The Intergalactic Highway

I find it sad that with the new generations of fanbrats each series brings in, Beast Wars sinks further and further into obscurity. And the young'uns are all too quick to dismiss the idea of animal Transformers, as if what the robots turn into has ANY bearing on the quality of a series.

We've come full circle back to the "Trukk Not Munky" attitude.

Heh, noobs.

I reckon I'm probably the oldest person here. Too embarrassed to say my exact age, but put it this way...
+ I was in primary school when Transformers started
+ I was in high school when Transformers Generation 2 started
+ I was in university when Beast Wars started
+ I was a graduate student when Beast Machines and Car Robot came out

Beat that.

But yes, I remember being at a convention in 2003 where we had a Beast Wars toy battle diorama on display, and these guys came up and went, "Oh wow, Beast Wars! I remember that!" My friend and I looked at each other and my mate said, "You know we're getting old when people talk about Beast Wars with nostalgia!"

Last week one of my students asked me who was my first Transformer, I answered "Brawn." The class gave me a blank stare with NO idea who I was talking about (then again, I find most kids these days aren't familiar with any Transformer not named Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Megatron or Starscream (-_-)). When kids ask me "Who's your favourite Transformer?" I always stump them by saying "Time Warrior!"

I would probably end up just saying Starscream so that I don't have to explain to them what beast wars is or, in your case, who time warrior is.

It's sad that people can't believe in a robot turning into animal.

Because of the Japanese dubs and the movies, Beast Wars is put to pasture which is not good as the same arguments will peak through from the new generation about "Trunk not Munky" if they ever bring it back (which I think they should but they are so focused on milking in G1.)

Oh boy.

I love G1 and the new series. Don't get me wrong. I love them.

It's just that Beast Wars brought new characters, new stories that writers can do anything with and no one is doing it.

Backstories for Megatron and Dinobot, their relationship, also Depth Charge and Rampage(I would love to read stories showing us Omicron and its destruction. It would be interesting and emotional to see what Depth Charge had to witness and experience.)

Yet, there are none, sadly.

Maybe when they are done with movies and series, they will pick it up. I hope.

Give it a bit of time, all things move in cycles, and for every cycle there is a time.

I have mastered the mastery of riddlespeak, recently. Fear my power, fear it and despair!

Okay, so maybe that last sentence didn't work out as well.

Sooner or later the marketing and fictional cycles will swing back towards a robanimal (Fusion Words! Slag Yeah!) trend and we'll get a fresh rehash of Beast Wars or something along those lines. The problem may lie in that Beast Wars is a victim of its own success, that the story they told was altogether too good and too well put together. Anything like it would be forced to stand in its shadow... it could be that the brains trust up in Hasbro are waiting until such a time as that anything they make won't have to stand in Beast Wars' significant and imposing shadow before they make anything at all like it.

I think my point is somewhere up there. Hopefully it didn't drown in the word salad. If you're willing to brave it I can offer you the utensils necessary to fight the beast and conquer your way to dessert.

It would seem that I have forgotten what I was on about... ah well.

Generally we all feel old and crotchety. But heck, Robot animals could come back.. I mean Zoids came back and they even resold the same kits from the 80s.. I have duplicates now because of that. Younger generations are a bit different from ours in many ways as well. I have learned this interacting with some of them. Since tv changed, they don't rerun older tv shows or movies as much so Gilligans Island, Get Smart, or even Inspector Gadget are realitively unknown now.




As for japanese Beastwars.. Primus the pain it was watching that dub. There are still fans of Beastwars in japan and even make art.. though I'd admit the art varies based on how the fans personification.

So on the one hand while we saw Beastwars like this

Japan saw it more like.. this.

I will say one thing about the BW dub. I am impressed that japan managed to collect almost every voice actor I hate and put them into one show which more or less makes me regret having learned the language, but even not understanding the language is probably one of the more audio violating experience you could subject yourself to. Before I watched it I only saw one or two clips and heard that Blackarachnia is awful.. No, getting Shigeru Chiba (Voice of Megane from Urusei Yatsura) as Megatron,Kappei Yamaguchi as Rattrap,and Mitsuo Iwata as Silverbolt (He was also Roadbuster and the creepy guy that wanted to er.. do things with the hamster in Ebichu)... it's painful.

I will also admit how surprising it is that both versions of BW had voice actors involved in Ranma and Inu Yasha in Japan and North America.. that's just not normal.


Anyway.. they will probably redo something with animal robots one day, if there is one thing I have learned is EVERYTHING will be remade, and usually not do it well. Which will always give fans a reason to cringe, complain, and take blood pressure medications as they get into their later years..

I grew up watching Beast wars, half the time it's always in the back of my mind.

Yeah I know what you mean. Though me Beast Wars was the first TF series I ever saw, and I know everyone is entitled to thier opinion but sometimes I can't help feel sad when good series go unpericated. -__-

Oh and reaction to the pics.

1st one: Awesome sauce.

