The Beast Unleashed @ IA-CON ONLINE

We must finalize our victory. They're headed

for our base. Which means no time to lose. It's

time to transform and roll out. I'm Megatron,

and this is what you have all anxiously been

waiting for. Yes. Welcome to the Beast Unleashed

panel. I'm your host, Steve Megatron. Just a

brief overview about myself. I've been into Transformers,

and specifically Beast Wars, since the show premiered.

I've been in various forums, websites, etc. of

Transformers over the years. Ran a Beast Wars

Transformers website called Predacon Empire for

a time. I also run the still ongoing podcast

All Things Transformers and the podcast network

Geekcastradio .com. So enough about me. Welcome

to The Beast Unleashed. The focus of the panel

is to have a retrospective on the series that

changed Transformers forever. And in it, we'll

discover why it was important for the Transformers

franchise rebirth and why it can be 25 years

later, as well as the timeline from Beast Wars,

maybe G1, G2, onward to now. So without further

ado, let's unleash the beast in you. What is

Beast Wars? Beast Wars is a Transformers franchise,

obviously, that began in 1996. Following the

end of Generation 2, it was a massive and great

departure from what we'd had before. It was a

reinvention of the brand, featuring robots that

changed into realistic, organically styled animals

instead of their traditional vehicles, which,

honestly... I loved it as a kid. Obviously, the

cartoon was another visual break. Being the first

fully CGI Transformers series, although there

have been many that have followed in the time

since, it was the first. And say what you will

about the graphics and the aesthetics of the

day, it was groundbreaking. The graphics we get

today, yes, they're more polished and nicer to

look at. But even back then, I feel like not

much has changed in the aesthetics of how they

move, how they transform. and Beast Wars to modern

Transformers. I mean, even back then, the Transformers

actually transformed way more than they do now

in a lot of the modern media. So although fans

originally cried a river over Truck Not Monkey,

Beast Wars dramatically reinvigorated the brand,

whose sales had been just tanking since Generation

2. So speaking of Generation 2, we're going to

discuss Transformers in the 90s and... of course,

Beast Wars. And Transformers Generation 2 was

an early 1990s series that really wasn't all

that much of a series because it consisted of

only the original Generation 1 cartoon, just

rebroadcast, repackaged with a CGI animation

laid on top of them. And the most extensive change

was the title sequence, which had been altered

completely, replaced with CGI, basically a glorified

toy commercial. with Prime, Ramjet, and it was

only a slight change in content. All the other,

like instead of the Autobot Decepticon flip,

you'd get the Cybernetic Space Cube. And honestly,

I saw an episode of it back in the day, and it

did not interest me whatsoever, which is funny

because I caught it later on the SyFy channel

when they didn't repackage it. Unfortunately,

it had become really cheap. And nobody cared

about it. It was kind of just this kind of space

filler. And honestly, the only thing good that

came out of Generation 2 was we got some different

paint aesthetics. We got Megatron as a tank for

the very first time. We had another Transformers

G .I. Joe crossover in that of Generation 2's

comic. The G .I. Joe featuring Snake Eyes comics.

introduced the original Megatron crashing onto

Earth. And you had kind of this leftover arc

of characters, which it never really quite explains

when the timeline kind of plays into that. It

kind of corresponds a little bit with some of

the Generation One Marvel comics. And you get,

you know, Megatron coming to the Cobra organization

and then rebuilding him a body out of a tank.

And then you get a few of the Autobots that kind

of come in. And some of those were Generation

2 characters, some of them not. The aesthetic,

however, was a little bit of a departure as far

as Generation 1 and Generation 2. Then we get

the Generation 2 comic, which honestly I enjoyed

for what it was, even though it was a limited

12 -issue series. And I felt like if they had

gone that direction with an animated series,

I feel like they could have had a better... chance

of reinvigorating Transformers. However, they

didn't go that route with the cartoon. It was

just they wanted to rehash what they had, which

isn't that much different from what they do today.

