Fox Kids was a great thing back in my youth. But by the time that Transformers: Beast Machines was on air (1999-2000), I had moved on. Not being an avid Transformers fan, many years — roughly fourteen to be exact — would go by before I even heard of Beast Machines. Thanks to Shout!, I had a great reason to catch up on this series and I’m glad I did. A direct sequel to the more renowned Beast Wars series, the Canadian-produced Beast Machines was fully computer animated and carried a darker tone than previous Transformers series, while still being kid-friendly. As an adult viewer, I found this to be a fresh change from the recent series I reviewed like Transformers: Energon and Cyberton. Beast Machines still offers attempts at verbal humor (which are cringe-worthy at times), but these quips are only momentary while the otherwise more serious atmosphere remains pretty much constant.
So, in Beast Machines, the series begins with Optimus, Rattrap, Cheetor, and Blackarachnia split up and on the run from the Vehicons who are expending all efforts to find and destroy these Maximals. Their memories wiped and unable to transform, the Maximals encounter one another during their escape attempt and make an initial get away thanks to visions Optimus sees from a mysterious entity known as The Oracle, who guides him out of harm’s way, temporarily at least. The encounter with The Oracle enlightens Optimus, who learns to transform again as he comes to terms with the unique, harmonic state that he and the other Maximals are in, which is to say being both organic and robotic. Megatron, the clear ruler of Cybertron, seeks to extinguish organic material from Cybertron and further his overbearing control on everything on Cybertron.
The first season introduces several characters while offering lots of action between the Maximals and Megatron’s Generals. Season Two continues the trend often seen in Transformers series of bringing in new or re-introduced characters, pitting them in battle, and leading up to an epic conclusion with the fate of the universe on the line. I have yet to make it through the second season as I write this, but the storytelling and tone established at the outset of season one carry into the final season, making it a very watchable show.
The new Shout! DVD comes packaged in a standard-size DVD case with a disc on the front and back inside covers, and a ‘page’ holder in between that holds discs two and three. All discs share a common label and menu, and I appreciate that there are no other trailers or ads; after the Hasbro and Shout! logos, the disc loads straight to the menu. From the menus, you can choose to Play All, or go to Episodes, and for Discs 1 and 4 there is a Bonus Features option too. As you probably expected, there are no alternate language tracks or any subtitles, audio is Stereo 2.0 and video is standard 4:3 frame.
To my surprise, there are some extra features included. Here’s the breakdown:
Disc 1: Audio Commentary with Robert Skir (Story Editor) and Marv Wolfman (Series Developer) on the “Fires of the Past” episode. In the Bonus Features area there is a near-fourteen minute interview with Marv Wolfman and a 17m40s interview with Robert Skir.
Disc 2: None
Disc 3: A 13m23s interview with Susan Blu, the series’ Voice Director and about a fifteen minute interview with David Kaye, Voice Actor for Megatron.
Disc 4: Audio Commentary on the final two episodes with Robert Skir and Steven Melching (who wrote several episodes).
Of note, the inside artwork, underneath the discs, lists the episodes and features on each disc which is a great quick reference. With that, let’s get to the summary…