Laurus Nobilis (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
laurus_nobilis) wrote2010-03-17 08:11 pm
laurus_nobilis) wrote2010-03-17 08:11 pm
Entry tags:
Beast Wars, season 1
Using this icon instead of a more related Transformers one, because this is the face I make when I watch Beast Wars.
A bit of backstory first: yes, I grew up with this. Sort of. My history with Transformers continuities is a bit different than the one for people in the USA, because until the mid-90s or so, we got cartoons with a delay of years; I've watched cartoons from early and mid-80s until well into the 90s. That means that I watched G1 when I was about 8 or 9 (and probably still got reruns much later, because my younger brother remembers it well enough), and then I got Beast Wars more or less at the same time as people in the US did, when I was 12.
Now, it's true that G1 is the continuity that makes me go "my childhoooooood ♥". Because I was younger, I guess, or because it's what defined Transformers for me, or both. The face of Transformers will forever be G1!Optimus to me, no matter what. But I did really, really like Beast Wars, and I was still a kid, and thinking about it comes with a lot of affection and nostalgia filter.
So I was more than happy when I started rewatching it and realized that, yes, it's actually as good as I remembered. ♥
Bad things first: it takes a while getting used to the old 90s CGI, and the music hasn't aged well. And... I think that's it. Seriously! Sure, it's a kids cartoon, but it's really good at what it's meant to do. It had an ongoing plot and character development, which was rare at the time, at least in Western cartoons. It had female characters who appeared regularly and did stuff, which is still rare in Transformers. Forget nostalgia filter, this show is good.
It's also surprising how much I remember! Before I started rewatching, it wasn't much. I remembered that it was very different than G1 and it had taken me a while to get used to it, but ended up really liking it. That I didn't like Optimus and Megatron as much as the original ones, but that they were different enough that I wasn't comparing them all the time, and I did like them in their own right. That I liked Blackarachnia, adored Rhinox and Waspinator, and my favourite was (surprisingly, if you know my usual favourite character types) Rattrap of all people. That at some point they were poking G1!Optimus, and even back then I was all "dude, can't the guy ever rest in peace"? (Wiki tells me they were actually in the past, but obviously I'd missed that detail back then - and I haven't reached that episode yet.) And I had a vague fuzzy memory of this hippie white tiger and his eagle girlfriend, and how I loved that couple and was incredibly confused by their really weird ending. :P We'll see how that goes this time around, heh.
Anyway, once I started rewatching? I remembered even more! There are these episodes that give me an odd sense of déjà vu, and I realize I must have watched them a million times. There are moments when I go "OOOH, NOW X IS GOING TO DO Y!" and get stupidly happy when it turns out I was right. But my favourite... oh, my favourite are the moments when I remember exactly why I loved these characters so much. Especially the ones I didn't remember so clearly. There are people in my flist who can confirm my level of SQUEEEEEE when "that one hippie tiger" became AAAAAAAAAAAAH TIGATRON YOU'VE BEEN HERE FIVE MINUTES AND I LOVE YOU SO MUCH AGAIN, for example. ♥
And because I'll be here forever and I'm not coherent enough to write full paragraphs, here's a handy list of reactions, in no particular order:
→ Rattrap is still my favourite. This still surprises me, because while I obviously do think he's awesome, he's... certainly not the goody-goody kind of character I tend to like best. One would think my favourite would be Optimus or Rhinox, but... Rattrap, you own my heart.
→ Everyone owns my heart in this series, though. I mean it. Adorable good guys, charismatic bad guys, and everything in between: I love them all. Honest! Even Scorponok! XD I like some more than others, sure, but there is not a single character that I don't love in some way.
... this makes it kind of depressing to know about the inevitable doom for some people. Oh, Transformers, how you break my heart. (And that always sounds weird to people not in the fandom, but... look at, say TFA!Omega and then tell me with a straight face that a cartoon about giant robots can't break your heart.)
→ Speaking of the characters! So many shades of grey, here. And not just in the "the villains are all against each other" sense, or with characters like Rattrap, who's certainly not a G1-style goody-goody but very obviously has a heart of gold. Beast Wars gave us characters like Dinobot, people. Dinobot! I didn't appreciate him enough as a kid - or, at least, not nearly as much as I do now. He's pretty complex, and I don't even have to add "for a cartoon" there.
→ Someone else who I didn't appreciate nearly enough as a kid was Megatron. Oh, Megs, you are such a Magnificent Bastard indeed. I won't say he's my favourite Megatron because, honestly, I can't choose and they're all ~~~GLORIOUS~~~ each in his own way. But I have to say it, I could listen to BW!Megs all day long. And so could he, which is hilarious. XD His genre savvy just slays me - both in general and of Transformers history (you Optimuses do love to sacrifice yourselves, don't you?). And he's just so over-the-top and ridiculous and I can't wait until the infamous rubber ducky shows up.