And they branded Generation 2 as this is not

your father's Autobot with Prime with a bunch

of bullet holes and a lot of those aspects attached

to him. Now moving into why we need slash needed

Beast Wars. the reason is as a franchise it was

tired it had been around since 84 and here we

are in the mid 90s 10 years later and they were

pretty much dead they were on their way out there

was nothing new coming it was it was lacking

anything new aside from you know just rehashing

generation one in various formats styles visual

cues and repaints they didn't seem to find any

originality left in the pool aside from the comics

like i said we had the action masters which basically

killed Generation 1. The Headmasters, the Targetmasters,

those were some good aspects that they brought

into the franchise. However, getting into the

non -transformable Transformers, which they did

again in Beast Machines, it didn't really help

them any. It didn't build their franchise to

anything bigger, to new, to anything that would

draw kids back to it. Most of the kids that grew

up with the original Transformers kind of were

out of it at that point. And Beast Wars... honestly,

was the first reinvention that kind of gave it

new life. So Beast Wars and Generation One, although

at first the show seemed to be an entirely separate

continuity by the end of the first season's 26

episodes, give or take a few episodes here or

there, such as we get the web where Cheetor's

knocked out on Tarantulas' web, and you see a

little bit of the... uh the cyber jets you see

some transformer buildings it's it's on cybertron

and then you see tarantulas kind of jump up into

it which again kind of hints at generation one

then you really don't get anything else until

the appearance of starscream in possession which

was one of my favorite episodes although it's

kind of funny uh primal gets the sunglasses in

one episode i love the bloopers that happened

in the show or some of the inconsistencies that

happened in it However, that being said, that's

the first appearance you get of Starscream since

his ghost in the third season of the original

cartoon when he was blasted by Galvatron and

his crew. In that episode of Possession, you

get to see Unicron. You get to see Starscream.

You mentioned the Autobots and Decepticons. You

mentioned Galvatron. And so that's the first

real tie we got to Generation 1. Following that

up, we discovered that this planet is not...

an entirely separate continuity. It is revealed

to be prehistoric Earth. The characters have

been thrown back in time, which time travel is

always one of those things that they can manage

to fix things or to rewrite history. And it's

very helpful in a lot of franchises. I mean,

look at some of the Star Trek films. They use

time travel. It usually turns out pretty good.

Looking at this, we have time travel. And the

end of the second season, we have... The Ark

finally show up. You get to see the Autobots,

the Decepticons lying dormant, Megatron flying

over Soundwave's body, seeing Starscream's face,

seeing Prime. And then you get to see Megatron

do what Megatron, the original, could never do,

kill Prime. Which, I mean, he did in the movie,

if you count it, but Hot Rod kind of did that.

Megatron did this on his own, even without his

troops and commission. So that being said. We

have Ravage, who's reinvigorated and brought

back, upgraded as a Predacon. And that, again,

is another drawback to Generation 1, which it

was nice to see Ravage show up, which it was

totally unforeseen. I loved how they used part

of Cheetor's transmetal body, and then they had

him still transformed to a cassette and explain

a little bit more of Tarantulas' uh angle of

things however with with the jump of of the agenda

and then having the stasis locked autobots and

decepticons master blaster took it to another

level with megatron mixing with the original

megatron and finally we get the nemesis two -parter

where the nemesis showed up all of this adding

to the rich history that is generation one and

further cementing on the groundwork of g1 without

necessarily needing to know it or to enjoy it

but it added to the enjoyment of this series.

Adding to that, we have two new factions, technically

one. The factions are the Maximals, the Heroic

Maximals, and the Evil Predacons. The Predacons

are taking place of the Decepticons, the Maximals

are taking place of the Autobots. And the Predacons,

although they were a subsection of the Decepticons

back in G1, they're their own ranking subclass

or main class here in Beast Wars. And I love

the logos. I love that you have the animalistic

one for the Maximals. You have the bug kind of

insect look for the Predacons because the Predacons

are very much reptilian or insect based. The

Maximals are very much animal or bird, some kind

of an animal, some type of a mammal to some degree,

with the exception of Dinobot. Transmetals kind

of throws it in a whole new direction. But the

writing and the rich content, the show won so

many people over, though. The intriguing stories,

the generally high production value, the characterization

was epic. I loved the characterization, how they

evolved from episode to episode, how you got

to learn a little bit more of each character.

They weren't necessarily focusing on one person.

If you look at all of the modern Transformers,

they mostly focus on either some subset of Prime

or generally Bumblebee. This gave you a little

bit of everybody. Everybody got a little bit

of the limelight in there, and it was great.

You had great writing. You had great voice acting.

It was very complex. The overarching plots that

connected themselves, the two -parters were great.

The threads that they weaved through the series

were among the reasons that this show is cited

for this long -term popularity. Love or hate

the graphics. The stories and the characterization

and the voice acting, you cannot deny, were some

of the most epic we've ever had in Transformers.

Some of the show's mysteries and machinations

still remain topics for fan debates, obviously,

like Dinobot regaining his memory, which they

would have explained had the episode Dark Glass

ever made the time of day. Now, if some of you

remember, I was a part of the project that did

the Dark Glass project. It never got to the visual

format. At the beginning of the show... or this

panel, you saw a snippet of the teaser video,

which I revoiced recently. A lot of things happened.

We have all the vocals. It just never got fully

put together. Life hits everyone. So eventually

that's going to be an audio drama later this

year that I'm putting together. So just stay

tuned for that. So anyways, the show's CGI, though

somewhat primitive by today's standards, it was

revolutionary back then. We'd never really seen

anything like that. Yes, Reboot had a little

bit of that, but Beast Wars took it to another

level. And it's put some later shows to shame.

I mean, look at the 2015 Robots in Disguise.

Yeah, it's a different aesthetic, but it's still

not as great as Beast Wars was. The Power of

the Primes. Yeah, it had some rich characterizations.

It had some rich animation. It had some rich

CGI, but it's definitely in a different tier.

