Beast Wars: Transformers (toyline)
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Easily the most radical move ever made by Hasbro in Transformers history, Beast Wars: Transformers (later Transformers: Beast Wars) abandoned over a decade's worth of familiar trappings to drastically re-work the franchise in order to save it from a second (and likely final) cancellation, as now the robots in disguise turned into organic animals. The classic factions were even replaced with the new Maximals and Predacons.
The initial reaction from the early online fandom was less than welcoming. The reaction from the far larger kid market, however, was strong sales the likes Transformers hadn't seen in a long time. Backed by a CGI-animated cartoon, Beast Wars basically saved Transformers, and has become a beloved piece of the line's history.
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Overview
With sales of the Generation 2 toyline proving unremarkable, Hasbro faced a choice: end the Transformers brand for a second time, or drastically revamp the concept. They chose the second option, handing the reins over to their newly acquired Kenner division. The "Kenner" branding eventually disappeared from the packaging again in favor of "Hasbro" in Europe in 1998, and then in the US and Canada the following year.
While beast-mode Transformers had been around since day one, those were robotic beasts. Beast Wars characters took on the appearance of fully-organic creatures, which also affected their robot-mode looks: while there were "metal" parts, the designs were much more rounded and organic in shape if not texture, the aesthetic inspired by Japanese series Guyver.[1] Faces tended towards the bestial or just straight-up inhuman, even moreso with the first year toys's secondary "Mutant Heads".
The old factions were replaced with Maximals and Predacons, with new faction symbols, though Hasbro/Kenner weren't prepared to completely abandon everything classic: the new factions were led by new iterations of Optimus and Megatron, though their appearances were heavily altered. "Transformers" was still part of the toyline's title, but it was shrunk down and placed below the huge, jagged "Beast Wars" logo. The packaging too was distinctly organic, with red scaly skin as the backdrop, and a massive reptilian eye under the bubble for carded figures. The initial waves even used a craggy, rock-like plastic bubble, though that was quickly replaced by a more normal rounded bubble.
While these aesthetic changes were initially shocking to fans used to the classic series, the line had many features that got fans to warm up to it in short order.
Beast Wars took the popular features of a handful of Generation 2 toys and made them standards across the entire line. Heavy use of ball joints gave the figures unprecedented degrees of articulation, often greater than that of the "normal" non-transforming action figures of the time. Robot-mode weapons were either part of the toy's alternate mode, or at least stored inside them rather than needing to be set aside (and more easily lost). Both of these features would become standards for basically every Transformers line to follow.
Another now-ubiquitous line-wide move was the introduction of a standard system of price points, dictated by a toy's size, not its gimmicks. Beast Wars began with $5 "Basics", $10 "Deluxes", $15 "Megas", and $20 "Ultras", each size class getting physically larger, and packing more and more play features into the toy. (Ultra-class Optimus Primal is friggin' loaded with stuff.) Those individual assortments would occasionally get refreshed with subsequent waves introducing new figures every few months, a concept that was first tried during the final year of Generation 2, but it became a standard with Beast Wars. Though prices would fluctuate over the years due to inflation or rising production costs, the basic outline of the system continues to be used today.
Beast Wars was an undeniable success, routinely making high sales marks through most of its life, according to toy magazines like Tomart's (remember when print magazines existed about this hobby?). It typically hovered in the top five best-selling toy lines each month, mostly bested by the newly revived Star Wars line, the still-strong Power Rangers and the massive rise of toys based on professional wrestling, occasionally popping into the top three places. In fact, when Hasbro elected to revamp the franchise before it could go stale, leading to the direct-sequel, same-main-cast-having Beast Machines toyline, they also kept Beast Wars around in a smaller capacity, with a handful of new products and some recolors of classic characters.
Hasbro Beast Wars toyline
1996
The first year of the line was a shocker to fans, both for its drastic aesthetic change from what came before, and its technical/design changes that gave the toys far more play value. Basic-class toys all have a spring-loaded one-step autotransformation. Deluxe and larger toys all have a secondary "Mutant head" to change their robot-mode appearance.
