TF Views

Dominic wrote:I always got the impression that most of the character on BW were not alive during the Great War. (Maybe they were built to replace guys who were killed off?)


As for robot escapism, there are two options. One could either turn off their brain. Or, they could watch "Go-Bots" or G1.

Dom

No, I have to disagree with that assessment; Beast Wars showed you could do robot escapism without resorting to Go-Bots or dumbing down the audience. It was smart, funny, didn't rely too much on G1 to get it past, and while season 1 was the weakest of the seasons, I agree with most on this, the entire show was more sophisticated and compelling than G1 or any of the latter series were, for me. Beast Machines, in my opinion, was just heavy handed philosophical propaganda wrapped up in Cybertronium tin foil, and I didn't care for it. The only thing I did appreciate from it was Cheetor finishing up his character growth and becoming a strong and memorable leader, in his own right. I could care less to guru monkeys, Lance Bass' demonic twin, and Rattrap turning traitor simply because he had no weapons or legs in robot mod (what I consider to be the most egregious character derailment for the cast in BM).

Even putting aside my disagreement about season 1 being the weakest part of BW, I would still argue it was more heavy handed than BM.

In Beast Wars, the only three (Dinobot 1 and 2, and Blackarachnia), remotely good Predacons ended up fighting alongside the Maximals by the end. The rest were just bad guys.

How many truly evil Vehicons were there? I count only one, Jetstrorm by virtue of his sadism. The rest were doing their jobs or their legalistic duty. Even Tankor was principled.

Dom
-going to sleep now.

Dominic wrote:The problem is that it is "stuck". with both fans and creators slavishly adhering to the one (objectively mediocre) cartoon. I am not against having a fixed story. But, if the story is fixed, it needs to be left alone. With "Beast Wars", people want it both ways. They want the story fixed, but they cannot leave it alone. This leads to the fan-fic level comics we have gotten.

I believe you're mixing some personal opinion with your objectivity there Dom. Like it or not, BW was one of, if not the best Transformers cartoon to date. It's really what set the bar when it comes to Transformers cartoons, which is why both fans and creators "slavishly adhere" to it, especially since nothing has really managed to live up to it. I know some might argue Animated did, but I have to say there were several factors that held it back from reaching that potential. And again, what you're pointing out here is really what shows that the show is holding up to time, not aging badly.

Toy wise, many of the toys have aged nicely. Megatron has not aged well though. For example, articulation that seemed great in '97 seems lacking by today's standards. (There is not reason that they could not have articulated the turbines in '97.)

I completely disagree. Turbines aside, TM Megatron has great articulation, as does many BW toys. Heck, some of them I'd say are equal or even have better articulation than some of today's toys. The only problem I have with TM Megatron in particular is "brown plastic syndrome" (poor guy snapped in half because of it). But even with that problem, I'd still say that toy (in general) has aged well.

Dominic wrote:Even putting aside my disagreement about season 1 being the weakest part of BW, I would still argue it was more heavy handed than BM.

In Beast Wars, the only three (Dinobot 1 and 2, and Blackarachnia), remotely good Predacons ended up fighting alongside the Maximals by the end. The rest were just bad guys.

How many truly evil Vehicons were there? I count only one, Jetstrorm by virtue of his sadism. The rest were doing their jobs or their legalistic duty. Even Tankor was principled.

Dom
-going to sleep now.

...That isn't even remotely what we're arguing with the heavy handedness. I'm arguing about the message BM was slamming us with, the "instrumentality vs. free will/nature vs. technology" bullcrap that would make Ted Turner look at it and cream his pants in envy. BW focused on the CHARACTERS, their growth and interaction with each other and their surroundings and background, whereas BM focused on the pseudo-philosophical propaganda they were trying to disguise as a poorly-written, poorly-animated Transformers series. Why should I care about the villains being less "evil" than the previous show, when Primal won't shut up about the "will of the Oracle", Megatron won't shut up about his "Technological perfection", Rattrap won't shut up about how useless he is without legs, Blackarachnia won't shut up about Silverbolt, Silverbolt won't shut up about how he was used as Jetstorm, and Nightscream won't shut up in general?

Yes, I said "poorly-animated", because that's what it was; the explosions flowed like lava lamps instead of being semi-realistic, it was way too freaking dark, even in the well-lit areas, the fighting was too frenetic and were poorly edited...it honestly looked more like a Nintendo 64 game demo, to me, than an actual cartoon.

