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[Daingurse]

Beast Wars looks awful. I never watched past Gen 1 and thank god for that. Even if I had to deal with the awful Rodimus Prime at some point.

Glad I grew up with it and Reboot. Man to look back at those shows now and think how that used to be hell, visually impressive back then as a kid. Beast Wars was hype.

I actually went back and watched a lot of Gen 1 like a year or so ago, was on a Transformers binge. Even without the nostalgia, I was entertained up until Season 3. My interest waned with the loss of Megatron, Optimus and Scream. Rodimus was also just awful.

 

[Kai Dracon]

Oddly enough, I tended to think Megatron kept Starscream around because, in most of Megatron's incarnations, he wasn't a typically dumb, wasteful big bad. He didn't go around dismembering his own soldiers to please himself or when he got bad news. He really was a war leader, and Starscream was an idiot to be disciplined and educated on the chain of command.

In a sense it made what Galvatron did in the movie that much better. The one moment when enough was enough, I'm tired of this shit.

 

[Hurley]

Even without the nostalgia I was entertained up until Season 3. my interest waned with the loss of Megatron, Optimus and Scream. Rodimus was also just awful.

What really killed season 3 for me was the pretty much full time switch to the animation studio AKOM. Fuck me season 3 had some of the worst animated episodes I had ever seen. It made it even harder to sit through Rodimus having his "I'm not good enough" bs when he looked like he was drawn by a potato.

 

[Daingurse]

What really killed season 3 for me was the pretty much full time switch to the animation studio AKOM. Fuck me season 3 had some of the worst animated episodes I had ever seen. It made it even harder to sit through Rodimus having his "I'm not good enough" bs when he looked like he was drawn by a potato.

Hahahahaha. I remember going in fully aware that Rodimus apparently sucked, he completely lived up to the hype. I was surprised how decent season 1 and 2 were. It was just a hilarious show, the Autobots gave two shits about putting lives in danger, dragging humans all over the place hahaha. The Autobots were truly befriending the populace.

 

[The Smoking Bun]

I liked the Animated version of Starscream quite a bit. Especially when Megatron finally had enough and offed him. BUT, the Allspark in that continuity had exploded and little shards and splinters of it had been spread all over the universe. One of them wound up stuck right in Starscream's head and when Megatron killed him and left his corpse behind, the shard brought him back and healed him. So he dusted himself off and tracked Megatron back down. And was promptly blasted again. And again and again. At one point there's a whole montage of Megatron killing Starscream in various clever ways, only for him to keep coming back. It was a funny and cool story, and a good way to work in Starscreams "immortality" from earlier continuities.

Eventually, Starscream gives up and builds some clones of himself, which turn out to be that continuity's Thundercracker, Skywarp, Dirge, etc.

Actually, I love everything about Animated. The story wound up making all the major things from earlier continuities happen like that, but in clever and concise ways.

Agreed. Animated Starscream has the best characterization of any Transformer in the franchise. He always seems to be in control and has that smug snake attitude.

 

[TreIII]

Also, while we're talking about, Beast Wars Megatron is the Best Megatron.

In the end, I'll have to go with this. The Purple T-Rex was just so awesome.

 

[Hurley]

Hahahahaha. I remember going in fully aware that Rodimus apparently sucked, he completely lived up to the hype. I was surprised how decent season 1 and 2 were. It was just a hilarious show, the Autobots gave two shits about putting lives in danger, dragging humans all over the place hahaha. The Autobots were truly befriending the populace.

I have to give him some credit though, I did love how in that one episode when the Decepticons took control of this really energon rich planet that was full of peaceful bots and his best way to deal with it was to go "We're just going to blow it up, fuck it."

 

[Peter Bazooka]

I have to give him some credit though, I did love how in that one episode when the Decepticons took control of this really energon rich planet that was full of peaceful bots and his best way to deal with it was to go "We're just going to blow it up, fuck it."

This rules and reminds me of the bit in the current IDW ongoings that other alien races hate autobots and decepticons and think all cybertronians are a bunch of war mongering assholes.