Retail releases
| Basics Wave 1 | Basics Wave 2 | Comic 2-pack
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| Deluxes Wave 1 | Deluxes Wave 1.5 | Deluxes Wave 2 | Deluxes Wave 3 | |||||
Megas Wave 1
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Ultras Wave 1 |
Exclusives
| BJ's Wholesale Club | McDonald's | BotCon 1996
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1997
The second year of the line was primarily a refinement of the first, though every class got changed in some broad-strokes way.
The Basic toys dropped the spring-loaded autotransformation in favor of more complex manual conversions. The "Mutant Heads" feature was dropped from the larger size classes (save for the old-mold redecos/retools, of course). Instead of hidden mini-animal partners, this year the Mega class toys had extra "attack modes" that revealed new play gimmicks. The Ultra class toys are not super-huge robots, but teams of three smaller robots who combine into a super-huge robot. (These were also the first new-mold combiner toys (in the US at least) since 1989.)
A new line-wide minor gimmick was added, the "energon chips" which were basically just the old faction symbol rubsigns.
The short-lived Machine Wars: Transformers series also came to KB Toys this year... and left just as quickly.
Retail releases
| Basics Wave 1 | Basics Wave 2 | Basics Wave 3 | Basics Wave 4 |   | ||||
| Deluxes Wave 1 | Deluxes Wave 2 | Deluxes Wave 3 | Deluxes Wave 4 | |||||
| Megas Wave 1 | Megas Wave 2 | Megas Wave 3 | Ultra Teams Wave 1 |
Micro Playsets (Europe)[A 1]
- Maximal Orcanoch Micro Playset
(w/ Optimus Primal & Tarantulas) - Predacon Arachnid Micro Playset
(w/ Megatron & Razorbeast)
Exclusives
| BotCon 1997 |
Notes
- ↑ In the US, the Arachnid and Orcanoch micro playsets were sold as MicroVerse products and featured co-branding with the Beast Wars toyline (see below for more). The European releases of the toys, on the other hand, were sold directly as Beast Wars/Biocombat or Beast Wars/Ani Mutants products, completely removing the MicroVerse-branding all together.
1998: Fuzors & Transmetals
This year, the line basically split into two sub-groups. The "normal" beasts became Fuzors, robots whose beast modes were mashups of two different animals, leading to some freakishly fanciful creatures. Fuzors were limited to the Basic and Deluxe price-points.
The rest of the line was made up of the Transmetals, "Beast Wars turned inside-out": robotic animals with fleshy inner robot parts. Further, the animal modes also had a third pseudo-vehicle form, revealing thrusters or wheels or the like. These modes ended up largely replacing any other gimmicks in the Deluxe-class Transmetals, leaving things like spring-loaded missiles to the larger size classes. The Transmetals are also overwhelmingly made up of returning show-cast characters, though many of said characters never went Transmetal in the show.
Retail releases
| Basic Fuzors Wave 1 | Basic Fuzors Wave 2 | Basic Fuzors Wave 3 | Basic VHS packs (US assortment) |   | ||||
| Deluxe Fuzors Wave 1 | Deluxe Fuzors Wave 2 | Deluxe Fuzors Wave 3 | ||||||
| Deluxe Transmetals Wave 1 | Deluxe Transmetals Wave 2 | Deluxe Transmetals Wave 3 | ||||||
| Mega Transmetals Wave 1 | Mega Transmetals Wave 2 | Ultra Transmetals Wave 1 | Super Transmetals Wave 1 |
Exclusives
| McDonald's
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BotCon 1998
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1999: Transmetals 2
The final year of "normal" Beast Wars (for a given value of "normal"), 1999 was dominated by the Transmetals 2, where the "beast bits" and "bot bits" ended up in a mangled, monstrous, asymmetrical amalgamation of torn skin and jutting metal blades in both modes. Lacking the third "vehicle" modes of their predecessors, they went back to having individualized gimmicks, with spring-loaded missile launchers and other "attack" actions making a big return. The "energon chips" were replaced by spark crystals, clear plastic domes with foil-embossed color faction symbols inside.
