Shout! Factory Presents Beast Wars - The Complete Series

Many modern G.I. Joe fans and collectors might not realize this, but there was actually a time when G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero product was not on store shelves. No, it wasn't just a victim of brutal distribution, it was actually not being produced, sold, or distributed in its traditional format. G.I. Joe was essentially a dead product.

While many long time collectors might refer to these years as "the dark ages", I simply call them the "Beast Wars Era". During the years of 1996/1997 - 2000, G.I. Joe product was fairly barren from retail. Sure, the Toys "R" Us Exclusives were out there, but to a guy who lived way up in Vermont, that might as well be non-existent.

As a Store Manager of the local K-B Toys, I was often looking for something to fill the void. I had always been a fringe Transformers collector throughout my youth, though the recent Machine Wars stuff left me quite cold. But K-B had a special promotion. If you bought one of these brand spanking new Beast Wars: Transmetal toys, you also got a free video tape with a Beast Wars cartoon episode on it. Well, again, living in the boonies, I had no idea there even was a Beast Wars cartoon, so I figured what the heck. I grabbed Cheetor, I grabbed the cartoon, and off I went to watch it after my shift.

I never really looked back. Not 60 seconds into the episode I was absolutely hooked. The episodes on that tape, if I recall, were "Coming of the Fuzors, Part 1 & 2", and these were probably two of the greatest cartoon episodes I had seen in a very long time. Well, soon enough, my Transmetal Cheetor was joined by many other Beast Wars figures, and thankfully a good deal of early releases were still on store shelves then, and my Beast Wars army grew...and grew. By the time it was all over, I had a complete collection of domestic release Transformers. Every weird Fuzor out there included.

Back in the late 90's I combed the internet until I tracked down someone selling the Beast Wars episodes on tape, and soon had a complete run of the first two seasons to watch over and over again. In fact, when my wife started Law School, and we moved down to Massachusetts, where there was actually civilization, my first foray onto the internet wasn't to YoJoe.com, it was to Benson Yee's fantastic reference site BWTF.com where I would spend many a waking hour researching the Beast Wars and Transformers mythology. In fact, my first fanfic experiments were not The Price of Peace, but a Beast Wars story which attempted to tie in all of these other characters that never made it to retail shelves.

However, with Toys "R" Us now within driving distance, and mainstream G.I. Joe releases once again on the horizon (not to mention the phasing out of Beast Wars as a concept) my attention shortly shifted back to the familiar Real American Hero. But I will never forget those years where my toy life was consumed by Beast Wars. Where I travelled to many Wal-Marts before, during, and after work shifts, desperately hunting down that elusive Transmetal 2 Scavenger, or any other number of Beast Wars toys that were consuming my attention at the time.

And of course, this long winded introduction is simply a way to say "no, this is not G.I. Joe related, but dammit I'm going to review it anyway" and hopefully even the diehard Joe fans can get something out of it. As the infamous announcer once said... "THIS is BEAST WARS."

Throughout my years of toy collecting, the toy has always come first. If the toy doesn't bring me joy, then everything else kind of fades away...a great toy can have a lousy cartoon and still be a great toy, but no matter how great the toy or comic is, if the toy stinks, it is no good. But, I gotta be honest, a good cartoon really help, especially for a property that I'm not a 100% devoted collector of. While at the end of the day, my love of Beast Wars was driven by the toys, the animated series fueled a strong love in the toy line and the mythology, even in the first season.

The Beast Wars complete series comes with two clamshell cases, each with 4 DVD's. Set one contains Season 1 (with 26 episodes) while the second clamshell contains Seasons 2 & 3, each one sporting 13 episodes, for a grand total of 52. And honestly, it doesn't seem like enough. While pretty much everyone agrees that Beast Wars found its groove with Season 2, there are certainly great points within the first season. The coming of the Vok, the emergence of Tigatron and Airrazor, and the ruthlessness with which the series cast aside old characters for new really built its foundation in Season 1, and this boxed set captures that perfectly. Of course, as good as Season 1 is, the series only gets better in pretty much every way as it continues.

