Started watching Beast Wars (Transformers) with a couple of friends, and take my opinion with a grain of salt but here's a list of things that do not really make sense to me (YET):
(Potential spoilers? I don't know man, the show was made in '96, I don't know how bad I could possibly spoil it).
- Beast Wars takes place 300 years in Cybertron's future, but due to entering a time warp, they fall back into ancient Earth. 4 million years in the past. This was a time of stronger evolution on Earth, with higher ocean levels, warmer temperatures, and early human ancestors were beginning to walk upright. Pliocene Epoch, I believe. (Now, I can excuse this part here because... It was the 90s, nobody cared.)
BUT- the part I'm not understanding was why the Maximals and Predacons were a re-established class only 300 years into the future of Cybertron... When they're supposed to be post G1. (Again, I've just started watching, I may figure this out later.)
- Their alt modes. Again, this was the 90s, they likely weren't thinking about this, but their alt modes did not make sense to me. Well, only a couple of them did. I think it would've made more sense for Cheetor to have been more attuned to a large, saber-tooth cat. Not a Smilodon (too early for those), but an ancestor to them. Rhinox looks too much like a modern-day rhino. And arguably, they landed in Prehistoric North America (based off at least a few alt modes), so there were two prominent species roughly 4-5 million years ago, which were the Teleoceras and Aphelops.
But if they're in Africa, he likely took the form of an ancestor to the Black or White rhinoceros. Like a Diceros praecox (in East Africa).
No comment on Primal or Rattrap, both of those species were around at the time... Though most rats were Asia-based at the time.
And no matter how hard they tried, the alt modes the Predacons took (especially of their dinosaur species) would not have been in the same proximity. Tyrannosaurus Rex, the alt mode chosen by Megatron, is exclusively found in the Western North America, in places like Montana and South Dakota. Velociraptor, which is likely what Dinobot chose as his form, is found in Central Asia (though I guess you could argue he could be a Utahraptor as well). You get my point. They wouldn't have been close to the same place at the same time. Plus the extinction of the dinosaur species is drastically different time periods. T-rex was the late Cretaceous (66 million years ago), Utahraptor was early Cretaceous, and Velociraptors went extinct late Cretaceous, but about ~4-9 million years before t-rex on the other side of the planet.
- Have they even explained the purpose of the Golden Disc yet, I'm not sure they have (again, I'm four episodes in, but I really feel like that should've been explained in episode one... Not just Dinobot hurtling it at Megatron.
- Why is Stonehenge present. Which, thinking about it, would place this show in England. Which... Doesn't make sense, either. Why Stonehenge was even brought into the show is unfathomable to me, and I genuinely believe it's just there for humor (I'm clawing at scraps here).
- Personally, the mention of the Great War threw me off at first (before I looked at the Timeline of the show). This is funny, I'm sure, to Beast Wars fans but I thought these guys would pre-date modern Cybertron, and that's mainly due to their labels as Predacons and Maximals. In my mind, these would be characters that showed early evolution on Cybertron, maybe even pre-Rust Age. Which is why I assumed one took on a reptilian form, while the others were more mammalian-based. So the mention of Earth- by name- threw me through a loop.
And I guess I should've known better given they were flying through space in space ships, instead of roaming Cybertron. But my brain really didn't process that.
I think it would be cool if they pre-dated the modern Cybertron, like a show taking place on Ancient Cybertron before the Primes were ever forged.
- They landed on Ancient Earth, right... So why were there two moons? Now, in theory, Earth might've previously had two moons... 4.5 billion years ago for a short period of time. Not 4 million years ago. I could be completely wrong about them being on Earth, by the way, but from everything I've read, it's ancient Earth.
- What exactly happened in those 300 years on Cybertron post-war that they returned to a primitive age? There's a brief explanation in the War For Cybertron series (on Netflix, which I've watched the majority of), but it didn't make sense to me either. Wouldn't a large population of the Autobots and Decepticons still be alive?? Given they can live for MILLIONS of years. I don't understand what happened. A mass dying? Sudden extinction? Because the Cybertron still looks high-tech. Why are they more animal-based?
- I am not going to complain about the animation. This was the late 90s when 3D animation was still relatively new in cartoon spaces... Which is why it looks a little uncanny and choppy now, but I'm sure it was so, so altering at the time of release. I also like the voice acting! Not everything makes sense to me, some writing choices I'll lift a brow at (Cheetor's repetitive insubordination, Rattrap's repeated insubordination, etc...) but otherwise, it's decent.
I also like that Optimus Primal isn't too much like Optimus Prime personality wise. He has his own sense of humor, his own quirks, and I did laugh at him telling another character to shut up. I really liked that about his character.
- Are they related to former bots like they are in WFC? Waiting to figure that out so I can give my opinion on it.
Edit:
Guys, I should reiterate that this post should not be taken seriously... I am aware some questions will be answered later in the show, but I was just goofing... Except with the Paleo stuff, that I'm just knit-picking