Beast Wars: Transformers (toyline)
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Easily the most radical move ever made by Hasbro in Transformers history, Beast Wars: Transformers abandoned over a decade's worth of familiar trappings, to drastically re-work the franchise in order to save it from a second (and likely final) cancellation. Now the robots in disguise turned into organic animals. The classic factions were even replaced with the new Maximals and Predacons.
The initial reaction from the early online fandom was less than welcoming. The reaction from the far larger kid market, however, was strong sales the likes Transformers hadn't seen in a long time. Backed by a CGI-animated cartoon, Beast Wars basically saved Transformers, and has become a beloved piece of the line's history.
Overview
With sales of the Generation 2 toyline proving unremarkable, Hasbro faced a choice: end the Transformers brand for a second time, or drastically revamp the concept. They chose the second option, handing the reigns over to their newly-acquired Kenner division.
While beast-mode Transformers had been around since day one, those were robotic beasts. Beast Wars characters took on the appearance of fully-organic creatures, which also affected their robot-mode looks: while there were "metal" parts, the designs were much more rounded and organic in shape if not texture. Faces tended towards the bestial or just straight-up inhuman, even moreso with the first year toys's secondary "Mutant Heads".
The old factions were replaced with Maximals and Predacons, with new faction symbols, though Hasbro/Kenner weren't prepared to completely abandon everything classic: the new factions were led by new iterations of Optimus and Megatron, though their appearances were heavily altered. "Transformers" was still part of the toyline's title, but it was shrunk down and placed below the huge, jagged "Beast Wars" logo. The packaging too was distinctly organic, with red scaly skin as the backdrop, and a massive reptilian eye under the bubble for carded figures. The initial waves even used a craggy, rock-like plastic bubble, though that was quickly replaced by a more normal rounded bubble.
While these aesthetic changes were initially shocking to fans used to the classic series, the line had many features that got fans to warm up to it in short order.
Beast Wars took the popular features of a handful of Generation 2 toys and made them standards across the entire line. Heavy use of ball joints gave the figures unprecedented degrees of articulation, often greater than that of the "normal" non-transforming action figures of the time. Robot-mode weapons were either part of the toy's alternate mode, or at least stored inside them rather than needing to be set aside (and more easily lost). Both of these features would become standards for basically every Transformers line to follow.
Another now-ubiquitous line-wide move was the introduction of a standard system of price points, dictated by a toy's size, not its gimmicks. Beast Wars began with $5 "Basics", $10 "Deluxes", $15 "Megas", and $20 "Ultras", each size class getting physically larger, and packing more and more play features into the toy. (Ultra-class Optimus Primal is friggin' loaded with stuff.) Though prices would fluctuate over the years due to inflation or rising production costs, the basic outline of the system continues to be used today.
Beast Wars was an undeniable success, routinely making high sales marks through most of its life, according to toy magazines like Tomart's (remember when print magazines existed about this hobby?). It typically hovered in the top five best-selling toy lines each month, mostly bested by the newly-revived Star Wars line, the still-strong Power Rangers and the massive rise of toys based on professional wrestling, occasionally popping into the top three places. In fact, when Hasbro elected to revamp the franchise before it could go stale, leading to the direct-sequel, same-main-cast-having Beast Machines toyline, they also kept Beast Wars around in a smaller capacity, with a handful of new products and some recolors of classic characters.
Hasbro Beast Wars toyline
1996
The first year of the line was a shocker to fans, both for its drastic aesthetic change from what came before, and its technical/design changes that gave the toys far more play value. Basic-class toys all have a spring-loaded one-step autotransformation. Deluxe and larger toys all have a secondary "Mutant Head" to change their robot-mode appearance.
