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Beast Wars: Transformers (franchise)

This article is about the real-world franchise. For the historical event within the fiction, see Beast Wars (event). For a list of other meanings, see Beast Wars (disambiguation).

Generation 1 continuity family « Beast Wars » Toyline 10th Anniversary toyline Various merchandise Commercials Cartoon Comics Video games Uprising

Beast Wars: Transformers is a franchise that began in 1996, following the end of Generation 2. It was a massive reinvention of the Transformers brand, featuring robots that changed into realistic, organically styled animals instead of the traditional vehicles or and mechanical beasts. The accompanying cartoon was another visual break, being the first fully-CGI Transformers series. It also did the seemingly unthinkable and replaced the original two factions, the Autobots and Decepticons, with the Maximals and the Predacons. Though originally decried by fans, Beast Wars dramatically reinvigorated the brand, the sales of which had been flagging under the Generation 2 franchise.

"Beast Wars" is also frequently used as a catchall term for the Beast Era in which Beast Wars and other series occur.

The Beast Wars franchise features the following primary components:

• A toyline — (1996–2001)
• A cartoon series — (1996–1999) called Beasties in many Canadian markets to appear less violent (Ha!).
• A video game for PC and PlayStation based on the first season of the cartoon.
• A video game for the Nintendo 64 based on the Transmetal and Fuzor versions of the characters from the cartoon's second season (and some from the toyline).
• A video game for the PlayStation, with the same name and general concept as the N64 game, but significant differences.
• Several comic series that were produced both during and after the franchise's original run.

Overview

From 1992 to 1995, Hasbro's attempt to revive the Transformers brand with Generation 2 proved to be not as successful as originally hoped. With the cancelation of that franchise looming imminently, Hasbro was left with the decision of either ending Transformers for good or trying something dramatically different to revitalize the brand; ultimately, they chose the latter. The major change in direction followed organizational changes within Hasbro. The company had acquired rival toy manufacturer Kenner as part of their 1991 Tonka acquisition, and in 1995 they transferred their boys' toy lines from the Hasbro headquarters in Rhode Island to Kenner's offices in Cincinnati, Ohio. Kenner was asked to revitalize the brand with new ideas and, in 1996, Beast Wars was the result.

Lead designer Chris Gross inadvertently kicked off the Beast Wars concept when he proposed a stylistic change from hard-edged, blocky robots to Guyver-inspired "organic" machines. The "Beast Masks" on the first few Beast Wars toy designs were conceived of as a way of easing the transition from traditional Transformers into Beast Wars by showing that there was a robot within the beast, not just an animal that transforms into some kind of monster. The Beast Wars line title was inspired by a past toyline of Kenner's, namely the Future War line of Terminator toys. It was chosen based on the idea that it portrayed a "visceral conflict". The show would not have been made unless a drastically new concept from the original Transformers was created, as Generation 1 was considered a stale property at the time.

To promote the new toyline, an animated TV series was created by Canadian production company Mainframe Entertainment, who had proved themselves to be pioneers in computer-generated imagery with the success of their first animated series ReBoot. Television writers Bob Forward and Larry DiTillio were brought in to serve as the series' story editors. Having never worked on Transformers beforehand, the two brought a fresh perspective to the series and created a whole new world and lore from the ground up. Voice talent for the show was based in Vancouver, British Columbia, with such actors as Garry Chalk, David Kaye, Scott McNeil, Richard Newman, Venus Terzo, and more, first joining the legacy of Transformers voice acting through Beast Wars. Many would even return to Transformers to lend their voices to the main cast of later television series, such as those belonging to the Unicron Trilogy of the mid-2000s.

By 1999, Beast Wars had spanned four years of new toys and three seasons of the TV series, with new developments and new innovations constantly brought to the table year after year. While the cartoon ended that year, the toyline crept along passed its formal lifespan with a few final releases just making it out to retail stores and conventions in 2000 and 2001.