I'm sorry, but there's nothing about this show that I like. NOTHING; they stripped most of what made the characters appealing in BW, leaving them whiny, backstabbing, near-psychopathic punks spewing out moronic diatribes about the environment and technology and free will and crap, and frankly, the new characters they created weren't memorable OR likable, either. As i said, the only exception was with Cheetor, but that's only really because he HAD to be; they specifically wrote things so that Primal was too preoccupied being the next Nazi Recruiter for Greenpeace, just to shove Cheetor into the leadership position. Yeah, it worked, but there was no reason for them to do what they did with Primal to set him up in that position, much like how there was no reason for Hal Jordan to turn evil and kill everyone to make way for Kyle Rayner as the Green Lantern. The only series I can put lower on my personal list of Transformers franchises would be the Bayformer movies, and I think we all know why THAT is.

SynjoDeonecros wrote:...That isn't even remotely what we're arguing with the heavy handedness. I'm arguing about the message BM was slamming us with, the "instrumentality vs. free will/nature vs. technology" bullcrap that would make Ted Turner look at it and cream his pants in envy. BW focused on the CHARACTERS, their growth and interaction with each other and their surroundings and background, whereas BM focused on the pseudo-philosophical propaganda they were trying to disguise as a poorly-written, poorly-animated Transformers series.

Not exactly. The "instrumentality vs. free will/nature vs. technology" themes were used to motivate the characters, and to give them a solid reason for taking the actions that they did. The themes added depth that went beyond simply fighting to survive or fighting for power and control. The show wasn't generally preachy for the sake of it, something I hate as well in my entertainment and would certainly object to if Beast Machines had constantly indulged in it. Admittedly, there are exceptions in certain episodes where Prime starts pontificating, and those are certainly annoying. But given his character arc and the way in which he's working out his ideas over the course of the series, it makes sense that he'd vocalize what he had learned.

Why should I care about the villains being less "evil" than the previous show, when Primal won't shut up about the "will of the Oracle", Megatron won't shut up about his "Technological perfection", Rattrap won't shut up about how useless he is without legs, Blackarachnia won't shut up about Silverbolt, Silverbolt won't shut up about how he was used as Jetstorm, and Nightscream won't shut up in general?

Characters talk about what matters to them. What should they have discussed, the weather on Cybertron? Sports? Cybertropolis traffic patterns? I don't mean to be rude here, but the things the character discuss make sense, particularly given the context that the conversations or statements take place in. They talk about issues that they're dealing with or fighting over. You may find it annoying and repetitive, but it wouldn't make sense for the characters to ignore the issues in front of them.

Yes, I said "poorly-animated", because that's what it was; the explosions flowed like lava lamps instead of being semi-realistic, it was way too freaking dark, even in the well-lit areas, the fighting was too frenetic and were poorly edited...it honestly looked more like a Nintendo 64 game demo, to me, than an actual cartoon.

All of those are stylistic choices. The Maximals are out at night, working under cover of darkness, for obvious reasons. The explosion style was deliberate. Look at the explosions in Beast Wars, and it's clear Mainframe could do bog-standard fireball kabooms if they wanted to. They chose to go in another direction.

What was repetitive were the "split up into two or three groups" type of plot. We saw way too many of those in both seasons.

I'm sorry, but there's nothing about this show that I like. NOTHING; they stripped most of what made the characters appealing in BW, leaving them whiny, backstabbing, near-psychopathic punks spewing out moronic diatribes about the environment and technology and free will and crap,

They're fighting a guerilla war against a fanatic and an army that outnumbers them by the thousands. That's going to change anyone's demeanor. And backstabbing? Hardly. How many times did one of the Maximals or a group of them swoop in to save the others from certain death? Sure they argue and fight... they're under tremendous stress. They're all in a life or death situation. What else would you expect?

and frankly, the new characters they created weren't memorable OR likable, either.

I'd agree with you when it comes to Botanica, Tankor and Nightscream. I do like Thrust, Jetstorm, Obsidian and Strika.

Rattrap betrayed the Maximals to Megatron to get more weapons to not feel "useless", Blackarachnia had defied orders to go on her crusade to rescue Silverbolt more times than Silverbolt did the same for BA in BW, Optimus himself went all religious fanatical on us, during the midpoint, not caring what happened to him or his team as long as it served "the will of the Oracle"...yeah, they were backstabbing.

