Transformers: Beast Wars. A show which started airing 15 years ago was just released by the great company Shout Factory in a complete series box set and available to buy in separate season sets. ShoutFactoryStore.com is the place to go to order the complete series for $49.99 or the first season dvd set for $24.98. Shout Factory is one of my favorite companies because they take shows which are basically impossible to find and put them on dvd, because of them I’ve been able to snag three of my favorite shows ever in The Larry Sanders Show, The Job and Captain N: The Game Master.
Shout Factory sent me The Complete Series of Beast Wars of which I just now finished. I remember watching probably two or three episodes when I was a kid so being as how I’ve always been a big Transformers fan I knew I had to give this series a full chance. The nice thing about the complete series set is it comes with a mini comic book which is a good lead in between the Transformers series and Beast Wars. Transformers Beast Wars follows the lives of the descendants of the Autobots and Decepticons known now as the Maximals and Predacons respectively as they go through a time and space warp and land on an unknown planet. They find the planet to have a strange atmosphere which forces them to take forms of the local wild life. The Maximals finds local animals such as Gorillas, Cheetahs and Rats where as the Predacons find fossils of dinosaurs and insects like Spiders and Bees. Each of them adopt names related to their animal and they are all in search of powerful fuel known as Energon which the planet is rich in.
The series actually turned out better then I expected, at first it seemed to follow many early teen shows at the time and just have one off episodes but after a couple of episodes it seemed both the writers and the animators figured out what they wanted to do and things began to pick up. The second and third seasons especially really follow a set story line and that is where I think the show is at it’s strongest. The ending was especially good and wrapped up the series very nicely. The show has a darker feel to it including allowing characters to be killed which you don’t find often in shows around that time, and so as far as a kids show goes it’s not really recommended for the younger viewers but I think late kids into early teens might really like the show as it follows coherent story lines and has good character development. Of course I think the people who will buy this the most are those who grew up on the series and those wanting to give it another chance. It’s a good series and if you’re already a fan of Transformers it may be a no brainer. You might even see one or two of your old favorite autobots as well.
Again you can order the complete series from shoutfactorystore.com or for the direct link click on The Complete Series or Season One.
Do you have any memories of this show? Do you think you’ll be picking up a copy?