Beast Wars Season 1 Recap

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go back to beast mode. Hello and welcome to the

world's first ever Beast Wars Beast Machines

Review podcast. This is the Beast Unleashed podcast

brought to you by the Geekcast Radio Network

where all of our shows are adult and explicit.

So if you're under the age of 18 and your parents

don't want you listening, don't listen. I am

your host TFG1 Mike. Joining me is Pecan Court

Michael. Hello. Hello. And Steve Megatron. Howdy.

Today we will be recapping Beast Wars Season

1. I was going to say, I say fuck a lot in this,

so it's a good thing that you prefaced with,

you know, we're explicit. Yes, I'm only going

to do that for seasons, not seasons. Episodes

9 and 10, because Steve said that he fixed the

tag, so that people should know if it's in big

red letters and says explicit. Yeah, we're covered.

So, Michael, when did you first see Beast Wars?

You know, I wasn't really into Transformers,

you know, back in 1996. I didn't get back into

collecting until about 99, 2000ish. And even

then I was more into the vehicles, so I didn't

really get into collecting Beast Wars until three,

four years ago. And that was about the same time

that I got the shows on DVD. So once I watched

them for the first time, it's like, wow, I do

like green eggs and ham. And I'm going to buy

them all. And that's what I did. Got to catch

them all. Not quite like minicons, but yeah.

Fuck minisons. Well, you know when you get into

I want to say like exclusive figures that were

only released in Japan or Europe or things like

that. Vodcon. Yeah, yeah, well yeah, there were

some Beast Wars that released Only at Vodcon

and I've got a couple of those and I've got you

know the European releases and I got a couple

of the Japanese ones, but Uh, yeah, it's almost

like, gotta catch them all. There's a lot of

rare and obscure Beast Wars figures. Not as many

as they have now where nowadays they're deliberately

making rare and obscure figures. Yeah. Oh yeah.

Steve, when did you first see the show? As much

as I know you are a collector, Michael, we kind

of want to hold off on the actual Beast Wars

era toy discussion for that final episode when

we get down to episode 30, but yeah. Yeah. That's

still good. Steve, when did you first hear or

start watching season one? Um, I probably actually

started seeing this around, uh, I think from

the very beginning, actually. It just happened

to be I was watching some other show I think

it was called like mutant league or something

and then they kind of I guess cancelled that

and then we had the UPN power block and so this

was on and it had a reboot and some other shows

on it at the same time so that's when I caught

this show originally and kind of got into it

from the episode one and watched it whenever

I could find it. Yeah For me, I said this before,

when I originally saw Beast Wars, whether it

be any of the seasons, just Beast Wars in general,

not just season one, I originally thought Reboot

was the new Transformers cartoon. And then I

saw Beast Wars, and I saw Optimus Primal, and

I saw Megatron, and I'm like, wait, where's Peter

Cullen? Where's Frank Walker? Where's Jack Angel?

What the hell is this crap? truck not monkey

damn it the rallying cry of the fanboy well you

know I was 16 at the time so and you know transformers

for me you know I never really collected them

as a kid I had a few but I didn't start collecting

until 2008 to the late 2007 early 2008 newbie

shut the fuck up so You know, I really didn't

really pay any attention to it. I didn't hear

anything against it really when I was a kid,

but you know, now I absolutely love Beast Wars.

You know, there's so many of the toys that I

would like to get eventually. Save eBay scalpers,

but you know, I've been going all over Twitter

now under the Beast Unleashed account and just

saying monkey not truck monkey not truck Just

to piss people off because honestly, I I'm really

enjoying this cartoon. This is better than originally

I thought it was gonna be because back then I

Just kind of like, you know Steve you said you

kind of caught it when you could But you know

back then I caught it if it was on but I never

really caught on to the whole concept of it And

now that I've got all of the DVDs, including

Beast Machines, which we will be getting to eventually,

overall my impressions of Season 1 would have

to be, it is awesome, the backgrounds look incredible,

although there are some flaws. I'm not without

admitting that there are some flaws to the show,

but still it's 200 % better than what G1 was.

as far as design aesthetic and as far as, you

know, not seeing six different repainted versions

of Pterosaur in one shot. Oh, okay. I'm referencing

the Starscream Colors Syndrome. Yeah. I would

have to argue that because I think even in the

first episode of Beast Unleashed, I was complaining

about how awful the CGI is. Granted, this was

state of the art in 1996. It's still pretty bad.