Japanese release

Japanese Generation 1 continuity « Beast Wars: Super Lifeform Transformers » Toyline Cartoons Comics Video games Commercials

In Japan, the first season of the North American cartoon was aired with a markedly silly dub, full of adlibs and pop culture references meant to up the humor and appeal to a much younger audience than the English version. This dub was accompanied by releases of the concurrent toys, but only about half of the ones released in the West; mostly just those of the in-show characters. Because the second and third seasons of the show were each too short to span a year's worth of Japanese television, the Japanese release of both was held off until production of the third season was completed. In the meantime, two cel-animated series unique to Japan were created to fill in the void, with each receiving their own accompanying toys and manga series. These were Beast Wars II and Beast Wars Neo, respectively. Once those finished, the remaining two CG-animated seasons of the North American series, along with their accompanying toys, were released under the name Beast Wars Metals. Like the first season, the Metals dub was just as silly and littered with adlibs.

While the two Japanese-produced Beast Wars animated productions used cel animation, the toys' box art was rendered in a CG style similar to the original Mainframe cartoon, whereas the Western releases of the toys were the opposite, featuring hand drawn box art.

Reception

Beast Wars was the first complete reinvention of the Transformers brand, discarding the previous setting, characters, and factions to create a brand new story. Transformers in the Beast Wars cartoon are much smaller (often human-sized) and initially transform into "fleshy" or "scaly" non-robotic animals, before introducing new concepts like Transmetals. Initially met with outrage by many fans (for a variety of reasons) Beast Wars would eventually win over most of its decriers and become highly regarded, largely due to the exceptional quality of the cartoon series. It is now not unusual for even longtime fans of the 1980s Transformers to consider Beast Wars to be their favorite of all Transformers franchises. This is perhaps best shown by the fact that, about fifteen years later, the first two fan-chosen characters to enter the Transformers Hall of Fame were Beast Wars fan-favorites Dinobot and Waspinator, and again in 2017 when Optimus Primal won the Power of the Primes fan poll.

Sequel

A direct sequel series followed Beast Wars in the form of Beast Machines. In contrast to its predecessor, Beast Machines brought back vehicular altmodes for the enemy faction, replacing the Predacons with the new Vehicon faction. It also utilized a more futuristic "alien" aesthetic, with the Maximals turning into "technorganic" beasts (a molecular fusion of the organic and the technological), while the Vehicons turned into "living" vehicles with robotic heads in place of driver's seats/cockpits. Beast Machines also received a cartoon series that continued the lives of the Beast Wars cast on their home planet of Cybertron, but also took a much more cerebral approach to its story, which yielded a far more polarizing reception from the fandom.

Expanded universes

The lasting popularity of Beast Wars went on to ensure its place as a poignant and memorable part of Transformers history. The popularity of the cartoon alone resulted in numerous continuations, spinoffs, and other addenda. Several additional storylines that tied into both the Beast Wars and Beast Machines cartoons were produced both during and after the Beast Era ran its course, mostly in the form of comics. While these "expanded universes" all contain the same events of the two cartoons—which are understood to have occurred exactly as had been portrayed onscreen—the context of said events differ with the inclusion of "extra" stories taking place "just offscreen" of the cartoons' episodic events. Though individual universes are contradictory to each other, they all coexist separately within the vast Transformers multiverse. These include:

• A series of comics, text stories, script readings, and toy bios/profiles created by 3H Productions from 1997 to 2004, which also continued into the Transformers: Universe series. Throughout 2005 to 2016, Fun Publications published a number of Beast Wars-related comics and text stories also set in this 3H Beast Wars continuity.
• The sprawling Japanese Generation 1 cartoon continuity that first began in 1985, which included the Japanese dubs of the Beast Wars and Beast Machines cartoons, as well as the two Japanese-original Beast Wars II and Beast Wars Neo series, and so much more.
• The Dreamwave Generation One continuity that launched in 2002, in the form of multiple comic series and profile books published by Dreamwave Productions. Several concepts first introduced in the Beast Wars and Beast Machines cartoons were integrated into the Generation 1 setting of these comics, which also featured occasional references to the two cartoons meant to further reinforce their connection. 2004's Transformers: The Ultimate Guide further fleshed out this universe and treated it as the "definitive" Transformers continuity occupied by the Beast Wars and Beast Machines cartoons. A few short stories related to the Beast Wars and Beast Machines cartoons, and the Dreamwave comics, were also published in the Transformers Legends anthology book.
• In 2006–2008, IDW Publishing produced two Beast Wars comic mini-series and a set of profile books. This continuity is notable for including characters and events from the two Japanese Beast Wars series, with said events repositioned as backstory content set before the American cartoon, while the two mini-series occur during the cartoon's third season. In 2016, one more comic story was published to (at least, in theory) help bridge the gap between Generation 1 and Beast Wars.
• From 2009 to 2014, Fun Publications also created Transformers: Wings Universe, a nearly unaltered version of the North American Generation 1 cartoon that also worked in the Beast Wars and Beast Machines cartoons with its own original stories set in and around all three cartoon series.

Continuity

Over the course of its roughly three-and-a-half-year run, the continuity of the Beast Wars franchise underwent a rather shifting evolution, with numerous changes and retcons made to it along the way.

Relationship with Generation 1

Before 'toon began, there was... the comic!

In the very beginning, when the toyline debuted in 1996, the line presented itself not only as a complete reinvention of the Transformers brand, but one that continued to be set on Earth in the present day. Numerous references to "Bio-Genetic Engineering" being the source of the Maximals' and Predacons' organic beast modes were given in the toys' packaging blurb, in a short comic included with the very first Optimus Primal and Megatron toys, and in many of the toys' bios. Combined with the bio for that first Optimus toy closely paraphrasing the motto of the original Optimus Prime toy from 1984 ("Freedom is the right of all sentient beings."), the original implication was that Beast Wars was simply another continuation of the first two iterations of the Transformers brand, with the Maximals and Predacons merely being genetically-enhanced Autobots and Decepticons, and Optimus Primal and Megatron being the very same individuals as their Generation 1 namesakes.

Granted, the line wasn't explicit about this connection at the time (because there was no reason not to think so), but the 1997 release of the Maximal Grimlock toy featured a bio that made it abundantly clear that he was, indeed, the very same Autobot Grimlock of old, which further reinforced these implications. But after the cartoon took off and cemented itself as the dominant Beast Wars fiction, the toyline gradually shifted away from its original continuity to one closer to that of the cartoon. A number of 1997 toy bios mentioned "energon crystals" (a prominent part of the cartoon's first season), while Drill Bit's bio referred to the Beast Wars setting not as "Earth" but as "the mysterious planet" (as it was known in the cartoon's first season). By 1998, the original toy continuity was practically dropped completely, with the packaging blurbs for the Transmetals, Fuzors, and 1999's Transmetals 2 directly mentioning events specific to the cartoon's second and third seasons.

When the two-part pilot episodes of the Beast Wars cartoon premiered in April 1996 (five months ahead of the rest of the season as a preview airing), the two episodes showed that the cartoon had completely ignored what the toyline had originally established, continuity-wise, and created its own completely new universe from the ground up. Story editors Bob Forward and Larry DiTillio were new to Transformers at the time and, at first, paid little heed to what all had come before, fiction-wise, giving the cartoon pilot the initial impression of seeming like a new rebooted continuity unconnected to Generation 1. The only direct references to past Transformers lore in the pilot were a mention of Cybertron as the Maximals' and Predacons' home planet, and the onscreen presence of energon (but which was reimagined as naturally-occurring crystals instead of the artificially-created liquid fuel substance that it had been in prior appearances).

The second season finale bringing back the Autobots and Decepticons of yore was the final key that firmly placed the Beast Wars cartoon in the Generation 1 continuity family.

