Line #35 YMMV/BeastMachines


1	* AlternateCharacterInterpretation:
2	** Tankor [[spoiler:(Rhinox)]]. The writers intended him to have chosen evil of his own free will after having been twisted by his time under Megatron's control. A popular fan theory is that he ''wasn't'' evil -- his actions were caused by input from his awakened spark being filtered through a shell programme. Both interpretations fit what we see on the screen (given that, upon his death, [[spoiler:Rhinox]] seemed genuinely repentant, the Shell Program makes a lot of sense).
3	** Was Megatron just pretending that [[spoiler:Savage/Noble]] was a wild animal driven purely by instinct, or was he really like that and useful?
4	** At what point [[spoiler:did Silverbolt really become aware that he had been reprogrammed into Jetstorm - and start enjoying the experience of being an evil monster? When Blackarachnia originally awakened Silverbolt's mind in Jetstorm's body, his personality appeared to be more or less the same, but when she brought him back completely in season 2, he had clearly changed from NiceGuy KnightInShiningArmor to a guilt ridden loner (in the form of a samurai condor) who was understandably upset over his tenure as Jetstorm. If he didn't realize what he was doing until after the initial reawakening, was it really the Jetstorm personality refusing to be changed back, or was it Silverbolt speaking through Jetstorm?]]
5	*** Speaking of which, [[spoiler:the very device used to bring back Silverbolt didn't really feel like it could function as Rattrap explained when showing it to Blackarachnia; did perhaps Rattrap already have the same intent to use it just how Blackarachnia would? It would definitely explain how Rattrap recognized Silverbolt with such glee despite the drastically different body he now had. Blackarachnia simply stealing the device would've simply accelerated the progress of what Rattrap may or may not have already had in mind to do himself.]]
6	** Is Megatron's personality shift, in particular his new hatred of organic life, simply sloppy writing, or is it residual influence from G1 Megatron's spark? (And even then, G1 Megatron was more apathetic towards organics than anything. On top of that, [=BW=] Megatron was already an unhinged individual especially towards the end the Beast Wars. It's possible this personality shift was also influenced by his madness?)
7	* AssPull: Though well-received, [[spoiler:the reveal that Thrust actually has Waspinator's spark rather than Silverbolt's]] borders on this.
8	** How the Hate Plague was dealt with. Since the original solution - the Matrix of Leadership - was out of the question, Optimus had to craft an answer that even the Transformers Wiki admits was pulled "out of his monkey butt".
9	* AudienceAlienatingEra: Often considered one for the Beast Era of ''Transformers'', due to a massive tone shift from {{Dramedy}} to angsty VillainWorld story. It used to be considered this for ''Transformers'' as a whole -- then ''Anime/TransformersEnergon'' came along.
10	* AudienceAlienatingPremise: One reason why it was so ill-received when it first came out. The surviving heroes of the WesternAnimation/BeastWars now forced underground on their own homeworld, their species subjected to a virtual genocide, and struggling to survive against an overwhelming evil force, all set against a backdrop of things like nature vs. technology.
11	* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: Whatever your opinion on the show actually is, the soundtrack itself is [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Po8UdPRIEws&list=PL_PNpkKvOB-J6Dlp2-t85iBrjSPFx9Myh&index=17 genuinely amazing]].
12	* BaseBreakingCharacter: Nightscream. Back when the series was first airing, he was a flat out [[TheScrappy scrappy]], seen as an annoying CreatorsPet for being a {{wangst}}y teenager with an ability that comes in clutch too often, not helped by being one of the only two new Maximals in a cast of mainstays. As a result of CharacterPerceptionEvolution however, along with ''much'' more maligned characters in later years like [[Anime/TransformersEnergon Kicker Jones]], Nightscream has managed to gain some fans for his more sympathetic reasoning behind his behavior, his charming relationship with the feral Noble, blossoming friendship with Silverbolt, and managing to act as the rookie of the group without retreading Cheetor's character arc or being ''just'' a KidAppealCharacter.
13	* BetterOnDVD: The series really does work better as a single narrative rather than as an episodic series.
