I'm sure everyone who enjoyed the show probably had a favorite character...I frankly liked just about all of the characters. Megatron was fantastic, Waspinator had the loser charm, Rattrap was the smartass, but I have to say I adored Dinobot.

What a deep character to find in a childrens' show. Let's not confuse this comment with degrading anime. Most anime is written to a somewhat more mature standard than North American animation (which is part of the reason why the more violent stuff didn't get to the American audience before now; it was in many cases too bloody, too violent, etc). Beast Wars had some silly slapstick moments, but for the most part it was fairly serious.

And then there's Dinobot. Wow. The second season fairly belonged to him, and with good reason. Wow.

I tried watching Beast Wars and Armada, but they just left me with the question of "WTF did they do to the Transformers?".

The dragon Megatron was pretty badass too, it the only Beast Wars figure I have.

Everything that's come after Beast Wars (Including that Godawful Beastmachines or whatever it was) has sucked, but Beast Wars is one of the best serieses in the entire continuity.

That one was the suck.

That was one of my favorite shows when I was younger, because it didnt seem to treat the viewer like they were idiots.

Dinobot, words cannot express how cool he is. Mostly since I forget most details concerning the show. Honor. Very Cool.

Shame they went and made Beast Machines which was untold levels of bad

Still can't figure out what they were thinking...

quote:

---

Did he make the old school transforming sound? I remember *something* making that sound, may have been another episode.

---

Late in the second season, the Predacons sent a completely rebuilt Ravage back in time to capture Megatron and cover up what he had done. However, Megatron managed to sway Ravage to his side. At one point, Ravage transforms into his old cassette form, complete with Generation 1 sound effects.

quote:

---

Mortious probably says this to all the girls:
I'm sorry, but I really do not like any of the new Transformers.

I tried watching Beast Wars and Armada, but they just left me with the question of "WTF did they do to the Transformers?".

---

Beast Wars isn't new. It's a series that used to show when I was a kid still. Armada's the crappy minicon one that recently came out.

Of course, in relation to the original Transformers I suppose they'd both be "new", with Armada being brand spanking and Beast Wars being a bit more vintage. But if you meant something that had some out recently...that's not Beast Wars

I was 3 year older than when I had first watched Beast Wars, but everything felt so rushed.

And there was that stupid thing with rattrap having no weapons :-/ Then something happened and he had EVIL weapons.

quote:

---

OtakuPenguin got all f'ed up on Angel Dust and wrote:
Wait wait...was Beast Wars CGI? Or was that Beast Machines?

---

Both were, I think. I know Beast Wars (total sweetness, incidentally) was anyway.

I liked the character models for everyone, at least.

The problem was, the Powers That Be were getting impatiant and wanted to do a "new" toy line launch with a new set of toys and stuff, so they forced the producers to jump the story back to Cybertron with all that entailed. Then, as was mentionned, over in Japan, Robots in Disguise was ready to be translated and bought and since cheaply redubbing is cheaper than paying for a company to be creative and innovative, the Networks pulled the plug on Beast Machines and jumped to RiD. (Which I wish they would get rid of)

IMO, all the cartoons since Beast Machines are pure crap (Beast Machine was worst than Beast Wars but it had its moments and I found it watchable at least). The comic line from Dreamwave though is EXCELLENT, even their Armada/Energon comic book series.

Anyways, it seems like Mainframe just can't get a break with its series, especially when US backers are involved. ReBoot got cancelled by ABC, had YTV pay for a 3rd season, and then had Cartoon Network and YTV pay for a 4th season, but hasn't been able to get funding to wrap up that cliffhanger.

Shadowraiders had the toy company that was sponsering it pull out (it may have even gone bankrupt; I dunno) after 2 seasons, so all the loose threads set up at the end of the 2nd season are never to be resolved. (Mainframe had planned the series to be 3 seasons originally)

Beast Wars/Machines had similar issues.

MTV pulled the plug on the Spiderman show they were doing.

Action Man, Wierd Oh's, and that Mech show they were doing all died in Syndication Hell. *sigh* Oh well, at least they're still around. Now if only they'd get the first 2 seasons and last season of ReBoot out on DVD....

Sorry for the derail.

I always loved ReBoot in the old days.

I heard they had some movies, but Khy's FtP didnt have those.

Seasons 3 and 4 were different, but still ultimately awsome, even without some of the censor evading improv humor.

quote:

---

Elvish Crack Piper thought this was the Ricky Martin Fan Club Forum and wrote:
I want more reboot.

I heard they had some movies, but Khy's FtP didnt have those.

Seasons 3 and 4 were different, but still ultimately awsome, even without some of the censor evading improv humor.

