Beast Wars: Transformers (cartoon)
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Though reviled by many Transfans when it first hit the airwaves in 1996, the wholly-CGI Beast Wars is now considered by many to be among the finest examples of Transformers storytelling.
- Canadian name: Beasties
- Japanese name: Beast Wars Metals (season 2-3)
- French name: Animutants
- French-Canadian name: Guerre-Betes
- Italian name: Biocombat
- Polish name: Kosmiczne Wojny ("Cosmic Wars")
Overview
The series opens at an unspecified time and place, where two warring factions of robots have crashed on a strange planet populated by animals like those on Earth. The planet abounds in mystery, with vast deposits of raw Energon and evidence of alien activity. The Energon forces the newly arrived Transformers to take on protective beast forms to shield themselves from the ambient Energon radiation. And so begin the Beast Wars...
Though at first the show seemed to be in an entirely separate continuity, by the end of the first season's 26 episodes, viewers had been treated to a number of classical Transformers references, such as Unicron and even the reappearance of Starscream, last seen as a ghost in the third season of the original cartoon. These ties to the original story increased as the second season progressed and the planet was revealed as prehistoric Earth. The third season was entirely structured around the Maximals defending their Autobot ancestors aboard the ancient crashed Ark.
The show won over many viewers through fun, intriguing stories and generally high production values. Strong characterization, top-notch scripting and voice acting, and complex, overarching plot threads are among the reasons cited for the show's enduring popularity. Some of the show's mysteries and machinations remain topics for fan debate over a decade after it aired.
The show's CGI, though somewhat primitive by today's standards, was revolutionary by television standards of the time (and puts some later shows to shame). Mainframe's animators took pains to ensure their characters gestured and emoted in great detail, and the "camera" work often took creative advantage of the format's flexibility.
The show was immediately followed by a sequel series, Beast Machines.
Episodes
Beast Wars has had 52 episodes over 3 seasons.
Season 1: 1996–1997
- Beast Wars (Part 1)
- Beast Wars (Part 2)
- The Web
- Equal Measures
- Chain of Command
- Power Surge
- Fallen Comrades
- Double Jeopardy
- A Better Mousetrap
- Gorilla Warfare
- The Probe
- Victory
- Dark Designs
- Double Dinobot
- The Spark
- The Trigger, Part 1
- The Trigger, Part 2
- Spider's Game
- Call of the Wild
- Dark Voyage
- Possession
- The Low Road
- Law of the Jungle
- Before the Storm
- Other Voices, Part 1
- Other Voices, Part 2
Season 2: 1997–1998
Season 3: 1998–1999
Characters
Because developing new CGI character models was, at the time, an expensive and time-consuming process, the number of on-screen characters in Beast Wars was relatively small compared to most other Transformers shows. It is thus practical to list all the Transformers who appeared in the cartoon. They are listed in order of appearance. (The stasis locked Autobots and Decepticons aboard the Ark are not on this list.) Note that many characters besides these are also full-fledged Beast Wars characters, having appeared in other media.
- Optimus Primal
- Rattrap
- Rhinox
- Cheetor
- Dinobot (allied with the Maximals, nominally a Predacon)
- Tigatron
- Airazor
- Silverbolt
- Depth Charge
- Tigerhawk
- Megatron
- Scorponok
- Tarantulas
- Terrorsaur
- Waspinator
- Blackarachnia (became a Maximal towards the end of the series)
- Inferno
- Quickstrike
- Rampage
- Tripredacus Council (very briefly)
- Ravage
- Dinobot II
Others
- Snowstalker
- Transmutate
- Protohumans
- Assorted Vok
- Starscream
International releases
Japan
In Japan the show was split into 2 separate 26 episode series, Beast Wars which aired in 1997 (consisting of Canadian season 1) and Beast Wars Metals which aired in 1999 (consisting of Canadian seasons 2 and 3). The Beast Wars Metals series featured two additional clip shows:
- Episode 14: "Remix: Where is the Banana?"
- Episode 26: "Remix: I Lost the Banana!"
Japan crafted two separate theatrical releases, the first being "Beast Wars Special Super Lifeform Transformers" (premiering the episode "Bad Spark" as well as two other segments) and a triple feature of short animated films based on Takara toylines (premiering the episode "Cutting Edge"). Since these episodes were released theatrically, they are not included in the show's proper 26 episode list, with their places being taken by the pair of aforementioned clip shows.
Additionally, for whatever reason, the Japanese dub of Beast Wars and Beast Wars Metals notoriously chose to turn the series into a goofy comedy show with lots of fourth-wall humor and a relentless string of over-the-top and in-your-face jokes, even at the most inappropriate of moments.
Some examples include:
- The beginning of every episode would start with one of the characters asking a ridiculous question and receiving equally ridiculous answers (Optimus Primal asking "Where is my banana", for instance) before segueing into the opening rap theme by Banana Ice.
- Rattrap would constantly break the fourth wall by "smelling" what the audience was eating and make gluttonous comments.
