Beast Machines: Transformers (toyline)

Freaks of nature

Beast Machines was the toyline successor to Beast Wars, running from very late 1999 to early 2001. It featured the Maximals as smoothly techno-organic beasts, pitted against the futuristic war machines of the Vehicons. Beast Machines signaled the full-fledged return of vehicular Transformers, after an absence of nearly four years.

Though Beast Machines was the primary series in 2000, Hasbro continued to release Beast Wars case assortments, whose contents ranged from new redecos to promote Fox Kids running the series, to the new-mold Mutant Beast Wars figures, to straight-up re-releases of Transmetal 2 toys.

The line seemed to underperform to expectations, and combined with Hasbro's financial troubles (primarily due to excessive Star Wars Episode 1 product glut), and the second year of Beast machines product was cut short to make way for another heavy reworking of the Transformers concept...

Unlike Beast Wars, the line did not run concurrently in Japan, but would get a short run there in 2004.

Overview

Beast Machines continued many of its predecessor's elements, retaining the Maximal faction and a number of its main characters. Both factions tended toward unorthodox designs; the toys also made frequent use of translucent plastic and chrome finishes. Spark crystals appeared on most toys. Aesthetically, the smooth, curvaceous designs of the Maximals is a further evolution of the earlier Transmetal design styles, seamlessly blending the mechanical and the organic. The Vehicons had emphatically Cybertronian vehicle forms, often with articulated "sensors". They likewise featured some unorthodox robot modes, often with inhuman faces, odd-shaped limbs, and unusual forms of locomotion.

Show-accuracy (including inter-character scale) was widely variable across the entire toy line. Show production house Mainframe Entertainment apparently began animating the characters from early concept sketches, designs that by necessity changed a great deal during the translation into toy form. Thus many characters' (initial) toy and cartoon depictions bear relatively little resemblance to each other.

The Dinobots subline, consisting of redecoed molds from both the Hasbro Beast Wars and Takara Beast Wars Neo lines, shipped in the same packaging assortments with the normal figures.

The back end of the Beast Machines toyline, starting in 2001, featured the first full-on subline imprint for Transformers, called "Battle for the Spark", reflecting the storyline of the cartoon's second season. This also tied in with a unifying theme for the new-mold toys, where action features are activated by pressing on the spark crystals. By this time, many toys were designed to emulate their show models, and did so to an impressive degree.

Due to apparent under-selling (plus they had hit the sixth year of "Beast" product), it was decided to cancel the last few waves in development, abandon plans for the sequel series Transtech, and re-vamp the franchise from the ground up. Takara's Car Robots series was quickly ported over as "filler" under the name Robots in Disguise, giving Hasbro and Takara the time needed to coordinate on the next series. Not ones to waste the effort put into the canceled figures, all three finished-yet-unreleased toy molds were eventually released as part of the Robots in Disguise toyline.

Hasbro Beast Machines toyline

Standard retail line

Basics

Wave 1 Buzzsaw Mirage Scavenger		Wave 2 Longhorn Obsidian		Wave 3 Geckobot Quickstrike		Wave 4 Night Viper Silverbolt		Basic Longhorn
Wave 5 (BftS) Hammerstrike Tank Drone		Wave 6 (BftS) Motorcycle Drone Spy Streak		Wave 7 (BftS) Battle Unicorn		Canceled Screechwing Spiketail

Deluxe

In addition to regular Beast Machines toys, the Deluxe assortment also included Dinobots-branded product.

Wave 1 Optimus Primal Jetstorm		Wave 2 Dinobots Airraptor Dinobots Triceradon		Wave 3 Dinobots Dinotron Dinobots Striker		Wave 4 Blackarachnia Thrust		Deluxe Thrust
Wave 5 Snarl		Wave 6 Blastcharge Skydive		Wave 7 Sonic Attack Jet		Wave 8 (BftS) Beast Changer Dinobots Rapticon Dinobots Terranotron
Wave 9 (BftS) Night Slash Cheetor Strika		Canceled (used later) Cerberus Megatron		Totally canceled Obsidian

Mega

Wave 1 Cheetor Tankor

Wave 2 Megatron

Wave 3 (BftS) Rattrap

Wave 4 (BftS) Blast Punch Optimus Primal

Mega Megatron

Ultra

Like the Deluxes, the Ultra assortment also included Dinobots-branded stuff.

Wave 1 Jetstorm Dinobots T-Wrecks

Wave 2 Nightscream

Canceled Megatron

Ultra Jetstorm

Super

Wave 1

• Primal Prime

Supreme

A new price point for the line, the Supreme class featured the biggest/tallest Transformers toys since 1987's Fortress Maximus (if not the most massive).