In addition, a series of special redecoed Deluxes was released to "celebrate" the cartoon's move from syndication to the popular Fox Kids programming block, getting show characters back on store shelves... if not in their show colors. A small mystery for years, these toys were eventually discovered to be the "Transmetals Classics" assortment, with popular characters depicted in a "never-before-seen metallized Transmetal form" (yes, even the season 1 characters), retroactively explaining the toys' unusual metallic paint schemes.[B 1] Initial Hasbro solicitations also gave the toys "power up"-style descriptors, but these did not make it to their final packaging.
This year also saw Hasbro briefly flirt with "running change" variant decoes on some toys, where the entire deco changes dramatically while the toy's packaging doesn't change at all. This generally hasn't happened anymore since, with massive deco changes of this sort usually being sold as "new" toys with new SKUs and packaging and etc.
Retail releases
| Basic Transmetals 2 Wave 1 | Basic Transmetals 2 Wave 2 | Basic Transmetals 2 Wave 3 | Basic VHS packs (European assortment) |   | ||||
| Deluxe Transmetals 2 Wave 1 | Deluxe Transmetals 2 Wave 2 | Deluxe Transmetals 2 Wave 3 | ||||||
| Transmetals Classics Deluxes Wave 1 | Transmetals Classics Deluxes Wave 2 | |||||||
| Mega Transmetals 2 Wave 1 | Mega Transmetals 2 Wave 2 | Ultra Transmetals 2 Wave 1 | Ultra Transmetals 2 Wave 2 |
Exclusives
| BotCon 1999
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Walmart
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Notes
- ↑ Contemporary store computer listing and Hasbro's pre-Toy Fair 1999 catalog. "Transmetals Classics Asst.: The most popular Beast Wars characters in a never-before-seen metallized Transmetal form!"
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Transmetal 2 Dinobot and Prowl were both released in two different color schemes. The first ones, available in the first few waves featuring those figures, feature a white, turquoise, and red coloration for Prowl, and a bone-tan and purple coloration for Dinobot. Several waves in, however, they were both re-shipped as part of Hasbro's early experiments in refreshing a line with same-character redeco variants, with Prowl now colored black, blue, and red, and Dinobot colored bright white with blue. As running change variations, they were sold under the same individual SKUs as the original versions rather than as completely new releases, and their packaging makes no mention of these new color schemes.
2000–2001
A bit of a last hurrah, Beast Wars was extended into 2000 at retail, with releases running alongside the new Beast Machines sequel line. This extension was a Deluxe assortment featuring a mixture of Fox Kids-branded "Transmetals Classics" redecoes (with large "NEW!" call-outs) and beast-to-beast Mutants, sporting a unique Mutant Beast Wars logo and numerous cardback-fiction references/similarities to Beast Machines. A few final exclusives creeped into the year 2001, bringing the line to its end.
Retail releases
| Wave 1 | Wave 2 | Wave 3 | Wave 4 |  |
Exclusives
| Walmart | Checkers/Rally's | BotCon 2000 | BotCon 2001 |  |
Notes
- ↑ Although Arcee's packaging uses the logo and Bio format from the original Transformers toyline, her instructions retain the Beast Wars logo from her redeco source, Transmetals 2 Blackarachnia. Consider her both if you want?
MicroVerse toyline
MicroVerse was a multi-property micro-play toyline produced by Hasbro as a rival to Galoob's Micro Machines toyline, before Hasbro's eventual purchase of Galoob. The line featured co-branded toys from popular mid-90s franchises such as Jurassic Park, Goosebumps, Superman and Batman. During the 1997 run of the Beast Wars toyline, two Beast Wars-branded micro playsets were released. These slightly-above-Deluxe-size beasts open up into playsets for the included micro-figures of first-year Beast Wars characters. As mentioned further up in this article, the European releases of these two playsets were released solely as Beast Wars products and completely ignored the MicroVerse-branding altogether.
