What's with the need for human characters to anchor stories about transformers? Do they honestly think kids need kid characters to identify with as opposed to watching awesome robots beat the crap out of one another?
That was one of the many rad things about Beast Wars. The episodes didn't revolve around whiny human jazzholes running around while robots you only half-cared about occasionally shot at each other; instead, they created unique characters that worked to further their own agendas and backstab each other - and then they started shooting. No humans needed!
Also, I can't even tell you what sort of a character Wheeljack, Ironhide, or Bumblebee are, but I can describe intimately the relationship between Rattrap and Dinobot. Despite being a show whose main purpose was still to sell toys (transmetal I and II, anyone?), Beast Wars had some great things going for it, the most conspicuous of these perhaps being A., fantastic voice acting, B., great characters (for the most part; some like Tigertron and Terrorsaur were pretty underdeveloped and not used later in the series), and C., heart (not to mention humor!).
Besides, despite having somewhat crude animation (particularly for Season 1), I think Beast Wars had some of the best action of any transformers show. They not only had rad weapons (shit, yo, I spent half my youth drawing Rhinox's Gatling guns), but the action was presented in a pretty straightforward, at times Western manner. Watching the footage of that new show, the action seems flashy at first, but very bland in retrospect.
---------- Post added at 01:15 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:14 AM ----------
I look like a huge nerd right now, don't I.