And you... I felt like the Beast Wars transformations

are a little bit more solid and smooth than some

of the modern transformation that happens in

Transformers. Prime, I think, is probably the

best we've gotten as far as the transformation

and the flexibility that we've had in any of

the robots in any of the series since Beast Wars.

Now, because developing CGI models was at the

time very expensive and time -consuming, some

of the characters that we... probably would have

liked to have seen that were toys never got to

be on the show. And so therefore there was a

limited number of characters on the screen. And

so, although it had less than a lot of the other

Transformers series, it was great in that we

got to focus on a small subset, a small group.

We had literally 10 to 14 characters at any given

time that would show up and you could focus on

all of them. You could. you could get into the

little intricacies of each character. And it

was, it was something that Transformers really

didn't get to do. It was mostly about the storyline

and how to just push the characters through it

instead of the journey that the characters had

to go through in that storyline. And so you got

a nice little mix of both with Beast Wars. Now,

obviously we had some stasis locked Autobots

and Decepticons arc and a lot of other things,

which, which led to its, its growth and, and,

continuity but it also won a daytime emmy award

uh for the outstanding achievement animation

in 1998 which again i don't recall any beast

or any transformer series since ever getting

that i could be wrong but i don't recall any

of that happening so moving on to the characters

we have the heroic maximals and as you can see

from this wonderful graphic you can see pretty

much everybody and We had some various transformations

along the way. And that's something else Beast

Wars did really well before I get into the characters

that are in here. We had them turn into beasts.

Then we had a twist on the end of season one

where they killed Primal, then revived him. But

the way that they brought him back was epic.

It wasn't some, oh, I'm such a poor leader. I

have to get the Matrix back to Prime. I see his

body, blah, blah, blah. No, they were like, we

need Primal. We need him now. So they got him.

And the transmittal aspect of having them explaining

the second moon being destroyed and having one

moon. Obviously, it's Earth. And you have the

transmetals. It flips the dynamics, so it creates

a new version of the character, new twists, new

turns, new models, new reason to get the toys

instead of saying, okay, here's Prime for Siege,

Prime for Earthrise, and then here's Prime for

Kingdom. They're all the same toy. Have fun.

New packaging, same product. I'm not knocking

the creators of the show. I'm knocking Hasbro

for this because I find that it's... a little

distasteful to sell the same toy multiple times

beast wars on the other hand i know that it created

the conundrum of more money more models more

time and in r d put in but it felt like the trans

metals took their original beast forms to another

level you got whole new bodies and they were

probably the most show accurate character versions

that we got out of all of it was once they hit

the transmetal stage because they didn't have

to make them look like realistic beasts to some

degree they just had to match somewhat of the

show aesthetic and i felt like the original first

run of the beast wars toys which i'll get into

later didn't really match the models all that

cleanly or clearly. And so when we got to Transmetals,

it kind of took that evolution and traversed

it to new heights. So we have the heroic maximals

of Optimus Primal, Rhinox, Dinobot, Cheetor,

Rattrap, Tigatron, Airazor, Silverbolt, Depth

Charge, Tigerhawk, Transmutate. But anyways,

the only name that was really consistent with

anything we've had in the past was Optimus Primal,

which was a twist on Optimus Prime, and Silverbolt,

which was a Generation 1 Aerialbot. Other than

that, they were all new characters, fit all new

different personas, different levels. So, I mean,

you have a variety of character archetypes in

there. Now, moving to the evil Predacons, you

get Megatron, which gets, you know, taking the

namesake of the original Megatron for various

reasons. And he gets three different transformations,

just like Primal. You get Scorponok, which was

an original Transformer name, which they killed

him. Terrorsaur, Tarantulas, Waspinator, Blockarachnia,

who switched sides, which didn't really happen

all that much in the old stuff. Even Dinobots

switched sides multiple times in this show. You

get Inferno, which was, again, another original

Generation 1 name. You get Quickstrike, Rampage,

another original Predacon name. Dinobot, Transmetal

2. Then you get the Tri -Predacus Council of

Ramhorn, Sea Clamp, and Kakadacon. And then you

get Ravage, who's an original Generation Transformer

himself, not just a namesake. So I felt like

the variation in the characters, the variation

in the names, their personalities, the voices,

oh, the voices were epic on all... three like

levels like you you get the the rich persona

you get a variation in voice and then you get

this whole like overarching difference i mean

just look at scott mcneil doing four characters

in the same show has got to be fun yet difficult

and some of them in the same episode specifically

maximal no more i i just i i love the level of

of quality that went into the show as far as

the voice acting and the writing now getting

into the toys as i mentioned before the the season

one figures weren't as accurate as i would have

liked or as most of us would have liked for the

show now a lot of it was paint aesthetic differences

some of it was just the technology at the time

but these were infinitely better than what we

got in generation one they matched more closely

because they were animals you got cheetor who

you know in this image you've got cheetor i had

this toy he wasn't very show accurate but it

was good enough and same thing with rhinox rat

trap primal now primal surprisingly they did

pretty well with it's They've improved it with

newer versions, but it's pretty much spot on.

