Beast Wars still is my favorite TF series. Yeah, it broke the mold with the animals thing, but that made it so great. The characters were awesome: Optimus Primal channeled the otiginal Pop OP to a T, Cheetor the youngester of the group who grew up throughout the series, Rattrap, the wisecracking bot who came through in a pinch, Rhinox the token big guy with a soft spot for nature and Dinobot. Dinobot was easily the best character in the series. loved his interaction with Rattrap and his death scene was second only to Optimus Prime's death scene in the movie.
The bad guys were also easily likable: this version of megs was less about power and more about being sly and devious. Tarantulus was a better traitor than Starscream any day. Waspinator was comic relieve, but you never got tired of him getting slagged. Black Arachnia was my second favorite character, just for deviousness. Actually, I loved the fact everyone had thier own agenda and Megatron knew it. He just let everyone do thier own thing, only intervening when it conflicted with his own plans. It wasn't a "we're all evil, so we'll follow you obediently. It was more of a "we'll follow you for now until we find a way to stab you in the back" deal.
The whole alien arc throughout the show was awesome, yet it was lacking since they didn't get a chance to finish it the way they wanted. The being in the past thing was awesome, cause it tied in to the original series: when BW Megatron blew up the original Optimus Prime's head, my inner fanboy fainted numerous times. Always looked forwards to all of Megatron's schemes to gain the upper hand in the war. Ravage showing up was another awesome moment.
The first season was sort of weak, but the final two made up for it. Compared to other series: the original is feeling dated, so I can't really watch it anymore and most of the later anime series are too, well, generic. they had no umph and reused too much animation. It was ok, but it wasn't great. Cybertron was definitely better than Armada and Energon, but I wouldn't say it was the best.
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