The Energon Pub

Why no love for the Beast Machines?

Very compelling story, great characters, great ending even though it might have been abrupt.

Its gotten slightly better reception since its release and initial disgust. Just late enough that Bob Skir still got those masses of death threats though.

Personally, I thought the writing was awful. You could sense the writer's desperation to make these characters as close to their Beast Wars incarnations as possible, and their absolute shamelessness at what they'd produced.

Aside from that, I thoroughly enjoyed the new take on things with the TransOrganic aspect. Nice twist to it. The ending was absolutely fine, I thought. Just doesn't explain why Megatron didn't just fly out of the pit but, eh.

The maximal's morphing was horrible. Granted 'Transform' doesn't really specify the method, but the generally accepted method is simple parts shifting, not complete morphing. At least it wasnt ditched COMPLETELY (the vehicons still transformed). I also quite liked the Omnipotent Megatron thing, the one single mind on Cybertron, very intimidating.

But thats all after repeat viewings. I hated it first time.

Desperation? I think not. Just a different storyline is all.More Aggressive than anyother out there

aggression? You're gonna have to explain that one, I don't follow.

And yeah, desperation. You can tell clearly their writing style is massively different from Bob Forward and Larry Ditilio (is that his name?) from Beast Wars. I wish they'd have been brought on for BM. But yeah, its so different and you can see in the things the characters say they're trying to keep them in line with their previous selves but, in my opinion, they didnt do it that well.

As in aggression i mean the way optimus was and the oracle, and the whole techno organic approach.Something that had never been thought of before.Why the beast wars really happened.I thought was aggressive.

are you sure you mean aggressive?

I like the sort of alternate reason to the beast wars, i like little twists like that, and luckily its not TOO far fetched or contradicted against. Primal becoming all zen-master was... different. especially when he was a scientist, which is what I mean by having the characters obviously different yet trying to retain their old selves.

The whole spiritual aspect was something Transformers didn't need. Mysticism, yes. Spirituality, no. Provided you define the two very differently.

I thoguht the dislike came from not liking the organic thing. That with the ending... I liked it till then.

I thought it was because of Primal smokin t3h w33d.

I loved Beast Machines. The hopelessness of a few heroes against seemingly insurmountable odds made for a much more dramatic series. And some of the plot points were incredible in my book - Discovering Jetstorm was Silverbolt was one thing, but finding out that Rhinox had become a Vehicon of his own volition completely threw me for a loop.

The only things I didn't like so much were the character designs (particularly the 'morphing' transformations, which the Vehicons were about as guilty of as the Maximals), and the techno-organic Cybertron... I didn't mind that so much, but it was the fact (inference? I can't remember offhand) that they were somehow returning Cybertron to its original organic nature, which, as we all know, is cowpoop.

But given the stories, graphics (the characters looked good, even if not like the toys, and the backgrounds and moodsetting were great) and acting, frankly, I could look past that easily.

I also liked the way optimus went all zenlike on everyone.He had contact mentally with the oracle and individual sparks. The development of the characters

Cheetor - leading the team
rtatrap - not being as selfish
blackarachinia - not being cold and cunning as she was before

Anyway i just liked alot of stuff about it.Being different isnt always bad

The one thing that really turned me off Beast Machines was the hypocrisy of the characters we were supposed to be rooting for. They talked about the importance of choice and then only let a select few have it (and didn't seem to care when their actions horribly disfigured Waspinator). They talked about the importance of "balance," but villified wholly-metallic planets like Cybertron while finding nothing "imbalanced" about wholly-organic planets like Earth. I especially found it painful that, while they trumpeted the cause of the individual and the importance of differences, when Rattrap was confused and insecure about his new form, Megatron showed him more consideration than any Maximal, not only keeping his deal with him, but supporting his last-minute decision to reject it.

I will say this for BM: it was written competently. The only continuity flaw was intentional (which made me hate it even more, but that's beside the point). It was a really bad story by some really good writers.

EDIT: I also wanted to add, in the "pros" of BM, it had pretty natural-sounding dialogue, and Megatron's Cybertron did have a very eerie atmosphere.

I thought it was alright. Not as good as G1 or Beast Wars, but better than the last 4 Transformer series.