14	* CompleteMonster: [[Characters/BeastWarsPredacons Megatron]]. [[YMMV/BeastWars See this page for details.]]
15	* ContestedSequel: Between longer story arcs, and a darker tone compared to ''WesternAnimation/BeastWars'', fans of the original either think this was a good follow-up, or a joke to the franchise. Some of the more generous critics were willing to concede that had ''Beast Machines'' been a standalone series with no prior continuity, it would be decent enough on its own merits but as a followup to the critically acclaimed ''Beast Wars'', it just could not measure up as a worthy sequel.
16	* ContinuityLockOut: A common complaint of the show was that the continuity was so strong that the show was impossible to follow unless one started from the beginning. Yet still, at a length of only twenty-six episodes, this is not as much of a drawback as it could be.
17	* CriticalBacklash: There were some ''WesternAnimation/BeastWars'' fans who still enjoyed the show as well as newcomers. Most of the complaints were about the many changes to the characters' personalities and behavior.
18	* EnsembleDarkhorse: [[EnsembleDarkHorse/{{Transformers}} See here.]]
19	* EvilIsCool: The Vehicons. Refer to the EnsembleDarkhorse and RootingForTheEmpire entries.
20	* FanNickname:
21	** Big Floating Head for the Grand Mal, since the thing was never given a name in-show, and its true name was only gleaned by reading the scripts.
22	** Hasbro's own toy, released a few years later, was named "Megatron Megabolt", turning from the head into Megatron directly (this toy is also weirdly compatible with a G1 Fortress Maximus). A green recolor was released later named "Megabolt".
23	** Megatron's final form in the show has been dubbed [[spoiler:Optimal Megatron due to it being a copy of Optimus Primal's Optimal Optimus form]].
24	* FanonDiscontinuity: Even people who generally like the show often don't like to consider it a sequel to ''Beast Wars''. The two are dramatically different in terms of writing and overall design, and the show's events as a whole are ''not'' kind to the ''Beast Wars'' cast--quite a few characters get killed off, and a number of others suffer horribly or become borderline unrecognizable.
25	* FashionVictimVillain: Season One has Megatron look like he's wearing a cheap ComicBook/{{Bane}} mask and using a curtain as a poncho.
26	* FridgeBrilliance: Remember when Rattrap said, "Good thing Tankor was a friend! Imagine if he was recycled from a PREDACON!"? Technically, all of the original Vehicon Generals ''were''. To elaborate: [[spoiler:Rhinox, Silverbolt and Waspinator all served as Predacons at some point during the Beast Wars.]]
27	* FridgeLogic: Obsidian and Strika were Autobots during the Great War, [[AllThereInTheManual according to supplementary materials]]. This raises questions about why they unquestioningly served a being named ''Megatron''.
28	* GeniusBonus: The title of the episode "Prometheus Unbound" refers to the Greek legend of Prometheus. Anyone who knows about the myth will get why that is notable. Let's just say that it ''heavily'' foreshadows how the series ends.
29	* HarsherInHindsight: Hey, remember that ''WesternAnimation/BeastWars'' episode where Rhinox got brainwashed into becoming a Predacon and it was PlayedForLaughs? [[spoiler:Well, it's taken very seriously here when he turns evil out of his own volition, after despairing in the face of an enslaved Cybertron, and manages to inflict quite a lot of damage before dying.]]
30	* HilariousInHindsight: According to a Creator/FoxKids press release, the original name for the series was going to be ''Beast Hunters'', which later became the subtitle for the third season of ''WesternAnimation/TransformersPrime''.
31	** A ContestedSequel of a breakaway hit depicting the struggle between an all-encompassing robotic evil ([[HappyEndingOverride seemingly defeated in the original]]) attempting to [[AssimilationPlot remake the world in its own image]] and a band of rebels lead by a MessianicArchetype who sacrifices himself to take out the BigBad [[NearVillainVictory at the last moment]] and quite literally reformat the world into a sunny paradise. The heroes are helped along by a figure called The Oracle, the hero and the villain have deeply philosophical existentialism/nihilism clashes and the object of assimilation is called... wait for it, The Matrix. This must be ''Film/TheMatrixRevolutions'' [[JustForFun/RecycledInSpace WITH ROBOTS!]], right? No, it came out three years before the Matrix sequels.