The rest of them they've had... Dinobot specifically

has been one of the most redone toys, as well

as Cheetor. I feel like they've had a hard time

doing them unless they do a masterpiece for some

reason. But the toys, again, they were something

different. It was a different generation, a different

style, and different mechanisms. Megatron's dinosaur

head had a squirt gun in it. You had Dinobot's...

Tail, which could spin. You had Rhinox's guns

that could spin. Cheetor had his tail was a flip

-up gun, and then he had another gun underneath.

Rattrap, he had the one flip. Some of the toys

they had, you could flip the tail, and it would

transform them or flip their head, such as Terrorsaur,

Rattrap, the original Optimus and Megatron two

-pack of the bat and the alligator. So those

were a lot easier to transform, and yet they

still look surprisingly good. And you look at

some of the stuff from Kingdom, for example,

and I have the new Rattrap. I have the new Megatron.

A lot of these things are more complicated. And

yes, they're very show accurate to things. They're

very good quality looking. But I've heard issues

with some of the quality control with figures

such as Cheetor and Blackarachnia. And the Rattrap

figure I've noticed is a little rough if you're

not quite sure how to get some of the parts apart

to transform them. I had a little difficult time

transforming them, even with the instructions.

And so I kind of missed some of the simpler transformations

that we had back then, which is kind of missing

in today's Transformers. It's the ease of transformation.

And yes, the quality is better on the looks of

the figures, but the transformation makes it

possible where you can break them if you're not

careful. Now, moving on to the next part of the

panel, we have the games. Transformers, obviously,

the first game that we got was in 97, and it's

a third -person shooting game released by Sony

PlayStation Platform, and it was ported to the

PC platform in 98. I had it. I played it on the

MSN Gaming Zone. It was a fun deathmatch -style

game. Players picked their side and sent their

Transformers on missions against both the opposing

side and the extra -dimensional Skricks aliens,

which are... Almost kind of like the Valk, but

something different. They kind of take over the

planet in different ways. It was a terrible game.

The voice acting was not there from the original

cast. It was very blocky. It kind of put to shame

everything that the cartoon had done. And while

I like the game for what it is, it's a terrible

game. Then we got the Transformers Beast Wars

Transmetals on PlayStation in 99 and 2000 in

America. And then they had it on the counterpart

Nintendo 64. And this game was just basically

just one -to -one Street Fighter style. And you

duke it out. And the game was a little bit better

aesthetics. It had the actual voice cast. You

had some different things like the golden Megatron.

You had Ravage. You had Transmetals that... were

in the game. So I would have loved to have played

that, never did. But again, that's one of the

several games. Then we get Dual Fight Transformers

Beast Wars, Beast Warriors, Strongest Decisive

Battle, which is a Game Boy Color game. Ridiculously

long title. I've played it on an emulator a while

back. It's kind of fun. It's got kind of short

versions of the characters and you get to kind

of... duke it out in similar fashion transform

and everything it's very basic uh you get some

of the beast wars beast wars 2 and neo characters

and kind of duke it out now then you get into

some of the modern games where they're not really

beast wars games they're kind of game transformer

games with beast wars in them and that would

be The Fighter game. I can't remember the name

of it. And then Earth Wars. And I've got Earth

Wars. I've been playing that. And I have some

of the Maximals and Predacons. And it's fun,

but it's still not a true Beast Wars game. And

I feel like we haven't really had a good Transformers

game either since the War for Cybertron games

and Escalation. So moving into Beast Machines.

And it's different continuities, continuations.

The original working title for Beast Wars, or

Beast Machines, I should say, is Beast Hunters.

And it changed. It was supposed to evolve the

Beast Wars franchise, kind of continue it with

Megatron and so on. It was going to be another

mainframe entertainment show. And then ultimately...

Mainframe dropped the Predacons. They created

the Viacons in place of them. It was the idea

of Mainframe's writers, and they decided to kind

of change a few things. Bob Skewer had suggestions

from Hasbro and Mainframe and Fox Kids, and they

kind of created this new amalgamation, and it

became later Beast Machines. And they had a lot

of continuations to the storyline. They did a

little bit of touching on Generation 1, but it

was mostly a continuation of Beast Wars and then

kind of its own thing. You got a little bit of

the prehistory in there. And then they tied it

into BotCon comics and different stories. And,

you know, eventually Hasbro did reuse the Beast

Hunters name for the third season of Transformers

Prime as a subline. And then, of course, we had

TransTech, which, again, it was an original.