Wave 1 Cheetor

Canceled (used later) Air Attack Optimus Primal

Supreme Cheetor

Deployers

A Basic price point, the Deployers are small robo-beasts to turn into weapon emplacements with spring-loaded transformations. The Wave 2 running change redecoes were originally meant to be renamed as new characters: these names were revealed through retail listings as "Trench," "Burro," and "Cro", with the latter eventually being repurposed as a new character.

Wave 1 Dillo Mol Rav

Wave 2 (redecos) Dillo Mol Rav

Deployers Mol

Beast Riders

An unusual addition to the line, Beast Riders are combat chariots that can carry Basic-class figures, and convert into an attack mode. Like the Deployers, the Beast Riders got new decos for a second (pegwarming) round.

Wave 1 Che Mechatron

Wave 2 (redecoes) Che Mechatron

File:BM Che toy.jpg Beast Rider Che

Exclusives

Target Dinobots Magmatron

BotCon 2000 Apelinq

Fast food promotions

McDonald's

McDonald's ran a Beast Machines promotion in 2000. It came in two different cardboard "Happy Meal" boxes (which were co-branded with Hello Kitty)

The line-up: Blackarachnia Cheetor Jetstorm

Megatron Nightscream

Optimus Primal Rattrap

Tankor Thrust

McDonald's Nightscream

Red Rooster

In 2001, four of the McDonald's molds were retooled to be simpler (which is hard to imagine but there you go) and redecoed by the Australian chain Red Rooster for their "Little Red Rooster" meals. Each one came in four different colorations: red & green, blue & light blue, and color-swaps of those two.

• Nightscream (actually the Megatron mold)
• Jetstorm
• Rattrap
• Tankor

Jollibee

In 2009, Philippine fast food chain Jollibee sold three Beast Machines figures as part of their "Jollibee Kids Meals", each one based on their original mainline toys. That was kind of weird.

• Optimus Primal
• Megatron
• Cheetor

Takara Beast Wars Returns toyline

In Japan, Beast Machines did not see release until 2004 (the only figure to make it to Japan during the series' lifespan was Primal Prime). The entire line was ToysЯUs-exclusive, and limited to about 3,000-4,000 units apiece. As such, some of these items command high prices on the secondary market, especially tail-end items.

The toys have been redecoed to (theoretically) better match the show models, some more extensively than others.

Wave 1 (11-18-2004) Blackwidow Cheetus Convoy Megatron Rattle

Wave 2 (3-31-2005) Vehicon Jetstorm Nightscream Silverbolt Vehicon Tankor Vehicon Thrust

Wave 3 (4-14-2005) Megahead Megatron Noble Savage Vehicon Obsidian Vehicon Strika

Lucky draw Cheetus Black Version (aka "Perfect Choice Cheetus")

Beast Wars Returns Blackwidow

Post-Beast Machines releases

Even after the original Beast Machines toyline ended, several cast members saw new toys released in other Transformers lines.

Titanium Series Cheetor Primal Prime (canceled)		Universe (2003) Blackarachnia Blastcharge Night Slash Cheetor Snarl Skydive		Nemesis Strika Dinobot Striker Tankor & Obsidian Dinobot Triceradon		Robot Heroes Cheetor & Tankor Optimus Primal & Jetstorm (Canceled)		Generations Tankor
BotCon 2013 Obsidian Strika Blastcharge Strika Drone		Transformers Collectors' Club Thrustinator		Generations Tankor		BotCon 2014 Knight Apelinq Primal Prime

Notes

Concept art for "Rover the Hellhound", who would become Robots in Disguise Bruticus.

• The Deployers and Beast Riders were developed by (now-defunct) Hasbro Direct, Hasbro's department normally devoted to store exclusives and other retailer-oriented projects, hence their rather dubious compatibility with the rest of the Beast Machines line.
• A practice at the time of Beast Machines was to often have one concept artist design the robot mode and another design the beast/vehicle mode, leading to two forms that are startlingly different from each other... and probably leading to some hellish nightmares for the engineering department.
• On Takara's end of the design process, some design and engineering work was subcontracted out to the designer Junichi Akutsu, alias BEE-CRAFT.
• Around December of 2000, the online retailer BigBadToyStore put up a list of upcoming Transformers product from Hasbro. Although the main point of interest was a Transtech assortment listing, it revealed several tail-end and unreleased Beast Machines: Battle for the Spark toys.

Foreign names

• French: Ani Machines (France)