The continuity lesson of Beast Wars

"What? Transformers made from animals instead of vehicles and stuff? Doesn't sound so great, throw it to Kenner division, maybe they can make a quick buck or something."
Beast Wars, Machine Wars, Beast Machines... seeing a pattern? Coming soon: "Wars Wars"
SynjoDeonecros
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Re: The continuity lesson of Beast Wars

Post by SynjoDeonecros »

Sparky Prime wrote:
Onslaught Six wrote:Oh, pish-posh! Laserbeak and Buzzsaw are shitty FunPub retrocontinuity, and you know it--you can't use that in argument against BW. That'd be like pointing out flaws in the G1 comics because they're not referencing sparks--of course they aren't, sparks didn't exist back then.
Actually... Despite the concept of the spark as we know it not being developed until Beast Wars, there are references in the G1 comics to a "life spark" or "spark of life" among others (for example; when Jetfire joins the Autobots, he thanks Optimus for using the Creation Matrix "to ignite the spark of life" in him). Admittedly the writers probably intended this as a metaphorical "spark" rather than an actual spark but it actually works either way. And then in G1 cartoon there was even a reference to a "laser core" that if extinguished meant death for the Transformer, and the term has later been used interchangeably with the term "spark".

Anyway, the point being that comic shows the possibility of other Decepticons having been rebuilt as Predacons.
Windrazor was only ever involved in Omega Point, a story that technically didn't even happen now, so he's out. And Rodimus and Arcee were only ever hanging around on Cybertron or elsewhere in space. These people have *other* things to do--they don't have time to sit around whining about GeeWun. (Except Arcee, since that's kind of all she ever did.)
Actually Apelinq escaped with Windrazor through a transwarp portal (Apelinq is the only one that remembers that entire event). It was never revealed what happened to Windrazor after that given he apparently vanished. It's possible he's still somewhere or even reverted back to his original split form. And again, the point is that the comic does show some G1 characters still alive in the Beast Era. Come to think of it there are actually a lot more too. I forgot to mention Grimlock was in the IDW comics (not to mention his original tech specs information). And Prowl (the TM2 owl) is supposed to be like a clone or... something of the original. Then in the Universe comic we saw Sunstreaker, Sideswipe and Trailbreaker. The Magnaboss components (Silverbolt, Prowl and Ironhide) are supposedly the original G1 characters as well.
SynjoDeonecros wrote:Sparky, you are an idiot.
Nice. Name calling. Great way to show you have a calm and rational approach to an argument.
BWprowl wrote:Only Dom can call Sparky and idiot.
Onslaught Six wrote:What about me? D:
:roll: Actually I think Dom is more rational than to resort to name calling. Not so much with O6... :P
Joking aside, it really is uncalled for.
SynjoDeonecros wrote:The ONLY IDW source that hints at BWII taking place other than during BW is the source books, and those are inaccurate and unreliable, plus The Gathering and The Ascending RAN CONCURRENT TO BEAST WARS.
Even with the numerous mistakes, like it or not, IDW's source books are still an official source of information. Unlike Wikipedia which, not to mention, isn't exactly a reliable source itself. Discount them if you like, but for the purposes of this discussion, they still have relevant information. And no, they are not the only hints to when BWII took place given "The Gathering" and "The Ascending" part of which take place at the relative present Cybertron time-frame, as well as in the past with the actual Beast Wars.
Iacon being paved over does NOT IN ANY WAY PROVE THAT IT WAS COVERED UP! EVERYONE in the BW knew about it, EVERYONE. Why even bring up Iacon when talking about what the Elders hid? THEY HAD NO FREAKING REASON TO SEAL IT UP, BECAUSE IT WASN'T RELEVANT TO THE EVENTS THEY WERE HIDING; EARTH AND THE EVENTS OF G1 THAT TOOK PLACE ON IT WAS.
I didn't say it was covered up as in classified, I said it was covered up, as in literally covered up. A new city was built over top of it. And no, not everyone in BW/BM knew about it. As I already told you, Nightscream had no idea what city it was. Optimus filled him on Iacon's history, which again is that with the Great Upgrade from Autobot to Maximal, a new city was built over Iacon. Iacon is still there but it is now an underground abandoned city, because it was built for Autobot inhabitants, not the physically smaller Maximals. Really, I think you need to read my posts more carefully because I already explained all of this and it wouldn't hurt if you go watch the episodes again.
They got the whole Ark/Nemesis attack wrong, with the shooting bringing down the Ark and no mention of a raiding party. EVERY FREAKING EXPRESSION THEY GAVE WHEN CONFRONTED WITH A G1 REFERENCE WAS EITHER DISBELIEF OF WONDER THAT IT EXISTS. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. What more can I say to disprove all the crap you keep on spouting?
Again, as BWprowl said, they're basically compressing the story behind the Ark/Nemesis crashing on Earth. The only thing that really matters to the story is that, not too unlike the Maximals and Predacons ships, both the Ark and Nemesis crashed on Earth. And once again, re-watch the episodes. They are not surprised to see the Ark (or any other G1 reference) as you claim they are.
I'm through arguing this with you; it's clear you guys are blatantly ignoring the facts to come up with your own lame justification for what is, by definition, a writer screwup.
You've said that a couple times, yet you're still posting about it. But anyway, we're not the ones blatantly ignoring the facts here. Several things you've said here simply are not accurate and again, I'd suggest you re-watch the episodes to figure out what the facts actually are. Last I looked, they are all on youtube.
No, you clearly are the one not willing to look at the facts, as you're ignoring what OnslaughSix is saying about the situation, and honestly, HE is making more sense and bringing up better points than YOU are.

