Transformers: Beast Machines Pros and (Vehi)Cons

Beast Machines is still to this day the most controversial Transformers series in the franchise. One of the main controversies is the idea of Cybertron being a once organic planet. Beast Machines fails and succeeds at many things, some of which must not be taken at face value.

Pros

The tone: One of the more criticized elements of the series is the dark and bleak tone, which I honestly feel is a plus. The tone for this series is PERFECT, and definitely encapsulates what a higher stakes sequel to the still fairly serious Beast Wars should be. Very much a dark, dystopian cyberpunk series, this was the first Transformers series to take place exclusively on Cybertron. And it works, oh so well.

I wonder if the Cybertron setting was planned from the get go, as cgi was expensive at the time, meaning that if it was decided that the show would return to Cybertron, that there would need to be a reason for an "empty" Cybertron (i.e. the technorganic virus) to make up for the lack of flippant cgi usage.

SOME of the characterizations: Cheetor's evolution from a wide eyed adolescent to a seasoned warrior who must step up and accept his new place when Optimus' fanaticism takes hold is BRILLIANT and brilliantly done. Blackarachnia and Silverbolt's plots basically being the reverse of Beast Wars was also interesting. Megatron's insistence on one singular mind control makes sense, considering the constant failure of his Predacons, let alone the constant infighting of his Decepticon ancestors. While a far cry from his Beast Wars persona, Silverbolt's evolution still makes sense considering what he goes through, and is indicative of the "Adam West to Dark Knight Returns" vibe that the writers were going for.

Music: The techno music really sets the mood for this hard sci-fi series, and very much feels like house music of the era, namely Real Mccoy.

(Vehi)cons

Most characterizations are bad: Rattrap becomes a coward. Nuff said.

Megatron's hatred of individuality makes sense, but his hatred of organic life doesn't. It didn't cause him to lose the Beast Wars, his troops did. It was simply part of the tacked on and lazy "technology is bad, nature is good" theme that is completely inappropriate for Transformers.

The idea of an organic Cybertron goes against Primus......literally. Beast Wars is a sequel to the Marvel comics continuity. Thus, Cybertron IS Primus. Considering that they made sure that they writers of this series knew nothing of established continuity, what did you expect?

Nightscream is annoying. Nuff said.

The Maximals run WAAAY too much.

The plot kind of meanders in the middle of both seasons.

The ending........can you say Mass Effect 3?

Overall, Beast Machines is a fair series, but a terrible Transformers series. Considering that it not only goes out of its way to steep itself in established continuity, but also it being a sequel to Beast Wars, means that you CAN NOT divorce it from Transformers when reviewing it.

Thus, a 6/10.

I don't mind dark tones in Transformers stories, as All Hail Megatron had a dark tone and I enjoyed that story. However, my problem with Beast Machine's tone is it goes from being just dark to flat out depressing. There was never a single light-hearted moment in the whole show. All Hail Megatron had a few light-hearted moments here and there but this show was just too dark. The show just takes itself too seriously.

The only things I honestly liked about the show were some of the Vehicon's characterizations, the Vehicons designs looked cool, the CGI for the time was great, and the voice acting was good. I hate pretty much everything else about the show. I don't care for any of the Maximals and flat out hate some of them, I hate the way it retcons so many things that were previously established both plot-wise and character-wise (like Cybertron having once been an organic planet when none of the previous series ever showed that and Megatron's motivations are examples), the Maximal's designs in the show are the single worst robot designs in the whole Transformers franchise, I think that the tone is too dark, and there's probably more but I think you get the idea.

I plan on reviewing every single Transformers show ever made at some point so when I actually do that, I'll go into more detail about why I don't like this show at all.

@mrdirector786: I don't think it's too depressing.whats makes it depressing is how horrible of a follow up it is and how bad of a send off to g1 it is. I don't consider it canon.

