Beast Wars: Transformers (cartoon)

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Beast Wars: Transformers is a Daytime Emmy award-winning computer-animated television series that premiered on April 22, 1996 in syndication.[1]

Though reviled by many Transformers fans when it first hit the airwaves in 1996, Beast Wars is now considered by many to be among the finest examples of Transformers storytelling.

Overview

Beast Wars 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...

Rattrap and Airazor conspire to ruin school picture day.

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 characters having been thrown back in time. The third season was entirely structured around the Maximals defending their dormant 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

Main article: List of Beast Wars episodes

Beast Wars has had 52 episodes over 3 seasons.

Season 1: 1996–1997

  1. Beast Wars (Part 1)
  2. Beast Wars (Part 2)
  3. The Web
  4. Equal Measures
  5. Chain of Command
  6. Power Surge
  7. Fallen Comrades
  8. Double Jeopardy
  9. A Better Mousetrap
  10. Gorilla Warfare
  11. The Probe
  12. Victory
  13. Dark Designs
  14. Double Dinobot
  15. The Spark
  16. The Trigger, Part 1
  17. The Trigger, Part 2
  18. Spider's Game
  19. Call of the Wild
  20. Dark Voyage
  21. Possession
  22. The Low Road
  23. Law of the Jungle
  24. Before the Storm
  25. Other Voices, Part 1
  26. Other Voices, Part 2

Season 2: 1997–1998

  1. Aftermath
  2. Coming of the Fuzors (Part 1)
  3. Coming of the Fuzors (Part 2)
  4. Tangled Web
  5. Maximal, No More
  6. Other Visits (Part 1)
  7. Other Visits (Part 2)
  8. Bad Spark
  9. Code of Hero
  10. Transmutate
  11. The Agenda (Part 1)
  12. The Agenda (Part 2)
  13. The Agenda (Part III)

Season 3: 1998–1999

  1. Optimal Situation
  2. Deep Metal
  3. Changing of the Guard
  4. Cutting Edge
  5. Feral Scream Part 1
  6. Feral Scream Part 2
  7. Proving Grounds
  8. Go with the Flow
  9. Crossing the Rubicon
  10. Master Blaster
  11. Other Victories
  12. Nemesis Part 1
  13. Nemesis Part 2

Characters

Time for Rattrap to lead.
Waspinator is loved by fans.

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.


Maximals Predacons Others

Protohumans

* Allied with the Maximals, nominally a Predacon.

† Became a Maximal towards the end of the series, though originally a Maximal protoform.

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:

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. This was the work of Yoshikazu Iwanami, director of the Japanese Beast Wars series.

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. (On that music note, "FOR THE DREAM" is the closing song, while "Hello! Toughness" was the ending song for the special "Clash! Beast Warriors".)
  • An attempt was made to ensure that nary a moment went by in which at least one character wasn't talking. Dramatic silences and subtle jokes involving body language or facial expressions were killed with meaningless, prattling dialogue and corny jokes. Characters could even be heard talking when their lips were visibly not moving at all. Even in close ups. Perhaps worst of all, a "gag" that ran through the course of the entire series featured each character "making noises" every single time they fired their weapon. For instance, Rattrap would make a sound along the likes of "pikyuu!" every time he fired. Every. Single. Time.
  • 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 at the sight of danger). One character, Airazor, even had their gender altered.
  • Clip shows would feature the characters interacting in silly situations such as game shows 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.

Beast Wars Returns (the Japanese dub of Beast Machines) continued in the same vein with excessive adlibbing and character desecration.

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.

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.

Belgium

Beast Wars aired under its original name with Dutch subtitles, but like the French broadcast, it stopped abruptly after The Agenda (Part III).

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.