---

The movies are Season 4, which are the arcs "Daemon Rising" (with the Excellent Hexadecimal vs Daemon battle, not to mention you see Dot in 80's style punked out. , and the arc "My Two Bobs" which ended in typical Mainframe fashion with a cliffhanger that hasn't been resolved yet.

quote:

---

Elvish Crack Piper thought this was the Ricky Martin Fan Club Forum and wrote:
I want more reboot.

I heard they had some movies, but Khy's FtP didnt have those.

Seasons 3 and 4 were different, but still ultimately awsome, even without some of the censor evading improv humor.

---

Question! in Season 4 are the Crimson Biome and the Surfer dead? Because in the first episode when Matrix and Andrea are running from the Guardians they show pictures of those two but they are all greyed out... I never finished the 4th season still need ot download more of it

Mainframe needs to do more.

Does this deserve spoiler text or no?

And I mean the Dinobots were a team... of Dinosaurs... Now there is one Dinobot... Who was a bad guy, then a good guy, then a badguy/goodguy, and omg so confused, and It just made me dislike it cause I was so lost and it made no sense.

quote:

---

Faelynn LeAndris had this to say about pies:
I remember everyone always saying that Beast Wars continued the original Transformers Story, and somehow tied into it... So I remember watching Beast Wars, from the very begining, and giving up after trying to figure out just how the hell these new charracters aside from Optimus Primal (Omg, Mightion has effected Television!!) tied into, or were a part of anything else....

And I mean the Dinobots were a team... of Dinosaurs... Now there is one Dinobot... Who was a bad guy, then a good guy, then a badguy/goodguy, and omg so confused, and It just made me dislike it cause I was so lost and it made no sense.

---

The Maximals (Autobots) find the Ark, the Autobots ship, the Predacons also find the Ark and Megatron blows a hole in Prime's head. Which almost erased the Maximals from exsistance, like Back to the Future.

Since Deth has the DVDs he could explain better, but that's what I remember.

quote:

---

Verily, New Age Bane doth proclaim:
Question! in Season 4 are the Crimson Biome and the Surfer dead? Because in the first episode when Matrix and Andrea are running from the Guardians they show pictures of those two but they are all greyed out... I never finished the 4th season still need ot download more of it

---

They aren't dead. Basically up until that scene, the Mainframer's were running loose on the web setting up firewalls to stop Daemon's spread. Crimson Binome and Surfr were two members of those teams but they got captured/lost while on the missions and were otherwise out of the picture.

I *think* Crimson Binome showed up for Bob and Dot's wedding but I'm not positive. I'm fairly sure some of his crew were at the party at least.

Surfr is the one who found Bob on the web which led to the start of "My Two Bobs". He was also shown pestering Mouse in the background as Mouse was giving Dot advice.

Oh and it's AndrAIa by the way.

Bad wolf! Bad! Bad!

At the end of the Great Cybertronian War, the Autobots were victorious. It was a long and difficult battle, but the Autobots finally won out over their rivals. Many of the Decepticons were punished for what amounted to being war crimes, but a good number of them were given amnesty. The important thing to keep in mind is that not all Decepticons were front line soldiers. Being a Decepticon (or an Autobot, for that matter) was a philosophical standpoint. Decepticons had a militaristic, imperialistic mindset, whereas the Autobots were the scientists, engineers, architects, and favored a democratic form of rule.

The Decepticons were exiled to a series of space stations, moons, small planetoids, and other colonies, and were very stringently monitored by the Autobots, who maintained tight reign over their former enemies. I get the impression it was something like reservations; semi-autonomous but regulated and limited by the surrounding political body.

Move ahead a period of time (some sources suggest 300 years, some say more). The Autobots and Decepticons still technically exist, but there are subsets now. The Autobots now refer to themselves as Maximals, and the Decepticons refer to themselves as Predacons. Maximals are still the scientists and explorers, and the Predacons are still the militaristic schemers and connivers.

The Predacon known as Megatron (who, we find out, took his name in homage to the original great Decepticon leader, much in the same way Roman emperors all started calling themself Caesar after the original) has stolen a valuable Autobot "relic", namely a golden disc with very significant inscriptions. He believes it's a map to a source of energon, and his professed intention is to go to this location, reap the natural resources, raise a grand Predacon army powered with this energon, and retake Cybertron in the name of the Predacons.

Megatron steals a transwarp ship. Transwarp technology means that long journeys (such as those taken by the Autobot Ark and the Decepticon ship Nemesis) don't take nearly as long. Cybertronians don't age the same way humans do, but they still see the value in getting places faster. Transwarp technology seems to fold not just space, but it also seems to dilate time. It's a very guarded technology, usually in the hands of only the Maximals (I gather). Megatron steals an experimental Pred ship, evades pursuit, and is well on his way when our heroes are contacted.

