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    DVD Review: Beast Wars: Transformers – Season One and The Complete Series Releases

    Posted on
     
    by Kroze Kresky, Media Editor
     
    Transformers fans are quite the fickle and picky bunch, so when Beast Wars: Transformers was announced as a brand new animated series featuring their favorite robots as animals, more than a few were quite taken aback by the concept. When you added in the fact that it was forsaking traditional animation for the then-new-fangled completely CGI animation, the hard-to-please bunch were more than a little wary. But all of those fears were quickly brushed aside as fans and newcomers alike fell in love with the rag tag teams of the Heroic Maximals and the Evil Predacons with the releases of Beast Wars: Transformers – Season One and Beast Wars: Transformers – The Complete Series now available on DVD from Shout! Factory.
     
    Beast Wars: Transformers is nothing short of an animated epic, bringing with it top-notch writing and animation that only a team like Mainframe Studios (previously known for the cult hit Reboot), could pull off. We are quickly introduced to our heroes, led by Optimus Primal, as they arrive on a strange planet after chasing down Megatron. Megatron has come to the planet so that he may tap into the great energy source, Energon, that is littered across the planet. It turns out, due to the energy that Energon gives off, it is dangerous for non-organic lifeforms to approach and collect – So the bots decide to take on alternative organic forms in order to collect and survive on the planet filled to the brim with Energon.
    What starts as just a fight between The Maximals and The Predacons quickly becomes quite a bit larger in scale. We are introduced to a race of alien beings known as the Vok, along with their artifacts that hold immense power and the key to defeating the other side… but The Vok have other plans. Add in a time traveling plot, which brings back the original Optimus Prime and Megatron into play and threatens the entire history of the universe, and you just can’t get much more epic than that!
    For its time, the animation of Beast Wars was quite impressive with what could be done on a TV series, and the writing was surprisingly dark, with many of the characters not surviving throughout the duration of the series (or in some cases, through the first season). These attributes were pretty rare to see in children’s programming in the 90’s, due mostly to the anti-violence movement that heavily impacted animation at that time period. 
    All of the characters are extremely memorable – from the wisecracking and comedic relief Rattrap, to the heroic and tragic Dinobot, they are all well defined unlike several many of the other Transformers shows, which tended to have highly generic and stereotypical characters thrown in every scene. Granted, Beast Wars doesn’t have as many characters as some of the other series’ had, but what it lacks in quantity it definitely makes up for in pure quality!
     
    Episode Highlights:

    “Beast Wars” Part 1 & 2: A battle in space causes The Maximals and The Predacons to be sent back in time to an unknown location where they crash on a planet filled with Energon, acquiring animal-based alternative modes in order to survive. Not satisfied with the Predacons, Dinobot quickly leaves them to join the Maximals where he ends up having to save Optimus Primal’s life when his former team decides to attack. Begun the Beast Wars has…

    “Possession”: Everyone’s favorite backstabbing Decepticon, the original Starscream, ends up inexplicably inside of Waspinator’s body after his spirit was thrown through time after the great battle with Unicron and helps out the Predacons in their attack upon the Maximals… but Starscream has other plans for his new comrades, as he sets up a massive trap for both sides to fall into.

    “Other Voices” Part 1 & 2: In the first season finale, the alien race known as the Vok decide to make their move against both the Maximals and Predacons as one of the two moons is revealed to be a giant super weapon. The entire planet, along with everyone on it, are doomed to a catastrophic end if the sparring sides don’t work together. The question is: Just how long can an alliance between The Maximals and The Predacons really last? And can The Predacons really be trusted?

    “Code of a Hero”: Known as one of the greatest Transformers episodes in any series, “Code of a Hero” focuses mainly on Dinobot. It takes place as The Predacons are deciding to attack a bunch of proto-humans in order to make sure humanity never exists, assuring that Optimus Prime will never be awakened in the future. With no one else around, Dinobot must defend against overwhelming numbers and make the ultimate sacrifice in order to save the timeline from being altered forever. If the ending to this episode doesn’t leave you with a tear in your eye, than you are a more of a heartless machine then G1 Megatron!

    “The Agenda” Parts 1, 2, and 3: The future of all the Transformers (as well as the very Earth itself) is at stake when the Beast Wars conflict comes to a head when The Ark from the original G1 Transformers is discovered. Megatron decides that if he can destroy the original Optimus Prime, who is currently sleeping in stasis, all of history will be rewritten, which will in turn ensure that The Deceptions will win against The Autobots in the future. Can history be saved?

    Special Features:

    • Maximize! Creating A New Breed of TRANSFORMER
    • Remembering The Spark Featurette
    • Art gallery
    • Original character models

    Overall:

    Beast Wars is known as the best Transformers series all around, and this set makes sure to go out of its way to show it’s awesomeness! Not happy with just throwing the previous season’s DVD content onto this set, Shout! Factory goes above and beyond with this set’s overall quality. Even going as far as to include print versions of the exclusive Botcon Beast Wars prequel comic, released several years earlier. If you are even the tiniest bit of a Transformers fan, and you haven’t already picked this up for your collection (to stick right next to your Masterpiece Grimlock), then shame on you! Beast Wars: Transformers  continues to be one of the best animated series ever made, ranking high-up-there with other animated greats like Batman: The Animated Series and Avatar: The Last Airbender! Pick this up today!

    ComicsOnline gives Beast Wars: The Complete Series – 4.5 Dinobots out of 5.

    Get your copy of Beast Wars: Transformers –  The Complete Series at Shout! Factory.

    Get your copy of Beast Wars: Transformers – Season One at Amazon.

    Stay tuned to ComicsOnline.com for more Transformers coverage and for everything geek pop culture!

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