History YMMV / BeastWars

* DryDockedShip: One interpretation towards Megatron and Dinobot's relationship was that they broke up by the start of the series, which could explain some of the former's behavior towards him (such as him repeatedly cloning Dinobot, which could be seen as him being unable to get over his absence).

** One of Rattrap's insults for Dinobot is "pre-evolved birdbrain", which becomes funnier when scientists later determined that dinosaurs were more similar to birds than reptiles and dinosaurs like Dinobot's raptor form really ''did'' have feathers.

* FanPreferredCutContent: "Dark Glass" was a cut episode with quite the potential for the overall plot, explaining how Dinobot II ended up gaining Dinobot's sense of honor at the end of "Nemesis, Part 2". It was cut for, supposedly, being "too dark", and replaced instead with "Go With The Flow", a filler episode centered around protohumans Chak and Una with few relevance to the overall plot. Needless to say, fans were more intrigued about the cut episode than the final one they got as the Plot Hole "Dark Glass" left after being cut was pretty big.

* MagnificentBastard: "[[Characters/BeastWarsMegatron Megatron]]", a rogue [[Characters/BeastWarsPredacons Predacon]] general who took the name of the Decepticon leader, is a brilliant, charismatic and ruthless foe who repeatedly comes up with new schemes to defeat the [[Characters/BeastWarsMaximals Maximals]] under Optimus Primal. Faking the Predacons' destruction to gain an advantage as well as using spies and psychological warfare, Megatron even uses cover of a truce to betray Optimus and succeeds in temporarily destroying him. Utilizing his soldiers as expendable resources, Megatron routinely [[NearVillainVictory comes within inches of victory]], even manipulating a former Decepticon into working for him so he can destroy the sleeping Autobots and completely change history. Megatron is also an expert at highjacking the plans of his disloyal minions, instead using them to further his own goals. By the sequel, ''WesternAnimation/BeastMachines'', Megatron turns out to have taken over Cybertron and repeatedly keeps the Maximals on the run, having taken power by manipulating the villainous Tankor/Rhinox's plans to lay a trap for the Maximals and faking his own death to take the form of the innocent Maximal "Noble" to trick them into allowing him ascension to ruler of the planet. Bombastic, hammy and theatrical, Megatron would set a new Machiavellian standard for villains in the franchise.

** [[Characters/BeastWarsMegatron Megatron]] is a self-proclaimed tyrant and would-be GalacticConqueror. A [[BadBoss user and abuser of his followers]], Megatron divides the world into enemies and pawns, killing or enslaving the former, and ruthlessly exploiting the latter. His more notable crimes include extracting half of Rampage's spark, placing it in a vise, and using it to torture Rampage into submission; attempting to order Dinobot to kill Quickstrike, one of Megatron's relatively more loyal soldiers, after Quickstrike lost to Dinobot in a sort of re-entrance exam into the Predacons; an aborted genocide of humanity's common ancestor; attempting to rewrite all of his history by killing the original Optimus Prime; and, finally, sacrificing all his remaining troops in order to gain control of the Nemesis and set out to overrun the galaxy. His defeat doesn't stop him either--when he returns in ''WesternAnimation/BeastMachines'' he's gotten worse, picking up a serious [[AGodAmI god complex]] along the way. Seizing control of Cybertron, Megatron [[YourSoulIsMine extracts the sparks]] from everyone on the planet, reducing them to [[SoullessShell mindless drones]]. Acquiring a hatred of all organic life, Megatron tries to [[OmnicidalManiac scrub Cybertron clean of it]], resulting in the near-destruction of all life, robotic and organic, on his home planet when his last mad grasp for power finally fails.

* QuestionableCasting: Garry Chalk's brief cameo as G1!Megatron. While it's true that Frank Welker wasn't available to reprise his role for the show, Garry's voice still sounds nothing like him. This is particularly jarring when compared to Doug Parker's spot-on impersonation of the late Chris Latta's Starscream.[[note]] The 'message' could have been a hoax pulled of by BW Megatron, but this is WMG territory.[[/note]].

