Here is what David Willis has to say about "Beast Wars".
As many of you know, I am not a fan of Willis. But, I can look at him, and "Beast Wars" objectively.
Point by point:
I agree with far more of his recent posting than I want to. Hell, it is even fair to say that he is, overall, right. But, there are a few points where he is off.
Willis is right when he argues that the fact TF was moribund allowed BW to innovate. But, bringing in old characters is really not innovation. And, the trend in using older characters now more or less kills innovation. And, while the beast era itself may have been a time of great creativity, the franchise got *more* formulaic after the beast years than it had been even during G1. There is still much to enjoy about the modern hobby. But, it has a definite tendency to be backward looking.Its incredible articulation, for one. Its willingness to resurrect older characters if needed.
And, it should also be noted that little, if anything, good has come of "Beast Wars". G1 has been rebooted and retooled multiple times, with mixed results. Attempts to revive "Beast Wars" have met with almost universal scorn. "Beast Wars" was a product of a moment. G1 *is* a legacy at this point.
Willis is giving way more credit to the cartoon than it warrants. End of story.These things were made possible by the incredible caliber of writers assembled by Forward and DiTillio. Their ranks included Len Wein (creator of Wolverine, Storm, and Colossus), Christy Marx (Babylon 5), Jules Dennis (Real Ghostbusters and Batman: The Animated Series), D.C. Fontana (so much Star Trek), and, yes, Simon Furman (everything Transformers ever).
BW was better than any TF cartoon before or since. That is fair. But, the bar for this is *very* low. BW's writing was comparable to a number of other 90s cartoons. "Mighty Max", (a favorite at the local comic shop of my youth), had an over-arching plot. "Exo-Squad" did as well. BW had a huge advantage in terms of looking pretty, and the only other cartoon that was even close to that pretty was "Reboot", which lacked any writing to speak of.
To use the terms I would have in HS, (shortly before BW first aired in '96), "Beast Wars" was a fabulously gorgeous girl with a middling intellect and "Reboot" was slighly prettier while being dumb as a sack of crap. If one was really looking for intellect though, there were ample Plain-Janes.
To put it in a more mature light, about 5 years ago, a friend of mine (rightly) called me out for my anemic tastes in literature. He (correctly) argued that so much of what I read and watched was crap, that I was likely to be dazzled by even the slightlest show of intelligence. I have since looked back over much of what once dazzled me, and will concede he was right. "Beast Wars" is a good, (though hardly the most extreme), example of this. Transfans tend to be incredibly insular, if not by franchise than by genre. (I love the guys who argue that they have varied tastes because the like "Star Trek" along with "Transformers".) And, lets face it, the soft sci-fi genre is hardly known for consistently high quality.
And, TF (even now) tends towards the lower end of a pretty low genre. Yes, there are stand-out stories and writers who push themselves. But, as "Exodus" shows, it also relies hugely on brand recognition, even when it should be trying to expand into new areas.
The writers Willis lists are not as impressive as they first seem if one steps back and looks elsewhere in the genre. Most of them are simply journeymen who lucked onto good projects. Simon Furman is probably the most creative of them, and he relies on the good-old-boy network as much, if not more than, any of them. (And, I would be willing to bet that a bit of research would make the case for Fontana having a more impressive body of work.)
The term "Spark" was new to "Beast War", but the concept goes back to G1.The very idea of the spark, the tangible “soul” of a Transformer, has existed in every single incarnation of Transformers since, including the live-action movie, as has the concept of the Matrix/AllSpark as the Transformers afterlife.
And, either way, BW is also to blame for the sheer amount of magical gibberywank that pervades the hobby now. (And, yes, I will admit, larger social trends are also to blame here. But, the Spark idea gave the magical thinking a hook.)
I just will leave it to some one else to make the snide remark this quote demands.It pulled me back into Transformers after having left it, and is the biggest reason this very webcomic about toy collecting exists.
The hell? Really?Characters that have taught me valuable things.
I have heard this sort of thing before, about TF and other franchises. *The characters*, not the writers or the ideas articulated using the characters, teach us valuable lessons.
No, uh, just no.
The cartoon ended ~10 years ago. I am pretty sure there have been more valuable lessons to learn since then.
Dom
-just putting things in perspective.