→ The same goes for Optimus. I liked him as a kid, which was pretty good for someone who was not Optimus Prime (I'll admit it, I could never get myself to like Rodimus even a bit). But now? The whole "he's too serious" feel turned into "WHY IS EVERYONE AROUND ME INSANE AAARGH IT'S HARD TO BE THE VOICE OF REASON" and I just. I love him so much. ♥ And he's a nerd! He's there to explore and he is going to go out and watch the plants, dammit, no matter what Dinobot says. XD
→ Sooo I have to admit that after TFA and then G1, my first reaction to Terrorsaur was "eeeh not Starscream". But that's okay, because he's still hilarious and I love him. Especially with Waspinator. DID I MENTION I ADORE WASPINATOR? It's another proof of good writing that he spends most of his time being adorable and exploding and making you want to hug him, and then he randomly goes and says something incredibly creepy that makes you go OH RIGHT BAD GUY.
→ No one does "incredibly creepy" as well as Tarantulas, though. There is a lot of Getting Crap Past The Radar there! And, again, good writing, because all of what creeps me out so much now went WHOOOOSH over my head when I was a kid and wasn't supposed to get it.
→ ... I'm tempted to ramble about every character now. But, as it often happens to me, I don't have a lot to say about the ones I love the most. I think of Rattrap or Rhinox or Cheetor, and the most coherent thing I can come up with is "daaawww". ♥ ♥ ♥
→ The plot is also pretty good! And, wait, I forgot about one thing to mention up there with the flaws: "three centuries ago" is ancient history for a species that lives millions of years? o.O Timelines are not your forte, Transformers. But other than that... I like the plot. It still amazes me that there is a plot! I was so used to mid-80s episodic cartoons when I first saw this, that it was a real surprise.
→ I like that it's sort of a G1 sequel, though, even if the timeline makes no sense. G1 makes me happy, especially when it lets Megatron make snarky comments. And Starscream possessing Waspinator is the biggest pile of FAIL in the universe, but we knew that already. =D
→ I have the feeling that I had a lot more to say and I'm forgetting about it. Hmmm. Perhaps it'll come up in comments.
→ ETA: Because I remembered one of those things! Compared to G1 and even TFA, there's a real sense that both sides are actually thinking about their strategies. They're more active, and even at their silliest there are no crazy plans of the week. It's surprising, in a good way. (Though I guess TFA has more of an excuse there, with "a repairing crew" vs. "a bunch of separate bad guys"; Megs does plan things better when he takes over. And the crazy plans of the week are part of G1's charm, IMHO, but there's no doubt that the plotting in BW is much better.)
The short version: I STILL LOVE THIS SO MUCH. ♥ I won't call it my favourite continuity; I love G1, BW and TFA all, for different reasons (I wonder how weird this makes me in the fandom, heh). But it's true that I love love love Beast Wars.
Even if it's going to break my heart. Sigh.
A bit of backstory first: yes, I grew up with this. Sort of. My history with Transformers continuities is a bit different than the one for people in the USA, because until the mid-90s or so, we got cartoons with a delay of years; I've watched cartoons from early and mid-80s until well into the 90s. That means that I watched G1 when I was about 8 or 9 (and probably still got reruns much later, because my younger brother remembers it well enough), and then I got Beast Wars more or less at the same time as people in the US did, when I was 12.
Now, it's true that G1 is the continuity that makes me go "my childhoooooood ♥". Because I was younger, I guess, or because it's what defined Transformers for me, or both. The face of Transformers will forever be G1!Optimus to me, no matter what. But I did really, really like Beast Wars, and I was still a kid, and thinking about it comes with a lot of affection and nostalgia filter.
So I was more than happy when I started rewatching it and realized that, yes, it's actually as good as I remembered. ♥
Bad things first: it takes a while getting used to the old 90s CGI, and the music hasn't aged well. And... I think that's it. Seriously! Sure, it's a kids cartoon, but it's really good at what it's meant to do. It had an ongoing plot and character development, which was rare at the time, at least in Western cartoons. It had female characters who appeared regularly and did stuff, which is still rare in Transformers. Forget nostalgia filter, this show is good.
It's also surprising how much I remember! Before I started rewatching, it wasn't much. I remembered that it was very different than G1 and it had taken me a while to get used to it, but ended up really liking it. That I didn't like Optimus and Megatron as much as the original ones, but that they were different enough that I wasn't comparing them all the time, and I did like them in their own right. That I liked Blackarachnia, adored Rhinox and Waspinator, and my favourite was (surprisingly, if you know my usual favourite character types) Rattrap of all people. That at some point they were poking G1!Optimus, and even back then I was all "dude, can't the guy ever rest in peace"? (Wiki tells me they were actually in the past, but obviously I'd missed that detail back then - and I haven't reached that episode yet.) And I had a vague fuzzy memory of this hippie white tiger and his eagle girlfriend, and how I loved that couple and was incredibly confused by their really weird ending. :P We'll see how that goes this time around, heh.