 

[Mesoian]

This rules and reminds me of the bit in the current IDW ongoings that other alien races hate autobots and decepticons and think all cybertronians are a bunch of war mongering assholes.

Well...they sort of are. Their wars last sooooooooooo loooooooooooooong

 

[MattKeil]

Beast Wars looks awful. I never watched past Gen 1 and thank god for that. Even if I had to deal with the awful Rodimus Prime at some point.

Beast Wars is easily the best TF animated series of all time. Like, it's not even close. It's written by some of the same guys who worked on Babylon 5, and it shows.

It was the best TF fiction of all time, period, until James Roberts' More Than Meets The Eye comic started up a couple years ago. That is one of the best comics on the shelves right now and so many people don't know because they just assume Transformers is some dumb robot book.

 

[Savitar]

This rules and reminds me of the bit in the current IDW ongoings that other alien races hate autobots and decepticons and think all cybertronians are a bunch of war mongering assholes.

As Magus pointed out the most notable trait of their race is their several million year war.

That's not going to play well with other species, especially those who invaded/killed.

 

[Hot Coldman]

I just watched the Beast Wars pilot again and yeah, it's weirdly well-written for a kids show about robots that transform into incorrectly sized animals and back.

The amount of in-fighting on the Maximals side is hilarious. Rattrap is such an asshole.

 

[bishoptl]

This is accurate, but IDW Megatron has his moments.

Oh man, so good.

 

[MechaX]

I always viewed it as Megatron was willing to put up with Starscream because he was at least (mostly) capable. The only other Decepticon that was really up there was Soundwave, and I don't think Soundwave is really leadership material either.

Tarantulus and Black Arachnia fulfilled this role for the 2nd and 3rd seasons, but they never really sought leadership of the Predacons so much as they were pursuing their own selfish agenda.

In Tarantulus's case, this is true up until you learn that

Spoiler

everything he was doing was for the benefit of the Tripedicus Council all along.

 

[Mr Swine]

I've always seen both megaton and starscream to be bumbling idiots that can't get the work done. Now my memory is hazy since I haven't seen any transformers since 15 years back (although I did see a few episodes of beast wars), but didnt the decepticons have lots of chances it kill of Prime and his soldiers?

 

[Duane Cunningham]

Agreed. Animated Starscream has the best characterization of any Transformer in the franchise. He always seems to be in control and has that smug snake attitude.

Yeah, and I like how he looks physically imposing, like he can kick anyone's ass (and does). Prime Starscream seems like a better schemer maybe, but he looks like he has osteoporosis. He's a spindly little fragile spider hunched over and wringing his underlit, clawed hands and muttering under his breath. Which, don't get me wrong, being a schemer SHOULD be an aspect of Starscream, but he should also be sturdy. And boisterous.

 

[VeryGooster]

I just watched the Beast Wars pilot again and yeah, it's weirdly well-written for a kids show about robots that transform into incorrectly sized animals and back.

The amount of in-fighting on the Maximals side is hilarious. Rattrap is such an asshole.

"Code of Hero" ftw

 

[zewone]

If I was a kid back then, man I would have been bawling.

That movie broke my heart so many times as a child. So dark.

 

[Daingurse]

I just watched the Beast Wars pilot again and yeah, it's weirdly well-written for a kids show about robots that transform into incorrectly sized animals and back.

The amount of in-fighting on the Maximals side is hilarious. Rattrap is such an asshole.

Goddamnit, I almost spat my water on my keyboard!

 

[Henchmen21]

No BW sucks. Always has sucked.

I'll take robot with canon on his arm over purple dinosaur any day.

 

[Deified Data]

No BW sucks. Always has sucked.

I'll take robot with canon on his arm over purple dinosaur any day.

Trucknotmonkey

 

[IISANDERII]

Just found out that Leonard Nimoy voices Galvatron in Transformer The Movie.
*Mind blown*

 

[BigDes]

Just found out that Leonard Nimoy voices Galvatron in Transformer The Movie.
*Mind blown*

This is bad comedy

 

[Escape Goat]

Astrotrain should have defected to the Autobots. He was never appreciated by Megatron or Starscream.