One particular nugget of lore from the first episode that caught fans' attention was a mention by Optimus of a past event known as the "Great War". Originally, Bob Forward had thrown this in as a nebulous bit of history to vaguely explain why the Maximals and Predacons were presently in conflict with each other. But as the passionate fandom was wont to do at the time, it took that reference to more specifically refer to the civil wars that had been fought between the Autobots and Decepticons in previous Transformers fiction. Forward and DiTillio got wind of this fan-initiated idea and completely embraced it, with every later mention of the "Great War" in the show unquestionably referring to the Autobot-Decepticon conflict of Generation 1. And even as early as the third episode, an Easter egg cameo appearance of the Decepticon Starscream was inserted into a dream sequence.

As the first season continued, more references to Generation 1 were added in, such as a mention of the Decepticon Shrapnel in "Dark Designs", or imagery of Unicron in both "Possession" and "Other Voices, Part 1". But arguably the biggest example came in the aforementioned "Possession", wherein the ghost of Starscream actually guest-starred in person, directly calling back to events from the Generation 1 cartoon's third season and movie. Said episode even confirmed that the Autobots and Decepticons of Generation 1 were the "ancient ancestors" of the Maximals and Predacons. By the end of the Beast Wars cartoon's second season, said ancestors were finally seen alongside their descendants aboard the crashed Autobot vessel, the Ark, showing that the Maximals and Predacons were practically human-sized compared to the giant-sized Autobots and Decepticons, and solidified the fact that the Beast Wars cast had indeed traveled back in time from the future to ancient Earth long before the 1980s setting of Generation 1.

The "cartoon vs. comics" debate

Starscream's ghost from the Sunbow cartoon, but with a Marvel comics-colored blue face.

A question often debated by the fandom was, exactly, which version of Generation 1 the Beast Wars cartoon was meant to be in-continuity with. At the time, the two major continuities of Generation 1 were the Sunbow cartoon and the Marvel comics, both of which were strongly defended by their respective fanbases as to which was considered the "true" version of Generation 1. Across its three seasons, the Beast Wars cartoon made references to both the Sunbow cartoon and the Marvel comics (though, admittedly, more from the former than the latter), resulting in a unique continuity that was more like a mixture of the two. But, said references had mainly been gleaned by Forward and DiTillio from online interaction with fandom rather than direct exposure to the source material. In truth, the two were actually more interested in creating their own brand new canon for Beast Wars; the references were merely sprinkled in to add flavor. In a 1997 interview, DiTillio even stated, "In a sense I treat Transformers like the King Arthur tales. It's one vast canon, with a lot of variations..." This abstention from picking one continuity over the other was likely to give the Beast Wars writers more creative freedom, unrestricted to either version of Generation 1 (and likely to avoid upsetting any fans who favored one over the other).

That said, additional media external to the cartoon written to tie into it would make their own decisions about which G1 continuity the show was a part of. In 1999–2000, the official Transformers convention BotCon published a multi-part story titled Reaching the Omega Point, written by Marvel Comics writer Simon Furman (who would also write the final episode of Beast Wars). Tying directly into the cartoon's third season, Omega Point also made blatant use of the Marvel continuity (plus the events of The Transformers: The Movie) as its Generation 1 backstory, in an attempt to fully and strictly connect Beast Wars to the Marvel Comics continuity. The two stories Furman also wrote for Transforce in 2000–2002 even sought to close the gap between the Marvel Generation 2 comics and Beast Wars, with Furman even once declaring Beast Wars and Omega Point (but not Beast Machines) to be fully part of the comics universe (in his mind, at least).