Toward the end of season one, you start to see

the CGI get better. Well, toward the middle of

season one, you see it get better. By the end,

it's not awful. When they show landscapes in

grand sweeping vistas, they're not as bland as

they were in the beginning. They really had some

time to tweak the design. And as far as your

comparison with G1 goes, yeah, they focus on

particular characters. I mean, granted, there

was like 30 odd toys for the first year of Beast

Wars, but they didn't feel inclined to bring

new toy of the day in as a new character. And

when they did bring in new characters, you know...

It made sense with the story. Exactly. Right.

And this was very story -based. You had an ongoing

story arc that they stuck to. Occasionally you

had one -shots or filler episodes, but you had

an ongoing story arc. Maybe a couple different

ongoing story arcs that they really fleshed out

over the season and over the next season. And

to be honest, I went ahead and looked at a couple

clips from season three. and was just amazed

at how the CGI had evolved even over Season 2

and Season 3. I was actually shocked thinking,

you know, is this the same animation team that

started in 1996 with the first couple of episodes?

Because it had really, really turned around.

But as far as Season 1 goes, nah, you know, I

wasn't terribly thrilled with the CGI starting

off. Now the storytelling, yes, it was great.

And granted, the CGI did get better. But to start

off with, especially early Season 1, eh, so -so.

Well, you're entitled to your opinion, so whatever.

Well, again, compare it to Season 3. Don't even

compare it to Beast Machines, because hell, Beast

Machines is infinitely better than all of it.

Several years later. Yeah. Yeah But I mean, you

know, like you said at the time and you know

in 1996 this was state -of -the -art most beautiful

thing and of course, we're reviewing it over

15 years later or something like that. Yeah We've

got full -length CGI movies that look real. Yeah.

Yeah Tell you one thing that they did excel in

that I've had that I touched on in one of our

previous episodes was I Think it was dark voyage.

Yeah when we covered dark voyage about that a

energon explosion I mentioned that it didn't

look like a CGI explosion. It looked like something

you would see out of a movie Yeah, they put a

fire blast or something in there. Yeah, it's

like one of those cosmic not cosmic but Oh hell,

nuclear blasts. An epic Michael Bay explosion.

Shut up. But you know, it was almost like they

tried to do it in CGI and they tried it again

and they tried it again and said, you know what,

in the interest of time and money, let's just

get some stock footage and superimpose it. Yeah.

It's actually funny, in the interview that Steve

and I did with Ian Corlett, he actually asked

us, and I asked me, what did I think of the live

-action films that we've had so far, and would

we want to see Beast Wars in the live -action

films? I said, no. Please, please, no. There's

just no way that they could interpret that into

real life. No way. Before... I don't think they

could. I mean, honestly, the reason the movies

suck ass is because, number one, they're poorly

written. Oh, I should say, number one, they're

written well, but then rewritten by Michael Bay.