** Dinobot character arc itself is seen as one of the greatest in Transformers history, which is why the character has had mostly had minor roles or straight up not appealing in almost every continuity since. His only two major roles has been in [[WesternAnimation/TransformersWarForCybertronTrilogy Kingdom]] which was seen as [[ItsTheSameNowItSucks a pale imitation of his original arc]], and [[ComicBook/TransformersBeastWars2021 the reboot]] which his character was received better then the former attempt but was cut short.

* ToughActToFollow: While ''Transformers'' has continued to roll out new comics and cartoons regularly, they mostly take inspiration from Generation 1 (and later, from [[Film/TransformersFilmSeries the live-action films]]). While characters and ideas introduced in ''Beast Wars'' have been reused in other incarnations, the concept itself has been left alone, and given its popularity among most fans today, any attempt to reboot or remake it would surely come under fierce scrutiny. It took until 2021 for [[ComicBook/TransformersBeastWars2021 a reboot to happen]], and it unfortunately got CutShort.

** Tigerhawk, reportedly, due to being a large victim of SerendipityWritesThePlot. Not only was he put in the show during a period when it was uncertain if the show was going to continue, he was put in when the very ''idea'' of a toy for him was still uncertain. Since the series is MerchandiseDriven, this understandably caused some issues. So, when he debuted, he very much had the hallmarks of a newly promoted toy: [[spoiler:particularly by defeating nearly all the Predacons singlehandedly, including the already near OneWingedAngel Transmetal 2 Megatron.]] Hasbro however decided they ''weren't'' going to release a toy for him, so [[spoiler:they ordered he be killed off, causing him to last only three episodes.]] The potential of exploring his character goes completely untapped and the audience isn't given the chance to see any of Tigerhawk's internal struggles and whether or not we should view him as [[spoiler:a fusion of Tigatron and Airazor, a completely new spark (possible as Tigatron and Airazor's "son"), or something different and alien altogether (considering his powers and new body come from the Vok).]] Making matters worse is, Hasbro ''did'' change their minds about making a toy for him, meaning he ''could'' have been given more in the show but by that point the scripts were written and the animation was completed, making his toy only see release [[spoiler:long after he was dead. And while later material would see the return of Tigatron and Airazor in different capacities, Tigerhawk has all but been forgotten in media, not receiving anything aside from a PaletteSwap as the EvilCounterpart "Razorclaw", and a new toy in the "Legacy: United" line in 2024, over ''two decades'' after his death.]]

* SeinfeldIsUnfunny:
** While the show is still very well-regarded by fans, seeing how it set the standard for most future ''Transformers'' shows, it might not seem so revolutionary or special nowadays. It's generally regarded as the first ''Transformers'' show to be unqualifiably and unironically good, and it was followed by a stream of shows that ranged from unambitious to controversial to just plain bad, giving it plenty of time to solidify its reputation. New fans who started with post-movie material can be unimpressed by the show's character arcs, plotting, tone, and worldbuilding compared to later efforts like ''Animated'', ''Prime'', or the IDW comics. The show's version of Megatron, for instance, can get some lukewarm responses from people more used to the idea of Megatron being successful, motivated, and charismatic--a revelation in the days when nearly every prior incarnation was an incompetent blowhard, but nowadays it's just expected of him, with later Megatrons surpassing him in threat level or moral complexity.
** If there's one area that even die-hard fans of the show can agree falls into this, it's the animation. Back when the show first came out, the CGI was absolutely stunning for a television show let alone a show for ''kids''. While the animation ''did'' improve noticeably over the course of the series, the show's animation now looks like something off of a Sega Dreamcast compared to later fully-CGI shows, and even a number of fellow ''Transformers'' shows.

** From his debut appearance onward, Rampage fell from his status as [[TheJuggernaut a near unstoppable titan]] to a basic background character with not many lines. But when he ''does'' get to be potrayed as a threat, ''he most certainly falls under this.''