Basic class
| Wave 1 | Wave 2 |  |
Deluxe class
| Comic 2-pack
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Wave 1 | Wave 1.5 | Wave 2 |  | ||||
| Wave 3 |
Mega class
- Wave 1
- Wave 1
- Onyx Primal
- Onyx Primal (Dealer exclusive)
- Airazor
- Razorclaw
- Claw Jaw
- Drill Bit
- Lazorbeak
- Powerpinch
- Snarl
- Spittor
- Cybershark
- Jetstorm
- Bonecrusher
- Manterror
- Grimlock
- K-9
- Retrax
- Inferno
- B'Boom
- Transquito
- Magnaboss
(Ironhide, Prowl, Silverbolt) - Tripredacus
(Cicadacon, Ram Horn, Sea Clamp) - Part of Hasbro's short-lived multi-property micro-play line (before they swallowed Galoob), these slightly-above-Deluxe-size beasts open up into playsets for the micro-figures included.
- Arachnid (w/ Megatron & Razorbeast)
- Orcanoch (w/ Optimus Primal & Tarantulas) Exclusives
Ultra class
Exclusives
| McDonald's | BotCon 1996
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1997
The second year of the line was primarily a refinement of the first, though every class got changed in some broad-strokes way.
The Basic toys dropped the spring-loaded autotransformation in favor of more complex manual conversions. The "Mutant Heads" feature was dropped from the larger size classes (save for the old-mod redecos/retools, of course). Instead of hidden mini-animal partners, this year the Mega class toys had extra "attack modes" that revealed new play gimmicks. The Ultra class toys are not super-huge robots, but teams of three smaller robots who combine into a super-huge robot. (These were also the first new-mold combiner toys (in the US at least) since 1989.)
A new line-wide minor gimmick was added, the "energon chips" which were basically just the old faction symbol rubsigns.
Basic Beasts
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Wave 2
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Wave 3
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Wave 4
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Deluxe Beasts
| Wave 1
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Wave 2
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Wave 3
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Wave 4
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Mega Beasts
| Wave 1
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Wave 2
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Wave 3
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Ultra Teams
| Wave 1
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| BotCon 1997 |
1998: Fuzors & Transmetals
This year, the line basically split into two sub-groups. The "normal" beasts became Fuzors, robots whose beast modes were mashups of two different animals, leading to some fanciful creatures. Fuzors were limited to the Basic and Deluxe price-points.
The rest of the line was made up of the Transmetals, "Beast Wars turned inside-out": robotic animals with fleshy inner robot parts. Further, the animal modes also had a third pseudo-vehicle form, revealing thrusters or wheels or the like. These modes ended up largely replacing any other gimmicks in the Deluxe-class Transmetals, leaving things like spring-loaded missiles to the larger size classes.
Basic Fuzors
| Wave 1 | Wave 2
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Wave 3
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Deluxe Fuzors
| Wave 1
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Wave 2
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Wave 3
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Deluxe Transmetals
| Wave 1
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Wave 2
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Wave 3
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Mega Transmetals
| Wave 1
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Wave 2
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Ultra Transmetals
Super Transmetals
VHS packs
| Wave 1
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Wave 2 (European)
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Exclusives
| BJ's Wholesale Club | McDonald's
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BotCon 1998
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1999: Transmetals 2
This year was dominated by the Transmetals 2, where the "beast bits" and "bot bits" ended up in a mangled, monstrous, asymmetrical amalgamation of torn skin and jutting metal blades. The "energon chips" were replaced by spark crystals, colored glass domes with foil-embossed faction symbols inside.
Basic Transmetals 2
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Wave 3
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Deluxe Transmetals 2
| Wave 1
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Wave 2
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Wave 3
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Mega Transmetals 2
| Wave 1
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Wave 2
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Ultra Transmetals 2
| Wave 1
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Wave 2
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Fox Kids Deluxe Classics
Celebrating the move to the Fox Kids programming block, a series of special redecos were made available to get classic show characters back on shelves... albeit in some pretty un-show-like coloration. Initial Hasbro solicitations gave the toys "power up"-style descriptors, but these did not make it to their final packaging.