Plus, you're contradicting yourself and just giving me more fuel for my argument; you just proved that there were a LOT MORE SURVIVORS than we were lead to believe, and that's my whole argument; the existence of the survivors nullifies any attempt the writers tried to make G1 "Arthurian Lore". As I said, why would Silverbolt, who only had the Maximals and Predacons on Earth as a source of info about G1, label the Ark and whatnot as "legends" if they were as knowledgeable about those things and knew them to be as stone-cold fact as you say they were? It doesn't make sense, and the only way it COULD make sense is if they WEREN'T that knowledgeable.

Also, why are you so insistent on pointing out Iacon when I bring up what the Maximal Elders sealed away? You're acting like it's proof positive that the Elders sealed up NOTHING, which is bull; as I said before, they would've likely sealed up anything dealing with G1 in regards to EARTH, NOT Cybertron, so there would be NO REASON for them to hide Iacon. So, really, the Transformers knowing about Iacon MEANS NOTHING.

You are an idiot. Say it's uncalled-for, but you are; you're blatantly ignoring the evidence presented here, you're coming up with contrived "proof" to back up your claims, and you're the one making the idiotic assumptions. Most of your argument has already been shot down, if not by me, than by Onslaught Six or others. Just face it: you've lost. The bottom line is, the Maximals DID NOT KNOW AS MUCH AS YOU SAY THEY DID, they were NEVER intended to know that much, and only once Ravage showed up and we were told there were more survivors of his kind, did we realize they COULD HAVE known that much, if they wanted to. You're the only one who's refusing to believe it, for whatever reason.
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Re: The continuity lesson of Beast Wars

Post by Onslaught Six »

They don't know about Iacon! They know about Iocon! Because it's actually Planet Master under all that metal!

[/shoehorning]
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Sparky Prime
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Re: The continuity lesson of Beast Wars

Post by Sparky Prime »

SynjoDeonecros wrote:No, you clearly are the one not willing to look at the facts, as you're ignoring what OnslaughSix is saying about the situation, and honestly, HE is making more sense and bringing up better points than YOU are.
The facts I'm looking at come directly from the show and comics. I have no idea what "facts" you're looking at. And many of O6's points actually support what BWprowl and I have been saying.
Plus, you're contradicting yourself and just giving me more fuel for my argument; you just proved that there were a LOT MORE SURVIVORS than we were lead to believe, and that's my whole argument; the existence of the survivors nullifies any attempt the writers tried to make G1 "Arthurian Lore".
And how many survivors are we lead to believe there are exactly hrm? Right, we don't actually know. Nothing is ever stated definitively. You seem to be relying very heavily on the "Arthurian Lore" comment from the writers. I really think you're taking that comment too literally. Really it seems to me they only used that as a reference to tell us the Great War has become legendary. And that does come out in the show, but unlike the Arthurian lore, they know the Great War actually took place, which we also see in the show.
As I said, why would Silverbolt, who only had the Maximals and Predacons on Earth as a source of info about G1, label the Ark and whatnot as "legends" if they were as knowledgeable about those things and knew them to be as stone-cold fact as you say they were? It doesn't make sense, and the only way it COULD make sense is if they WEREN'T that knowledgeable.
Again, you are basing this off of one Maximal who lost all his memories and clearly does not have a full concept of Cybertonian history. It's not that the Maximals aren't knowledgeable here, it's that Silverbolt in particular isn't knowledgeable. The other Maximals however do show us through out the series they know more about this own history than you are suggesting.
Also, why are you so insistent on pointing out Iacon when I bring up what the Maximal Elders sealed away? You're acting like it's proof positive that the Elders sealed up NOTHING, which is bull; as I said before, they would've likely sealed up anything dealing with G1 in regards to EARTH, NOT Cybertron, so there would be NO REASON for them to hide Iacon. So, really, the Transformers knowing about Iacon MEANS NOTHING.
Are you even reading my posts? I'm not saying anything about the Maximal Elders hiding Iacon. Rather I've pointed out that they didn't hide it away, it was replaced with the Great Upgrade. I brought it up originally just to show that not all of the Maximals are in the dark about their history as you'd have us believe. Moving on from there, you will note that the younger Nightscream did not know the cities history. Does that mean all the Maximals have purposefully been kept in the dark about that city? Because that is exactly what you are suggesting about the Maximals (particularly with Silverbolt) in Beast Wars, based on very little information and your own conjecture. Optimus however immediately fills Nightscream in about the city in this situation, showing us the information is indeed known to the Maximals. As several of us have pointed out numerous times in this topic, there are also instances of the Maximals knowing a great deal of their history in Beast Wars.
You are an idiot. Say it's uncalled-for, but you are; you're blatantly ignoring the evidence presented here, you're coming up with contrived "proof" to back up your claims, and you're the one making the idiotic assumptions. Most of your argument has already been shot down, if not by me, than by Onslaught Six or others. Just face it: you've lost. The bottom line is, the Maximals DID NOT KNOW AS MUCH AS YOU SAY THEY DID, they were NEVER intended to know that much, and only once Ravage showed up and we were told there were more survivors of his kind, did we realize they COULD HAVE known that much, if they wanted to. You're the only one who's refusing to believe it, for whatever reason.
I'm the one coming up with contrived proof? Again, I've been pulling my information directly from the shows and comics, even pointing out a few direct quotes and have been re-watching several of the episodes in question on youtube over the past few days to ensure what I'm posting is accurate. These aren't "idiotic assumptions" I'm making, I'm posting what we actually know from the shows/comics. You've claimed to have done research but I really haven't seen that you've offered anything from said research to actually support your claims. Maybe one thing from a Wikipedia? Which in and of itself is not a reliable source. In fact, several times the information you've posted has been inaccurate. So really, which one of us has been posting the contrived proof here? I'd also point out I've kept my cool in this discussion and not resorted to immaturity and personal attacks against you with name calling as you have. Just because you happen to have a different stance on a given topic, there is no excuse for it.