 

[Callo Merlose]

No BW sucks. Always has sucked.

I'll take robot with canon on his arm over purple dinosaur any day.

Yeah, it's like walking into bizarro world whenever I see overwhelming praise for the show. I thought the visuals were shit back then. Will we ever get a series that evokes the IDW series at all? I tried to get into Transformers Prime, but I the artstyle is just really off-putting.

 

[XiaNaphryz]

The only other Decepticon that was really up there was Soundwave, and I don't think Soundwave is really leadership material either.

Wasn't Shockwave technically the #2 guy? Then Starscream was next in line, then Soundwave.

 

[Henchmen21]

Yeah, it's like walking into bizarro world whenever I see overwhelming praise for the show. I thought the visuals were shit back then. Will we ever get a series that evokes the IDW series at all? I tried to get into Transformers Prime, but I the artstyle is just really off-putting.

90's kids. Nuff' said.

Wasn't Shockwave technically the #2 guy? Then Starscream was next in line, then Soundwave.

Shockwave was commander of the remaining decepticon forces on cybertron while megatron was away. Starscream was always #2 in line for leadership.

Btw, it's funny how everyone pretty much knows the chain of command in decepticon ranks but can anyone name the chain of command for the autobots? (outside of season 3 when they had a much more defined chain).

 

[Savitar]

No BW sucks. Always has sucked.

I'll take robot with canon on his arm over purple dinosaur any day.

You remind me of the Megatron fan who has a fetish for snakes and basically came up to the VA of BW Megatron at a con with a snake calling him pretender.

Yeah that sort of shit happened.

Also Beast Wars was good. Now it was Beast Machines that was complete shit...all of which can be blamed on one person, Dan Didio....yes....that person again.

 

[Hot Coldman]

Yeah, it's like walking into bizarro world whenever I see overwhelming praise for the show. I thought the visuals were shit back then. Will we ever get a series that evokes the IDW series at all? I tried to get into Transformers Prime, but I the artstyle is just really off-putting.

Noticing a trend? Almost alll Transformers cartoons look like shit.

Well, that recent CG one looked OK. But still.

 

[MrDaravon]

Nah, Megatron just keeps him around to kill him repeatedly.

The IDW collections are pretty fantastic awesome, I'm still missing the most recent one :/. For someone who only ever really followed the cartoons and just a bit of the old Marvel comics they're pretty crazy.

 

[Eidan]

90's kids. Nuff' said..

I just watched a couple of episodes the other day. The show has aged remarkably well. The season 2 finale is still incredible.

 

[sphagnum]

Armada Starscream is by far the best Starscream and the most interesting take on the character. The only heroic Starscream out there. It's too bad they aborted his character in Energon and never explained how he goes and turns evil in Cybertron but I guess that's just supposed to be chalked up to "woops he got evil after Megatron resurrected him with Unicron powers" or something.

And he looked snazzy in Thundercracker colors.

 

[G-Fex]

Transformers Generation 2 was the best.

Best damn comic series about transformers ever

 

[DonasaurusRex]

starscream was a brilliant scientist/ inventor so he had his usefulness. How he dogged megatron in the animated movie was absolute gold.

"No Starscream...i still function"
"wanna bet? " *throws megatron into space.

hehehehe

 

[sphagnum]

I defy anyone to refute this.

Beast Wars Megatron is the better written character but the other David Kaye-voiced Megatron, the one from the Unicron Trilogy, is way more impressive.