Plan series to follow up Beast Machines, which

I honestly would have loved to have seen. However,

they went back to the original design of robots

that turned into vehicles. And yes, there were

some variations where they had some beasts in

it, but it was still primarily Generation 1 with

a little bit of the old style Generation 1 Predacon

flair. Not necessarily the same that we got in

Beast Wars. It would have begun in summer 2001,

but instead got replaced by Robots in Disguise

while Hasbro created the Unicron trilogy. And,

you know, some of these things have kind of sporadically

shown back up into other continuities. And they

tried to do something new, is kind of what I

was getting at, is they were trying to reinvent,

and then Hasbro kind of decided, well, we're

going to go back to this other pool and play

in that direction. And while we would have had

some carryovers from Beast Machine, such as Blackarachnia,

Cheetor, Night Scream, Silverbolt, and Rattrap,

and Depth Charge, we would have got Generation

1 characters in Optimus Prime, Shockwave, Starscream.

and some kind of a trans -tech Megatron that

turned to a tank, and a character called Immorticon.

And they never really had any reason for canceling,

other than Mainframe had a lot of economic issues

at the time. But again, it is what it is. Now,

Japan took this a step further. They created

Beast Wars 2 and Beast Wars Neo. Beast Wars 2

is kind of relative in the Transformers continuity.

to beast wars and that it didn't really focus

on the same continuity it kind of it took place

three centuries after the end of the great war

give or take and it was the it focused on leo

convoy they had a movie where they had optimus

prime will kind of get time jumped in uh but

it takes place theoretically way later in the

future of earth and uh you know civilizations

long moved on and it's been thousands of tens

of thousands of years placing it in the distant

future to both beast wars and the original transformers

then we get neo and it's got a large composition

of new and original modes or molds you get some

that are from the g2 machine wars era which again

machine wars was another toy line that kind of

stole from the beast wars titling font but it

it was very much a g2 repackaging of european

transformer figures which again nothing wrong

with those we had the machine wars figures they

were great uh i would have rather have seen that

than rid at the time but it is what it is so

hasbro returned to all of their series um now

while all of these series had elements of beast

wars none of them have truly done what Beast

Wars did with a total return to the original

characters, give or take some elements of various

series and new characters thrown throughout.

Some of these consisted of repaints, redecos,

and other reinvented forms of gimmicks. Unicron

Trilogy gave us minicons, animated, and included

the AllSpark. Prime included Dark Energon. Prime

Wars included the core combination in the AllSpark.

Cyberverse brought us the Multiverse. And then...

Through all of those different series, they did

have aspects of at least Predacons. Robots in

Disguise had it. Armada, Energon, and Cybertron

had it. Transformers Animated, we got Blackarachnia

and Waspinator, as well as like a little tease

of the Maximals on a prehistoric Earth. Transformers

Prime, we got the Predacons, although a different

version. Same thing with Robots in Disguise.

Prime Wars, we got Optimus Primal showing up.

Cyberverse, Chidor shows up. Now, that getting

all into the encompassing of everything that

we have here, we get the reissues, the reboots,

and the movies. Now, the movies, I have to say,

did a good job in reinventing Transformers for

a time. Now, it's been well over 14 years since

the first film came out. being that it came out

in 2007. We've had six films, six live action

ones, each one performing less than the previous

one. The final film in the franchise was technically

a reboot, but did not make more of a story. And

it did fix the visuals. The story was better,

but ultimately it was underwhelming as it's essentially

more of the same robo -kibble. People were tired

of the Bayverse aesthetic. And I feel like...

That's going to be a problem if they want to

continue with Transformers movies. That being

said, Transformers fatigue. Transformers fatigue

hits China. This was an article from the web.

And I knew that this had been posted at some

point. I had to kind of go back and find it.

Because there was a point in time where the last

night kind of... put the last nail in the coffin

for the franchise of the live action anyway it

started getting a little weird started getting

a little out there now while it did play with

some originality with some kind of beastly creatures

with with dragons and and knights and some other

smoother aesthetics that they gave some of the

characters but there was a lot of issues with

how it was staggering they they'd had a lot of

different changes in their films there was a

lot of different things going on At that point,

a lot of different movies that were coming out.

The Transformers franchise just kind of started

to dry up. I stopped caring after the third movie,

to be honest, because there really wasn't anything

new that they could do. It had a lot of poor

word of mouth. It had underperformed kind of

everywhere. But honestly, the film wasn't that

great. A lot of the dialogue, the storylines,

a lot of it had kind of waned since that first

film. to be honest. And I just, I feel like Transformers

kind of lost its way with the films. And that's

why they, they kind of jumped ship to Bumblebee

and they kind of course corrected a little bit

and then put it on hold because they're kind

of going back to the drawing board. Now there've

been rumors of a Beast Wars movie. These were,

these were graphics that were put out by artists

that were commissioned to do things for the last

night before the movie. And these were options

that they had for Optimus Primal and Cheetor.

The Cheetor one, for whatever reason, just recently

kind of came out. They had some of the cat images,

but the robot, honestly, they look terrible.

