Looking at the series that helped revitalize the Transformers franchise, was an early CG cartoon and really did some great character work: Beast Wars! phelous.com / phelous
What I have read about Inferno is that he was supposed to die in The Agenda, but his toy was one of the larger classes so the decision was made to keep him despite him barely being relevant or much of a threat anymore. Something else interesting to note is that if the series weren't canned in favor of Beast Machines, it's finale would have led to the Maximals using the Ark to chase Megatron into space, and he would be fighting his namesake for control of his body. That would have been the explanation for why he tried to blow up the Ark with the Nemesis, contrasting with before when he seemed horrified by the consequences of such an act. Also G1 Megatron in his cameo is voiced by Gary Chalk. The show tried to get Frank Welker for the cameo but was unsuccessful. This led to Gary Chalk sharing the distinction of voiced the leaders on both sides with David Kaye.
Also Inferno was originally gonna turn transmetal along with Megatron and Tarantulas. But they decided to keep him in his original beast mode, and rename the transmetal ant toy that was released “Scavenger”
@@mitchfletcher2386 I'd say it's also likely that it was a Union concern. From what I'm aware, the Beast Wars actors were non-union at the time of production, but Welker and Cullen were both Union. Correct me if I'm wrong about that, though.
I honestly think Code Of Hero is one of the single best episodes of television ever produced. Every scene in that episode builds up perfectly, escalting in scope until we reach Dinobot's eventual sacrifice, concluding his character arc beautifully. That episode cemented Dinobot as one of the best characters in all of Transformers, and Beast Wars as the best Transformers show.
There is a reason Dinobot was voted into the inaugural class of the Transformers Hall of Fame in 2010. Alongside Optmus Prime, Megatron, Stracream, and Bumblebee, Dinobot was a non G1 character beating out favorites like Soundwave, Grimlock, Jazz, and Shockwave
No the 2010 inaugural class of the Transformers Hall of Fame was Optimus Prime, Megatron, Starscream, Bumblebee, and Dinobot as the fan vote in. Waspinator was the fan vote in the second class of 2011 with Soundwave, Ironhide, and Ratchet.
I am trying to remember who Bumblebee even was in Beast Wars... Hmmm. I'll just assume that it was for everyone and Bumblebee was part of the other series.
Bumblebee was not a part of the Beast Wars cartoon nor do I know of him being around during the time of Beast Wars. All the characters in the show sans Ravage and Starscream's ghost were new characters not part of the great war. IDW did a small Beast Wars mini series where Prowl, Ironhide, and the Aerielbot leader Silverbolt were the residing high council of the Maximals and Grimlock was still around this is either not canon anymore or an alternate universe from their comic universe since in their comic universe the Maximals and Predicons are a lost colony pf Cybertron that developed animal modes instead of vehicles. Tigatron and Airazor are the representatives on the council of worlds.
Thomas Jenkins He only does that in the movies and comics, and Prime are you high, and that isn’t being suicidal, that’s called honor you stupid fuckstick
Here's the deal... I never cared for Transformers, but I loved Beast Wars. To me, Optimus Primal is my Optimus. The characters of Beast Wars are far more appealing and rounded from all the information I've learned about the G1 series. I was satisfied with the Beast Wars I got, and don't need to whine about the team-ups that could have been between the Autobots and the Maximals.
In a way Beast Wars reminds me of Star Trek's Deep Space Nine where instead of planet hopping and meeting one off characters, DS9 focused more on thier smallish cast with great character arcs and stories. It comes to show that you don't need to be big and grand to write great episodes. 😀
I loved Beast Wars. If anything, the cg helped keep the cast small, which prevented them from running into problems like "isn't that character supposed to be dead?" or other character confusions (like miscoloring).
The real benefit of having a smaller cast is having to rely more of developing the characters you have, rather than introducing a new toy... uh... character every episode, doing nothing with them except one or two fights that don't mean anything, then forgetting about them, or only having them in cameos for the rest of the series. There are a lot of other shows that did that precise thing, and it works better the way Beast Wars did it.
@@ailma0400 It was also due to episodes being shown in basically a random order. If it wasn't explicitely a 2-parter it would be shown whenever. And even then a 2-parter or multi part story wasn't a guarantee. That's why they rarely did a serialised story in the G1 days, the episodes would be shown as and when the network felt like it.
either that or waspinator has a hereditary bit of immortality, and maybe that's why he was possessible at all. after all if Screamy had his choice, he'd have gone after Megatron, right?