He waged a pretty good campaign against the Autobots during the war over the Mini-Cons and was victorious in battle multiple times, which is fairly rare in a children's cartoon considering the Autobots usually have to win by the end of the episode. He nearly blew up the Earth with the Hydra Cannon and then proceeded to conquer Cybertron, after which he led the united Cybertronian forces against Unicron, ending the war by sacrificing himself to stop Unicron from regenerating by feeding off the hatred produced by the war. He then resurrected himself by siphoning off the energon delivered to Unicron's husk by the Terrorcons and took control of Unicron's body, using it as a giant superweapon. After Primus and Optimus destroyed Unicron's body and Megatron started being driven by Unicron's spark to bring Cybertron to him as a new body, he then absorbed Unicron's spark into himself, hurled himself into the sun to kill it, and reformatted himself with Unicron's armor, gaining Sith lightning powers. At one point Optimus killed him by crushing him in a closing dimensional portal, but he came back to life again through pure power. He then managed to steal all of the Cyber Planet Keys to unlock the power of the Omega Lock, literally punched Starscream into an alternate reality, and nearly became a real god planning on destroying the entire universe and recreating it in his own image, only finally being killed by a Matrix-powered Optimus wielding Rhisling, the personal blade of Vector Prime himself, one of the first thirteen Transformers.

He was pretty badass as far as Megatrons go.

[/nerd]

 

[Salmonax]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=TkWMBFKO4_c&t=44

God that movie was effing disturbing.

 

[Hurley]

starscream was a brilliant scientist/ inventor so he had his usefulness. How he dogged megatron in the animated movie was absolute gold.

"No Starscream...i still function"
"wanna bet? " *throws megatron into space.

hehehehe

I love how he kicked Megatron while he's on the ground and all fucked up from his final fight with prime. what an asshole lol.

God that movie was effing disturbing.

It really was, I mean, you pretty much had all your favorite characters getting murdered within the first 10 minutes of the film lol. One of the best scenes imo - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umwZ8qVorwo

 

[Carbonox]

I remember having this bad boy as my absolute favourite when I was a kid:

I used to fill up the water gun in the T. Rex head with boiling water and spray people with it cos it's what Megatron would have wanted.

 

[Firemind]

I always wondered about that episode, Revenge of Bruticus, where Megatron banished Starscream and the Combaticons on an asteroid to die. Then Bruticus, when he got into serious mode, talked about being imprisoned for millions of years, despite the Earth not changing at all. Either they were stuck on some alternative cosmic universe or Bruticus really has a bad time perception. Or the writer was drunk w/e.

 

[xptoxyz]

Ah yes, I remember Terrorsaur now.



OK, time to rewatch Beast Wars

anyway, that G1 cartoon sure is subtle, huh

Apparently I should watch it too. I did watch it too long ago or never got to a point where it was explained, because for some reason I thought that Primal, Megatron and some others from Beast Wars were the same Transformers as the original series, just taking other forms in the new planet, were Earth vehicles made no sense, but I just read they're different characters.

 

[Firemind]

Astrotrain should have defected to the Autobots. He was never appreciated by Megatron or Starscream.

Astrotrain was even the laughing stock in the episode Triple Takeover. God, Blitzwing was awesome in that episode. Crashed inside a football stadium. Fired random artillery shots inside the city. Ordered the Constructicons to build a giant highway maze. Had a throne made of Autobots. Blitzwing could teach Starscream something about leadership. Not wear a crown and purple cape and order the Constructicons to blow on trumpets.

 

[Gouty]

You know how people always say entertainment was better when they were kids, what happened etc etc? Then you get the other side saying its just nostalgia talking and that this generation will soon be saying the same. Well that’s a load of shit and here’s why.

In Transformers: The Movie mortal enemies O Prime and Megatron are locked in a knock down drag out battle for the ages, resulting in both parties being critically injured. In fact it winds up costing them both their lives, one directly the other indirectly.

Megatron crawls to his treacherous subordinate Starscream, begging for his life who instead throws him off a moving space train to take the king’s crown.

Lost in purgatory (space), Megatron sells his fucking soul to the devil to be dealt back in, is reborn a canon, returns to Starscream’ coronation and shoots and kills him in cold blood to reclaim the throne.

Can you imagine any children’s cartoon today having the balls to take on this kind of story? To kill off the top three characters of their franchise?

 

[Carbonox]

Astrotrain had the most random and pointless transformations. A fucking shuttle and train. Like...no wonder he was a laughing stock. QUICK MAKE A GETAWAY CHOO CHOO

Blitzwing was badass though. Megatron's (in one of the universes where he's a tank) & Starscream's transformations in one guy. Damn straight.