2nd one: *Squee* That's so cute!

Don't judge me. >.>

Oh no, it is cute Sky, you wont be judged unfairly even with Megatron dressed like a schoolgirl in the back. And the series has underlying effects on everyone. I still happen to say "Yessss" like Megatron to the point where a girlfriend noticed it and asked why.. then refused to watch the show. And we all know the effects on OOP having a Maximal tattoo, though I imagine that is more of a Garry Chalk reason.

una - Actually the Beast Era ended when Beast Machines panned. Hasbro decided to hand the reigns over to Japan for a while and we got RiD as a stopgap measure while HasTak planned out Armada.

So on the one hand while we saw Beastwars like this... Japan saw it more like.. this.

The problem may lie in that Beast Wars is a victim of its own success, that the story they told was altogether too good and too well put together. Anything like it would be forced to stand in its shadow... it could be that the brains trust up in Hasbro are waiting until such a time as that anything they make won't have to stand in Beast Wars' significant and imposing shadow before they make anything at all like it.

Amen.

but sometimes I can't help feel sad when good series go unpericated.

I feel the same way, Sky. Ah well. I have to say that because of Beast Wars, I have made some really great friends. And this message board is the best one around on the world wide web to keep the show's spirit alive.

And we all know the effects on OOP having a Maximal tattoo, though I imagine that is more of a Garry Chalk reason.

Why are you singling me out, NK? I got the Maximal insignia tattooed on my arm for two specific reasons. One was because Beast Wars is so incredibly awesome and it will always be a favorite show of mine. It has done so much for me; from meeting new people to expanding my talent of pencil art. The other reason was because I'm a sucker for the good guys so the Maximals rock; and since I'm not as much a G1 fan, I figured I'd get the Maximals' insignia instead of the Autobots' because every other Transfan has that. ...Garry had nothing to do with the tatt. Well, maybe a .1% of it. Kidding! I've never even shown it to him in person because I forget I even have it.

I don't mind if they never get back to such a great series because I'm quite capable of accepting new TFs series. Nothing will ever compare to BW anyway, so I'll just keep my memories, my convention photos (when they used to recognize the Beast Era), my toys, my DVD's and my friends. Long live BW!

Because I know more on the extent of BW on you compared to the others. But okay, fine. Uh.. Cubic took Depthcharge to the beach and.. everywhere else. Okay, that one makes me a bit worried.

All right, all right. No need to make up obsene stories like the tabloids.

NaitoKage, if it makes you feel any better 実は日本人のトラフォファンは日本語吹替版のビーストウォーズのテレビシリーズ（特にメタルス）が嫌いんだ。 A lot of Japanese fans just downloaded English language eps of Beast Wars (not sure if they were fansubbed or if they downloaded translated transcripts) and watched those over the televised dubs.

Moral of the Story: Dubs suck, and true fans will always prefer the original language version.

Dubbing also highly restricts a voice actor's ability to act... it's almost like sticking a straitjacket on them. Look at the English dub of Transformers Armada *extreme.shudder* -- even with voice actors like Garry Chalk and David Kaye, it's just _awful_. When I watch the DVD interviews with Neil Kaplan (RiD Optimus Prime) and Michael McConnohie (G1 Cosmos, Tracks, RiD Ironhide), the way they describe voice acting on a dub, you can tell they don't like it as much as normal voice acting and they find it terribly restrictive on their craft. I've also met Sean Schemmel and Chris Sabat (English dub actors for Son Gokuu and Vegeta in Dragonball Z) and in a more frank discussion they pretty much told me the same thing. Sean told me that he's an anime fan himself and he prefers watching them subtitled.

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It's funny... in the past few years, especially with the live action movies out, we have a lot of "new G1" fans. A lot of them liked G1 back in the 1980s/90s, but then abandoned Transformers when they decided that they were "too old" for Transformers (WHAT??!?)... so they've totally skipped the dark times of G2 and never witnessed first hand how BEAST WARS SAVED TRANSFORMERS FROM EXTINCTION! *hff* *hff* Sorry, but whenever I get these Noobs that go all "Trukk Not Munky" on me, I kindly remind them that if it weren't for Beast Wars, Transformers would have died!

But thanks to Beast Wars, Transformers is a franchise that has survived _continuously_ for 27 years. We've _never_ had a year when Transformers has not been in production, from 1984-present. Bloody ingrates...

OOP: I wish I was..

Goktimus: Yeah, heard the same thing when OOP interviewed Garry Chalk with a old friend of mine (I did the recording and minor editing, he ended up transcripting it). I have heard some good dubs, but yeah.. generally subs all the way these days. They also help you read faster! I think my favorite part about Armada was how they kept messing up everyone's names.

Ah yeah.. after Beastwars I started looking into other TF series.. which went from watching Victory, Headmasters, Masterforce and streams of Car Robo back in the day.. then being on a TF site ended up just.. viewing it all, even have the TF manga.