Season 2 evolves the characters physically and mentally. Reeling from the "death" of Optimus Primal in Season 1, the Maximals and Predacons undergo their own shift, with the emergence of the Transmetals. This is when the series really got under my skin. Throughout Season 1, even with the fantastic writing, I had a hard time getting over the differences between the animated models and the toys they were based on. However, in Season 2 that all went by the wayside as pretty much every character (at least in Transmetal form) was translated to near perfection in animated form. Cheetor was a big favorite of mine, as were Optimus and Megatron, who pretty much revolutionized the concept of megalomaniac in this series.

As crisp as the writing is, the surprising viciousness of the action also stands out. At one point early in the second season, the Maximals are desperately trying to hold their ground against a Predacon attack, resulting in several serious injuries to the Maximal team, including some gaping wounds in their metallic hides. The day is eventually rescued (by the return of a fallen hero), and the whole series of episodes is paced to perfection.

Season 2 is also where the pinnacle of TV animation brought us 22 minutes of absolute science fiction perfection with the episode "Code of Hero". I'm not sure I've ever been moved while watching animation written for 10 year olds, but this cartoon was downright emotional. The conflict between Dinobot's division of his honor and his loyalty to the Predacon cause (not to mention his disgust with a lack of ruthlessness from the Maximals) comes to a head as he lays down his life to protect humans, and this single episode pretty much redefined the entire Beast Wars and Transformers mythology.

Season 2 carried right on into Season 3 where Detillo and Forward managed to seamlessly integrate the Beast Wars into an existing Generation 1 mythology that to this point had been somewhat foggy and separate from the Beast Wars story. Seeing the Beast Wars characters enter the mythical Ark was an amazing experience, and this is where most fans place their firm belief that Beast Wars is one of the best Transformers stories (and perhaps one of the best animated series) ever shown on television. There is such an over-arcing sense of continuity, I find it hard to recommend that you buy anything except the complete series. This simply isn't a series you can watch a chunk at a time. It must be seen in its entirety to be fully appreciated.

Of course there are other reasons to recommend the complete series as well. Along with the cartoons themselves, you get the following special bonus material:

Seeing as how I'm not a diehard Transformers fan, I'm not entirely sure if these featurettes came out with previous sets. Since I am a big Beast Wars fan, I do own the original Rhino releases, but have only watched episodes, not the special features.

I believe there were some interviews from DiTillio and Forward that were carried over from previous featurettes, but there are also several updated interviews from Hasbro and from other more current Transformers personalities that make for very interesting watching.

I found it particularly fascinating that the producers and writers of the Beast Wars show really didn't have a grasp on the continuity of the Transformers universe when the show began. They had to retrofit it on the fly and make it work, which is just astounding to me. The fact that they were able to fit all of those pieces together is really quite incredible, and anyone who is a Beast Wars fan will greatly appreciate the insight in these featurettes.

The Original Making of Beast Wars special I believe was only available on DVD releases in Canada prior to this Shout! Factory version, so it's a great companion piece here as well. I continue to find looking back at the character models and artwork to be endlessly entertaining, and just watching how the series evolved from Season 1 to Season 3. It's incredible how in a few short years the designs evolved so much and the animation improved to the degree that it did.

Perhaps one of the most entertaining extras to me was the miniaturized reprint of Fun Publications Beast Wars prequel comic, which was originally included with their Days of Future Past convention set. That convention set featured the core cast of Beast Wars reimagined in their vehicle forms before they crashed on Earth and were forced to take animal alt modes. It is truly an awesome read and served to make me sad that I have as of yet to get my hands on that amazing set. Chances are good I never will, as the value has skyrocketed on the secondary market.

From an audio and video standpoint, I watched the Rhino releases and the Shout! releases closely, and the quality is pretty darn near the same. Shout! Factory might have a bit of an edge, but not much. The quality of both really looks as if it was pulled straight from the source back in the late 90's. Of course it's not HD, and back then they didn't even broadcast in widescreen, but video and audio quality is still great, and considering the Rhino releases are out of print and pretty expensive, I'd say the Shout! Factory purchase is a no-brainer.

Coming from only a fringe Transformers fan, I still consider Beast Wars to be one of the greatest animated series I have ever seen. Somewhat short lived, but rich with drama, character development, action, and fantasy, it deserves every second of praise that it receives. For folks who haven't had a chance to get this entire series on DVD, I cannot recommend this enough.

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