Takara Transformers: Beast Wars toyline
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Beast Wars would not hit Japan until over a year after its Hasbro-market debut, most likely due to waiting for the full first season of the show to finish production so it could be run in its totality in a single stretch, as is the norm for Japanese kids media with toy tie-ins. The show's long production time also resulted in the need for "filler" after that first year, resulting in two Japanese-original cartoons and associated toy sublines before the line returned to the Mainframe show setting for Metals.
Post-Beast Wars releases
While "Generation 1" is the undisputed king of the post-series remake, Beast Wars clocks in at a pretty respectable second place, even having a few mini-lines dedicated to it (even when you discount its direct sequel). For releases on the Takara(Tomy) side of things prior to the brand unification (and Masterpiece), see that toyline's corresponding article.
While the 2003 Universe toyline used several Beast Wars molds to create new characters, most/all of these new bots lacked bio information (or concurrent fiction) to establish their origins. So they're... sort of Beast Wars in spirit, but not... really...? Things were getting vague and complex by that point.
Beast Wars 10th Anniversary (2006)
War for Cybertron: Kingdom (2021)
In celebration of the 25th anniversary of Beast Wars, War for Cybertron: Kingdom introduces modernized, fully articulated figures based on the Beast Wars cartoon. The line features toys with scrupulously cartoon-accurate robot modes alongside anatomically accurate beast modes. Kingdom is also the first toyline to prominently feature Beast Wars and "Generation 1" characters advertised and sold concurrently. The C.O.M.B.A.T. System introduced in Siege and Earthrise is only compatible with "Beast Era" figures in their robot modes. Additionally, the Fossilizer subgroup—consisting of skeletal beasts capable of splitting into weaponry—is introduced to Kingdom's lineup of Beast Wars figures.
Vintage Beast Wars (2021)
In 2021, coinciding with the release of Kingdom, Hasbro followed up on the Walmart exclusive Vintage G1 line of reissues that ran from 2018 to 2020 with another reissue line following the same spirit. Vintage Beast Wars featured reissues of original 1996 Beast Wars figures in recreations of the original packaging, though now featuring five languages (English, French, German, Spanish, and Portuguese) despite the packaging design being based on the original English-only 1996 United States packaging rather than any of the contemporary multilingual packaging versions.
Beast Wars toys/characters in "ensemble" lines
Notes
- How inspired by Bio Booster Armor Guyver was the Beast Wars design team? One of the earliest concepts for the line, from 1994, is pretty much just the Guyver as a now familiar gator![2]
- The early toy-based fictions —the mini-comic from the Optimus/Megatron 2-pack and the early cardback bios— placed the Beast Wars on modern-day Earth, and were a bit cagey as to whether the faction leaders were the old bots rebuilt. This was quickly dropped as the Mainframe cartoon got underway, definitively making this Optimus and Megatron their own bots on a "new" world.
- Beast Wars is the first Hasbro Transformers line to release a female character at standard retail. (Blackarachnia was beaten to overall Western release by Nightracer, a BotCon 1995 exclusive whose characterization was created by the fan-organizer of the event.)
- The toyline had three different titles over the course of its original run, two of them used concurrently: The front of the packaging was initially branded "Beast Wars: Transformers", whereas on the back of the packaging, the logo had a definite article added, making the title there "Beast Wars: The Transformers". Presumably, the reason for this was that Hasbro wanted to maintain the original toyline's name as a trademark. Beginning with the Fuzors and Transmetals, the front of the packaging had "Transformers" moved to the top position, making the title "Transformers: Beast Wars", whereas the definite article on the back was dropped for good. In international markets, multilingual packaging got even more complicated:
- The trilingual English/French/Spanish packaging available in Canada and Latin America featured the clunky triple title "Beast Wars/Guerre des Bêtes/Guerra de Bestias", with the location of the "Transformers" title being analogous to the corresponding US packaging. The back of the packaging initially featured a standalone "The·Les·Los Transformers" logo with a trilingual definite article, dropped the definite article with the second waves of the 1996 assortments, but brought the trilingual definite article back with the 1997 assortments and finally dropped the standalone "Transformers" logo on the back for good with the 1998 Fuzor and Transmetal line-ups. Adding to the confusion, the cartoon was called "Beasties" in English Canada (albeit only on YTV) and "Robots-Bêtes" in French Canada, thus causing the toyline and cartoon to have two different names (and in English Canada, when viewed on American broadcast channels or on home video).