And it WAS too preachy and heavyhanded with the message. They weren't "motivations" for the characters; the motivations for the Maximals was to save Cybertron from a deranged madman and liberate their fellow Transformers. They could've done that without delving into "the will of the Oracle" and whether or not technology was evil or crap like that. BW did a great take on the importance of not changing the past, or how corrupt the good guys can be from too much war, but they didn't dwell on it like BM did. Sonic SatAM had an evironment vs. technology message that was subtle and nowhere near as preachy and heavy handed as this show was. But NO; they had to spew out pointless, annoying diatribes about the balance between technology and nature, or free will vs. instrumentality every goddamn episode. I'm sorry, but that is NOT good entertainment, for me, especially not in a transforming robots cartoon.

And it opened up a whole bunch of plot holes, too; why, when all the other Maximals were eating the fruit from that one tree, did Cheetor refuse with the line "We eat Energon, period"? Did he forget that he's now half-organic, or that his buddies were eating organic material IN BEAST WARS?! Why DID Megatron decide free will was stupid, and his beast form was ugly? I don't think they ever explained his reasons for that, and last I checked, he was HAPPY with his beast mode in BW, since it gave him more power. Plus, why the hell did he keep his word to Rattrap during "The Weak Component"? Isn't this the same Megatron who constantly referred to the word "honor" as a vulgarism best left unsaid, let alone followed? And Rattrap, why the hell did he go so apeslag over trying to transform, and then trying to make himself useful when he learned he had no legs in robot mode? Don't give me this "post-traumatic stress disorder" crap, BW firmly established him as a veteran master at improvisational warfare; he'd be panicky, yes, but he wouldn't go through the massive amount of obsessing and backstabbing he did, here. NONE of the character changes made sense. NONE. Optimus reduced to fundamentalist preacher of Transformer Scientology, when he was portrayed as much more down to earth and less philosophical in BW? Blackarachnia reduced to slobbering over the loss of Silverbolt like a whiny, whipped schoolgirl pining over her former high school crush, when she was firmly established as an independent "bad girl" who didn't need Silverbolt, even when they were together? None of them made sense, and all of them came out of freaking nowhere.

Stylistic choices, my ass; we've seen very clearly that the cover of night does absolutely JACK to cover their traipsing around topside from the Vehicons, and the explosions looked like a freaking lava lamp that didn't make me feel so much like they were in a firefight than they were about to cross Lethal Lava Land. The freaking constant jump-cuts were annoying, too; don't let us see a clear image of Megatron or the Maximals transform, because it would expose how bad they are at rendering simple blob-morph effects, I mean "organic transformation". Don't let us see a good battle, just various jump cuts of Vehicons firing, Cheetor flailing his arms about, more Vehicons firing, Optimus getting heart burn, more Vehicons firing, more flailing about from Cheetor...too goddamn frenetic, confusing, and badly done. And the battles were little more than "get fired on, run, show token resistance when cornered, run, run some more, run until mindless robots give up". BORING! The fighting in Energon was more engaging than here.

I'm sorry, but we're not going to reach a consensus, here; there was a reason why even the voice actors came out of it calling it "the bad thing that happened": IT WAS. They had a perfect ending for Beast Wars right there, and they had to go and ruin it with their pretentious, preachy, "artsy" bullcrap that flipped the bird to everything they had established in - and fans loved with - Beast Wars. I could writer a better continuation to Beast Wars than this piece of slag, and in fact, I am: it involves a Tripredacus plot with a manufactured Swarm, the possible creation of the Battle Beasts, and undead Tarantulas and his army of reformatted Insecticons. Now, if you excuse me, I've got to go burn my Thrust figurine in effigy.

Dominic wrote: Look at this week's reveal about King Tut. (He was a product of incest, with many physical defects resulting from that unholy union.) How many people do you think will cling to a romantic view of him?

Unrelated, but can I get a link on this? I'm interested.

Beats Machines was crap, plain and simple.

I agree with your general assessment of the toys.