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Wave 2
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Exclusives
| Walmart
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BotCon 1999
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Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Transmetal 2 Dinobot and Prowl were both released in two different color schemes. The first ones, available in the first few waves featuring those figures, feature a white, turquoise, and red coloration for Prowl, and a bone-tan and purple coloration for Dinobot. Several waves in, however, they were both re-shipped as part of Hasbro's early experiments in refreshing a line with same-character redeco variants, with Prowl now colored black, blue, and red, and Dinobot colored bright white with blue. As running change variations, they were sold under the same individual SKUs as the original versions rather than as completely new releases, and their packaging makes no mention of these new color schemes.
2000-2001
Deluxe Beasts
2000's Deluxe assortment featured a mixture of Fox Kids-branded redecoes, with large "NEW!" call-outs, and Mutants, which sported a unique Mutant Beast Wars logo.
| Wave 1 | Wave 2
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Wave 3
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Wave 4
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Exclusives
| Walmart
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BotCon 2000
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BotCon 2001
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Takara Beast Wars: Super Lifeform Transformers toyline
Beast Wars would not hit Japan until over a year after its Hasbro-market debut, most likely due to waiting for the full first season of the show to finish production so it could be run in its totality in a single stretch, as is the norm for Japanese kids media with toy tie-ins. The show's long production time also resulted in the need for "filler" after that first year, resulting in two Japan-original cartoons and associated toylines before the line returned to the Mainframe show setting.
Beast Wars: Super Lifeform Transformers (1997-1998)
Starting in summer 1997, the Takara Beast Wars toyline began very similarly to the Hasbro version, with only a handful of minor color differences appearing in the first wave of product. However, by wave 2, several toys had considerably different decos, as well as an all-new villain character (created to fill out the VS-packs evenly). On top of that, several of the first-wave toys got more "show-accurate" running changes in January 1998, though the level of "show accuracy" varied pretty wildly. But as the back end of the line began and Takara started bringing over non-show-character molds, most of the releases returned to being nigh-identical to their Hasbro counterparts.
| Wave 1 (July 1997) | Convoy VS Megatron White Claw VS Scorpos Cheetus VS Waspeeter |
Dinobot VS Tarans Rattle VS Terrorsaurer Convobat VS Megalligator |
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Wave 2 (October 1997)
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Wave 3 (November 1997)
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Wave 4 (December 1997) | Wave 5 (January 1998)
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Wave 6 (February 1998)
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Wave ???
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- Exclusives
Comic Bom Bom
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Tele-V Magazine
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Toys"R"Us |
Beast Wars II: Super Lifeform Transformers (1998)
The first of the two Takara-"original" Beast Wars lines, Beast Wars II began in March of 1998. It is a very strange beast, so to speak; an eclectic mix of yet-unused Hasbro Beast Wars molds, Generation 2 vehicle-bot molds that had not yet been sold in Japan (and some that never even saw Hasbro release!), some molds scavenged from the eighties Transformers toyline (!), and a handful of all-new molds and extensive retools, with a few supplemental toys apparently intended for release in Microman. We'd like to say it all fit together cohesively, but... no, not really. It's weird.
The toyline was backed up by a cel-animated anime series and a short-lived monthly manga in Comic Bom Bom, though neither one exactly set the world on fire or helped move many toys.
Technically, the Beast Wars II toys were not sold under that banner, but were branded with the normal Beast Wars logo... despite the complete change in packaging style and use of Beast Wars II on checklists.