- European packaging was even more complicated, featuring two different types of trilingual packaging, each with its own sub-variations as time went on: French/Dutch/German featured the double title "Beast Wars/Ani Mutants" (and had the faction name "Predacon" changed to "Predator"). "Transformers" initially wasn't part of the main title at all; instead, only a small Generation 2-style (!) "Transformers" logo (without the actual "Generation 2" title, but with a G2-style Autobot insignia) could be found in the lower right corner of the front of the packaging throughout the 1996 and 1997 assortments. Like the corresponding US and Canadian/Latin American packaging, the "Transformers" title was finally moved above the series' main title beginning with the 1998 Fuzor and Transmetal line-ups, including a change to the same font used on US and Canadian/Latin American packaging.
- The other trilingual European packaging variant was English/Spanish/Italian (initially co-branded by Kenner and GiG. The Optimus Primal/Megatron (bat/crocodile) two-pack and early production runs of the first Basic, Deluxe and Mega waves were simply branded "Beast Wars", with a Generation 2-style "Transformers" logo in the lower right corner of the packaging, like on French/Dutch/German packaging. All subsequent releases in English/Spanish/Italian packaging (including later running change packaging variants of these aforementiond Basic, Deluxe and Mega figures) featured the double title "Beast Wars/Biocombat" (as well as an additional name for the figure itself for the Italian market below the English name), with "Transformers" (now in the same font as on US and Canadian/Latin American packaging) placed below "Biocombat". Unlike all other packaging variants, the "Transformers" title remained in that position for the remainder of the line and was never moved above the main title. By the time the Transmetals and Fuzors were introduced, the additional GiG branding was dropped from the packaging entirely, since around this time, a newly formed Italian Hasbro subsidiary took over distribution of the toys in Italy.
- Among some of the Transmetals, there can be found several "unofficially" documented variants that revolve around extremely off-colored hues in the vacuum-metalized paint. While the reasoning as to why these variants exist is not actually known, some have speculated that—in the case of Transmetal Optimus Primal and Transmetal Megatron—it was either down to a miscommunication at Hasbro/Kenner[3] or just a very early production variant.[4] Whatever the case may be, other Transmetal toys have been known to have color variants. While it is no surprise that the chrome shades can vary between figures (e.g. a yellowish-orange Transmetal Tarantulas versus a reddish-orange one), most of the known cases that exist are beyond a simple difference in color tone; featuring entirely different chrome colors all together! Due to their obscurity, these variants have become sought after by a lot of Beast Wars completists and can rack up some pretty high prices on the aftermarket. Known variants include: Blue and pink variants of Transmetal Megatron,[4][5] light blue and pink variants of Transmetal Optimus Primal,[4] and pink variants of Transmetal Airazor.
- It should also be noted that some online sellers like to claim that they are selling a "variant" of a figure but in reality, it's just sun-faded, leaving the colors in a much lighter shade than what it once was.
Foreign names
- French: Ani Mutants (France), Guerre des Bêtes (Canada)
- Italian: Biocombat
- Spanish: Guerra de Bestias (America)
References
- ↑ Botcon 2004 Interview with Vinnie D'Alleva, p1
- ↑ Transformers Beast Wars: Beast Generations, p105.
- ↑ Ome9asupreme's pink/purple Transmetal Optimus Primal review on YouTube
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 DavetheUsher's unboxing of a pink/purple Transmetal Optimus Primal on YouTube
- ↑ Transmetal Megatron color variants on TFormers