32	** In the episode, "Sparkwar Pt. II: The Search", Chalk on top of voicing Primal, also voices a hologram of Optimus Prime though [[spoiler: it turns out to be Megatron in disguise]]. Over ''2 years'' before he got to voice Prime proper in ''Armada'' and the rest of the "Unicron trilogy".
33	* ItWasHisSled: [[spoiler:The identities of some of the Vehicon generals. Thrust is Waspinator, Jetstorm is Silverbolt, and Tankor is Rhinox. Even people who haven't seen the series know it.]]
34	* JerkassWoobie:
35	** Nightscream has pretty solid reasons for being messed up... yet the fan consensus seems to be that [[UnintentionallyUnsympathetic his annoying qualities outweigh his sympathetic ones]] and [[{{wangst}} he spends a lot more time angsting than he really should]].
36	** Rattrap in "The Weak Component." His making a deal with Megatron is certainly questionable and often a NeverLiveItDown moment, but considering the way his own teammates (save Optimus) [[KickTheDog treated him]], he had the audience's sympathy.
37	** Thrust and Jetstorm border on this at times, [[spoiler:especially Jetstorm due to Silverbolt being freed from the shell program resulting in his DeathOfPersonality.]]
38	* MagnificentBastard: Megatron. See ''YMMV/BeastWars'' for details.
39	* MisBlamed: Bob Skir received a great deal of criticism from the fandom - to the point where he had to cancel a convention appearance because he was receiving death threats. While he was indeed one of two story editors, he was blamed for everything a given fan had an issue with. Not exactly fair, especially as Skir didn't develop the series himself and was working from what Marv Wolfman started. Notably, Marty Isenberg (the other story editor) never received such vitriol and his being named story editor of [[WesternAnimation/TransformersAnimated a later show]] was not met with disdain. This all may have been an unfortunate result of Skir making himself available via his website to fans, who incorrectly took him as the ultimate authority of the show.
40	* {{Narm}}: The bizarre designs for the Maximals' robot modes are a little hard to take seriously at times. In particular: Rattrap having a wheeled axle in place of legs, Blackarachnia's Klingon forehead, Nightscream's floppy hair and general plastic-surgery looks, and the way ''every'' character's eyes pointed in two different directions on a regular basis.
41	** Rattrap arguably gets it the worst, as he seems to have been reformatted into the body of a child. In addition to the lack of legs making him even shorter than he already was, his face (and the fact that his head seems to come with a small baseball cap built in) makes [[http://tfwiki.net/wiki/File:Catalyst_Rattrap_vine_uhoh.jpg him look like]] something [[WesternAnimation/ReBoot Enzo would reboot into.]]
42	** [[spoiler:Optimus Primal]]'s dead body from Fallout is probably meant to look like if he disintegrated, but the model quality instead makes it look like he's been [[SquashedFlat comically flattened]]. The Japanese GagDub even turns the scene into ''intentional humor'' by having the Maximals cheer "[[spoiler:[[InSeriesNickname Ybonco]]]] is flat! Yay!". WebVideo/{{Phelous}} put it best in his review for the series.
43	-->- "[[spoiler:Primal]] kinda died too by becoming a hilarious pancake on the floor, which seems more like a gag for Waspinator in Beast Wars than a supposed-to-be dramatic death for [[spoiler:your main hero]]."
44	** When he starts growing [[spoiler: after absorbing all of Cybertron's sparks]], Megatron bends over and squats over his throne, growling. [[ToiletHumor Yes, it looks exactly]] [[https://youtu.be/4li0_h8fiQA?t=85 like you might think]].
45	* NightmareFuel:
46	** Megatron apparently runs on this instead of Energon... He started by spreading a deadly virus across the planet, followed that up by building an army out of mecha-corpses, and decided to finish by ''stealing the souls of his entire species'' long before the maximals landed. He only got worse from there.
