The Energon Pub

Howdy gang, I acquired some Beast Wars figures recently, and a thought crossed my mind: why did X character get put into the show instead of Y? Now don't get me wrong, the choices they made were fine, but there's always that "what if" scenerio, and I do like bits of trivia.

For example, I read on the TF Wiki that Insecticon was supposed to be in the show, but was pulled(budget, I imagine). Any other early releases strongly considered that didn't make the grade?

Another thing I read was that Wolfang was supposed to be in the show, but due to budgetary constraints(again), they went with Tigertron. Was there an alternate for Black Arachnia, or was she always meant to be the sixth Pred?

Inferno being introduced I get because he was a higher cost figure, thus sales of said figure would presumabely be higher(though that seemed to have backfired). Yet on the Maxi side they had Airazor, a basic. Was it for gender diversity?

Seasons 2 & 3 is a bit more confounding. Of the 10 Fuzors made they only went with two for the show. Any reason why Silverbolt and Quickstrike were chosen specificically, or was it a case of they only had four to choose from at the time(Air Hammer and Sky Shadow being the other two), and the animators picked their favorite, with the others being passed on because of budget.

Transmetals need no explanation, because I figure it was due to budget reasons why Waspinator, Rhinox, Airazor and Terrorsaur didn't get the upgrade. That, and Rampage/Depth Charge were higher dollar figures.

Finally, Transmetal 2's. They made a sizable number of figures, yet the only "new" character from the line was Tigerhawk(and Dinobot II...sorta). Was it budget or Hasbro's urging that made them choose to upgrade only established cast members instead of introducing new ones? I mean, a new model is a new model, and probably cost about the same either way. Were they stretched on voice actors?

Well I think that's all the questions I have.

Mostly the reason new characters were a rare occurance was the cost of cgi models and animation back then. The cast was kept small to keep costs down, and not everyone could upgrade because of this as well.

I think Polar Claw as another early candidate for being on the show. He was supposed to be the second-in-command to Primal. I can't think of any others.

I don't think there was alternative for Blackarachnia's spot. As for Tigatron, it was cheaper to retool Cheetor's model than build a new one for Wolfang.

Inferno was supposed to be a new body for Megatron believe it or not. They were going to kill of Megs and revive him as Inferno. That didn't pan out obviously. Airazor is the result of the writers wanting more female presence in the show, and Airazor was among the next wave of figures to be released.

Silverbolt and Quickstrike were probably the most popular of the four at the time, thus they were picked for the show.

Dinobot II was acctually an experiment of bringing back old characters in new bodies. Cheetor got to upgrade as well since was the kid-appeal character and would sell. Tigerhawk is an interesting case. He was introduced and killed off in about 3 episodes because his figure was in constant flux.

Did that answer most of your questions?

I don't think it was just cost (for instance, Tigatron was merely a tweaked Cheetor, and thus replaced Wolfang), but it also had to do with balancing the story line and character development. If you look at a couple of Mainframe's other shows, like ReBoot and War Planets: Shadow Raiders, you'll notice that the main cast was limited as well.

It's true Hasbro had a hand in whatever direction the show should go (the fans too, that fact saved Waspinator and doomed Terrorsaur instead), but I suspect Mainframe was still put on a very loose leash. Maybe Mainframe picked the figures that had character or potential built into them, and went from there. Look at Silverbolt for instance. Wolves are sometimes cast as very noble creatures, hence his knight-like characterisation in the show. They must have had plenty of fun with designing the Inferno character, with ants being so driven on instinct. For the colony!