The Primal looks better by comparison, but they're

just terrible. It's more of the same, the robo

kibble, hard to tell what they are. When discussing

a Beast Wars film, this is not what I'd hope

for or expect. I've been reading a lot of the

message boards on AllSpark, T -Formers, and the

such, reading it on Facebook. People are not

enthused by this cheater at all. If Hasbro goes

this direction, they will totally bludgeon the

Beast Wars franchise with this. People will not

care. They might care for the first film just

to see what happens, but I don't feel like this

is going to be something with longevity. It could

be gritty and not have this. Michael Bay confusing

trash heap that we've got in front of us. I'm

not knocking the artists at all because it's

still an artistic feat to reimagine them in a

different way. And I applaud them for that. But

this doesn't even resemble Beast Wars in the

slightest. And while I commend it, I think the

fans in general are ready for something new.

While this looks Bayverse in style, I think a

more subtle approach is required. Quite honestly,

after that second Bay film, I watched them on

streaming because I wasn't going to pay for another

in theater. The first was epic for what it was,

and I enjoyed it. But the rest never really evolved.

They never really did. I mean, they added elements

of things in there. They had a pretender in the

second film. But overall, it's not saying that

they're bad, but each Transformers fan does and

should have an entry point. I'm not a fan of

it past the first film and then the Bumblebee

movie, which fixed some of it. What I'm getting

at here is that Beast Wars has the potential

to take the franchise in movie form. to another

direction. And that direction is this. These

are, one of them is fan art, one of them is a

Prime 1 Studios toy. This is what I would expect.

We have the CG to do a real dinosaur, a real

ape, and have them look like real animals. Have

the hair showing on them. They don't have to

be smooth and silky. Have them with this aesthetic.

Have them look good. There's no reason why we

can't have them transform and look like the prime

one studios figures or statues and robot mode

with all of the hair showing and all of that.

They've managed to do other things with CGI,

looking at the lion King, looking at a lot of

these, you know, the jungle book, a lot of these

live action Disney movies where they have the

animals and they talk and they move and they

they're completely CGI and they're voiced by

an actor. There's no reason why. Hasbro couldn't

do the same thing with a Beast Wars movie. I

think that it would be epic. It would be taking

the original designs, updating them, giving them

a realistic look, and keeping some of the aesthetics

that people expect from them. If they did this,

I feel like we would have a major movie hit,

major trilogy, maybe even longer, something to

reinvigorate the film franchise. I feel like

people would go to see this. Because who doesn't

want to see, I mean, we watch movies like King

Kong vs. Godzilla, which is coming soon. Why

wouldn't we watch the same thing? Watch Megatron

vs. Primal. T -Rex vs. Giant Gorilla. I don't

know. Or, in the very least, let's go this route.

And then we get into Beast Wars as a new toy

line. Now, granted, we had some nice figures

that came out during the 10th anniversary of

Beast Wars. We had some nice things come out

at the Thrilling 30, which was the 20th anniversary

of Beast Wars. We're at the 25th anniversary

of Beast Wars now. There's so many. We have masterpiece

figures of Primal. We have masterpiece figures

of Dinobot, Tigatron, Blackarachnia, Cheetor,

and we have Megatron. Now, granted, there's some

issues with... Some of the figures, specifically

Megatron, I've heard issues with. And they have

third -party figures, which, yes, there are knockoffs

of some of the Masterpiece. Some of them fix

quality control issues that Hasbro had. And some

of them, it's just a blatant knockoff. I mean,

I'm not saying to support either one. I'm just

saying you do what's good for your budget and

what you prefer. For myself, I don't transform

them. So I have the Optimus Primal Masterpiece.

I would love to get the Megatron. And especially

the third -party stuff. We have Trans Art Studios,

which does, they have an Optimus Primal that's

Transmetal, which is Transmetal scale. And he

has a multiple face. He has a lot of the aesthetics.

He's chiseled out. He looks like the CGI model.

We have the same thing for Cheetor, the Transmetal

version of him. We have one of Ravage. And then

you look at this third -party Megatron, this

winged, I can't say the name of the studio because

I can't put it into words, but they do this winged

dragon. Transmetal 2 Megatron, which is epic.

Yes, there are a few minor flaws with it. But

again, for what it is, you're never going to

see these Transmetals or these Transmetal 2 from

Hasbro and Takara. At least not in the near future.

So getting them third party, honestly, is probably

the best way you're going to get them. And I

find that... The level of technology and the

3D printing and a lot of the things that have

come a long way since Beast Wars came out 25

years ago, we're getting these show accurate

figures that, for all intents and purposes, just

put the old stuff to shame. Yes, we have new

figures now with Kingdom, and they do put a lot

of the old stuff to shame still. These are still

the best way to get them and still some of the

best aesthetics that we've had on Transformers

and a bunch of variations. We're still getting

them with the Beast Wars style and they're completely

new figures. Most of them aren't even repaintable

like the Seekers. We've gotten like 10 versions

of that and we've gotten 10 versions of Prime

and Ultra Magnus, whatever. But this is something

that can stand alone. It does it on its own.

