Customer Reviews

Beast Wars Transformers - The Complete Third Season

5 star:		(34)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have been a fan of Transformers since G1 and my interest in them seriously declined with the advent of the third and fourth season as well as the Pretender toy line... My interest because almost automatically peeked with the birth of the Beast Wars because I felt that the Beast Wars addressed many of the problems which the third and fourth seasons suffered from... (1) Too many characters, the Beast Wars had many characters but not so many which prevented proper character development of each major player. You felt like you really knew the characters by the time the series wrapped itself up(2) An underlying plot even bigger than the Beast Wars, something not really dealt with in G1 until the appearance of Unicron in the movie, in Beast Wars it was the Vox who controlled the planet before the arrival of the Transformers and I thought they did an excellent job of tying this series to the G1 series. (3) A credible villian leader, boy did I miss Megatron after he was converted to Galvatron, the insane tyrant thing got old very quick and the Beast Wars Megatron was the same clever, sly villian the original Megatron was. (4) It had a PLANNED ending, unlike G1 which sort of faded into an ending instead. The last season was my favorite because so much took place and I happened to like the transition to Beast Machines, the following season. I also hope that they will release Beast Machines into DVD like they did the Beast Wars. In my opinion, these two combined series had some of the best plot writing I had the pleasure of watching since the whole thing began in 1984.

Third season continued the beast wars at a frenetic pace. Almost to fast at times. The episodes are beautiful. The animation is smooth and looks natural. The writing however becomes forced as more and more characters are introduced. Now I like the introduction of Depth Charge, however his apearance streaches the credibility of season two. After all the Maximals are trapped in the past and have had two attempts at rescue. Once by a probe in season 1 and once by Ravage in season two. As such only the predacons know about the maximals being traped in earth in the past. Then along comes depth charge , the law man, a maximal. If he could have found them, anybody could have.
This season has more tongue in cheek comedy than the previous two seasons before it but the jokes are sharp and all but attack Hasbro and the toy company that is sponsoring them. Example: Rat Trap's coment on Optimus changing bodies frequently is a direct attack on the fact that Hasbro put out several beast wars Optimus Primals during the show and forced the T.V. series to integrate the new toys.
Final coments. I enjoyed the series becasue it dealt with war in a true to life context. People do not always hit their target. People run out of amunition. People get hurt and in war people die. The fact that only 7 Transformers survive all three seasons (out of 25 transformers) is just incredible and shows what a high mortality rate the show had.
Thoughts on the "Transformer Religion" that was brought into play during the third season. I'm still undecided. It was well written but I'm not sure if it had a place in the show. After all religion is a very controversial subject these days and has ended more than one transformer series in the past.

Enjoy:

David

When I was an adolecent, I grew up watching Beast Wars. Every weekend, I'd wake up to the sound of, "Maximals, maximize!" Every character, every plot twist, and every G1 plug was, to me, ingenius.

The show having been off the air now for x-amount of years is finally being released on DVD. Season three, the final season, tied up all of the loose ends in the Beast Wars universe, provided us viewers with sweet new transformers and upgrades (Transmetal 2), and the absolute in climactic endings.

The only problem with this season is that even though there are new Transformers, due to to the brevity of the season, only appear for a short period of time. Seriously, one Transformer is introduced three episodes before the series ends.

By the way, I do not reccomend seeing Beast Machines because this show practically killed the franchise. It's a sequel, it's tempting, but it's not worth it.

Anyways, season three is great. A must buy.

P.S. An easter egg on this DVD is the famed deleted scene in Nemesis part 2 where G1 Megatron's spark is returned to his body!

Growing up as a kid i watched a lot of garbage that i cant even remember the names of but one show has stuck with me all these years, beast wars. this was the one show that i watched wich had plot humor action and even had people die in. when I saw the first season had come out I immediately bought and was then excited to find the second season was coming out soon too. now though i can finally own this great show in its entireity minus beast machines which i did not watch. by the way the special features on this set are a deleted scene! on nemesis part 2 and animatic. everyone should buy these dvds. by the way the special features are hidden in the chapter selection area go through the chapters and it will come up after nemesis 2.

Not sure what most people buy DVDs for, but for me it is definitely NOT the packaging, NOT the graphics on the Disk, and NOT the *lack* of *special* features.