Also, i LOVE what happened with rhinox, but of course it was tied to the whole technorganic crap

Admittedly, I liked what they did with Rhinox as well but I hate how they killed him off at the end of the first season. I will say that if this was some sort of elseworld's story that wasn't canon to G1 and Beast Wars, some of the problems I have with the show wouldn't be a big deal.

@mrdirector786: What would have been great is if megatron still wanted to plunge cybertron into a singular hive age, with Optimus leading a resustance against it. Optimus basically becomes an afrocentrist(black person with back to Africa mentality and overcompensating about it) wanting instead to return Cybetron to a primitive clockwork type era that it was in before the Quintessons invaded and split the species into two factions. Rhinox/tankor opposes both megatron and Optimus, and even Cheetor becomes disillusioned with Optimus' regressive cultural fanaticism. Eventually Cheetor must grow into the leader he was meant to be and save Cybertron, with Optimus realizing how he had failed both the Maximals and his planet in general. Realizing that evolution is the nature of Transformers, Optimus sacrifices himself in the final battle against megatron so that Cheetor may live on and lead a new generation of cybertronians

@jointron33: I personally think that the story should have actually developed upon lesser developed parts of Beast Wars. I honestly wouldn't have minded getting a sequel to Beast Wars - I just wish it wasn't the sequel we got. While Beast Wars was great it still had a few things that had more potential for further development. For example, near the end of the show we learn Tarantulas and the Tripredacus council actually descended from Unicron and not the Decepticons. I think it would have been interesting to know exactly how that happened. Then there's also the idea of giving the council more of a role in the show. Although their part was small, we learned that they secretly desired to overthrow the Maximals and take over Cybertron just like their ancestors and like Megatron was trying to do in the show. So developing more on that would have been cool as well, like perhaps the show could have been about how they feel it is finally the time for them to begin a coup to take over Cybertron or something. There are probably more undeveloped areas but I'm just giving a few examples.

@mrdirector786: Well they got toys, but cgi costs were a lot back then

Yeah I think it would have being great to see a fully fledged Cybertron like how it was. And how it had changed. Since all we actually get to see is Megatrons changed version. And Id have like to have seen more Maximals and more Predacons like how they are in the comics. And they could have even had a story line similar to the comics with Magmatron and how the Predacons are split as opposed to being one big army. How awesome would it have being to see both Megatron and Magmatron go at each other in animation. Also another really interesting theme/plot point that was really briefly touched upon with Rampage but gave us some insight was that the Maximals were not clear cut "good guys" and had done horrible things to people like Rampage. I would have liked to have seen that idea expand which paints a less one sided picture of the "good guys". And it would have being great to see Tri Predicus in full Gestalt mode!

PRO: NO HUMANS!!!!

CON: THEY KILLED DEPTH CHARGE!!!

@god_spawn: that was Beast Wars though, so yeah

@mrdecepticonleader: With the different factions within factions, they cud hint that many of the "evil" predacons were simply browbeaten into villainy, and that after the Great War, many Autobots had forced former Decepticons who had been granted "amnesty" into an apartheid state, making them live in ghettos

@joeagentofhand1: Then that is entirely my bad.

I thought that killing Depth Charge was a pro.

if they would have done the Transtech sequel they had planned on instead of Robots in Disguise then Depth Charge would have came back and he would have looked awesome

@danhimself: They need to make the transtech toys

@jointron33: they kind of did...they say that the Marvel Megamorphs line was done by the same people who did the designs for Transtech so the Hulk figure is based on Immorticon and Iron Man is Starscream and apparently several of the designs have been adapted into other toylines. Notably Armada Megatron, and Armada Scavenger and Energon Landmine

@danhimself: =O That is awesome!!!

@mrdecepticonleader: I actually thought it was too. He was just my fave and he became the ultimate badass in that show.

@danhimself: Animated blur

I read the title as Transformers: Breast Machines Pro... now I want Transforming Breast Machines!

Also...love Beast Machines!

@god_spawn: Yeah he was kind of like the Batman of Beast Wars.