It looks great, looks beautiful, follows the

CGI model. War for Cybertron trilogy. Now we

get into the War for Cybertron trilogy, and while

I have my gripes with it, I like what they're

doing with it overall. I like the overall premise.

They're retelling Generation 1 in a new way to

fill in the gaps, to show how they got to the

stage they were at the beginning of Generation

1, to show how they got to Earth, to show all

these different transformations, all these different

journeys that everyone has gone on. While I'm

not keen on the speed of the voice acting, I

do find some of it... a little slow in pace.

And I'm a little bothered that they don't at

least have the ability to have union actors in

some of it, namely for certain characters that

are coming up in Kingdom because they're either

going to be bad impressions or they're going

to be totally renovated, changed, totally different

direction, which honestly would probably be better

in their sake than trying to do really bad impressions.

That being said, I do enjoy the War for Cybertron

trilogy. I like Siege for what it is because

you get to see a little bit of the things going

on between the various characters. Now, it becomes

more evident the longer you watch Siege and Earthrise

that had Alita 1 been given command of the Autobots,

a lot of this would have stopped much sooner.

They probably would have never made it to Earth

and Megatron would have been out of commission.

There's just... She's more put together than

a lot of the other characters, even more than

Prime. Prime and Megatron kind of do this little

weird dance through the entire trilogy so far

that we've had, out of the first two -thirds

anyway, and don't really know where they're going.

They know that they have a destiny to fulfill.

Megatron knows he has to kill Prime or he's going

to end up with this Galvatron state. And then

Prime, if he kills Megatron, ends up as Nemesis

Prime at some point. And so I like the little

bit of... give and take that they had going on.

I liked the new twist of the Quintesson. I liked

the new twist that they put on a lot of the characters,

specifically Bumblebee. And although he's not

a key focus, he still is kind of one of the main

focuses on this. But I really did enjoy the overall.

I enjoyed some of the voice acting, specifically

some of the ones that are actually at Iacon online

are some of my favorites from the series. And

I commend FJ for what he's done with the War

for Cybertron trilogy. It's definitely more enjoyable

than the Power of the Primes, in my opinion.

And it kind of adds a new element. It's more

so, I think, a studio issue than a writing issue.

So we get into Kingdom. Now, if you've got any

of the Kingdom figures, they say... Beastify

the battlefield. Worlds collide when the Maximals

and Predacons join the fight, coming together

with the Autobots and Decepticons in an epic

battle that will alter their destiny forever.

Primal power floods the battlefield as the fierce

beast modes and the Maximals and Predacons are

unleashed. I love this poster. I love the golden

disc. I love the new renditions of the beasts

in it. I cannot wait to see this series. I know

that it comes out, I believe, in May of this

year. And I cannot wait to see it. just based

on the teaser at the end of Dinobot. And we get

to see some of, just a little bit of the aesthetic

that they're going for. And although it's not

the same CGI as Beast Wars, I feel like it's

going to be a little bit, it's going to be a

little bit different, but it's going to be very

good visually. I just can't wait to see what

they do with it. They will have all of the beasts

of season one. At least as far as it shows, they

haven't shown anything with Terrorsaur or Tarantulas

or even Inferno. But every maximal is accounted

for, which is a little bit strange to me. So

I'm wondering where they're going with that.

Kingdom and beyond. So what, I'll be curious

with how many of these characters show up in

Kingdom. For instance, like I said, there's some

missing. However, in this particular art, we

see Polar Claw, which isn't even one of them.

And Magnus is dead, and there are other variables

at play, such as the toy of Dinobot. He's listed

as a Predacon, despite that he may yet be a Maximal.

They may go a different direction with him in

this and just keep him as Predacon. It's hard

to say. The Fossilizers are a thing I'm unsure

about, but must be either a Blackarachne or Scorponok

invention. Or just could be something Megatron's

devised from the bones and mechanized them, kind

of like he did the clones of Dinobot or the Transmetal

Raptors in the fourth episode of season three.

And like I've said, my other concern is the voice

cast. Again, I've said my piece. The other aspect

is it's rumored to come with these characters.

I don't know. what we're going to see yet. We

haven't seen the toys and the new models of Tigatron.

We haven't seen the new models of Rhinox or Scorponok

yet. We've seen all the other ones. And to be

honest, they put their original toys to shame.

The Black Arachne and Eraser specifically. Primal

looks pretty close. Megatron does put his old

toy to shame. Rattrap's kind of there. Fedor,

I feel like they never seem to get his toy right,

no matter how hard they try. If Airazor and Black

Arachne are any consolation, I cannot wait to

see the Rhinox, the Tigatron, and the Scorponok.

The Dinobot already looks great from what I've

seen from the preview images. Can't wait to get

my hands on these. 2021, Beast Wars Rebirth.

So as you know, there's a new miniseries featuring

the original Season 1 Beast Wars cast. A brand

new Beast Wars comic coming from IDW that reimagines

Beast Wars from the beginning. It's quite honestly

just epic to think about because we had a little

bit of a short -lived comic under Dreamwave.