I watched every single episode of Beast Wars religiously. I watched one episode of Beast Machines, and completely forgot about it for years. I eventually did watch all of Beast Machines, and while not anywhere near as good as Wars, it did have some great standout moments in it.
Funny Story the writers of Beast Machines were told not to watch any episodes of Beast Wars, and it was mandated by Hasbro and Dan Didio(who was head of Mainframe at the time)since they supposedly wanted the series to be accessible to new watchers even though the majority of the audience would be fans of Beast Wars....what an idiot.
+David Miller What the hell that's such a bad choice. Who could possibly make a good follow up to a series without watching the original? Love for what you're following up isn't a guarantee of quality, but it's certainly a good sign.
This is one of 2 Transformers series I actually like. The restrictions of early 3D animation meant they were forced to get a smaller cast which led to a more focused and character driven story and the robots turning into animals instead of vehicles just appeals to me more personally.
Grew up with that show and loved it to death.Thought it wold forever remain as kickass obscure show only i remember so it's absolutely amazing that you gave it the spotlight like this and did it justice
I loved this series. And this was the series that got me fully hooked on Transformers. And yes it helped that I had the Promo Comic that Hasbro had released towards the end of Gen 2 cause it made me more hyped for Beast Wars.
the makers of this show are the anti Teen Titans GO team, when they listen to the fans, they actually make good changes, unlike GO who actually listen and insult the fans
I remember discovering this cartoon at like 8 in the morning and couldn't take my eyes off the animation. The stories sucked me in and then Uncle Phil I think was the voice of the gorilla, so that was awesome
I thought that too when I first heard the voice. Then when I got older and had access tot he internet I found out it wasn't him and was a little disappointed.
Well I for one am glad I was protected as a child from such words as 'slag' and 'ninja' and heaven knows how I would have turned out if I had been exposed to nunchucks. It doesn't bare thinking about.
It's weird. I always felt like Dino-Bot was the Star-Scream of the series, given how often him and Megatron would be fighting for command, but Terror-Soar does fit more the physical description and personality
I just always love to see a talented voice actor getting a chance to voice both an iconic pop culture hero and his equally iconic arch-nemesis, like how Troy Baker has recently started fluctuating between voicing Batman or the Joker in various video games.
I make parodies out of holiday songs with Garry Chalk (Optimus Primal) every year. We started it back in 2017. David Kaye had already been doing it for like six years as Megatron, so I asked Garry to join, who, by the way, is a singer and musician, so it has worked out perfectly. What other fandom receives fun videos from two main characters’ voice actors on a yearly basis? None that I’m aware of. It’s great to be a Beast Wars fan! I’ve loved the show since it first aired in 1996. It’s the only reason I’m still drawing.
It's a real shame the budget didn't' allow them to use all the characters from Beast Wars's toy-line, since G1 Grimlock was one of the Maximals. Would of been interesting to see how he could of interacted with the "new generation" considering how old he'd be by this point in the timeline.
No it’s a good thing because you have all the characters from toyline they won’t develop like in g1 there’s no character development because there is so many of characters so it’s a good thing they had little budget so that way they could develop.
David Kaye is also the longest running voice actor for the TRansformers franchise, essential having a voice in every main series, he was Hard Shell in Prime, and since he was using a more gruff version of his Megatron voice, we basically had the OG megatron talk to the Beast Megatron
It was a unexpected surprise. A great review from one of my favorite tv series when I was a kid. I didn't knew nothing about Transformers until Beast Wars comes. And it was an awesome series, I couldn't seen it on order, but the writers, editors and production crew put a ton of attention to the detail for a kids show made for selling toys. And yes, has some of the best episodes of kids shows and tragic deaths/clifhangers, as Optimus on first season, Dinobot or eagle and tigertron. Thanks for the review Phelous! It was a great travel to nostalgia. ^_^
"Diecast construction, it's a lost art." One thing I definitely liked about this series was the writing. I'll admit when it first came out I was one of the kids that was like "oh this is gonna suck" but actually enjoyed it. As much as some people didn't like it, do you plan on doing a review of Beast Machines? Would like to get your thoughts on that one too.
