Trivia / Beast Machines

• Acting for Two:
  • Tankor and Obsidian are both voiced by Paul Dobson.
  • In addition to reprising his role as Megatron, David Kaye also voices Noble/Savage. Which makes sense, since Noble/Savage is Megatron.
• B-Team Sequel: Beast Wars story editors Larry DiTillio and Bob Forward did not return for this series, likely explaining some of the jarring shifts in tone and characterization.
• Creator Backlash:
  • During an interview, Gary Chalk said he disliked how his character, Optimus Primal, was turned into a "religious cult leader".
  • Apparently EVERY actor except David Kaye disliked the show's Darker and Edgier tone in comparison to its predecessor.
• Executive Meddling: Marv Wolfman had pitched the original outline for the show. However, Fox insisted on Bob Skir and Marty Isenberg being story editors instead due to having worked with them on Godzilla: The Series. This proved to be a shock to Skir and Isenberg themselves, as they had professed a lack of knowledge about the Transformers franchise. Skir had Wolfman write a few episodes so he could still be involved in the show. They also weren't allowed to watch any Beast Wars episodes, as Hasbro felt that series was too continuity heavy, while giving them the lowdown on the G1 series. This resulted in Beast Machines being even more continuity heavy.
• Franchise Killer: Originally, Hasbro planned to continue the Beast Era with a third show called Transtech but the mixed reception of Beast Machines and the failure of its toyline (and problems with Star Wars: Episode I toys) forced Hasbro to pull the plug on the Beast Era. Furthermore, after Beast Machines several Transformers shows would be imported from Japan until almost a decade later.
• Recycled Set: The planet where Botanica acquired her plant mode (since named Regalis V) was previously used in Mainframe's Shadow Raiders as the Jungle Planet.
• Late Export for You: While the series premiered in North America in 1999, it wouldn't premiere in Japan until 2004. This is largely due to the massive failure of Beast Wars Neo.
• Market-Based Title: The series is called Transformers: Beast Wars Returns in Japan.
• Screwed by the Network: This how the show was treated in Japan. After the low sales of Beast Wars Neo and Beast Wars Metals toylines, Takara deciced to skip Beast Machines and replace it with Transformers Car Robots. When they did dub the series a few years later in 2004, it was a pretty bare-bones dub with no new opening or ending songs like the Beast Wars dub and was dumped on a small satellite-only channel rather then airing it on TV Tokyo, ensuring that most people in Japan didn't even knew the show existed or was dubbed until the DVD release. The toyline also saw a small print run exclusive to Toys"R"Us Japan, with most figures only have 3,000-4,000 copies made.
• Screwed by the Lawyers:
  • Originally, Jetstorm's name was going to be the very spoiler-heavy Skybolt. It got as far as some cast recordings before a trademark issue came up. Due to how the original name risked blowing a major twist, this is considered a positive example of this trope and was seen as a relief by the writers.
• Show Accuracy/Toy Accuracy: One major downside of the show came with Hasbro testing out making the same character at different price points (so you can have the characters you want without breaking the bank), but used radically different designs for each size class. The characters were designed at the highest price point but the early toys looked nothing like them and did not sell nearly as well (to say nothing of the quality of the line in general). For comparison here is Optimus in Beast◊ and Robot◊ form, and here is the deluxe◊, mega◊ and supreme◊ versions of the toys.
  • Part of this was due to the earlier toys using the Beast Hunters concept art as the basis for the toys, which were changed rather heavily by the time production began. But later toys were usually made in brighter colors rather than what was seen in the cartoon and even toy designs were still being based on early concept art rather than the final CGI models. Takara Tomy did eventually release the line in Japan, alongside the dub, using the existing toys in toon-accurate colors. Due to a limited run, however, these toys are very expensive on the current aftermarket. Hasbro would later produce a more accurate Cheetor in the Titaniums line and a Tankor in Generations but the series has otherwise been ignored.
  • A few color choices aside, the McDonald's Happy Meal toys were usually much more on-model to the CGI than most of the official toys were.
  • The Rattrap toy actually has legs, though they can be folded away for the show-styled wheel mode.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Story editor Bob Skir really wanted Nightscream to be a female transformer, with a design and personality much like Newt from Aliens - he even "argued 'til I was blue that our new bat be female", to no avail. Executive Meddling ensued. As such, the character ended up an Expy of John Connor from Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Skir has since stated this probably was not the best idea, even if it gave them a personality to base Nightscream off, because even many fans of T2 found John Connor the worst aspect of the movie (whereas Newt is widely beloved by the Aliens fanbase).
  • In "Fallout", Dinobot's ghost was meant to serve as Primal's guide in the Matrix and his Spirit Advisor for much of the series.
  • Transtech, the similarly-scrapped sequel to Beast Machines.
  • There was originally to be a small section with Obsidian and Strika falling back to Cybertron and refusing an upgrade as self-punishment for their actions while Megatron misled them. It was cut due to time constraints.
  • Bob Skir and Marty Isenberg were originally set to write their dream project- an Avengers cartoon- only for them to get pulled into this show by accident. The resulting cartoon, The Avengers: United They Stand sucked utterly and was quickly pulled from the Fox Kids lineup.
  • According to Dan DiDio, during the development phase, Steve Gerber pitched his own idea for the show. No details have been released, but DiDio called it "wildly original."
  • According to audio commentary on the DVD set, the sparks of Cybertron were going to reject Optimus' plea for help, due to their agreeing with Megatron's point of view. This idea was rejected as it made them too unlikeable and the staff wanted them to be worth rescuing.

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