The two mini -series from IDW called The Gathering

and The Ascending, as well as many universe 3

-H productions, BotCon comics, the Fun Pub comics

in the Beast Wars, Beast Machines universe. Not

to mention various crossovers from the characters

in regular IDW continuities, such as Rattrap,

Cheetor, and Primal. I'm very excited for this

comic because it gives us a new opportunity to

enjoy Beast Wars and to reintroduce it to a new

generation. Most of the people that didn't grow

up with Beast Wars don't have that love for it

that the people that grew up with it have. And

then, of course, we have the new toy line. Despite

being in the War for Cybertron line, it's Kingdom.

And it's essentially Beast Wars. And it, like

I said, captures the CGI models almost identically

from the original series. Give or take a few

little inconsistencies with paint. They're pretty

spot on. And the best part about these figures

are they're budget priced. They're kingdom figures

that mimic some of the degree of the masterpiece.

These figures are getting Beast Wars toys that

are made in a modern way and detail to get an

almost masterpiece figure. I can't afford the

Beast Wars masterpiece figures personally, but

I can afford these easily. I do have the masterpiece

primal. And the differences are slight between

him and the Kingdom line to the point that if

I didn't have the masterpiece, I'd spring at

the Kingdom figure in a heartbeat. I'm just impressed

with these. But what I'm even more impressed

with is their inability to stay on the shelf.

Sure, I see Rattrap if I see any Kingdom figures

or the reissued leader class Earthrise Optimus

Prime, but these are rare to find and they've

only been out for less than a month for the general

public. I had to hunt between four targets to

get Megatron and even the Studio Series Scourge.

Yes, I can find Rattrap everywhere. I have not

seen a Blackarachnia or Cheetor or even Primal

since I got the Megatron. So continuing on, we

have the Masterpiece figures, you know, as well

as updated the Transmetal Beasts, like I mentioned

from third -party vendors. These toys are epic

and truly match the CGI models, the figures.

The funny thing was, as we discussed masterpiece

figures on All Things Transformers in the Beast

Unleashed podcast years ago, we were waiting

for good Beast Wars toys that had proper articulation.

While we haven't gotten all the Beast Wars characters

from Season 1 yet, the ones we do have are, well,

a masterpiece to say the least. As for the third

-party figures, we have quite a few vendors out

there that are just simply killing it with their

masterpiece -level line. And the details of the

Transmetal, something Hasbro, like I said, will

probably never get to. And if they do, it may

be sporadic at best. But the Primal, Cheetor,

Ravage are beautiful works of art, and eventually

they'll end up on my shelf. That's not all, though,

as we've also seen an Optimal Optimus that is

proportioned properly and magnificent despite

possible paint defects and a mismatched knee

version of Transmetal to Megatron. Now the dragon

figure, like I said, it's epic. The optimal optimist

figure I've seen that's out there, it finally

fixes the shoulder cannons that he has an issue

on the original toy and the sizing of the head.

It just, it looks more natural the way that they've

beefed him out. Now. We've also had rumors of

a Beast Wars live action film. And there's so

much speculation going in either direction. I'm

not going to add to that. But although it's been

swirling for some time, the reality is with the

return of Beast Wars in the toy form and the

Netflix series, the reintroduction to the fandom

of Beast Wars is going to cause this to eventually

happen. We've already seen particular test images

of Bayverse versions of them. I think that they

would do best to keep them true to the style

and design, but give them the updated CGI live

action animation. I really do. And I would love

to see even more that the original voice actors

join and get to be a part of it, even if it's

a bit of a pipe dream. What I would love to see

even more is a new miniseries featuring the original

season one Beast Wars cast. And, you know, despite...

not having them in Kingdom, we are getting a

brand new Transformers cartoon heavily featuring

Beast Wars era characters, which in and of itself

is a huge win, which if it bodes well and the

toys obviously are doing well, we could be looking

at the possibility of a revival or continuation

by Hasbro with the original voice cast. If nothing

else, a separate series. Again, it's a pipe dream

for the original cast, but I've truly enjoyed

what... we've gotten thus far. So either way

you look at it, it's renewed interest in this

part of the Transformers franchise. And last

but not least, it's just created this resurgence

for fans to jump on board to this series 25 years

later. I mean, they're a staple of my shelf.

So do we need more Beast Wars Transformers? I

think I'll let him answer that. Yes. Yes. Again,

thank you to Iacon Online for this wonderful

convention. I'm sorry I wasn't able to be here

in person, but nonetheless, I'm glad to have

been part of this convention. And you can find

out more about Beast Wars and Transformers by

staying things Transformers. So until next time,

thank you guys for tuning into my panel. I hope

that you guys enjoyed it. I hope that you enjoyed

the reasons why we need more Beast Wars and why

it's important for Transformers revival. And...

If you have any questions, again, just hit me

up on social media. Thanks again, and stay tuned

for more from Iacon Online. Yes. I wish to speak

to my lawyer.