47	*** Over the course of the series, he begins to mutilate himself in progressively more horrific ways in an attempt to live up to his own doctrines of machine supremacy, eventually stripping himself down to an errant mutant spark that ''consumes the sparks of other cybertronians'' to prepare for his "Ascension" resembling something more like a cybernetic ''lich'' than the typical warmonger of any other Megatron before or since.
48	** Blackarachnia's faceplate coming up, revealing the extra sets of eyes. Talk about putting your GameFace on.
49	** The effects of the Key to Vector Sigma on the Maximals. Their organic sides being turned into technomatter drives him insane, leaving them as giggling maniacs who attack their own comrades. And the worst part? They can ''infect other Maximals by touch''.
50	** While it is far milder than the original, it's still unnerving to see the effects of Megatron's Hate Plague on the Maximals, who devolve to ranting and attacking each other at the top of a hat. And unlike with the original version, they actually ''know'' what's happening to them, and try desperately to fight the effects.
51	* OlderThanTheyThink: One of the many criticisms levied against this show is Cybertron originally housing organic life. However, this was not a RetCon invented solely for this series. [[WesternAnimation/TheTransformers The original G1 cartoon]] had an episode called "The Dweller in the Depths" which revealed that the Quintessons, the creators of the Transformer race, originally experimented with half organic creatures called Trans-Organics and the episode shows some of the organic caverns deep in the depths of Cybertron. In fact, the link between the Trans-Organics and the Transformers could explain how the latter could scan organic creatures for alt modes in the first place.
52	* RootingForTheEmpire: A handful of people thoroughly enjoyed [[EvilIsCool the Vehicons]] more than the Maximals, due to having cool designs, varied and interesting personalities, and being pretty entertaining.
53	* SpecialEffectsFailure: Due to limited use of specular and emissive maps unlike Beast Wars (meaning fewer shiny and glowy effects) explosions are represented by meshes with a solid, ''shaded'' texture. They also ''have shadows''.
54	** The SpeedStripes that appear during action scenes sometimes have gaps in them, through which ''the background can be seen''.
55	* TakeThatScrappy:
56	** In "Survivor," Nightscream belittles the rest of the team for losing the Beast Wars. Rattrap responds by knocking him to the floor:
57	---> ''"You watch your mouth, junior! I've lost friends in that war."''
58	** For some, ''Optimus'' became TheScrappy due to his endless and self-righteously indignant babbling about how "WE NEED TO RESTORE THE BALANCE!" and becoming so fanatical that he was like a KnightTemplar. Thus when Cheetor [[{{CallingTheOldManOut}} called him out]] on his plan to obliterate all the mechanical life on Cybertron--which essentially would have made Optimus an eco-terrorist--many fans rejoiced upon hearing Cheetor's speech. Many felt that Optimus had degenerated into a nutjob who was fanatically following the orders of the vague and mysterious Oracle without question, and [[{{WhatTheHellHero}} needed to be snapped out of it.]]
59	*** It helps that ''the entire point'' of the first season finale and second season opener seemed to have been about how Optimus was descending into fanaticism and needed to stop himself. He's even brought that delving into that made him similar to Megatron to the point where, a bit in dream sequence, Megatron himself calls him out for it.
60	* TheyChangedItNowItSucks:
61	** The changes to several of the character's personalities were a ''very'' sore point for fans of Beast Wars, for one.
62	** While the animation was an improvement, the redesigns for the Maximals weren't as liked. Whenever newer toylines/fiction reference the Beast Era, the designs from Beast Wars are usually given the homage.
63	* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter: The reveal that [[spoiler:Waspinator is Thrust]] doesn't really go anywhere, as no one ever thinks to reformat him back and his Vehicon personality remains dominant for the rest of the series.
64	* TooBleakStoppedCaring: It's pretty dark right from the get-go and doesn't let up, so it can be tricky to sit through until the ending.
