commercial bumpers, and used the short opening of season 1 instead of the long opening.

Sabrblade wrote:Excellent review.

Though, mentioned these being uncut save for the end credits. What about the commercial bumpers? Were those left intact or are they gone too?

And what of the title sequence? Is is the short version or the full version?


I ask since both the Kid Rhino and Shout! Factory DVDs were missing the commercial bumpers, and used the short opening of season 1 instead of the long opening.

Full version of the opening.
As in the same one as here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FKpU0pnne8

No commercial bumpers, that's due to being based on the German video, children's cartoons usually don't have commercial brakes in Germany the commercials come after and before the episode, so there is no need for bumpers.

Dead Metal wrote:Full version of the opening.
As in the same one as here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FKpU0pnne8

That's the one.

Why neither Rhino nor Shout! opted to use this one over the shortened Power Block version I'll never know.

thats an awesome cover, makes the show seem so dark and serious.

If you go into the DVD player's menu and change the player's (not disc's) language to English, does that affect the menu language? I've seen a few DVD's that do change that sort of thing that way, so I was just curious.

Optimum Supreme wrote:If you go into the DVD player's menu and change the player's (not disc's) language to English, does that affect the menu language? I've seen a few DVD's that do change that sort of thing that way, so I was just curious.

No, the menu is in German no matter what language you set your DVD player.

Remember the German Beast Wars DVD box we reviewed last weekend?

Well this is a bit of a follow up to that review, Dead Metal mentioned how he believed there was a good chance that Pandavision would release the remaining seasons 2 and 3, well he sent an e-mail to Pandavision asking if they would, this is the response he received:
"Names changed"

German wrote:Sehr geehrter Herr Metal,
vielen Dank für Ihre Anfrage und Ihr Interesse an unserer Serie „Transformers – Beast Wars“.
Derzeit ist eine Veröffentlichung von weiteren Staffeln nicht geplant, da es keine deutsche Synchronisation gibt.
Bei Rückfragen stehe ich Ihnen gerne zur Verfügung.
Mit freundlichen Grüßen,

Max Mustermann

English translation wrote:Dear Mr Metal,
Thank you very much for your interest in our series "Transformers - Beast Wars."
There are currently no plans to release any further seasons, due to there being no German dub.
I will gladly stand bye for any further questions.
Respectfully,
Max Mustermann

So there you have it, seasons 2 and 3 won't be released in Germany, lets hope a different European label will release a PAL version, or just do as Dead Metal does now, hack your DVD player and import a complete box set from the US or Australia.

Stay tuned to seibertron.com for all your Transformers related news!

Wait, they only dubbed season 1 into German? That's cheap.

Did the show flop or something back when it first aired in Germany?

I want to hack my DVD player, but I don't have a hatchet.

Sabrblade wrote:Wait, they only dubbed season 1 into German? That's cheap.

Did the show flop or something back when it first aired in Germany?

No apparently it had pretty good ratings and was quite successful even considering it's horrible air slot (around 11 am during week days while children where at school).
Plus the toys where super successful they even made it in a special hasbro promotion consisting of their most successful lines in Germany.

I guess it's due to the same reason Armada only consisted of the first 6 episodes and the Unicron Battles, and Cybertron only of the first 20 episodes, Hasbro rushed the studio to have one or two months worth of episodes as a cheap advertisement for the line. That's just how they role, TF the Movie 07 wasn't even promoted over here save for a trailer that was shown as part of a show that showed the most popular youtube videos of the week...

Dead Metal wrote:(...)
I guess it's due to the same reason Armada only consisted of the first 6 episodes and the Unicron Battles, and Cybertron only of the first 20 episodes, Hasbro rushed the studio to have one or two months worth of episodes as a cheap advertisement for the line. That's just how they role, TF the Movie 07 wasn't even promoted over here save for a trailer that was shown as part of a show that showed the most popular youtube videos of the week...

Sound like par for the course for Hasbro's European marketing 'strategies'.
Here in the Netherlands, English language cartoons usually get subtitled instead of dubbed, which is probably a little cheaper (although Germany is of course by far a bigger market, making dubbing a little more cost efficient)... I think we did get all three seasons.

I was lucky enough to be in Australia last year and picked up their DVD set in a bid to cure me of my Beast Era ignorance, not just a great TF show, but a great piece of TV sci-fi full stop.

It's a shame it hasn't been treated better in PAL land, bak in the day, there were even UK exclusive BW toys that came with some VHS releases...

Pretender Skywarp wrote:I was lucky enough to be in Australia last year and picked up their DVD set in a bid to cure me of my Beast Era ignorance, not just a great TF show, but a great piece of TV sci-fi full stop.

It's a shame it hasn't been treated better in PAL land, bak in the day, there were even UK exclusive BW toys that came with some VHS releases...

The Transmetal repaints of Spittor and the squid? Cos those where the only VHS release of Beast Wars over here.

alldarker wrote:

Dead Metal wrote:(...)
I guess it's due to the same reason Armada only consisted of the first 6 episodes and the Unicron Battles, and Cybertron only of the first 20 episodes, Hasbro rushed the studio to have one or two months worth of episodes as a cheap advertisement for the line. That's just how they role, TF the Movie 07 wasn't even promoted over here save for a trailer that was shown as part of a show that showed the most popular youtube videos of the week...

Sound like par for the course for Hasbro's European marketing 'strategies'.
Here in the Netherlands, English language cartoons usually get subtitled instead of dubbed, which is probably a little cheaper (although Germany is of course by far a bigger market, making dubbing a little more cost efficient)... I think we did get all three seasons.

Yea, we love our dubbing over here, and Hasbro just sucks in Europe.

How utterly un-surprising. I can't figure out why Beast Wars hasn't received more PAL love seeing as it's had about three or four NTSC releases and we actually have the complete Beast Machines on DVD in Europe.