Oh geez. So many memories of this show. I fell off during the later seasons because they started airing the show on Saturday morning during another show I liked, rather than on weekdays mornings before I had school. Good stuff.
Man have I been waiting for this! Today is _juhannus;_ the midsummer celebration here in Finland, which after christmas, is arguably the most popular holiday over here. It's a tradition to go to your summer cabin if ya got one available - or otherwise outside, get drunk, have a barbecue, and drown in a lake. The weather however is *shit* right now. It doesn't rain where I am at least, but the windstorm would easily get a bear and a kangaroo stuck in a tree.. So I'm stuck home and a bit pissed off. Seeing this vid in my sub feed cheered me up quite a bit though. Thank you.. Thankss. *EDIT:* Before I even got to the end of the vid - a blackout due to the storm. :d Glad it lasted only like five minutes.. Hope that was the last one of those, but I've got a bad feeling.
Ah Blackarachnia and Silverbolt, one of my earliest memories of a wonderful couple from different sentient species, more or less. It's something I remember most.
I know I'm super late here, but I would seriously love a remastered Beast Wars 😇 not a reboot /remake, just simple improvements like more detailed backgrounds, cleaner lines, more updated forms, etc 👍 Also, why didn't they just call it "Beast Forms" instead of Beasties? Forms even sounds close to Wars 🤔💩😂
Phelous' contempt for Beast Machines made me google the TFWiki for the "reception" section, and oh my lord the TFWiki is amazing. Every article is written in Phelous' reviewer voice.
Beast Wars is one of my all time if not my favorite Transformer series. The series made me a big fan of Transformers, and started my obsession with collecting the toys. The show was awesome, the characters were great, and having it be a sequel/spinoff series of G1 was a genius idea. Not only did it make fans happy, but it gave us new comers some information about the series that we weren't alive for at the time. One of best shows of the 90s.
Ravage did technically survive in the IDW Beast Wars comic. I personally thought Beast Machine was pretty good. It was a different show from Beast Wars and not as good but it really wanted to do its own thing and it's a really unique show, especially for its time when continuity heavy cartoons weren't much of a thing. And I appreciate what it did and how it was so different from every other Saturday morning show on at the time with a deep story and dark themes. When I first watched it I was bracing myself for a disaster and when I actually saw it was like "So what's the problem here? Yeah the robot mode designs could use some work but its not bad." I feel pretty bad for the head writer Robert Skir, he got so much hate and some asshole wishing he and his whole family would die simply because they didn't like a different take on Transformers but I'm happy that the show is more highly regarded than it used to be and that's he's proud of it despite the hate it got.
I'm all down for doing your own take. But they should actually DO their own take with their OWN characters. Not characters that are already established and then proceeds to claim it's "take" is a continuation of that establishment.
Yeah, beat machines wasn't good. I tried to like it, I did. But breaking down the characters , and rebuilding them to totally something different wasn't something I agreed with. The animation looked worse,and the writing was just poor.
...If Prime had died with Megatron's attack aboard the Ark at the end of Season 2; wouldn't that have put the rest of the Cybertronians at the risk of falling to Unicron since the Matrix would've died with him as he couldn't have passed it on? I mean the show averts this by having Primal take Prime's spark and the essence of the Matrix into his body; but if that hadn't happened; wouldn't that have left all Cybertronians more or less fucked unless there's some truth to that "Unicron's Spawn" line Megs says about Tarantulas, and the twisted spider earlier confirms to Tiger Hawk about himself and the Tripredacus Council.
I discovered this in dvd copies and Netflix and watched every episodes and it present the concept of how a transformer can survive as long as the spark survive and although it’s a little but it’s the gem of the 90’s and still holds up its worth
This was my first exposure to Transformers that I sought out by myself (my uncle introduced me to the prior series but I wasn't old enough to remember), so this was the first Transformers "canon" I knew from. I loved this series to bits, especially Megatron's design, as I loved Trexes 💖
I first remember seeing a few episodes of "Beast Wars" as a kid, back when it was on TV. However, I didn't really get into it until I was in middle school, when a friend of mine let me borrow his DVDs of the series. After that, I become hooked on the Transformers franchise for some time ("Prime" is the last one I saw). Overall, "Beast Wars" is probably my favorite Transformers series. Even if the animation is outdated, the show still had a lot of good characters, an interesting story, many creative designs, and it managed to expand the Transformers mythos pretty well. I'll also admit its sequel "Beast Machines" is kind of a guilty pleasure of mine, though I'd like to see you do a review of it, or at least your own idea of a "Beast Wars" sequel.
