Beast Machines: Transformers (toyline)

Beast Machines was the toyline successor to Beast Wars, running from 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.

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. However, the toyline showed experimentation in other ways: it re-introduced both the idea of "vehicles for Transformers" in the form of Beast Riders, combat chariots to-scale with the smaller figures that lacked a robot mode and instead converted into an attack mode; and it brought back "independent transforming accessories" with the Deployers, beasts that changed to weapons usable by the larger figures. The Dinobots subline also appeared during Beast Machines, consisting of redecoed molds from both the Hasbro Beast Wars and the Takara Beast Wars Neo lines; it shipped in the same packaging assortments with the normal Beast Machines figures.

Concurrently with Beast Machines/Dinobots, 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.

Overview

Freaks of nature

Aesthetically, the smooth, curvaceous designs of the Maximals is a further evolution of the earlier Transmetal and Transmetal 2 design styles, seamlessly blending the mechanical and the organic. Often the organic parts had hints of the technological (e.g. Cheetor's purple, angular spots) or vice versa (the smooth, rounded "gauntlets" on Optimus Primal's forearm).

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 such as Thrust's optional uni-wheel or Jetstorm's legless hover mode.

Beast Machines toys included a marble-sized spark crystal, embedded in a part of the body. Sometimes they had no real importance, though sometimes they played a large part in the aesthetics of the toy, such as Geckobot's eye piece.

Show-accuracy was widely variable across the entire toy line. Show production house Mainframe Entertainment apparently began animating the characters from early concept sketches, designs that of necessity changed a great deal during the translation into toy form. Thus many characters' toy and cartoon depictions bear relatively little resemblance to each other. Some toys were supposed to represent an "evolution" of a previously existing character and thus looked completely different (such as Night Slash Cheetor). The late-arriving Motorcycle Drone and Tank Drone toys, both highly show-accurate, may have been an explicit attempt to mitigate this.

The characters' show-based scale was likewise widely variable. While the relative scale of characters has never translated perfectly from toy to show in any Transformers line, Beast Machines is especially notorious for it:

• Nightscream is the second-smallest Maximal on the show, yet his toy is a hulking Ultra, making him to scale with only the largest toys (Supreme Cheetor and, perhaps, Air Attack Optimus Primal—the latter of which was not even released 'til well after Beast Machines ended, and in a different franchise, to boot).
• Silverbolt is the tallest show Maximal, but has the smallest toy.
• Toy-Obsidian is a Basic-sized figure, dwarfed by the Maximals; his show portrayal has him as larger than most or all of them.
• Tankor, the largest character of all, was only a modestly sized Mega.
• Toy-Rattrap is larger than Blackarachnia, who should be twice his height.
• Primal came in Deluxe and Mega sizes, with the more widely available Deluxe size being notably different from his show design, and neither reflecting his massive stature relative to the other characters.

The line seemed to underperform to expectations (especially coming off of the growing Beast Wars brand). Combined with Hasbro's financial troubles over excessive product glut in their Star Wars Episode 1 lines, it was decided to cancel the release of the last handful of toys which had been developed—Bruticus, Megatron Megabolt and Air Attack Optimus Primal—abandon plans for a sequel series, Transtech, and re-vamp the franchise from the ground up. The Japanese 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 were eventually released as part of the Robots in Disguise toyline.

While Takara stamps are present on every Beast Machines toy, the only figure to make it to Japan during the series' lifespan was Primal Prime, who came out in November of 2000 as a Toys R Us exclusive; the show-based characters wouldn't reach Japanese retail space until 2004, with the advent of the Beast Wars Returns line (which was, itself, entirely Toys R Us-exclusive).

Hasbro toyline

2000

Basics

Wave 1 Buzzsaw Mirage Scavenger

Wave 2 Longhorn Obsidian

Wave 3 Geckobot Quickstrike

Wave 4 Night Viper Silverbolt

Basic Longhorn

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

Mega

Wave 1 Cheetor Tankor

Wave 2 Megatron

Mega Megatron

Ultra

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

Wave 1 Jetstorm Dinobots T-Wrecks

Wave 2 Nightscream

Ultra Jetstorm

Super

• Primal Prime

Supreme

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

• Supreme Cheetor

Deployers

Deployers Mol

A new sub-Basic price point, the Deployers are small robo-beasts to turn into weapon emplacements with spring-loaded transformations.

• Dillo
• Mol
• Rav

Beast Riders

File:BM Che toy.jpg

Deployers Che

• Che
• Mechatron

2001: Battle for the Spark

The second half of the Beast Machines toyline 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.

Deployers

Redeco Rav

Running change redecoes of the first three Deployers. They 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.

• Dillo
• Mol
• Rav

Beast Riders

Like the Deployers, the Beast Riders got refreshed decos for another (long, not-selling) round on pegs.

• Che (redeco, black Maximal cheetah chariot)
• Mechatron (redeco, purple Vehicon dragon chariot)

Basics

Wave 5 Hammerstrike Tank Drone

Wave 6 Motorcycle Drone Spy Streak

Wave 7 Battle Unicorn

Basic Spy Streak

Deluxes

Wave 8 Beast Changer Dinobots Rapticon Dinobots Terranotron

Wave 9 Night Slash Cheetor Strika

Deluxe Strika

Megas

Wave 3 Rattrap

Wave 4 Blast Punch Optimus Primal

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

Beast Wars Returns (Takara)

In Japan, Beast Machines did not see release until 2005. 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

Unreleased

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, there were several tail-end and unreleased Beast Machines: Battle for the Spark toys mentioned as well.

Basic

• Screechwing
• Spiketail

Deluxe

• Obsidian
• Cerberus

"Cerberus," aka "Rover the Hellhound" (see right), was released in different colors as Bruticus, part of the Transformers: Robots in Disguise line. Unusually, the deluxe Beast Machines Megatron Megabolt was not on this product listing, but the toy would later surface in Robots in Disguise as well.

Ultra

• Megatron

Supreme

• Air Attack Optimus

Air Attack Optimus Primal was eventually sold as a Toys R Us exclusive in the Robots in Disguise line.

Post cancellation

• A new version of BM Cheetor was released as part of the 6" Titanium Series "Cybertron Heroes" line.
• The 2008 Universe toyline includes figures marked as "Beast Machines series": Robot Heroes Cheetor and Tankor. (A second Robot Heroes set featuring Beast Machines Optimus Primal and Jetstorm was planned, but didn't see production.)
• Jetstorm's design received an homage in Animated Jetstorm.
• Obsidian and Strika received new toys as part of BotCon 2013, while Blastcharge got an homage (of a sort) from the same convention in the Blastcharge Strika Drone.
• A new Deluxe toy of Tankor, based on his show robot mode, was released in the Transformers: Generations line in 2014.

Innovations and lasting effects

• Beast Machines introduced the concept of subline imprints as a "refresher" for the later part of a long-running toy line (which, in today's economy, means "longer than six months"), in this case "Battle for the Spark".
• The line was also the first to heavily implement articulated hands (and in some cases, fingers) instead of the standard "fist with hole", as well as experimenting with facial articulation on figures above the Basic size.

Notes

• The Deployers and Beast Riders were developed by 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.

Foreign names

• French: Ani Machines (France)