The actual content on this set is for transformer fans' dreams. This is it, folks: the true end to the Beast Wars saga. And boy does it go out with a bang. No spoilers here, but fans of the original Transformers series and the movie will find lots of enjoyment, especially with the last intricately plotted 2 part series finale. Villainy. Death. Heroism. Giant robot duels. Sacrifice. This is what makes Transformers, and it is all here.

The third season showed incredible production value with lots of special effects, huge set pieces, gigantic spaceships, pivotal epic moments, the best writing and the best direction - all of which are amplified from previous seasons.

Seasons 1 and 2 were excellent, but Season 3 is where it ends dramatically.

I await Beast Machines on DVD (where the Beast Wars saga continues), but only for completists sake.

Waspinator finally happy!

Ending one of my favorite series of all time, season 3 is the best season in my opinion. What makes it the best? the high stakes, Optimal Optimus, and the many revelations about the G1 Transformers. Beast Wars is a terrific series and i nearly screamed like a school girl when i saw season 3 at the mall. My friends arent really into some of the things i like (cartoons,comics etc) and they didnt understand my glee. It feels great to own the entire series and i recommend to everyone to buy this season and the other 2. I think theres a Beast Machines set coming out, i didnt really like it because of the drastic changes and lack of characters, but i might get it just to complete the collection

with the conclusion of the maximal's time on earth, and the final defeat of the predicons, the return of dinobot, the appearance of depth charge and the return of tigertron/air razor combo tigerhawk, it is a killer season. not as fun as the second season, or as new and exciting as the first the third IS a great conclusion of the epic saga of maximals versus predicons. long live the spark.

It's great to finally have all the Beast Wars episodes on DVD in great quality. I had rather low-quality VHS copies taped from TV when this show still aired, but they do not compare to these DVDs.

Special features include an animatic from Nemesis Part 2 and a very important deleted scene. Though I wish we could have gotten some interviews with the voice actors or other creators, any special features at all are a treat, and the ones we get are nothing to complain about.

Each episode is divided into four chapters, so you do not have to watch the intro every time.

How can you lose with this great set? And at such a cheap price... it is certainly worth the money!

This season is one of the greatest of any show. True Season 2 is considered the ultimate but I think season 3 has its own merrits. I'll even list them as I did in my Beast Machines review.
The good things...
1. Optimal Optimus, Dragon Megatron, Depth charge and Tigerhawk kick ass. My favorite being Dragon Megatron.
2. More comedy.
3. Higher stakes...(A.K.A the end of all things)
4. a crazy amount of re-watch value (of which Reboot can only dream of)
5. Megatron doesn't wear a skirt (Like in Beast Machines)
6. Great Action and plot.

There are still some bad things to be sure, but not worth noting...but I'll note it anyway.
1. The end of the Beast Wars Seams Rushed...they could have used another episode or two to tie things up at a better pace.
2. They never show G1 Megatron's spark get restored
3 what happened to the rest of the stasis pods?
4. Dragon Megatron was only a 4 episode thing....I want more!
5. Tigerhawk was a 2 episode thing....(same)
6. Transmetal 2 takes a while to get used to, but hey after seeing what everyone looks like in Beast machines (Rattrap is a wheelchair!!!!! Whyyyy!!!!!!) then trans 2 is very super okay.

This is without a doubt the best CGI series made to date with Reboot running second. It will always kill reboot (which is an amazing show) because of production values, comedy, characters, plot and re-watch value....(wopping amounts of action in the form of gunfire) I bought the others and I'm buying this too, and it's so cheap!
Just don't see Beast Machines....(really beast wars seasons 4 and 5 of the series) they kind of ruined this generation and it saddens me....sob sob.
The worst part of the beast wars is that its over...but they ended it before it became old and it went out with dignity and memories to last a lifetime.

If you are someone who has never watched any Beast Wars episodes and want to get an idea of what the series is about as a whole, please read my reviews for seasons #1 and #2. If you're not feeling like doing that, let me just say that I think Beast Wars may have been the best Transformers series period and is great for old and new fans alike.

Season 3 is the final one of the series and arguably the most action packed. There are only 13 episodes and all of them factor in heavily to the overall story. Classic G1 characters appear, seemingly forgotten storylines from past seasons are revived and just about every loose end from the entire series is sewn up in near perfect fashion.

The finale is downright awesome and gives great closure to the series. However, they did make a series after this one, called "Beast Machines" featuring some of the same characters that has a very different feel to it.

I have reviewed Beast Machines, also.

As one final note, if you have never seen a Beast Wars show, I'd advise picking up the seasons in order as they heavily build on each other.