Anyway, once I started rewatching? I remembered even more! There are these episodes that give me an odd sense of déjà vu, and I realize I must have watched them a million times. There are moments when I go "OOOH, NOW X IS GOING TO DO Y!" and get stupidly happy when it turns out I was right. But my favourite... oh, my favourite are the moments when I remember exactly why I loved these characters so much. Especially the ones I didn't remember so clearly. There are people in my flist who can confirm my level of SQUEEEEEE when "that one hippie tiger" became AAAAAAAAAAAAH TIGATRON YOU'VE BEEN HERE FIVE MINUTES AND I LOVE YOU SO MUCH AGAIN, for example. ♥
And because I'll be here forever and I'm not coherent enough to write full paragraphs, here's a handy list of reactions, in no particular order:
→ Rattrap is still my favourite. This still surprises me, because while I obviously do think he's awesome, he's... certainly not the goody-goody kind of character I tend to like best. One would think my favourite would be Optimus or Rhinox, but... Rattrap, you own my heart.
→ Everyone owns my heart in this series, though. I mean it. Adorable good guys, charismatic bad guys, and everything in between: I love them all. Honest! Even Scorponok! XD I like some more than others, sure, but there is not a single character that I don't love in some way.
... this makes it kind of depressing to know about the inevitable doom for some people. Oh, Transformers, how you break my heart. (And that always sounds weird to people not in the fandom, but... look at, say TFA!Omega and then tell me with a straight face that a cartoon about giant robots can't break your heart.)
→ Speaking of the characters! So many shades of grey, here. And not just in the "the villains are all against each other" sense, or with characters like Rattrap, who's certainly not a G1-style goody-goody but very obviously has a heart of gold. Beast Wars gave us characters like Dinobot, people. Dinobot! I didn't appreciate him enough as a kid - or, at least, not nearly as much as I do now. He's pretty complex, and I don't even have to add "for a cartoon" there.
→ Someone else who I didn't appreciate nearly enough as a kid was Megatron. Oh, Megs, you are such a Magnificent Bastard indeed. I won't say he's my favourite Megatron because, honestly, I can't choose and they're all ~~~GLORIOUS~~~ each in his own way. But I have to say it, I could listen to BW!Megs all day long. And so could he, which is hilarious. XD His genre savvy just slays me - both in general and of Transformers history (you Optimuses do love to sacrifice yourselves, don't you?). And he's just so over-the-top and ridiculous and I can't wait until the infamous rubber ducky shows up.
→ The same goes for Optimus. I liked him as a kid, which was pretty good for someone who was not Optimus Prime (I'll admit it, I could never get myself to like Rodimus even a bit). But now? The whole "he's too serious" feel turned into "WHY IS EVERYONE AROUND ME INSANE AAARGH IT'S HARD TO BE THE VOICE OF REASON" and I just. I love him so much. ♥ And he's a nerd! He's there to explore and he is going to go out and watch the plants, dammit, no matter what Dinobot says. XD
→ Sooo I have to admit that after TFA and then G1, my first reaction to Terrorsaur was "eeeh not Starscream". But that's okay, because he's still hilarious and I love him. Especially with Waspinator. DID I MENTION I ADORE WASPINATOR? It's another proof of good writing that he spends most of his time being adorable and exploding and making you want to hug him, and then he randomly goes and says something incredibly creepy that makes you go OH RIGHT BAD GUY.
→ No one does "incredibly creepy" as well as Tarantulas, though. There is a lot of Getting Crap Past The Radar there! And, again, good writing, because all of what creeps me out so much now went WHOOOOSH over my head when I was a kid and wasn't supposed to get it.
→ ... I'm tempted to ramble about every character now. But, as it often happens to me, I don't have a lot to say about the ones I love the most. I think of Rattrap or Rhinox or Cheetor, and the most coherent thing I can come up with is "daaawww". ♥ ♥ ♥
→ The plot is also pretty good! And, wait, I forgot about one thing to mention up there with the flaws: "three centuries ago" is ancient history for a species that lives millions of years? o.O Timelines are not your forte, Transformers. But other than that... I like the plot. It still amazes me that there is a plot! I was so used to mid-80s episodic cartoons when I first saw this, that it was a real surprise.
→ I like that it's sort of a G1 sequel, though, even if the timeline makes no sense. G1 makes me happy, especially when it lets Megatron make snarky comments. And Starscream possessing Waspinator is the biggest pile of FAIL in the universe, but we knew that already. =D
→ I have the feeling that I had a lot more to say and I'm forgetting about it. Hmmm. Perhaps it'll come up in comments.
→ ETA: Because I remembered one of those things! Compared to G1 and even TFA, there's a real sense that both sides are actually thinking about their strategies. They're more active, and even at their silliest there are no crazy plans of the week. It's surprising, in a good way. (Though I guess TFA has more of an excuse there, with "a repairing crew" vs. "a bunch of separate bad guys"; Megs does plan things better when he takes over. And the crazy plans of the week are part of G1's charm, IMHO, but there's no doubt that the plotting in BW is much better.)
The short version: I STILL LOVE THIS SO MUCH. ♥ I won't call it my favourite continuity; I love G1, BW and TFA all, for different reasons (I wonder how weird this makes me in the fandom, heh). But it's true that I love love love Beast Wars.
Even if it's going to break my heart. Sigh.