And number two, the designs are horrible. I mean,

oh, look, it's Megatron, but he actually looks

like a piece of crumpled tinfoil. If we were

to do a live -action Beast Wars, well, let's

not say live -action. Let's say it's CGI, full

CGI, like if you've seen Final Fantasy Advent

Children. Completely CGI, but you know it's really

well rendered and it looks real looks photorealistic

that type of thing if they were to do something

like that With you know somebody other than Michael

Bay. Let's say somebody who who you know understood

and gave a rat's ass about the mythos Who would

make the characters look like what they're supposed

to look like you know that type of thing Then

I would like to see that. I mean if you look

at Beast Wars season 1 1996 and the difference

in CGI animation from there to Beast Machines

and Beast Machines is what? 99 right? I mean

think of think of the difference. There's night

and day. It's a It enhances the story it enhances

the experience 10 years later, you know longer

than 11 years later you do it again with today's

CGI and How much better would that be? Especially

if you brought on the original writers. Even

if it were only a 90 -minute, let's say, direct

-to -video effort done with some... We get the

original writers, the original voice actors,

who I'm sure would be happy to do it, and we

do all the animation of some little shop in Korea

for pennies on the dollar, break that out for

less than a million bucks, and it would make

money. Steve what do you think? I think this

would definitely be something cool to see redone

or revisited at least with the original voice

actors with today's standard of CG but even for

what they did back in the day it's still not

really that bad and you can see like as they

go along how they progress and get better at

doing it so I mean it's it's not you know for

lack of trying But even even with that despite

that it is still awesome to watch like I would

much prefer to watch this than anything Since

it Yeah, there's no animation or storytelling

that it's been done any better than this as far

as transformers goes yes as far as transformers

Since Beast Wars and Beast Machines animators

well Animated is it didn't really I mean it was

good here or there the storytelling really picked

up with yeah But they had a lot better writing

and a lot better, you know There was a lot more

character development whereas before it was just

oh, let's go do this Oh, we have useless human

villains, which it felt like kind of like they

were trying to mix it with Teen Titans I mean,

it was just retarded. Yeah whereas in Beast Wars

Again, they have their story arcs that they stick

with and they were well done and the foreshadowing

started early and was consistent And there were

no humans Even better, you know Yeah, well, yeah,

cuz nobody wants to see people in their shows

but like and I was trying to remember the name

or which episode it was but Early on, you know,

you've got Rhinox saying, hey, there's something

weird with this moon. It kind of looks like it's

hollow, but I'm sure it's not. This has to be

an anomaly. And then, you know, five, six episodes

later, it turns out, hey, that moon's hollow

and it's going to blow us up. You know, I mean,

they pick stuff out and kind of seed it into

your mind. You know knowing full well that they're

not gonna bring it up again for another five

or six episodes Just like the aliens, you know,

they bring up they bring up the alien presence

early early on with you know, they find Stonehenge

and they say wow This is alien and then they

find other stuff and say wow, this is alien But

you know every fourth, you know three or four

episodes they'll bring something up and then

at the end Oh my god, the aliens are here and

they're gonna blow us up with the killer moon

you know and If the writing wasn't so good They

wouldn't have been able to pull that off nearly

as well. Yeah I'm I wrote down a few of my favorite

episodes and those are the two -part Premiere

Beast Wars a bitter mousetrap dark designs the

low road before the storm Before the storm and

other voices parts one and part two there's going

to be a fight now. You're in Michigan, you ain't

doing shit to me. The low road. I can drive down

the low road and capture and destroy you. Yeah,

I look like Josh Jaffman. Anyways. That's pretty

true. Steve, what are some of your favorite episodes?

Already, here we go. I have a long list. There's

only 26 episodes dumbass I was not going to list

them all either dumbass Only two thirds of big

dumbass But um I'd have to say the two -parter

beast wars was awesome You like the web Spider

-rape I like the better mouse trap because it

shows something of No, Rattrap's awesomeness.

I like Guerrilla Warfare. I'd have to say...

The next one I'd like out of that is Possession.

Just because I like the awesomeness that is Starscream.

And then Before the Storm and Other Voices Part

1 and 2. Wait, I thought you told me off at some

point that you really enjoyed Dark Designs or

was that you, Michael, that you liked it? I really

like Dark Designs. There were a lot of awesome

quotes. I do like that one. I probably forgot

to say it though. Yeah, you do. Yeah, Dark Designs

might be my favorite. I really liked The Spark.

Yeah, that was pretty cool. Yeah, I like the

whole monologue that Rhinox goes into. Like a

major... Well, no, as far as, you know, they

introduced The Spark as a plot device, which,

you know, is... canon now, it's huge. It's like

the soul. Prior to that, it hadn't been introduced,

let's say. Repair mode, protoforms, the whole

idea of when a spark comes online, the whole

universe rejoices, that type of thing. I just

thought it was really well done. And we got Airazor

out of it. That and then dark design I really

enjoyed just because you know evil Rhinox, you

know, there was a I want to say I want to say

this was the first time they brought up a g1

continuity Where waspinator talks about being

shrapnel? Yep It's not the first time they brought

up the g1 continuity. I mean they've you know

the whole premier two -parter is pretty much

a retelling of of more than meets the eye except

with Beast Wars characters right, but I mean

I I'm trying to think now did they actually say

the Predacons were the you know the the antecedents

of the septicons or At one point did they come

out and say oh the Autobots were our or with

the predecessors of the Maximals. I don't think

they actually come out and say that until this

episode, where he says, you know, Waspinator

says, I'm Trapnil, and then Blackarachnia says,

well, how can that be? That was one of our Decepticon

forefathers. I don't know, Steve. Settle the

debate. What was the question? Was that or was

that the first time that the G1 continuity was

brought into play? Actually, it was the web.

Okay. It was in Cheetor's Dream. Oh yeah! Oh

yeah! Okay, yeah. That makes sense. Okay, yeah,

that makes sense. Anyway, so yeah, I really like

Dark Design. It might be one of my favorite episodes

from season one. I have the Season 1 DVD set

here in front of me. Even though Rhino did it,

it's very, very cool. It's nice to have. Only

complaint is there's only two special features,

which those are interviews with the writers,

Larry DiTillio and Bob Forward. While they are

nice, I wish that there were more special features,

like maybe some actual commentaries on the episodes.