** Tigerhawk, reportedly, due to being a large victim of SerendipityWritesThePlot. Not only was he put in the show during a period when it was uncertain if the show was going to continue, he was put in when the very ''idea'' of a toy for him was still uncertain. Since the series is MerchandiseDriven, this understandably caused some issues. So, when he debuted, he very much had the hallmarks of a newly promoted toy: [[spoiler:particularly by defeating nearly all the Predacons singlehandedly, including the already near OneWingedAngel Transmetal 2 Megatron.]] Hasbro however decided they ''weren't'' going to release a toy for him, so [[spoiler:he only lasted a total of three episodes before being unceremoniously killed in the series finale.]] The potential of exploring his character goes completely untapped and the audience isn't given the chance to see any of Tigerhawk's internal struggles and whether or not we should view him as [[spoiler:a fusion of Tigatron and Airazor, a completely new spark (possible as Tigatron and Airazor's "son"), or something different and alien altogether (considering his powers and new body come from the Vok).]] Making matters worse is, Hasbro ''did'' change their minds about making a toy for him, but by that point the scripts were written and the animation was completed, making his toy only see release [[spoiler:long after he was dead. And while later material would see the return of Tigatron and Airazor in different capacities, Tigerhawk has all but been forgotten, not receiving anything aside from a PaletteSwap as the EvilCounterpart "Razorclaw", and a new toy in the "Legacy: United" line in 2024, over ''two decades'' after his death.]]

** Tigerhawk. He makes his grand introduction [[spoiler: defeating nearly all the Predacons and lasts about a grand total of three episodes before being unceremoniously killed in the series finale. The potential of exploring his character goes completely untapped and the audience isn't given the chance to see any of Tigerhawk's internal struggles and whether or not we should view him as a fusion of Tigatron and Airazor, a completely new spark (possible as Tigatron and Airazor's "son"), or something different and alien altogether (considering his powers and new body come from the Vok).]]

** Does Waspinator survive every time he gets destroyed just because he's TheChewToy, or because he was granted immortality when Starscream's abberant spark possessed him?
* AmericansHateTingle: The second and third season flopped horribly when they were released in Japan as ''Beast Wars Metals'' due to a combination of the bad taste left by ''Anime/BeastWarsNeo'''s overcomplicated toyline and the GagDub ramping up its changes from the original show. Tellingly, Takara's equivalent of Hasbro's 10th anniversary line removed references to seasons two and three[[note]]Transmetal Rattrap was left out, Dinobot came with a DVD of "The Probe" instead of "Code of Hero", and the Transmutate build-a-figure was not included[[/note]].
* AndYouThoughtItWouldFail: Initial response to ''WesternAnimation/BeastWars'' was very negative, with many {{fan}}s [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks decrying the shift from robots that turn into vehicles and robotic animals to robots that turn into organic animals]], most infamously [[MemeticMutation Optimus becoming a monkey instead of a truck.]] It didn't help that it was preceded by ComicBook/TransformersGeneration2, which is considered by many to be an AudienceAlienatingEra. In the end, ''Beast Wars'' saved the franchise from dying out and set the standard for all future western ''Transformers'' shows.
** Averted in Japan. While the first season had good raitings and toy sales, the two year gap between Beast Wars (american season one) and Beast Wars Metals (a combination of seasons two and three), the poor reception of the japanese spin-offs that filled the two year gap and the Gag Dub going overboard with the changes for the sake of comedy during Beast Wars Metals killed all the momentum the franchise gained with the first season of Beast Wars. While japanese Transformers shows have been produced along with japanese dubs of the american shows the franchise has never really recovered from the damage.

%%* WhatDoYouMeanItsForKids: Despite the toyline and therefore the show being ostensibly aimed somewhere around the 8-12-year-old boys slot, the show features clever writing, complex characterizations, and surprisingly mature takes on themes such as warfare and revenge, with a healthy dose of KilledOffForReal to match.