Just posted this in the
Beast Wars Neo thread, but I feel it fits here too since it pertains to the larger Beast Era as a whole.
I'm on Episode 29
[of Beast Wars Neo] now and, after all these years of such limited accessibility to both this show and Beast Wars Second, I think it's safe to say that the Western fandom has blown something out of proportion (
quelle suprise!).
In the BWII movie, Optimus Primal is treated as a "legendary Supreme Commander" by Lio Convoy's teammates, revered and awed as some greatly respected figure. This movie, being one of the scarcely few pieces of JBW media that the Western fandom had access to thanks to Ctenosaur Fansubs, helped fuel the initial misconception that the "Convoy" of Beast Wars might have been treated by Japan as the same "Convoy" of the G1 cartoon. Of course, Beast Wars Metals would debunk this when it showed the two to be separate individuals like in the English version.
Still, though, this "legendary" status that Optimus Primal held in the BWII movie remained, which felt at odds with his depiction in Beast Wars as merely a lowly ship captain. Yet, Japan still regarded him as a Supreme Commander in their version, a title that to a Western fan seemed more prestigious than the captaincy rank Primal held.
When it was later confirmed that BWII and Neo actually took place eons after Beast Machines (rather than contemporary to the "three centuries later" hometime of the BW cast, as the Western fandom originally believed), this "legendary" status of Primal's suddenly made some degree of sense retroactively, since he alone saved all of Cybertron from extinction by Megatron, sacrificing himself at the end of Beast Machines. Indeed, this was even incorporated into the Convoy Council's backstory in the Legends LG-EX Blue Big Convoy pack-in comic.
But... here's the thing.
ALL THREE Convoys of the Beast Era are treated as "legendary" figures.
Out of the gate, Big Convoy is called a "legendary warrior", known for being a "One-Man Army" who won many front-line battles singlehandedly. And later in the series, he's called a "Supreme Commander" in regards to his being in charge of Break, Stampy, Longrack, Colada, and Heinrad. A guy put in charge of merely five (later six) individuals is given such a lofty title, when he's pretty much just a mere ship captain. Sound familiar?
What's more, Beast Wars Neo takes place, what, a few years after Beast Wars Second? Is that all? If so, then that's how long Lio Convoy has been MIA. And yet, here in Episode 29, he too is called a "legendary warrior", the exact same wording used previously to describe Big Convoy (Stampy even points out this notion, and Mach Kick later calls them "two legendary warriors"), with Big Convoy's teammates even going gaga over Lio Convoy with the same kind of awe and wonderment that Lio Convoy's team had for Optimus Primal in the movie.
It really seems to me like this whole "legendary" thing really isn't all that special, certainly not to the extent that the early Western fandom made it out to be, what with how few folks in the West actually got to experience these two shows back then. Same goes for being a Supreme Commander. Sure, that actually meant something in the G1 era (being the highest-ranked sole authority in the Autobot army), but by the Beast Era, any blue-helmeted mouth-plated novice could be one, and all it gets ya is an average-sized spaceship and a small crew of misfits. And you apparently get to be called "legendary" by the next guy's crew. :p