BM was a wonderful time for toys. The Maximals are a totally different kind of beast, and a lot of them involve being rather creative about how to fiddle with them. I remember messing with Nightviper once, and telling 86, "Man, this toy sucks," and he was all, "No, you're doing it wrong, do this and this and this and it's awesome," and I did, and it was awesome. A lot of the Maximals were like that, and I often compared a bunch of the first (and indeed, current) Movie toys to them--it's not so much about what was intended, but being creative and how you interpret the robots. I remember liking the BM toys a 'lot' because of that--it was less about "Here's a car, now it's a robot," and more about "Here's an abstract kickass design, now turn it into something even cooler in your mind."

Plus, the Vehicons were so unbelievably awesome. Every single new Vehicon was my new favourite Transformer ever until the 'next' time I bought a new Vehicon.

-actually liked "Beast Machines" better.

Yes. BM is better as a show, IMO. The sole problem is that is has to be a sequel to Beast Wars and it had to use a lot of those same characters--and it handles some of them less well than others. Megs' I HATE ORGANICS RAAAAGE motivation is never really explained, for example--but once you ignore that and accept that it simply 'is,' the show gets much better.

Synjo! wrote:I could writer a better continuation to Beast Wars than this piece of slag, and in fact, I am: it involves a Tripredacus plot with a manufactured Swarm, the possible creation of the Battle Beasts, and undead Tarantulas and his army of reformatted Insecticons. Now, if you excuse me, I've got to go burn my Thrust figurine in effigy.

...Er, ah, no. For one thing, why are the Battle Beasts involved? Especially since they're already running around during Headmasters. Also, where the hell does Tarry get an army of Insecticons? Unless the "reformatted" implies they're the G1 Insecticons, in which case, 'why are they there?'

Never presume that your shoddy fanfic will be a better sequel, because that's simply what it is--shoddy fanfic. In fact, at the risk of it being flamebait, people like you are why I hate Beast Wars. You hold the original show with such high regard that you can't imagine something possibly *different* happening to it, like what BM was.

The people who made Beast Machines knew they could never do the same thing BW already did as well as BW (supposedly) did it--so they didn't try to, and instead did something different entirely.

BM has its flaws, and I can admit that as a fan of it. The semireligious elements and spirituality all kind of come out of nowhere. Rhinox's VA screws up (or the director did) when he's having that trippy sequence with Primal, and the whole thing comes off in the wrong light. Bits of the backstory don't make sense, and they took what was supposed to be a cute ending bit from BW and made a plotline out of it. Those are all bad things about BM--but the good things far outweigh it. The Vehicons rule, Smart Tankorr kicks ass, and seeing Megs succeed at ruling Cybertron where his predecessor failed is really sweet nectarine. BM tried to do something really different and huge, which is the opposite of what BW did--and if nothing else, I commend it for *taking that risk,* which is something BW never did.

SynjoDeonecros wrote:I'm sorry, but we're not going to reach a consensus, here;

That does seem obvious.

Onslaught Six wrote:BM has its flaws, and I can admit that as a fan of it. The semireligious elements and spirituality all kind of come out of nowhere. Rhinox's VA screws up (or the director did) when he's having that trippy sequence with Primal, and the whole thing comes off in the wrong light. Bits of the backstory don't make sense, and they took what was supposed to be a cute ending bit from BW and made a plotline out of it. Those are all bad things about BM--but the good things far outweigh it. The Vehicons rule, Smart Tankorr kicks ass, and seeing Megs succeed at ruling Cybertron where his predecessor failed is really sweet nectarine. BM tried to do something really different and huge, which is the opposite of what BW did--and if nothing else, I commend it for *taking that risk,* which is something BW never did.

I agree with most of this. One of the show's strength's is very much that it took a different direction than Beast Wars. Which really had done all they could with that concept anyway, after three seasons. Had a fourth season happened, they'd have taken it out into space, so it would have changed quite a bit as well.

King Tut and the Beast-era. Ah, incest.

I admit, I hated the abstract, and just plain innaccurate, toys. The Vehicons were okay. But, most of the Maximals were intolerable. The looked like knock-offs. Nightviper was okay, but cancelled out by garbage like Rattrap or Nightscream.

Fan-modes are not worth points when it comes to rating a toy, any more than fan-fic potential is worth points when it comes to rating a show.

I am still wondering how a show that had not completely evil bad guys can be more preachy than a show with "bad guyz who is bad guyz". In any case, Megatron's actions in "Weak Component" make sense. He was acting as an ideal machine would, giving the correct output, (keeping hiw word), in response to the correct input.

Dom
-only noticed Rhinox's voice actor screwing up in hindsight.