Before saying outright that Beast Wars is a steaming pile of guano, I have to say that I am not some elitist G1 fanboy; G1 while good isn't entirely faultless as it has its share of garbage from episodes (too many to mention) that have been clearly made for torturing members of Al Qaeda. With that out of the way, here is my assessment of this 90s TV show.
Frankly, BW sucks on a lot of levels; the animation is rendered in CGI and I imagine the people back in the 90s went apes--t (or Optimal Primals--t) over this gimmick but I'm not impressed. CGI works in console games such as the new Mortal Kombat, movies like Jurassic Park, Kung Fu Panda, Shrek but with Transformers, it don't look good; sorry, traditional animation works best; action scenes (of the robot on robot type) just don't work out well in CGI and to put it simply, transforming mecha are expressed and depicted more truthfully with the old school way of animation; here the robots look like a bunch of drab looking rejects from the Pixar cutting room.
In addition to the awful computer graphics, Beast Wars use a lot of modern puns and wisecracks in its pathetic attempts at humor. Lines like "You want your expert consultant fee now?" or "Die cast construction! It's a lost art." may sound cute to hip minded people but to those who want their stories to be based as possible on reality than on self-conscious parody, it does take away the suspension of disbelief a lot (anyway, what does a friggin'"robot", in prehistoric earth know about consultation fees for Christ's sakes).
An episode where the Maximals and Preds came out like gunslingers and outlaws from the Old Wild West is a case in point (the scene kinda reminds me of that preposterous one in TF Victory where Star Saber is also channeling Sergio Leone); Transformers is originally about sentient robots fighting a war, not a bunch of role-playing schmucks. The makers of the show probably thought that John Waynesque scene was cute but it's actually a mockery of what the original show was about. Sure, some would say, "nah, it's just a cartoon, you're taking it too seriously, when's the last time you got laid, blah blah blah" My reply of course would be "how would you feel if the first and second Terminator movies were made in this way, the liquid metal terminator and Arnie terminator were decked out in cowboy outfits in an OK Coral setting? Of course, it would destroy the atmosphere. The stylistic approach of the original cartoon where there for a reason but BW's writers and directors are just a bunch of hipsters who watch too much Oprah and CNN. The three part show opener "More Than Meets The Eye" set the tone for the rest of the series and the Beast Wars people could have followed suit but instead, they chose to dispose of the "serious" tone of the original and settled for a campy b-movie feel.
To sum it up, Beast Wars is a failed attempt by Republicans and Democrats to infiltrate the minds of children and adults, just joking, he-he. Seriously, the potential of the original series is yet to be realized, with the right writer, director and studio, Transformers, as it was meant to be shown might well be made someday; those who cannot wait settle for boring and corny fiction by Simon Furman (a terrible writer who can't write to save his life)or the Bayformer movies that are the film equivalent of chicken diarrhea.
Frankly, BW sucks on a lot of levels; the animation is rendered in CGI and I imagine the people back in the 90s went apes--t (or Optimal Primals--t) over this gimmick but I'm not impressed. CGI works in console games such as the new Mortal Kombat, movies like Jurassic Park, Kung Fu Panda, Shrek but with Transformers, it don't look good; sorry, traditional animation works best; action scenes (of the robot on robot type) just don't work out well in CGI and to put it simply, transforming mecha are expressed and depicted more truthfully with the old school way of animation; here the robots look like a bunch of drab looking rejects from the Pixar cutting room.
In addition to the awful computer graphics, Beast Wars use a lot of modern puns and wisecracks in its pathetic attempts at humor. Lines like "You want your expert consultant fee now?" or "Die cast construction! It's a lost art." may sound cute to hip minded people but to those who want their stories to be based as possible on reality than on self-conscious parody, it does take away the suspension of disbelief a lot (anyway, what does a friggin'"robot", in prehistoric earth know about consultation fees for Christ's sakes).
An episode where the Maximals and Preds came out like gunslingers and outlaws from the Old Wild West is a case in point (the scene kinda reminds me of that preposterous one in TF Victory where Star Saber is also channeling Sergio Leone); Transformers is originally about sentient robots fighting a war, not a bunch of role-playing schmucks. The makers of the show probably thought that John Waynesque scene was cute but it's actually a mockery of what the original show was about. Sure, some would say, "nah, it's just a cartoon, you're taking it too seriously, when's the last time you got laid, blah blah blah" My reply of course would be "how would you feel if the first and second Terminator movies were made in this way, the liquid metal terminator and Arnie terminator were decked out in cowboy outfits in an OK Coral setting? Of course, it would destroy the atmosphere. The stylistic approach of the original cartoon where there for a reason but BW's writers and directors are just a bunch of hipsters who watch too much Oprah and CNN. The three part show opener "More Than Meets The Eye" set the tone for the rest of the series and the Beast Wars people could have followed suit but instead, they chose to dispose of the "serious" tone of the original and settled for a campy b-movie feel.
To sum it up, Beast Wars is a failed attempt by Republicans and Democrats to infiltrate the minds of children and adults, just joking, he-he. Seriously, the potential of the original series is yet to be realized, with the right writer, director and studio, Transformers, as it was meant to be shown might well be made someday; those who cannot wait settle for boring and corny fiction by Simon Furman (a terrible writer who can't write to save his life)or the Bayformer movies that are the film equivalent of chicken diarrhea.