Because I don't think we get commentaries until

Beast Machines with Bob Skewer and some of the

other people that did Beast Machines. Which is

kind of sad. Overall it's a nice package as far

as the DVD set. Other than the fact that they

glue the damn booklet onto the thing which is

stupid. It's stupid. They don't do that with

the other two seasons. They have the booklets

in a flap. Anyway. They learn from their mistakes.

Damn right. Morons. Fucking Rhino. Anyways, all

of the DVDs feature a character from the show.

Disc 1 features Cheetor, Disc 2 features Megatron,

Disc 3 features Dinobot, and Disc 4 features

Pterosaur. So I thought that was really cool,

instead of just the generic... gray DVD or whatever.

I thought it was cool that they actually made

an effort and put designs on it. Overall, I think

the season has its moments. There's a lot of

great quotes from a lot of episodes. You know,

for booting up cold, when Rattrap says that,

that's so referenceable. It's just not even funny.

Yeah, overall I really enjoyed it. So those are

my thoughts on Season 1. It's not the best, it

gets better, but it is fairly good for the first

attempt. Oh yeah, no doubt. And you know, Rhinox

using the Chained Gun of Doom to splatter Waspinator,

that was just awesome. I think my two favorite

Waspinator splat alerts in this season are the

chain gun of doom and the skipping across the

water like a rock. Oh, there's so many to choose

from. Okay, both of you, you both need to stop

talking at the same goddamn time. Sorry. Word.

What did you say, Steve, when you said about

whacking somebody or something? No, I said I

like it when they, you know, hit the wall and

then they go... or they skid across the water

and then they smack into something like a wall

or a... Oh, okay. That was mostly it. Okay. Do

we have anything else we would like to say about

Season 1? I think... I just wanted to point out

that, you know, probably one of the reasons why

this was so popular is that they... They made

a point to write for adults, but the visual effects

are more for kids. Oh, yeah. And so is the music

in some spots. Especially a lot of the comedy

music, like the wah -wah -wah art, you know,

stuff like that. Yeah, yeah, no, definitely.

They tie into the older cartoons. You know, I

want to also say... Like, older Looney Tunes.

Yeah. But, you know, Warner Brothers stuff. But

yeah, the storylines are, you know, they flow

together and they're very easily followed by

adults, but, you know, when you get into the

battles and, you know, oh my god, and your eyes

bug out, or, you know, you have that wily coyoting

moment where, you know, Inferno suddenly runs

out of gas, or Pterosaur suddenly runs out of

gas, or something, and plummets to their death,

and... in a little cloud of dust at the bottom

of the canyon. I don't know. Exactly. Especially

like the splat alerts. Anytime somebody gets

splattered, blown off with their head goes flying.

I think the younger kids are really going to

see that and go, wow, that's awesome. Watchmen

Inter get blown up 1 ,000 more times. They're

going to see a splat alert come season two in...

No, never mind. Come season once we get to season

three once we get to feel scream. They're gonna

see a very very violent splat alert for waspinator

Oh, yeah, I'll explain off -air Steve already

knows but I'll explain off -air You know, I got

to bring up the music too because you know some

shows they focus on certain things and leave

certain things out this show Say what you want

about the CGI about how it's It was, you know,

cutting edge for the time, which it was, which

most everything is cutting edge for its time,

and then of course, you know, look at cell phones,

you know, as soon as a new one comes out, there's

a bigger, better one four months down the line,

whatever, same thing. But they didn't skimp on

the music, they didn't skimp on the animation

effects. The voice acting is superior. Oh, it

is awesome by far. Yeah. It just is. Yeah, absolutely.

I think you were just making a comment, I want

to say last episode, about how fantastic, like,

Blue Man Kumo's performance was. Yeah, well,

I said that he... I said that he does... I said

Tigatron does emotional well. Yeah. Well, that's

not the first time that I've given major props

to Blue, I mean... Right, but, you know, I was

talking about the character of Tigatron, and

I believe That that was the, um, the first, uh,

the first death in, uh, in, um, in Beatrice.

Yeah. Who was the first death? Aside from, uh,

aside from, uh, Dinobot clone being eaten? That

doesn't count, it's a clone. It was never fully

eliminated. That doesn't count because it wasn't

a friend or a family member. Okay, yeah, yeah,

that makes sense. All right, but my point is,

okay, Tigatron lost a friend. Okay, they went

ahead, they did a burial, even though we... What?

Oh! I wasn't gonna go there, but... What the

hell did you say, Steve? I decided to. With benefits,

because you said a friend. No! Shut up! Bow -wow!