@durakken: Disgusting!!!!! And I don't mean the breast machines part

deceptiv(con) - idk

yeah apparently he was based on Cheetor's design

@danhimself: That design looks awesome.

@mrdirector786: yeah you should google Transformers Transtech designs...a lot of them are pretty cool and are pretty different from other the usual types of designs we see...I really like the Optimus Prime design

Really dig Megatrons design and you can see how it inspired the Armada version. Looking at it, it really could be made into a toy pretty easily.

@mrdecepticonleader: And animated shockwave

I can see some similarities.

Seroiusly, so much good in this series is marred by the bad

@jointron33: have you heard anything about the next series?

@danhimself: wut next series?

@jointron33: whatever the series is after Prime...apparently some of the guys who worked on Prime are working on it as well...but other than that all I've heard are rumors that sound really unlikely

@jointron33: I always thought the Beast Machines Series along with the Beast Wars were great, and I generally like other Transformer series but I haven't seen them all the way through nor have I read the Transformer comics... From what I know those 2 series I mentioned were well told and self-contained they are consistent...though I haven't sat down and tried to take them apart.

So I think maybe consistency with those other sources may skew your feelings and that's perfectly acceptable, but I could never understand why, on it's own merits anyone would say Beast Machines was a bad show.

Also... Anthromorphicons should be a thing... and there should be 2 boob robots!

@danhimself: Like wut

@jointron33: like I found a page that had a full cast on it already...like all of the characters and the people that are supposedly voicing them...that seems like to much info when I couldn't find even a synopsis for the show yet

Seriously this show should have gone into cybertronian politics and why there is still tension between the factions. For instance, the predacons could be alluded to like Black people, with rogues like Megatron being militant extremists, and the seemingly inept Tripedacus Council alluded to the historically failed NAACP

@mrdirector786: Also, considering that the Tripedacus council was basically a Predacon NAACP, an organization that had become irrelevant, there could be in fighting between the Predacons themselves over who is a "sellout" or not

@mrdirector786: @mrdecepticonleader: @jointron33: http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/08/07/roberto-orci-on-the-next-transformers-animated-series-and-whether-it-will-continue-transformer-primes-story

Cool. I'm glad to hear it's set in the Prime Universe.

I loved it and own the entire series personally. My only issue with it was how it ended, well Optimus Primal Dying....but I understand why.

I loved Beast Wars and genuinely enjoyed Beast Machines. I'd rate the series 8/10. Thought it was far better then armada, animated transformers series honestly. On that note, I miss Prime.

Wait a second, didn't Prime end last year with Optimus getting buried by Megatron? What the hell? Did I miss something? Where can I see episodes from that point after the second season?!

There was a new season earlier this year called Transformers Prime: Beast Hunters. You might have missed it because even though it's the same show, the name change caused it to be technically considered a different show by things like DVR. So if you were set to record just regular Transformers Prime, it wouldn't record Transformers Prime: Beast Hunters. The Beast Hunters season ended about 2 weeks ago. Now all that's left is an epilogue movie coming out in the fall called Predacons Rising. I think it will air on TV but you can also preorder it on Amazon right now.

Interesting news. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

I am a little skeptical as to the "more kid friendly" thing. I mean Prime was really well balanced in that respect. It managed to appeal to children and older fans. I do wonder what they meant about the animation too. Since if it is going to be a continuation of Prime it really should have the same animation and format.

I am glad though that Welker and Cullen will be called back too. But if that is the case I wonder who Welker will be voicing. Not that he won't be able to voice another character besides Megatron but I guess that will also be revealed later down the line.

That is of course assuming they will come back, which I mean they likely will.

Ha ha yeah you have missed alot. You can watch all the episodes on you tube. That is where I watch em.

Here is the first episode of season 3

well technically Transformers GO! which is airing in Japan right now is a sequel to Transformers Prime....I really hope that they're not talking about that...I doubt they are since it's already airing...just based off of the one undubbed and unsubbed episode I watched it appears to be terrible

I just watched a bit now. And yeah its sort of painful..