This was during the late 90s and we know Transformers was pretty much a late 80s thing. Hasbro had its rather ambitious remodeling of Transformers but not exactly a reboot. It's pretty much trying to cover up what could have happened generations later after previous Generation-1 Continuity series which covered the first three seasons of Hasbro's Transformers. What always got me to my mind how I thought "Transformers jumped the shark." or how I usually preferred the old school Transformers for its civilian involvement. So what's going on? Instead of Autobots and Deceptions -- you've got Maximals and Predacons. Okay, don't confuse the Predacons here to the Deception sub-group that was introduced after Transformers: The Movie. The whole situation has the Maximals and Predacons were sent to the time of the dinosaurs -- so where did Cobra-La enter in eventually? Hmmm Hasbro has a lot of explaining to do!
The series obviously look from elements from its own timeline. The most obvious has to be the Maximal leader is named Optimus Primal -- after the original Optimus Prime. You've got Beast Wars Megatron who would later gain an upgrade -- though they didn't decide to rename him Galvatron in Beast Wars Metals when he got said upgrade. Other obvious ones may include Rattrap may be based on Bumblebee, Terrorsaur may be based on Starscream (he wanted to usurp power more than once) or my favorite comparison -- Cheetor with Hotrod. But unlike Hotrod, Cheetor was at least not a later introduction. Rhinox might as well be based on Ultra Magnus.
The series doesn't completely abandon its G1 Predecessors as evidenced by some episodes. Searching for the Autobot Hall of Fame or where Beast Wars Megatron remembers his namesake -- not to mention we've got Waspinator possessed by the ghost of Starscream. Though half of me still wishes Beast Wars actually were a totally different continuity from G1 so something entirely new could be made. Then again, half of me enjoys the lore of the 80s Transformers getting referenced back. There was also the mention of the "darkest hour" which resulted to the death of Dinobot. Hmmm I guess they had enough of the whole backlash of killing Optimus Prime in a warrior's death in the 80s huh? But it wasn't going to end there, right?
So I was expecting some events to be similar in this way. I was actually expecting Optimus Primal to be written off in a warrior's death. Optimus Primal would sacrifice himself at the end of Beast Machines where Cybertron ended up becoming a techno-organic paradise -- an event nearly parallel to the revived Optimus Prime died for a second time in the Japanese G1 Continuity. In short, did Hasbro EVEN acknowledge the G1 Continuity as canon even if they simply gave the license to Toei Animation and Takara to make their rather alternate continuity? I was even wondering would we get another Jump the Shark moment? I was even thinking about the possibility of having the Maximal Matrix of Leadership. I could imagine what if Cheetor would possibly become the new Maximal Leader and get renamed as Cheetorus Prime just like Hot Rod became Rodimus Prime. Fortunately, that kind of thing never happened. I wonder how would Cheetor look like if he suddenly became the new leader of the Maximals instead of Rhinox would have Optimus Primal died in the first half of Beast Machines?
But with this in mind, Beast Wars was successful enough to create Beast Wars, Beast Wars Metals and Beast Machines. Beast Machines didn't last long and finally gave the Beast Wars franchise its proper closure. Until then until all are one!
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