MovieChat Forums > Beast Wars: Transformers (1996) Discussion > No Maximal or Predacon Combiner Teams?

No Maximal or Predacon Combiner Teams?

posted 9 years ago by ShadowHawk28
7 replies | jump to latest

It's disappointing that there was no Maximal or Predacon Combiner Teams in this show. Just like Transformers: Prime, this show suffered from Budget funds which was why it had limited characters to use.

I used to think that Magnaboss and Tripredacus would appear in the TV show because of the short CGI segment in this commercial. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFOuHfE6UQw

It was only when they never appeared that I realized I was wrong. The Tripredicus council did appear in the TV show but they were just three shadowy predacon authority figures and didn't take part in the Beast Wars itself. It just doesn't make any sense for them to make the toys for Beast Wars and yet don't have them on at all.

[–] benmasta 9 years ago

there were tons of beast wars toy characters that never made it to the show..

i thought it was kinda cool for them to include the tripidicus council and have rampage of all characters show up. For them to make a combiner team they would need 3 character models which then combine (and 3 voices, not necessarily 3 different people).

I think that its pretty unlikely that many shows would indroduce such an expensive character. Its like making an entirely new cast show up later in the series lol.

Adding just 1 of those 3x combiner dudes would probably increase the amount of work required to make an episode by like 15-20%

[–] ShadowHawk28 9 years ago

So they should have gotten more funds for that expensive CGI instead of being cheapskates and cut corners with what they already have. Though I wonder if there were any plans at all to introduce them in the cartoon, or did they never even think about it.

As i said, it just doesn't make any sense for them to make the toys for Beast Wars and yet don't have them on the show at all.

[–] Vihktor-24 9 years ago

As i said, it just doesn't make any sense for them to make the toys for Beast Wars and yet don't have them on the show at all.

But it does. All the Transformers series have tons of characters that are toy-only and never appear in the shows or movies, only comics or video games at best. That's because the shows are always secondary to the toy line. Hasbro is a toy company, so they have to sell much more products than how many can feasibly appear in the cartoons or movies. If they crammed in all the toys into the shows, it would lead to a big mess because they wouldn't be able to develop or even properly showcase a lot of them (like in certain episodes of G1, or in Energon and Cybertron), or they would be reduced to mere cameos or background characters. And that's if their budget allowed them to even have that many distinct characters on screen at the same time.

[–] ShadowHawk28 9 years ago

Well to me it doesn't, it just sets up for disappointments. I wonder if there were any plans at all to introduce them in the cartoon, or did they never even think about it.

[–] Vihktor-24 9 years ago

I don't think there were any, although if the show had gotten a fourth season, then maybe some combiners would have appeared at some point. Who knows? There were a lot of factors that decided which toys would be featured:

- Hasbro's insistence
- limited budget, computing power and tight deadlines
- story reasons
- limited fan input

We know that there were several episodes and characters that they had to scrap because they either couldn't make enough computer models for extra characters or didn't have enough time to write the new characters into the story.

But that's why they had the comics and the Japanese-exclusive cartoons -- as crappy as they were, those could feature whichever toys didn't make it into the "main" show. Of course, I have to put "main" in quotation marks, because technically, the toys are the main product, and all forms of advertising, including the animated show, comes second.

[–] ShadowHawk28 9 years ago

We know that there were several episodes and characters that they had to scrap because they either couldn't make enough computer models for extra characters or didn't have enough time to write the new characters into the story.

As i said, they should have gotten more funds for that expensive CGI instead of being cheapskates and cut corners with what they already have.

As Glozone said, most people complain about Tigerhawk as a character stem from how little of the series he appeared in. But then again, no one has issues with Transmutate for the same reason. It seems like if someone's only in one episode, you can accept them as just a one episode anomaly. But for them to introduce Tigerhawk like he was going to be part of the show, and then kill him off two episodes later with him doing almost nothing, it's plain stupid.

Tigerhawk might have been fine if Other Victories provided the entire closure for Tigatron and Airazor. Say if they had rewritten it for Tigerhawk to die along with Tarantulas (along with something to make that more poignant) and then just not included him at all in Nemesis (which they may as well have not.)

The problem i have with this show is that they should have stuck with traditional animation like Batman: TAS from the 90s or The Batman from 2004. It's the only way you can do all the characters, action, and effects, while still remaining not as expensive to make, and still look good.

Beast Wars going with a CGI look just spells trouble since you made the notes:

- limited budget, computing power and tight deadlines
- story reasons
- limited fan input

[–] cgrill8 8 years ago

But there was fan help! It all came from Ben Yee's web site back then. He was their TF advisor... and many places and few little sprinkles of fan names and sayings were sprinkled throughout the show.