- Many characters received completely new personalities that were polar opposites to their Western interpretation (Depth Charge enjoyed singing folk songs while Megatron became a flamboyant madman that shrieked like a little girl at the sight of danger). Other characters had their genders altered (poor, poor Airazor).
- Clipshows would feature the characters interacting in silly situations such as gameshows and contests (in one instance, Megatron acted as judge in a celebrity impersonation contest).
While many long-time Transformers fans in Japan reviled this dub (including Hirofumi Ichikawa) it remained a hit with its target audience: young children. At any rate, this version of Beast Wars was popular enough to spawn two equally goofy-natured spin-offs, Beast Wars II and Beast Wars Neo, and two Japanese-exclusive theatrical releases.
However, Pioneer's Japanese DVD sets of the series come with optional English language dialogue with Japanese subtitles, allowing fans in Japan to view the more serious version of the show if desired.
United Kingdom
When originally aired on GMTV in the United Kingdom, Beast Wars was only screened on school holidays, usually in double bills on Bank Holidays, and one episode per morning on half-term weeks, meaning that only a few episodes were shown a year, with wide gulfs in between (most prominently, three months passed between the airings of "Other Visits" parts 1 and 2). In a sign of things to come, "Beast Wars (Part 1)" was shown some 25 minutes earlier than billed due to re-scheduled news reports, meaning many fans missed the entire opening episode. Things went from bad to worse when "Equal Measures" was skipped, and only continued when, after "Victory", the series skipped directly to "Other Voices, Part 1". The entirety of the second season followed the conclusion of the first, but the channel never aired the third season; although it was subsequently released on VHS, the cliffhanger-resolving "Optimal Situation" was only available as a free gift with purchase at Toys"R"Us.
Additionally, these GMTV airings were modified in various ways. The first and most foremost alteration was the removal of the word "Transformers" from the series' title, which was only reinstated with "Other Voices, Part 1". With regard to the actual content, the earliest episodes generally had nothing more extreme than the removal of uses of the word "slag" (as it is effectively a synonym for "slut" in English slang), but with the beginning of the second season, edits were steadily made to episodes for no readily apparent reasons. Additionally, any scenes featuring flashing images were routinely put through a filter that slowed such scenes down to comical levels. This culminated in a butchered version of "The Agenda", which snipped out many short scenes throughout all three episodes for no reason, from inconsequential moments like Tarantulas cackling and driving out of his lab in Part 1, to key scenes such as Silverbolt and Optimus Primal's "office talk" in Part 2, and in what was the last straw for many fans, the complete second half of Megatron's speech (the part explaining Megatron's entire motivation), also from Part 2.
During the time they had the rights to the series, GMTV also showed the entirety of seasons one and two on the then cable-only channel ITV 2.
Almost the entire run of the show ended up on VHS from 2000 to 2001, oddly missing "Aftermath" and "Optimal Situation". This time, cuts were gone! Characters could rightfully swear! Season 3 was finally released! Season 3 got the first release, in Volumes 1 through 4, with box art of characters being used on the covers. Then, Season 2 got collected as well, as... Volumes 5 through 8. (That must've confused some kiddies.) Finally, Season 1 was collected as Beast Wars: The Beginning. These later releases used CGI art. DVD collections have so far been absent, beyond two super-cheap DVD releases by Universal. The first collected "The Agenda" through to "Cutting Edge", followed by one just collecting "Feral Scream" and "Proving Grounds". They're now out of print.
Channel 5, a terrestrial channel, showed the entire series in its complete form in 2003. Thankfully. This got rerun too, leading to the Beast Wars comics getting used as reprints in Titan's Movie-based comic.
France
In France and (French) Belgium, the show was called "Animutants" and had a good quality dubbing, rather close to the original voices. But while the first two seasons of the show were aired, the third one never was; the show always ended with "The Agenda (Part III)", leaving the viewers in the area with the worst case of cliffhanger ever.
Vietnam
In Vietnam, the show was called "Chiến tranh quái vật vũ trụ" (Galaxy Monster Wars). The show was released on VHS tapes with a very good Vietnamese dub, then it was copied to VCD. Unfortunately, as happened in France, only the first two seasons were aired. It ended with "The Agenda (Part III)", and left the fans with a cliffhanger.
Germany
The German dub used the original title, Beast Wars'. The show was initially very successful on the TV Station RTL2 and was released on VHS. However, only the first season was shown and dubbed. Furthermore, the TV broadcast had many fight scenes censored to comply with Germany's strict laws against TV violence; however, the VHS Release was uncut. After many reruns the show was cancelled and the second and third Season were never shown in Germany.
Trivia
- The first season of Beast Wars cost $18 million, according to a 1997 interview with Bob Forward.
- B-Club magazine erroneously claims that Beast Wars is the first fully CGI television show in the world, a title actually held by Insektors. Mainframe's own CGI show ReBoot also predates Beast Wars.
- The Production Designer for the show, Clyde Klotz, won an Emmy for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation in 1997. How cool is that?
See also
- Dark Glass was an unproduced script intended for season 3.
