Beast Machines: Transformers (toyline)

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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).

1999

Basic

Wave 1

Buzzsaw was originally planned to be a heroic Predacon, but this idea was nixed to avoid confusion.

Deluxe

Wave 1

Mega

Wave 1

Inexplicably, Tankor's function was given on his package as "Predacon General".

2000

Deployers

File:BM Che toy.jpg
  • Dillo (purple armadillo)
  • Mol (brown mole)
  • Rav (red raven)

Beast Riders

  • Che (yellow Maximal cheetah chariot)
  • Mechatron (red Vehicon dragon chariot)

Basic

Wave 2

Wave 3

Wave 4

Deluxe

Around March, Optimus Primal and Jetstorm began shipping alongside various combinations of Dinobots Triceradon, Airraptor, Striker, and Dinotron, proceeding the second actual wave of Beast Machines Deluxes.

Wave 2

Wave 3

Wave 4

Wave 5

Mega

Wave 2

Megatron's on-package function was "Predacon Vehicon Leader". Alrighty then.

Ultra

Wave 1

Certain assortments shipped Jetstorm alongside Dinobots T-Wrecks, who was also in assortments that contained both Jetstorm and Nightscream.

Wave 2

Super

At 10,000 units, Primal Prime is considered to have a relatively low production run for a mainline Transformers toy. Primal Prime was also available without changes (excepting some stickers slapped on the box) as a Japanese Toys R Us exclusive in November of 2000.

Supreme

Dinobots

Deluxe

Wave 1

Various combinations of the Beast Machines Dinobots began shipping alongside Optimus Primal and Jetstorm around March of 2000, proceeding the second actual wave of Beast Machines Deluxes. Confusingly, despite all shipping at the same time, some of these assortments omitted Dinotron and Striker.

Ultra

T-Wrecks shipped alongside Jetstorm, and then Jetstorm and Nightscream, in various assortments.

Exclusives

2001

The second half of the Beast Machines toyline featured the subtitle "Battle for the Spark", reflecting the storyline of the cartoon.

Deployers

The running-change redecoes of the Deployers were originally meant to be renamed as new characters, but ultimately came out with their original names. These names were revealed through retail listings[1] as "Trench," "Burro," and "Cro." What happened is unknown, but the name for the Rav redeco, "Cro", was canonized as "Chro" in the 3H Wreckers comics.

Beast Riders

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

Basic

Wave 5 (Battle for the Spark wave 1)

Wave 6 (Battle for the Spark wave 2)

Wave 7 (Battle for the Spark wave 3)

Deluxe

Wave 6 (Battle for the Spark wave 1)

Beast Changer shipped alongside Dinobots Rapticon and Terranotron.

Wave 7 (Battle for the Spark wave 2)

When Night Slash Cheetor and Strika were phased in, Terranotron was dropped from the Deluxe assortment, but Rapticon continued to ship.

Mega

Wave 3 (Battle for the Spark wave 1)

Wave 4 (Battle for the Spark wave 2)

Dinobots

Deluxe

Wave 2

Rapticon and Terranotron shipped in an assortment that included Thrust, Beast Changer, and Sonic Attack Jet. When it was revised to include Night Slash Cheetor and Strika, Terranotron was dropped, and Blackarachnia was shuffled back in.

2004 (Beast Wars Returns)

Wave 1: 11/17/2004

  • BR-01 Convoy - Blast Punch Optimus Primal
  • BR-02 Cheetus - Beast Machines Mega Cheetor
  • BR-03 Rattle - Beast Machines Rattrap
  • BR-04 Blackwidow - Redeco of Beast Machines Blackarachnia
  • BR-05 Megatron - Beast Machines dragon Megatron
The entire Beast Wars Returns line was Toys R Us-exclusive, and limited to about 3,000-4,000 units apiece.

2005 (Beast Wars Returns)

Wave 2: 3/26/2005

  • BR-06 Nightscream - Beast Machines Nightscream
  • BR-07 Silverbolt - Redeco of Beast Machines Silverbolt
  • BR-08 Vehicon Jetstorm - Redeco of Beast Machines Ultra Jetstorm
  • BR-09 Vehicon Thrust - Redeco of Beast Machines Motorcycle Drone
  • BR-10 Vehicon Tankor - Redeco of Beast Machines Tank Drone

Wave 3: 4/2005

  • BR-11 Noble Savage - Redeco of Beast Machines Beast Changer
  • BR-12 Megahead Megatron - Redeco of Robots in Disguise Megatron Megabolt
  • BR-13 Vehicon Strika - Redeco of Beast Machines Strika
  • BR-14 Vehicon Obsidian - Redeco of Beast Machines Obsidian
BR-11 to BR-14 shipped at some point in the middle of April.

"Lucky Draw"

  • Cheetus Black Version (aka "Perfect Choice Cheetus")
By ordering Beast Wars Returns through a digital cable provider, you were automatically entered in a drawing for the toy, along with several other smaller merchandise prizes.

Fast food promotions

McDonald's

McDonald's ran a Beast Machines promotion in 2000. On top of having two different cardboard "Happy Meal" boxes (which were co-branded with Hello Kitty), the line-up included:

Red Rooster

In 2001, the McDonald's molds for Jetstorm, Megatron, Rattrap, and Tankor were simplified and redecoed by the Australian chain Red Rooster for their "Little Red Rooster" meals, creating 4 original versions of each character.

  • "Nightscream" - actually the Megatron mold (red, green, light blue, dark blue)
  • Jetstorm (red, green, light blue, dark blue)
  • Rattrap (red, green, light blue, dark blue)
  • Tankor (red, green, light blue, dark blue)

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.

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.[2]

Basic

Deluxe

"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

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

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.

References

  1. ↑ http://web.archive.org/web/20001206140100/http://www.bigbadtoystore.com/news.asp
  2. ↑ http://web.archive.org/web/20001206140100/http://www.bigbadtoystore.com/news.asp
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