The Energon Pub

I do find it strange how they downplayed the pre-existing animals of G1 when Beast Wars came into being. One two of the Five Dinobot dinosaurs made it into the Mainframe show, in Megs and Terrorsaur. Plus the ironic Maximal inclusion of Rhinox and Primal, in comparison to their Predacon and Horrorcon predecessors.

If Beast Wars had been made today, no doubt everyone would have been recycled, even down to the names.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:I do find it strange how they downplayed the pre-existing animals of G1 when Beast Wars came into being. One two of the Five Dinobot dinosaurs made it into the Mainframe show, in Megs and Terrorsaur. Plus the ironic Maximal inclusion of Rhinox and Primal, in comparison to their Predacon and Horrorcon predecessors.

If Beast Wars had been made today, no doubt everyone would have been recycled, even down to the names.

When BW was made, the idea of a 'legacy character' was only barely formed, with only Optimus Prime/Primal and Megatron being deemed important to the brand. The rest were often just some cool name they slapped on a character (Scorponok, Rampage, Dinobot, Silverbolt and Inferno being prime example within the show itself). That era up until the Unicron Trilogy (and even that was playing fast and loose beyond the most major of archetypes) the brand was seen very differently.

Its the bay movies and the massive '80 nostalgia boom which has led the franchise down the path of always sticking to the same design for every same character. During Beast Wars, the fanbase didn't really exist in its modern form yet. Appealing to the now adult G1 kids wasn't the intent. Its just the BW show decided to tie into the original cartoon (and comics), slowly winning over the fans when initially the show was seen as some abomination. The TRUKK NOT MUNKKY reaction, while overblown, was understandable because from the '80 to the late '90 there were only two incarnations of the brand: cartoon and comics, with the Japanese stuff being known but not very accessible.

Skritz wrote:

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:I do find it strange how they downplayed the pre-existing animals of G1 when Beast Wars came into being. One two of the Five Dinobot dinosaurs made it into the Mainframe show, in Megs and Terrorsaur. Plus the ironic Maximal inclusion of Rhinox and Primal, in comparison to their Predacon and Horrorcon predecessors.

If Beast Wars had been made today, no doubt everyone would have been recycled, even down to the names.

When BW was made, the idea of a 'legacy character' was only barely formed, with only Optimus Prime/Primal and Megatron being deemed important to the brand. The rest were often just some cool name they slapped on a character (Scorponok, Rampage, Dinobot, Silverbolt and Inferno being prime example within the show itself). That era up until the Unicron Trilogy (and even that was playing fast and loose beyond the most major of archetypes) the brand was seen very differently.

Its the bay movies and the massive '80 nostalgia boom which has led the franchise down the path of always sticking to the same design for every same character. During Beast Wars, the fanbase didn't really exist in its modern form yet. Appealing to the now adult G1 kids wasn't the intent. Its just the BW show decided to tie into the original cartoon (and comics), slowly winning over the fans when initially the show was seen as some abomination. The TRUKK NOT MUNKKY reaction, while overblown, was understandable because from the '80 to the late '90 there were only two incarnations of the brand: cartoon and comics, with the Japanese stuff being known but not very accessible.

Since we're talking "Legacy" characters, its predecessor Generation 2 had quite a few in its tail-end redecos, but that didn't save it. In fact, I'm willing to bet it only made things worse, so Hasbro did not repeat that... until Machine Wars

What's funny to me is that the Beast Era managed to miss out on reusing the name "Bumblebee". Which led to trouble for Aaron Archer.

I think the Beast era worked out pretty good for no Bumblebee, and Cheetor was a worthy kid appeal.

Funny this list came up, I almost bought an Injector tonight, but realized I am oh so close to getting some ebay bucks in a week, so will wait till april to buy him. But him showing up in Cyberverse and just realizing how cool a toy he looks to be, I must get him. Same with Airhammer

D-Maximal_Primal wrote:I think the Beast era worked out pretty good for no Bumblebee, and Cheetor was a worthy kid appeal.

I'm just saying, it makes me laugh that the Beast Era somehow managed to not reuse such a blatantly animal-based name at any point. Now that I think about, "Hound" is also conspicuously absent from the recycled names.

Well the thing is, they couldn't have a toy called Bumblebee that transformed into a bee otherwise that would be difficult to trademark or they could have a toy called Bumblebee that didn't transform into a bee.

I guess the same thing applies to Hound.

They had a spider guy whose name was literally just the plural of "tarantula" spelling-wise, and a dinosaur guy named "Dinobot".

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:They had a spider guy whose name was literally just the plural of "tarantula" spelling-wise, and a dinosaur guy named "Dinobot".

Yes, they each had a catch. Tarantulas being plural and Dinobot being Dino and bot.

Bumblebee and Hound are just Bumblebee and Hound.

Wait what did Injector show up in Cyberverse? When?! HOW?! WHY?!?!?

Skritz wrote:Wait what did Injector show up in Cyberverse? When?! HOW?! WHY?!?!?

It's a season 3 spoiler for anyone who didn't watch the whole season that Sabrblade posted in the Thread. He's not major or anything, but like Airhammer, he does show up

FWIW, it was Bob Forward himself who canonized the Unicron connection for Tarantulas.