Super Lifeform Transformers: Beast Wars Neo (1999)
Takara apparently put the time saved by Beast Wars II's rampant mold-recycling to good use, as the follow-up Beast Wars Neo is heavy with all-new molds (with extra "attack modes" on top of beast/robot modes), plus a handful of retools, and a very small number of straight redecoes. However, these new molds are generally infamous for being too complex for the intended age group, as the Japanese Beast Wars media was aimed at the lower single-digits ages, and even grown adults were finding the line-multiple-balljointed-panels-up-precisely toys frustrating to shift from one mode to the other. Many of these toys would later see release in Hasbro markets, either as redecoes rolled into Hasbro's lines, or even sold in Takara packaging via Hasbro's online presence.
Like Beast Wars II, Neo had a cel-animated cartoon and Comic Bom Bom manga to shill the toys. And just as before, the line... didn't do great, only moreso, which would have repercussions for the next line and beyond...
Also like Beast Wars II before it, Neo was technically just sold as Beast Wars, even though the packaging was rebooted again. And like before, this wiki lists these toys on their own page.
Super Lifeform Transformers: Beast Wars Metals (1999)
With seasons 2 and 3 of the Mainframe Beast Wars show finally wrapped up, Takara was able to send the show out as a full season with accompanying toyline. Metals was a smaller line than its predecessors, sticking entirely with characters who appeared in the show (even if not in Transmetal bodies). Most of the toys are functionally identical to their Hasbro releases, with the only noteworthy change to them being that the name tampographs were replaced with generic "CYBERTRON" and "DESTRON" markings. There is one exception in the Takara-only retool of Transmetal Cheetor into Ravage, which was quickly a very sought-after item outside Japan.
Along with the show, Metals got a Comic Bom Bom manga that is... kind of insane, having little to nothing to do with the show outside of some very broad-strokes story elements.
Unfortunately, despite the initial Beast Wars line being very popular, the return to that cast and cartoon could not overcome the sales slump that had been slumping ever downward over the previous two years. As such, this line was incredibly short-lived, a mere four months long, plus Takara opted to pass on the Hasbro sequel series Beast Machines in favor of their own unconnected followup line, Car Robots, that hewed more closely to classic Transformers... mostly, at least. (Beast Machines eventually would get a limited release in Japan, several years later.)
Wave 1 (September 1999)
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Metals Convoy VS Metals Megatron Silverbolt VS Metals Rampage Metals Cheetus VS Metals Waspeeter |
Metals Rattle VS Metals Terrorsaurer Metals Rhinox VS Metals Tarans Metals Airazor VS Quickstrike |
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Wave 2 (October 1999)
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Wave 3 (December 1999)
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Post-Beast Wars releases
While "Generation 1" is the undisputed king of the post-series remake, Beast Wars clocks in at a pretty respectable second place, even having a few mini-lines dedicated to it (even when you discount its direct sequel).
Beast Wars Reborn (2006)
- Main article: Beast Wars Reborn
Beast Wars 10th Anniversary (2006)
- Main article: Transformers: Beast Wars 10th Anniversary
Beast Wars Telemocha Series (2007)
- Main article: Transformers: Beast Wars Telemocha Series
- Takara's Telemocha line (a combination of the words "television" and "omocha", the Japanese word for "toy") was much the same as Hasbro's go, being spruced-up versions of the original molds packaged with DVDs of key episodes. However, not only did Takara really slather on the paint, but they made some odd additions to the line, including a couple of characters from Beast Wars II and Beast Wars Neo, as well as an entirely new Predacon named Wolfang (pronounced "Volfang").