Bottom line: You've been pretty belligerent about this topic from the beginning. It looks to me like you're ignoring a great deal of information and only focusing in on the smallest of details in order to support your inaccurate claims. Even O6 has said "So yeah. Looks like they *did* know more about it than we were assuming--". Again, I think you need to re-watch the episodes, and calm down.
Last edited by Sparky Prime on Fri Aug 14, 2009 7:04 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The continuity lesson of Beast Wars

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I'd like to go back and figure out which point, exactly, the Maximals figured out that This Was Earth.

Well, it goes all the way back to Code of Hero, at least, being that the protohumans are there and Dinobot is all Oh No Those Are Protohumans And If Megs Kills Them Then The Human Race Is Gone. So that'd explain why Primal already knew this was Earth, and knew that the Ark was somewhere on it. Hrm.

I think this is never going to be put to rest. Fact is, Bob & Larry *weren't* the Amazing Godly Superwriters that people often make them out to be. They were just two guys trying to write a decent cartoon. And that's what they did! No, not everything always matched up perfectly with G1--but the fact is that G1 was a complete and utter mess unto itself and it would be impossible to try and be entirely consistant with it. So they fudge things. Big deal, the end!
BWprowl wrote:The internet having this many different words to describe nerdy folks is akin to the whole eskimos/ice situation, I would presume.
People spend so much time worrying about whether a figure is "mint" or not that they never stop to consider other flavours.
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Re: The continuity lesson of Beast Wars

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See, this is why I think all TF cartoons need to follow Energon's example. That show didn't have ANY continuity issues at all! It was amazing!
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Re: The continuity lesson of Beast Wars

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Because it had no fucking continuity to begin with! Or plot, for that matter!
BWprowl wrote:The internet having this many different words to describe nerdy folks is akin to the whole eskimos/ice situation, I would presume.
People spend so much time worrying about whether a figure is "mint" or not that they never stop to consider other flavours.
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Re: The continuity lesson of Beast Wars

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BWprowl wrote:See, this is why I think all TF cartoons need to follow Energon's example. That show didn't have ANY continuity issues at all! It was amazing!
Or Cybertron. I mean, if you wanna look at it as a continuation of Energon, then maybe, but as it's own thing, it worked fine.

And again, this is why I keep saying that continuity is overrated, and the story's the important thing. I'd rather enjoy what I'm seeing than think "Ooh, but wait, how can that be because this happened somewhere else and.." or like that. Cripes, sit back and enjoy the show for what it is. I mean, I'll continuity-geek out myself on occasion (reading old Legion of Superheroes comics or some Doctor Who or like that), but I'll do it for added enjoyment, not to poke a bunch of holes in something I was enjoying in the first place.