Home video releases

Canada

Main article: Alliance Atlantis
VHS
  • Beast Wars — A Feature Length Beasties Adventure (1996)
  • Robots-Bêtes — Une Adventure Cybernetique (1996)
  • Beast Wars — Beasties Escape (1998)
  • Robots-Bêtes — L'Évasion (1998)
  • Beast Wars — Warning from Space (1998)
  • Robots-Bêtes — Alert Dans L'Espace (1998)
  • Beast Wars / Robots-Bêtes Three pack (1998)
  • Beast Wars — Optimus Lives! (1998)
  • Robots-Bêtes — L'Empreinte D'Optimus (1998)
DVD
  • Beast Wars — Classic Episodes — Where the Beasties Began! (2005)
  • Beast Wars — Classic Episodes: Volume 2 — The Saga Continues! (2005)
  • Beast Wars — Classic Episodes: Volume 3 — The Battle Rages On! (2005)
  • Beast Wars — Classic Episodes: Volume 4 — The Predacons Advance! (2005)
  • Beast Wars — The Complete First Season (2005)


Japan

Main article: Geneon Universal Entertainment

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.

VHS
  • Beast Wars: Super Lifeform Transformers — Enter the Super Lifeform Transformers (1997)
  • Beast Wars: Super Lifeform Transformers — Cheetus' Crisis (1997)
  • Beast Wars: Super Lifeform Transformers — Convoy Disappeared (1998)
  • Beast Wars: Super Lifeform Transformers — Lonely Warrior Tigatron (1998)
  • Beast Wars: Super Lifeform Transformers — New Weapon of Terror (1998)
  • Beast Wars: Super Lifeform Transformers — Goodbye Rattle!? (1998)
  • Beast Wars: Super Lifeform Transformers — Floating Island Deathmatch (1998)
  • Beast Wars: Super Lifeform Transformers — The Destrons Make Drama (1998)
  • Beast Wars: Super Lifeform Transformers — There are 2 Dinobots? (1998)
  • Beast Wars: Super Lifeform Transformers — Resurrected Beast Power (1998)
  • Beast Wars: Super Lifeform Transformers — Starscream's Invulnerability (1998)
  • Beast Wars: Super Lifeform Transformers — Farewell Tigatron (1998)
  • Beast Wars: Super Lifeform Transformers — To Protect the Peace... (1998)
  • Beast Wars: Super Lifeform Transformers Special — Great Cybertron Army Collection (1998)
  • Beast Wars: Super Lifeform Transformers Special — Great Destron Army Collection (1998)
  • Beast Wars: Super Lifeform Transformers — Great Quiz Collection (1999)
  • Beast Wars: Super Lifeform Transformers: Metals — We're Back! (1999)
  • Beast Wars: Super Lifeform Transformers: Metals — Convoy Reborn (1999)
  • Beast Wars: Super Lifeform Transformers: Metals — I Quit! (2000)
  • Beast Wars: Super Lifeform Transformers: Metals — Huh? The Face? (2000)
  • Beast Wars: Super Lifeform Transformers: Metals — I'm a Crab! (2000)
  • Beast Wars: Super Lifeform Transformers: Metals — I Do Love You! (2000)
  • Beast Wars: Super Lifeform Transformers: Metals — Groooww Bigger (2000)
  • Beast Wars: Super Lifeform Transformers: Metals — Rrray! (2000)
  • Beast Wars: Super Lifeform Transformers: Metals — The Movie (2000)
  • Beast Wars: Super Lifeform Transformers: Metals — Yeah, I'm Back! (2000)
  • Beast Wars: Super Lifeform Transformers: Metals — Love Typhoon (2000)
  • Beast Wars: Super Lifeform Transformers: Metals — Sssshiny! (2000)
  • Beast Wars: Super Lifeform Transformers: Metals — We Have Returned (2000)
  • Beast Wars: Super Lifeform Transformers: Metals — Happy? This Should Do It (2000)
Laserdisc
  • Beast Wars: Transformers — Maximal Edition (1998)
  • Beast Wars: Transformers — Predacon Edition (1998)
DVD
  • Beast Wars: Transformers — DVD BOX (2000)
  • Beast Wars: Transformers: Metals — DVD BOX 1 (2000)
  • Beast Wars: Transformers: Metals — DVD BOX 2 (2000)


United Kingdom

Main article: Universal

The entire run of the show ended up on VHS from 2000 to 2001, though "Aftermath" was only available as a pack-in with Claw Jaw, and "Optimal Situation" could only be obtained as a free gift with purchase at Toys"R"Us. DVD releases were considerably more spotting, starting from "The Agenda" and releasing only ten episodes across two volumes. In both cases, however, cuts were gone! Characters could rightfully swear!