Bow -wow! Oh, God. Sorry, I had to drag that

into the remix, but, um... Yeah, digressing back

into seriousness. Yeah. But I like how they kept

the continuity with everything. And then it even

traveled as far as through season three, especially

with this quantum surge that is appearing in

the next episode. But it started in this one.

And it travels all the way through to Deep Metal

in season three. Oh, Michael, what was your?

I said two weeks ago when we did episode 9 that

you were going to do some strawberry story or

something. Oh, the strawberry grits? Yeah. Yeah,

I started off basically saying that I was dirt

poor. And I was. It was really bad. Because I

was poor to begin with. But then I was trying

to put myself through college. all we had in

the house at one point was a big box of quick

grits. Like the industrial -sized box of quick

grits. And I think even that was from a food

pantry. And then right next to that was a big

thing, a strawberry quick. And I don't even know

where the strawberry quick came from. But that's

all we had to eat. And finally, we said, you

know what? I think we should mix these two together.

So we did. We mixed. of a big batch of grits

and stirred in a good, generous helping of strawberry

quick. And we ate strawberry grits for about

three to four days before the paycheck came in.

Wow. Yeah. And at first, it's like, at first,

you're thinking, wow, strawberry grits, that

can't be that bad, right? At least you try it.

But after three or four days, you just. You know,

just want to slit your own wrists. We also had

moments like that where we were eating popcorn,

macaroni, cheese, hot dogs, and ramen noodles.

That's all we ate. Yeah, yeah. Well, that was

on a good day. Yeah, that was on a good day.

On a bad day, we were having just ramen noodles.

Strawberry grits. It's like, all right, we've

already used up all the spaghetti noodles, because

in a pinch, you can boil up some spaghetti noodles

and melt some butter on top of it. And you can

eat that, and that's fine. But when all that's

gone, and all you've got left is a bottle of

ketchup and some quick grits, and that's what

you eat. And you're saying it to Ian. Yeah, exactly.

Well, eventually, you get paid, and you make

more money, and you can go buy more food. You

know, and when I say we, I mean like, you know,

not my wife and I, this is long before I met

her, but no, I had a roommate. And, uh, you know,

but we were both pretty poor. So, but yeah, that's,

uh, that's my quick grit story. Someday I'll

put it in my memoirs, but you'll all have a sneak

peek. Or a memoirs post. Memoirs, memoirs. Shut

up. No. No. No, no, no. Okay, that's it. Because

I am so awesome. Do you have a speaking problem

there? No, you do. English, do you speak it?

It sounds like he's trying to do a Klayon version

of the Nickelodeon commercial. What were you

gonna say, Steve? Well, remember how in the last

episode I talked about finding the images? Yes.

Megatrons. Uh, his little bedroom, where he's

got the uh, fire screen, bowling pin, the fusion

cannon, the, he's got a bowling trophy, and he's

got a picture of himself on the wall. Which,

I, I, I got that. I'm not really sure what that

picture's supposed to be, what is that? Is that

his dial pattern? It, it almost looks like his

Season 2 form. It almost looks like it like it's

buried in there because it's it looks like when

he's on robot mode and like he's riding on that

rocket that he said in season two in the end

Or optimus Yes His head did you see oh that's

his head Yeah, I see it now Yeah, his chest plate

that I that's the first thing that pops up and

then you see his head and he's got his mouth

open He looks like you know shit and then his

eyes are still lit up. That's a good sign Well,

that's probably the last thing he saw before

he went offline and it just locked him that way

You know the problem with optimus in Other voices

part two when he exploded Exploded yes exploded

uh... attacks their words the problem with that

is uh... you know maybe it wouldn't have happened

so bad if he had actually had the face plate

still up uh... she panicked man leave him alone

uh... uh... shibola without his his mouth showing

that's true All righty then. All right, so that's

going to do it for us. Thank you for joining

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this episode of the Beast Unleashed Podcast.

Join us next time when we will be reviewing the

first three episodes from Beast Wars Season 2.

Those being Aftermath and Coming of the Fusers

Part 1 and Part 2. For now, I am TFG1 Mike with

Steve Megatron Phillips and Michael Wilson singing

the Megatron close the close season one for us

Megatron Send in the immortal woods of Megatron

excellent. Yes That it yes, no narwhal no no

team rocket blast for me Tell us what you really

think of Narwhal's Megatron. If I ever hear someone

even speak words from that song again, they will

be worse than dead. I will send them. I will

melt them down into aluminum siding. Oh, yes

indeed. I was waiting for the aluminum siding.

Hey, this is Cheetor and you're listening to

the Beast Unleashed podcast. Ultra Gear! When

a spark goes online, there's great.