20:37 in my theory maybe the reason Tarantulas went back to working for Megatron again was due to learning about Megatron’s plan to destroy the Autobots in the arc. After all Ravage was supposed to arrest Megatron but switched to his side after learning the plan as well. Then eventually Tarantulas plotted to kill Megatron in the lava pit
I loved Beast Wars. I remember watching it before school, and having to run out the door at the end of every episode to make sure I could catch the bus on time. I rarely saw the credits, haha. Then... *sigh* Beast Machines. I didn't get to watch that show until many years later on Netflix and when I finally did, I wondered just what the hell happened. Learning the creative drive was handed off makes a lot of sense. It really did feel like a different show. Everyone was so out of character, most of all... Rhinox. T_T The most altruistic and unquestionably GOOD of all the Maximals became evil... just 'cause. WTF!? I do hope you do that show some time in the future. This was a good vid.
I kind of wish you had talked about Beast machines. I remember being a kid watching this show and then coming back to it and seeing Machines and being like "what the hell happened to this show"
Inferno walked off the disintrigation because his toy was still on shelves, sadly. I mean, I liked him and found him a funny goon, but yeah that should have been his perfect "Screw everyone!" end. I once heard that in Code of Hero when recording Dinobot's death scene people laughing at the hammy dialogue during recording meant they had to re-take a lot. Eventually Scott turned to the chuckleheads and hissed in Dinobot's voice "Do you mind!? I'm trying to die here!". Beast Wars was a great boost for the franchise overall with it's world building and tone. It's not my favorite, but it is a definite classic. I did think Beast Machines was OK. Not as good, but OK. Decent ideas, but messy execution.
What's interesting concerning the Nemesis is that it chased the Ark to Earth, crashed into the ocean, was repaired by Tarantulas, reactivated by Megatron to destroy the Ark, and when Rhinox crashed the shuttle through the command tower the Nemesis careened south and eventually crashed into a mountainside in South America, where in 1984 a human archaeology team discovers it and the Decepticons reclaim the wreck to plunder its power core, the Heart of Cybertron, for Megatron to use as a power booster (Microbots).
Amazing review!! I hope more people will decide to check this show out after they see your video. Btw I really like Infefno he is so passionate and has his own small moments.) And his loyalty to his Queen is so sweet xD
Fun fact I actually got to attend a beast wars panel at NYCC last year where a guy showcased many designs for the show as well as many scripts. He explained many sequences they wanted to do they had to sacrifice due to time, budget, and not wanting the computer to explode. And sometimes because of the new technology techniques people would figure this out by complete accident sometimes. Only downside was one guy decided to be a dick about a “plot hole he asked at the end of the panel” and the presenter was just like “dude I was just trying to meet a deadline like 30 years ago”.
Love Scott's description of Silverbolt. Strong, proud, brave and smart as a sack of hammers. It is right thought. Silverbolt was one of my favorite characters just... incredibly dense at times with his infatuation with Black Arachnia.
Okay I had to think about it Terrosaur's role for a second then heard him speak and went yep. That is Starscream's personality alright. Granted WE ALL know who Starscream really is in the series by now.
At 1st I was hesitant to watch this because Beast Wars is my fav show of all time and very important to me and I thought maybe youd be a G1 guy trashing it, but it was fantastic! Subbed. :)
Well, after all these years of seeing Beast Wars and thinking it was a bit slow and weird and was confused as to what the link to other Transformers was, I now learn they only imported the first season. They called the end of that season the end of the entire show on the voiceover announcing and capping the show too. I remembered him launching himself into space and that being the end and I'm like, oh, uh, okay? They lose? So thanks for learning me what was going on there. The second season animation looks quite a lot nicer too, gosh.
Wait was Rampage spark Starscreams? I mean Starscream said "I'll be back! Even if it takes a thousand years I'll be revenge on you all!,". I mean it would make sence.