Behold the Axalon. The Axalon is a Maximal exploration vessel. It possesses a transwarp drive, has a crew of roughly half a dozen, and is carrying a crew of Cybertronian stasis pods containing the protoforms of (apparently) dozens of slumbering Cybertronian colonists. Cybertron tracks the direction Megatron is heading, and the Axalon is the only vessel anywhere near Megatron's ship. Cybertron orders the Axalon and it's crew to intercept Megatron, stop him, and recover the disks.

The problem is that Megatron isn't going to give up so easily. There's a transwarp incident, and the Axalon and Megatron's ship open up all their main guns on one another, effectively ruining the vessels for space flight, and forcing them to crash land on this mystery planet with it's two moons.

Now for a interlude on technology, energon, and why transformers are smaller now than they were in the original age. In the old days (IE Gen 1), Cybertronians (Transformers) were inefficient energy-guzzlers. That's why the original Megatron was constantly attempting to get his hands on massive quantities of energon; he desperately needed energon to feed his legion of soldiers. Planets like Earth have all sorts of harnessable resources that Cybertron, being in geological terms a dead planetoid, doesn't have. It's important to note that in the millions of years that the Gen 1 group was offline, technology did improve on Cybertron, but frankly there was a war on for most of that time and it didn't improve THAT much, and to be blunt most Decepticons aren't exactly intellectuals. When the war was over, the Autobots (and the Maximals that followed them) developed new technology. Gone are the days where you need one central ship-board computer such as Teletran-1 to scan the surroundings for "camouflage". Transformers are now comprised of "smart metal" that defaults to a featureless "Protoform" brought to life by their spark. Stasis pods such as the one the Axalon was carrying keep colonists, scientists, and explorers in an offline safety mode. Hibernation, essentially. They're reverted to their protoform for the journey, and when they arrive at their destination, the stasis pod's integral scanners probe the area for camouflage and make the necessary adjustments to the protoform, including it's transformation sequence. Power handling and processing technology has gotten better, so Cybertronians can be smaller. The downside, however, is that the smaller Cybertronian model is more susceptible to ambient energy fields. Specifically, if there's a LOT of energon in an area, it can short out an unshielded Cybertronian and force them into stasis lock/emergency hibernation. The only way to effectively get around this is organic tissue, which acts as shielding, assuming it covers the entire body. Hence, when the Maximal and Predacon ships crash land, the systems search for biological models to use.

Predacons, like their Decepticon forebearers, prefer big, nasty, vicious bodies. They also like air superiority. So when the Pred ship landed, you end up with a T-Rex, a Velociraptor, a Wasp, a Pterasaur, a Black Widow Spider, a Tarantula, and a Scorpion. The Maximals go for mammals and birds; you end up with a cheetah, tiger, gorilla, rhino, rat and hawk.

Now...the Predacons get off their ship in their new beast modes to have a look around. It becomes rapidly apparent to them that this ISN'T where they were intending to go, even though the planet is rich in energon. To make matters worse, their ship has crash landed, there's no easy way to fix it, and there's every indication that the Maximals who hate their guts are still here. All of the goon squad (save Megatron) take new names, including Dinobot.

A word on Dinobot...I personally think Dinobot took that name as an homage to the original Dinobots. Keep in mind that the original Megatron brought the dinobots online. They ended up siding with the Autobots, but only tangentially. Grimlock in particular never...quite...accepted the fact that he wasn't the overall leader. They lived by a darwinian code of honor: there is a right way for warriors to live, and only the fittest should lead. Dinobot in Beast Wars has that sort of code of honor, and it plagues him throughout the series.

See...Dinobot is a Predacon. He was built a Pred, raised a Pred, and has a Pred code of honor. Battle is where you find yourself, and it's only fitting that the greatest warriors should rule. He thinks Megatron botched this mission and tries to overthrow him, but is outgunned by the loyal Preds, so Dinobot goes to the Maximals to challenge Optimus for leadership...doesn't work out, but Dinobot can't go back to the Preds. So he's stuck.

By the end of the first season and the start of the second, Dinobot is slowly acclimating to the Maximals. He forms a friendship with Rattrap (who had been his most outspoken adversary). The problem is...at the end of the first season, we find out that the planet their on is Earth. The transwarp incident during the firefight resulted in them getting forced, violently, into the prehistoric past of Earth. Megatron's intentions become more clear, and Dinobot is left in a quandry...Do his choices, does his code of honor, really matter? Is the future unchangeable? Or does every decision count? Dinobot steals the golden disc Megatron took from Cybertron, and a golden disc belonging to aliens who are acting as caretakers of Earth, and hides them.