Not featuring Razorclaw.
VHS
  • Beast Wars: Transformers — Free Video (2000)
  • Beast Wars: Transformers — Vol. 1 (2000)
  • Beast Wars: Transformers — Vol. 2 (2000)
  • Beast Wars: Transformers — Vol. 3 (2000)
  • Beast Wars: Transformers — Vol. 4 (2000)
  • Beast Wars: Transformers — Vol. 5 (2001)
  • Beast Wars: Transformers — Vol. 6 (2001)
  • Beast Wars: Transformers — Vol. 7 (March 5 2001)
  • Beast Wars: Transformers — Vol. 8 (March 5 2001)
  • Beast Wars: Transformers — The Beginning: Vol. 1 (2001)
  • Beast Wars: Transformers — The Beginning: Vol. 2 (2001)
  • Beast Wars: Transformers — The Beginning: Vol. 3 (2001)
  • Beast Wars: Transformers — The Beginning: Vol. 4 (2001)
DVD
  • Beast Wars: Transformers — Vol. 1 (2004)
  • Beast Wars: Transformers — Vol. 2 (2005)


United States

Main article: Rhino Entertainment
  • Beast Wars: Transformers — Volume 1 (2002)
  • Beast Wars: Transformers — Volume 2 (2002)
  • Beast Wars: Transformers — The Complete First Season (2003)
  • Beast Wars: Transformers — The Complete Second Season (2004)
  • Beast Wars: Transformers — The Complete Third Season (2004)


Main article: Shout! Factory
  • Transformers - Beast Wars: Season One (2011)
  • Transformers - Beast Wars: The Complete Series (2011)
  • Transformers - Beast Wars: Seasons 2 & 3 (2011)


Australia and New Zealand

Main article: Madman Entertainment
  • Beast Wars: Transformers — Season 1 (2006)
  • Beast Wars: Transformers — Season 2 (2006)
  • Beast Wars: Transformers — Season 3 (2006)
  • The Transformers: Beast Wars — Complete Collection (2009)


Russia

Russian DVD sets come only with Russian language dialogues and no subtitles.

DVD
  • Transformery: Bitvy Zverey — Season 1 Vol. 1 (first 13 episodes of the first season) (2011)


Germany

DVD
Pandavision (2012)
  • Transformers: Beast Wars - Staffel 1 (complete first Season) (April 24, 2012)

Pack-ins and Giveaways

Main article: Hasbro
Main article: Pack-in material
VHS
DVD

Notes

  • The first season of Beast Wars cost $18 million, according to a 1997 interview with Bob Forward.
  • There are three known unproduced Beast Wars episodes: "A Greater Ape", "Bitch Wars" and "Dark Glass".
  • 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?
  • For reasons unknown, the US Rhino release of Beast Wars season three did not include the opening that was televised, which included an original shot of the Axalon and Darksyde spaceships crashing down to prehistoric Earth. Instead, all season three episodes began with the season two opening for the first part of the beginning credits.
  • Also, the Beast Wars season one release from Rhino used a totally different and shorter opening sequence and a shortened version of the theme.

Foreign names

  • English: Beasties (Canada)
  • Japanese: Beast Wars Chō Seimeitai Transformers (ビーストウォーズ 超生命体トランスフォーマー, "Beast Wars Super Lifeform Transformers"), Chō Seimeitai Transformers Beast Wars Metals (second and third seasons, 超生命体トランスフォーマー ビーストウォーズ メタルス, "Super Lifeform Transformers Beast Wars Metals")
  • French: Animutants (France), Robots-Bêtes (Canada)
  • Italian: Biocombat
  • Latvian: Briesmoņu kari ("Monster Wars")
  • Polish: Kosmiczne Wojny ("Cosmic Wars")
  • Russian: Bitvi Zverey (Битвы зверей, "Battles of the Beasts"), Zhestokye voini (Жестокие войны, "Cruel wars")
  • Spanish: Guerra de Bestias (America)
  • Vietnamese: Chiến tranh quái vật vũ trụ ("Galaxy Monster Wars")
  • Chinese: Super-Ultra Warriors (超能勇士)

References

  1. ↑ Though this episode played several days earlier in several US markets, its most widespread screening was on the 22nd.
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