Beast Wars toys/characters in "ensemble" lines
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Notes
- The toyline had three different titles over the course of its original run, two of them used concurrently: The front of the packaging was initially branded "Beast Wars: Transformers", whereas on the back of the packaging, the logo had a definite article added, making the title there "Beast Wars: The Transformers". Presumably, the reason for this was that Hasbro wanted to maintain the original toyline's name as a trademark. Beginning with the Fuzors and Transmetals, the front of the packaging had "Transformers" moved to the top position, making the title "Transformers: Beast Wars", whereas the definite article was dropped for good. In international markets, multilingual packaging got even more complicated:
- The trilingual English/French/Spanish packaging available in Canada and Latin America featured the clunky triple title "Beast Wars·Guerre des Bêtes·Guerra de Bestias", with the location of the "Transformers" title being analogous to the corresponding US packaging. The back of the packaging initially featured a standalone "The·Les·Los Transformers" logo with a trilingual definite article, dropped the definite article with the second waves of the 1996 assortments, but brought the trilingual definite article back with the 1997 assortments and finally dropped the standalone "Transformers" logo on the back for good with the 1998 Fuzor and Transmetal line-ups. Adding to the confusion, the cartoon was called "Beasties" in English Canada (albeit only on YTV) and "Robots-Bêtes" in French Canada, thus causing the toyline and cartoon to have two different names (and in English Canada, when viewed on American broadcast channels or on home video).
- European packaging was even more complicated, featuring two different types of trilingual packaging, each with its own sub-variations as time went on: French/Dutch/German featured the double title "Beast Wars/Ani Mutants". "Transformers" initially wasn't part of the main title at all; instead, only a small Generation 2-style (!) "Transformers" logo (without the actual "Generation 2" title, but with a G2-style Autobot insignia) could be found in the lower right corner of the front of the packaging throughout the 1996 and 1997 assortments. Like the corresponding US and Canadian/Latin American packaging, the "Transformers" title was finally moved above the series' main title beginning with the 1998 Fuzor and Transmetal line-ups, including a change to the same font used on US and Canadian/Latin American packaging.
- The other trilingual European packaging variant was English/Spanish/Italian (initially co-branded by Kenner and GiG). The Optimus Primal/Megatron (bat/alligator) two-pack was simply titled "Beast Wars", with a Generation 2-style "Transformers" logo in the lower left corner of the packaging, like on French/Dutch/German packaging. All subsequent releases in English/Spanish/Italian packaging featured the double title "Beast Wars/Biocombat", with "Transformers" (now in the same font as on US and Canadian/Latin American packaging) placed below "Biocombat". Unlike all other packaging variants, the "Transformers" title remained in that position for the remainder of the line and was never moved above the main title.
- The early toy-based fictions —the mini-comic from the Optimus/Megatron 2-pack and the early cardback bios— placed the Beast Wars on modern-day Earth, and were a bit cagey as to whether the faction leaders were the old bots rebuilt. This was quickly dropped as the Mainframe cartoon got underway, definitively making this Optimus and Megatron their own bots on a "new" world.
- Beast Wars is the first Hasbro Transformers line to release a female character at standard retail. (Blackarachnia was beaten to overall Western release by Nightracer, a BotCon 1995 exclusive whose characterization was created by the fan-organizer of the event.)
- By the time of the Beast Wars toy line, figures released by Kenner and later by Hasbro came in four different packaging types around the world, three of them of the multilingual variety, all of which are fairly easy to distinguish on the first look: The United States and Australia received toys in English-only packaging simply titled Beast Wars; Canada and Latin America received toys in trilingual English/French/Spanish packaging with the triple title Beast Wars/Guerre des Bêtes/Guerra de Bestias; and Europe got two different packaging variants, one of them English/Spanish/Italian with the double title Beast Wars/Biocombat, co-branded "Kenner" and "GiG" for the early figures (but simply "Hasbro" by the time the Transmetals and Fuzors were introduced) and often with additional names for the individual characters for the Italian market, and the the other French/Dutch/German with the double title Beast Wars/Ani Mutants, and the faction name "Predacon" being changed to "Predator".
- At some point during the planning for the Telemocha Series, the idea was tossed around to create some brand-new toys for the line. Internal TakaraTomy documents include designs for a jellyfish, a manticore, and a Triffid. The latter was eventually characterized as "Flytrap".
Foreign names
- French: Ani Mutants (France), Guerre des Bêtes (Canada)
- Italian: Biocombat
- Spanish: Guerra de Bestias (America)