However, when Beast Machines started up in late 1999 and carried on the world of the Beast Wars cartoon, it too made references to Generation 1, but only from the Sunbow cartoon and none from the comics. What's more, the next BotCon storyline, Transformers: The Wreckers, was both a direct tie-in to Beast Machines and a direct follow-up to Omega Point. But like Beast Machines, The Wreckers used the Sunbow cartoon (plus Marvel's Primus/Unicron myth) as its Generation 1 backstory, despite following the more Marvel-based Omega Point. As a result, this made the combined continuity of Beast Wars, Omega Point, Beast Machines, and The Wreckers (and the next series Transformers: Universe) as much of a mixture of Sunbow and Marvel lore as Beast Wars alone had originally been. And when the Dreamwave Generation One continuity, the 2006 IDW Beast Wars comics, and Transformers: Wings Universe all created their own Generation 1 backstories for the Beast Wars cartoom, each of them likewise combined elements from both Marvel and Sunbow.

Over in Japan, meanwhile, there was no such contention over which G1 continuity Beast Wars (specifically, the Japanese-dubbed version) was a part of. Since the Marvel Transformers comics had not been formally released in Japan during their original run in the West, the Sunbow cartoon's Japanese dub had long since been established as the primary Transformers 1 continuity in Japan, with nearly all Japanese Transformers material released up to that point having had some relation to the cartoon. When Beast Wars was introduced to Japan, it had always been considered part of the sprawling Japanese Generation 1 cartoon continuity, since there was no other major Transformers continuity in Japan at that point. This perception even extended to the Japanese guidebook Beast Wars Universe, which focused squarely on the original English version rather than the Japanese-dubbed version, and was written from the perspective that Beast Wars took place solely and specifically in the Generation 1 cartoon continuity instead of the unique Sunbow/Marvel mixture universe that it actually was.

Prehistoric setting

With the Beast Wars cartoon ignoring the present-day Earth setting of the early toy bios and pack-in comic, the cartoon's setting for the Beast Wars was initially an uncertain one.

Planet Earth, as it appeared during the Beast Wars of Beast Wars.

The first episode noted that Megatron's crew of Predacons had intended to travel from Cybertron to Earth, but it also threw in a line from Dinobot stating "It's all wrong. This cannot be Earth." While the planet certainly resembled an Earth-like planet, it had two moons. This initial ambiguity largely stemmed from what went on behind-the-scenes of the show. Forward and DiTillio were originally unsure if the series was going to be set on Earth in the past or on a completely different planet merely similar to Earth, because of how Hasbro's marketing department were equally unsure of what to do with the show. With the two given mostly free reign to do what they wished with the show, they ultimately decided to reveal the planet as Earth after all, with the second moon being blown up in the first season's finale. Two episodes later, the planet's identity was confirmed in-show.

With this revelation came further discoveries, such as humanity's primitive ancestors and the ancient Autobot starship Ark (which had crash-landed on Earth four million years ago in the Transformers fiction of the 1980s). This all

Anniversaries

10th Anniversary

2006 marked the tenth anniversary of Beast Wars, and many parties sought to celebrate the occasion in different ways. From Hasbro came Beast Wars 10th Anniversary, a small line consisting primarily of reissues of eight toys from the original 1996 toyline, redecoed in more show-accurate color schemes. Six of these reissues were Deluxe class toys and included both a packed-in DVD containing a single episode from the cartoon (each episode being one themed around the character whose toy they came packaged with) and an all-new build-a-figure of Trans-Mutate, a show-original single-episode character who had never received a toy beforehand. Additionally, two brand new Deluxe class molds of Optimus Primal and Megatron were released as part of the line, and had built-in compatibility with the Cyber Key gimmick of the then-contemporary Transformers: Cybertron line.

For BotCon 2006, Fun Publications created what is, arguably, their most famous and well-received set of BotCon exclusives, "Dawn of Future's Past", a set of mostly Cybertron toy molds redecoed/retooled into most of the main cast of the Beast Wars cartoon in forms representing the Cybertronian bodies they had before they first came to Earth and scanned their beast modes. An accompanying comic story of the same title was published that served as an immediate prequel to the cartoon, telling the story of what all happened right before the first episode. The following year, an additional prequel to that prequel was released at BotCon 2007 in the form of an animated short titled "Theft of the Golden Disk", which even had David Kaye reprise his role of Megatron.