You know how people always say entertainment was better when they were kids, what happened etc etc? Then you get the other side saying its just nostalgia talking and that this generation will soon be saying the same. Well that’s a load of shit and here’s why.

In Transformers: The Movie mortal enemies O Prime and Megatron are locked in a knock down drag out battle for the ages, resulting in both parties being critically injured. In fact it winds up costing them both their lives, one directly the other indirectly.

Megatron crawls to his treacherous subordinate Starscream, begging for his life who instead throws him off a moving space train to take the king’s crown.

Lost in purgatory (space), Megatron sells his fucking soul to the devil to be dealt back in, is reborn a canon, returns to Starscream’ coronation and shoots and kills him in cold blood to reclaim the throne.

Can you imagine any children’s cartoon today having the balls to take on this kind of story? To kill off the top three characters of their franchise?

G1 sucks now but the movie has stayed awesome and enjoyable even to this day. Mainly because it was just one big royal rumble filled with brutal deaths. Plus dat Stan Bush.

 

[XiaNaphryz]

Can you imagine any children’s cartoon today having the balls to take on this kind of story? To kill off the top three characters of their franchise?

If they had a whole new line of toys they had ready to sell soon after, yes I can see it happening. And it gives them an opening to resurrect those characters a bit later and resell the older toys with a slightly updated design.

Never doubt today's corporate world.

 

[akira28]

You have to understand that Starscream was once very popular among Decepticons. He was a leader of those jet fighters, so Megatron kept his treacherous hide around basically to keep all his fighters under his sphere of influence.

Starscream was a mustang, but without loyalty, and too much ambition. It would have made sense to see if his high motivation would be useful or a threat.


edit: for some reason, in my mind, I always thought Megatron reminded me of Col. Gaddafi. Even as a kid.

 

[Peter Bazooka]

90's kids. Nuff' said.



Shockwave was commander of the remaining decepticon forces on cybertron while megatron was away. Starscream was always #2 in line for leadership.

Btw, it's funny how everyone pretty much knows the chain of command in decepticon ranks but can anyone name the chain of command for the autobots? (outside of season 3 when they had a much more defined chain).

Jazz and Prowl are the highest ranking after Optimus and Grimlock has been Autobot leader a couple of times.

 

[Mike M]

I liked the Animated version of Starscream quite a bit. Especially when Megatron finally had enough and offed him. BUT, the Allspark in that continuity had exploded and little shards and splinters of it had been spread all over the universe. One of them wound up stuck right in Starscream's head and when Megatron killed him and left his corpse behind, the shard brought him back and healed him. So he dusted himself off and tracked Megatron back down. And was promptly blasted again. And again and again. At one point there's a whole montage of Megatron killing Starscream in various clever ways, only for him to keep coming back. It was a funny and cool story, and a good way to work in Starscreams "immortality" from earlier continuities.

Eventually, Starscream gives up and builds some clones of himself, which turn out to be that continuity's Thundercracker, Skywarp, Dirge, etc.

Actually, I love everything about Animated. The story wound up making all the major things from earlier continuities happen like that, but in clever and concise ways.

I actually rank Animated above Beast Wars, and think it'd largely be recognized by others as such if its art style weren't so damned wonky. The Leno chins+cat noses just really turned sooooo many people off, but the writing and characterization were pretty stellar. It was a really refreshing take on the series without going off into wackadoodle "They turn into animals now!" territory.

It's criminal the last season will never see a home release : (

 

[Magwik]

starscream was a brilliant scientist/ inventor so he had his usefulness. How he dogged megatron in the animated movie was absolute gold.

"No Starscream...i still function"
"wanna bet? " *throws megatron into space.

hehehehe

Easily one of the funniest parts of the video.

 

[XiaNaphryz]

Jazz and Prowl are the highest ranking after Optimus and Grimlock has been Autobot leader a couple of times.

Is it Prowl or Ironhide after Jazz?

 

[DeaconKnowledge]

Prime Starscream is the best Starscream. The most complete and thorough evolution of the character. All he was missing was Chris Latta's amazing voice.