And a "Hell yeah" to whoever else pointed out that a lot of these "old-time survivors" that keep getting brought up aren't on the damn show. It's like criticizing a comic that comes out because it conflicts with what you wrote in your fanfic..and the BW continuations in IDW's comics, 4H's stuff, or anything else is about a step or two above fanfic at most.

So if something in BW doesn't match up with G1, it's either the writers goofed, or because the BW characters aren't historians. And you should think to yourself "It's just a show, I really should relax."
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Re: The continuity lesson of Beast Wars

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Onslaught Six wrote:I'd like to go back and figure out which point, exactly, the Maximals figured out that This Was Earth.

Well, it goes all the way back to Code of Hero, at least, being that the protohumans are there and Dinobot is all Oh No Those Are Protohumans And If Megs Kills Them Then The Human Race Is Gone. So that'd explain why Primal already knew this was Earth, and knew that the Ark was somewhere on it. Hrm.
I'd say it was earlier than that actually just after the episode: "Maximal No More". After Dinobot had given Megatron the Golden Disk back then changed his mind switching back to the Maximals he tells Optimus "I must discuss something of great importance with you." Optimus replies "Time enough for that back at base. See you there." So it stands to reason Dinobot told Optimus everything about Megatron's plot with the Golden Disk in-between episodes. This is also supported in the next episode (Other Visits part1) as we see Dinobot had given Rhinox the alien disk to study which he had previously hidden on the Axalon from the other Maximals.
138 Scourge wrote:And again, this is why I keep saying that continuity is overrated, and the story's the important thing.
Personally, I think continuity is fairly important. You want your stories to mesh at least, otherwise all you get is a garbled mess of disconnected stories. Look at how the Unicron Trilogy ended up. And that results in just confusing the audience. Beast Wars I think handled it the right way though. They established a continuity but yet kept references to G1 condensed so that they wouldn't get to bogged down by that continuity at the same time.
138 Scourge wrote:And a "Hell yeah" to whoever else pointed out that a lot of these "old-time survivors" that keep getting brought up aren't on the damn show.
You're missing the point of why that was brought up in the first place (or at least why I mentioned it, not sure about others). It's not that they aren't in the show, it's the point that it's possible a few of those characters could still around as is shown in the comics. And really, it doesn't conflict with the show given they don't actually mention how many survivors from the Great War there are beyond Primals comment that "a few Decepticons were granted amnesty".
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Re: The continuity lesson of Beast Wars

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Okay, well, maybe. But lemme put it this way. Given the choice of something fitting in with previously established continuity or being entertaining on it's own, I'd choose the latter any day of the week. Why I gotta explain this to a fan of "Ultimate Spider-Man", I dunno.

Sadly, I dunno if anyone's gonna get my best example, here, but screw it. Okay, I dig the Doctor Who show a lot, right? And I've read a fair amount of the books, which are either officially licenced by the BBC, or, in some cases, produced by a branch thereof. Now, lots of great things happen in those books, but they don't make it onto the show, and they don't have any effect on the overall story arc of the show, dig?

And really, I wasn't saying that there weren't any survivors out there for sure, 'cause the show doesn't say that, either. I'm just bringing it up to point out how you can't really use, say, Laserbeak as a known survivor of the Great War just because he appeared in that BotCon comic or whatever. Because that's not the show, and god help the show if it's gotta be judged by the standard of the crappy comics that came out alleging to be set in the same universe.
Dominic wrote: too many people likely would have enjoyed it as....well a house-elf gang-bang.
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Sparky Prime
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Re: The continuity lesson of Beast Wars

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138 Scourge wrote:Okay, well, maybe. But lemme put it this way. Given the choice of something fitting in with previously established continuity or being entertaining on it's own, I'd choose the latter any day of the week. Why I gotta explain this to a fan of "Ultimate Spider-Man", I dunno.
What does Ultimate Spider-Man have to do with it? It was created to re-imagine the Marvel Universe with a more modern day context. There was no way it was ever going to be part of a previously established continuity with that type of a premise. And over time the Ultimate Universe has built its own continuity. That's kinda like trying to compare G1's continuity with the Animated continuity.

Anyway, it's nice to get a story with a fresh start sometimes, but personally I do like to have a sense of continuity rather than hitting the "reset button" all the time. As long as the writers find a nice blend of mixing continuity while making it entertaining on its own, it works, as we see with Beast Wars, or most of the Star Trek series, or the Stargate series.
And really, I wasn't saying that there weren't any survivors out there for sure, 'cause the show doesn't say that, either. I'm just bringing it up to point out how you can't really use, say, Laserbeak as a known survivor of the Great War just because he appeared in that BotCon comic or whatever. Because that's not the show, and god help the show if it's gotta be judged by the standard of the crappy comics that came out alleging to be set in the same universe.
Well again, my point wasn't that it's possible those characters are still around as the comics would suggest, not that those characters should be counted as survivors just because they were featured in a comic book.
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