TakaraTomy also celebrated the anniversary with two new developments of their own. First was Beast Wars Reborn, a special two-pack release of the original Ultra class Optimus Primal and Megatron toys in new show-accurate colors and tooling. A four-part Beast Wars Reborn prose story, set after the events of the Japanese dub of Beast Machines, was published in issues #97-100 of Figure Ō magazine from March to June, 2006. In 2007, the tenth anniversary of the Japanese release of Beast Wars, TakaraTomy released Beast Wars Telemocha Series, a proper line of Beast Wars reissues very similar to Hasbro's Beast Wars 10th Anniversary line, complete with pack-in DVDs and show-accurate redecos (even more accurate than those of the Hasbro line).

20th Anniversary

After the attention Beast Wars had received from Hasbro for the tenth anniversary in 2006, as well the bombastic celebration for the Transformers brand's 30th anniversary, the Thrilling 30, which Hasbro threw in 2014... the fandom waited with bated breath to see how Hasbro would handle 2016, the 20th anniversary of Beast Wars. Alas, there was little fanfare from Hasbro proper, who opted to instead focus their attention more on the 30th anniversary of The Transformers: The Movie. The one nod to the Beast Wars anniversary from Hasbro was the Platinum Edition release of the Year of the Monkey Optimus Primal, which did sport a celebratory logo (pictured right), but said release was more of a Hasbro Asia initiative rather than Hasbro proper. All in all, it was a rather lackluster showing from Hasbro for the line which reinvigorated the brand.

For BotCon 2016, Fun Publications paid more heed. Much like 2006, the convention was themed around another Beast Wars prequel, with a majority of the exclusive toys representing Beast Wars characters in pre-beast bodies they had on Cybertron before the Beast Wars. The convention comic, "Dawn of the Predacus", was made by IDW and tied its story to both their 2006–2008 Beast Wars comics and Fun Publications' "Dawn of Future's Past" comic from 2006. Throughout 2016, Fun Publications also produced several prose stories for Beast Wars: Uprising, a completely different, dystopian-themed Beast Wars series that was largely unconnected to the TV series. One of these prose stories, "Intersectionality", even included its own Chilling 20 anniversary logo (pictured left) as a joke.

TakaraTomy also released a bit of Beast Wars-themed product in 2016. Exclusive versions of Rattrap, Rhinox, and Waspinator were made available at Transformers Fes2016, as part of the Legends toyline. These three were show-accurate redecos of their Generations toys originally released during the aforementioned Thrilling 30 range. TakaraTomy also released a Masterpiece version of Optimus Primal for October 2016, which led to several more Beast Wars characters receiving Masterpiece toys in the years to come. E-HOBBY also released Legends Convobat in December 2016, a reuse of the Titans Return Mindwipe toy as a modern update of the original bat Optimus Primal toy from 1996.

25th Anniversary

The twenty-fifth anniversary in 2021 was met with significantly more fanfare from Hasbro with the debut of Kingdom, the Beast Wars-themed third chapter of the War for Cybertron Trilogy toyline and cartoon. The success of the Kingdom toyline led to releases of more Beast Wars characters continuing into the subsequent Legacy line of 2022. 2021 also saw the release of a brand new ongoing Beast Wars comic from IDW Publishing, which served as a complete reimagining of the 1996 cartoon's premise, setting, and characters, and whose issues sported a 25th anniversary logo (pictured right). The then-upcoming film Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, which featured new live-action interpretations of a few Beast Wars characters, was also announced this year. Both the film and its heavily beast-themed toyline were originally scheduled for release the following year in 2022, but delays pushed back both to release in 2023 instead.

Notes

• On April 4, 2019, Lorenzo di Bonaventura listed a live-action adaptation to Beast Wars as a potential future entry to the live-action film series. This would eventually manifest as Transformers: Rise of the Beasts.

References

[[Category:Beast Era]] [[Category:Beast Wars| ]] [[Category:Franchises]]