Saturday, October 20, 2007

Transformers - Beast Machines

Beast Machines Opening


Beast Machines Alternate Opening


Beast Machines is the continuation of the Beast Wars series where upon returning to their home world of Cybertron, The Maximals have become fugitives to a world where Megatron is the supreme ruler and is ruling Cybertron with an iron fist with an army of mindless "Vehicons" drones. The Maximals can no longer transform due to a transformation virus, The "Oracle" made contact with Optimus Primal and "Re-Format" the Maximals into a new more advanced "Techno- Organic" state.

Key to Vector Sigma


In my opinion... this is perhaps the most well written transformers story line to date. No other TF story lines are as well written and intricately woven together with the G1 history and lore. Iconic G1 related subject matter like "The Key to Vector Sigma", "The Plasma Energy Chamber" and even the "Hate Plague" ( As seen in the Season 3 episodes of - "The return of Optimus prime" ) sends chills down my spine as i watch the story unfolds.

Perhaps the most ingenious story line, is it's main plot... where the "The Oracle" urges and guided the Maximals about the need for Techno-Organic balance and that Cybertron was originally "Organic" before becoming a complete "Technological" planet

There are a multitude of gems popping up throughout the whole series which is divided into two seasons - Season One consist of 13 episodes and Season Two consists of 26 episodes.

Tankor - Pic Source - www.bwtf.com


The plot twists of this series are mind boggling...by actually revealing that "Tankor" is actually a reformated "Rhinox". Rhinox consciousness eventually surfaced which appears to have been corrupted due to Megatron's tampering of his spark... Rhinox plots to overthrow Megatron as "Tankor" using the "Key to Vector Sigma". when Megatron learns of the key existance, he plans to use it to eradicate all organic matter on Cybertron... Tankor/Rhinox used the Oracle to inform Primal of the existence of "The Plasma Energy Chamber' which is capable of destroying all technological matter... the whole ordeal lead to the destruction of Tankor/Rhinox.


Silverbolt - Pic Source - www.bwtf.com


A second plot twist is Black Arachnia's plight to find "Silverbolt" and hope to reformat him using the green organic goo obtained deep in the heart of Cybertron .. She had originally thought that Silverbolt's spark is being reformatted in the body of the Vehicon "Thrust" only to find out that it was "Waspinator's " spark that's in Thrust and "Silverbolt's spark is actually in the body of "Jet Storm". She suceeded in reformatting Silverbolt by trapping Jet Storm and pouring the organic goo on him. Silverbolt's new techno organic form is fugly at best.... his beast form is a condor and his bot form makes him looks like some samurai reject in an old Jap samurai movie!!! Hehehe

Savage/Nobel - Pic Source - www.bwtf.com




Savage/Nobel Design Concept


The third plot twist is the introduction of a "Beast Changer" named "Savage/Noble" which was actually Megatron's spark in an organic body. Savage/Noble is a beast changer because he actually doesn't have a robot form but rather transforms from a wolf like creature calling himself "Nobel" and a dragon like creature named "Savage"... Megatron in this form, tricked a rookie Maximal named "Nightscream" into helping him to gain access back into his inner sanctum in an attempt to extract his spark from the much hated organic body so that he can be made technologically perfect once more... When the mindless and sparkless form of Savage/Nobel was killed by Megatron... Nightscream uses his "Sonic Scream" on Megatron which almost destroyed him... Megatron's spark was temporarily stuck in the form of a "Diagnostic Drone". But even in this small body.. he proves to be a formidable adversary to the Maximals... Now that's what u call a mechanism befitting of the name "MEGATRON"!!!

Nightscream - Pic Source - www.bwtf.com




Other gems of this series includes the introduction of a new character name "Night Scream". He's the only survivor when Megatron came back to Cybertron and extracted all the sparks from the Transformers in Cybertron. he fell down a hole and survived when his built in comuter scan for life forms to reformat him to adapt to life. His computer scanned the fossilised remains of a Bat and reformat him into a bat. The Maximals found him and Primal with the help of the Oracle reformats him into his new techno-organic form.

Botanica - Pic Source - www.bwtf.com




Another interesting gem is the introduction of a female "Autobot / Maximal" named "Botanica" She is a Transformer who was dispatched into another planet where she adapted to life as a living chlorophyll based life form ( Intelligent Plant Life ). Her introduction into this series makes it even more interesting as it compliments the story line of the Oracle's plight for techno-organic balance in Cybertron, since Primal's team have managed to assume "Beast Modes" from the "Beast Wars" series, it only makes sense that the need for plant life DNA would complete the whole techno-organic concept.

Strika - Pic Source - www.bwtf.com




The introduction of yet another Fembot in this series is "Strika" who is the consort of "Obsidian". These two bots are created by "Megatron" utilizing the sparks of two of the most famous Cybertronian war tactician and generals in Cybertronian history. These 2 are added into the vehicons rank due to the recent lost of both Tankor and Jet Storm in the Vehicons rank.

Night Slash Cheetor!!!


Savage/Nobel - Pic Source - www.seibertron.com/




The toys for "Beast Machines" are very interesting as well... and like all other Transformers series.. there are tons of toys that are inspired by the show but never appeared in the show... One of the most interesting show inspired figure is "Night Slash Cheetor".. well Cheetor did show up in the show.. but not in this color.. n this particular toy is very sought after and was never made available in locally as well... the same goes to the toy of Savage/Noble.

This series is the only Transformers series that doesn't have a Japanese of it like what was done with the Beast Wars series.... the toy series by Takara Japan came much later as well...

The ending of the series gives me chills... i have not seen another TF series with an ending as touching and awesome as this... words cannot describe it... so..y not u watch it for yourself on youtube!!! Below is the final episode of Beast Machines, courtesy of www.youtube.com.. Njoi!!!







Overall... my grading for this series and it's toys is a solid 9 out of 10 "Sparks"... I have not seen a TF series with such brilliant story line ever since.

Cheers!!!
N_M

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