65	** Case in point: ''The Weak Component''. You'd expect Blackarachnia, Cheetor and Nightscream to cut Rattrap some slack, since he's just getting used to his new body. Instead, they all pick up the JerkassBall and drive him to go to Megatron for some weapons upgrade. [[SarcasmMode What a loyal and understanding group of friends.]]
66	* UnintentionalUncannyValley: The Maximal robot mode faces are a lot more human-like than they were in the previous series, but still have robot-like features and some added animal-like features too. The end result is facial designs that aren't quite human-like, but aren't quite animal-like either, and feel a little off as a result.
67	* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic:
68	** In "Survivor", Cheetor physically reprimands Rattrap when the latter calls out Nightscream for insulting the memory of their fallen comrades. While Rattrap's attitude wasn't helping, it still makes Cheetor look like he cares more about the new guy than their lost friends, especially considering how close he was to two of them, Tigatron and Airazor.
69	** In ''WesternAnimation/BeastWars'', part of Blackarachnia's story arc was that she wanted to make her own choices through her own free will and wanted the Maximals to give her a wide berth to do so. In this series, Blackarachnia would attack Rattrap and call him a traitor when he made a weapons deal with Megatron, despite being a former Predacon herself and having an opportunity to reach out to Rattrap and understand what drove him to such lengths. She also forcibly changes [[spoiler: Jetstorm]] back into Silverbolt despite expecting characters like Silverbolt and Optimus to give her the chance to make her own choices. Given how in the previous show, she wanted to every chance and opportunity to make free choices of her own accord and be accepted by the Maximals as-is, Blackarachnia in this series can come off as being seriously entitled and hypocritical, wanting every second and third chance based on individual sovereignty and free will for herself but not being willing to give it to others.
70	* ValuesDissonance: In the Japanese dub, Nightscream was turned into an AgentPeacock and received HoYay with Silverbolt (which Blackarachnia mocked) as a humorous reference to Japanese comedian Masaki Sumitani using a "Hard Gay" persona for some of his skits. Post-2000's, in non-Asian countries, people would definitely complain about the homophobia in using LGBT+ stereotypes for humor in a children's show.
71	* VindicatedByHistory:
72	** Thanks to the generally bad reception of ''Anime/TransformersEnergon'', this series is often seen in a much better light. It's hardly universal, of course, but still quite a feat considering the backlash it once received. This has grown over the decades, especially thanks to other media of dubious quality like the [[WebAnimation/TransformersPrimeWarsTrilogy machinima]] and [[WesternAnimation/TransformersWarForCybertronTrilogy netflix shows]] or some of the Bayverse films who make one realize that in hindsight, a show could be a lot worse. Nowadays the sentiment seems to be more that while it leaves a lot to desire as a sequel to ''WesternAnimation/BeastWars'', as a standalone show, it's actually very good, with surprisingly mature storytelling, and a balanced take on its environmental message in an era where shows could be very {{Anvilicious}}. The voice cast is excellent, and the CGI animation is years ahead of its time. Several of the characters and designs have gone on to be revisited in shows or as Third-Party transformers toys, particularly Strika who remains very popular as a female character who eschews the "sexy robot" aesthetic. Similarly elements of Blackarachnia's design would be revisited in future shows such as her ''WesternAnimation/TransformersAnimated'' counterpart (on which Marty Isenberg also worked) who shares this version's spider abdomen butt, and concealed multiple eyes in robot mode. It's by no means one of the pillars of the franchise but on many fan polls it tends to do surprisingly well, especially considering its reception at the time.
73	** Similar to the series, Nightscream (who was a major Scrappy when the series first aired) has gained fans in recent years, due to future characters being ''much'' less likeable.
74	* SugarWiki/VisualEffectsOfAwesome: Pretty much the only thing people can agree on is that the animation is top-notch for the time (SpecialEffectsFailure aside), and has even aged a fair bit better than the stuff from its predecessor. The lighting is on point, and the character acting is a lot more detailed and expressive - which is all the more impressive when you consider how complex and experimental most of the designs are.
75	%%* {{Wangst}}: Nightscream and Sliverbolt.

Context YMMV / BeastMachines