After a heated battle, Dinobot is taken captive, and he offers to rejoin the Predacons. He ends up giving one of the discs back to Megatron, thinking it will buy him back into Megs' graces, but when Rattrap (thinking Dinobot is in danger) comes along and is hurt, and Megatron orders Dinobot to murder Rattrap in cold blood, Dinobot can't do it. He returns to the Maximals.

In the end, Dinobot is writhing with the possibility that he failed his code of honor. He believes that fate gives you one test, one chance to prove yourself. He wonders if in giving the disc to Megatron he sealed his own fate. He wonders if he failed his one test, and is actually considering killing himself...but decides he might try to redeem himself by going after Megatron. Maybe he can destroy Megatron and recover the disc and regain his honor. Instead, in hunting Megatron, he discovers the truth: The future isn't written in stone. It can be changed. And Megatron is intending to wipe out the proto-humans who will one day become the Autobots' greatest ally in the Cybertronian war. Dinobot signals the Maximals for aid. Optimus orders him to standby until they can arrive. Dinobot replies:

"Negative! The question that once haunted my being has been answered. The future is NOT fixed; my choices are my own. And yet...how ironic...I now find that I have no choice at all... I am a warrior. Let the battle be joined."

Dinobot goes into battle against the Preds. All of them. By himself. There's no way he can conceivably survive the encounter. He's outnumbered, brutally outgunned, and he's not just fighting to keep himself alive. He's fighting to save the proto-humans. He manages to disable and scatter the Preds, but by the time he gets to Megatron, he's without weapons, can't fire his energy blast eyebeams, and he's overridden emergency stasis lock to keep fighting; in other words...he's dying. The damage is too severe; even if he beats Megatron, he dies. The battle is brutal, and in fairness, Dinobot does little to actually damage Megatron, but he hurts Megs by destroying the golden disc he gave Megatron, and then collapses. The rest of the Maximals arrive right about this time and send the Preds running. The tribes of proto-humans scatter, making it impossible for Megatron to wipe out humanity in the future with his limited resources. Dinobot has a final soliloquy, surrounded by his Maximal comrades. And he DIES.

Now I know it may be hard to understand, but Dinobot's story is actually a pretty significant, deep point in the series. It's Dinobot's legacy that saves everything, in the end.

As for the other connections to Gen 1...after all of Megatron's other avenues of trying to change the future have failed, he makes a move on the Autobot Ark itself. And succeeds in blasting a hole through the helpless Optimus Prime's head. It nearly unwrites history; but they get a life support/repair unit on Prime's head in time, and Primal temporarily carries Prime's spark (which warps Primal's body into a form more like Prime's) until repairs can be completed. The Maximals take up a defensive position around the Ark and set up base there until the end, when Megatron is finally defeated and the Beast Wars officially end.

There's a lot more intricate details, but if you want that find a website with an episode guide.

Yay for the return off the Deth Essay!

I must find and download it now dammit

quote:

---

Nobody really understood why Faelynn LeAndris wrote:
(Omg, Mightion has effected Television!)

---

I did what now? I've never seen Beast Wars anything.

quote:

---

Mightion Defensor stopped beating up furries long enough to write:
I did what now? I've never seen Beast Wars anything.

---

"Optimus Primal"

quote:

---

Mightion Defensor had this to say about John Romero:
I did what now? I've never seen Beast Wars anything.

---

You are no longer King of the Transformer Geeks

Turn in your model kit and Optimus Prime helmet at the door, and don't let it hit you on the way out.

All hail King Taeolas, the new King of the Transformer Geeks!

quote:

---

Lyinar Ka`Bael got all f'ed up on Angel Dust and wrote:
You are no longer King of the Transformer Geeks

Turn in your model kit and Optimus Prime helmet at the door, and don't let it hit you on the way out.

All hail King Taeolas, the new King of the Transformer Geeks!

---

I have a Japanese Car Robots Brave Maximus and my reissue Predaking that say I retain my title. If he has a complete Fortress or Grand Maximus, then I surrender. Bonus points for the Super God Sword.

quote:

---

Taeolas thought about the meaning of life:
One side story I heard once (read an interview but can't recall all the details) is apparantly the producer or the lead writer or something of Beast Wars when he started the show, knew very little about Transformer History. But when a throwaway line generate a HUGE response (I think it was someone saying something along the lines of 'By the Matrix!') from the fans he realized what scope of following the show and series had, and dug into the background and started adjusting the storylines a little to fit better (and I would assume virtually rewriting entirely the 3rd season because of it).

---

There were some threads that had to have started first season, though. By the end of the First Season they knew it was prehistoric Earth.