The past year. What does it mean to you? US presidential elections? Assorted conflicts? The new millenium? Well, I'm going to look back on the past 366 days, take out such trivialities and concentrate on the all important subject: Transformers (looking for something more deep? Wrong site).
On the whole, 2000 was something of a disspointment on all fronts. First of all, this was the year that GMTV axed Beast Wars. Axed Beast Wars. Now, I won't dwell on this, I already have in my Complaints section, but I will just say that this was a huge kick in the teeth for me. I wanted to see season 3, what did I get? Some season 1 repeats to begin with, then an announcement that they'd decided to cease showing it due to a lack of interest. Needless to say, this lack of interest was purely their own falt. If they lost money through their treatment of Beast Wars, then all the better. They deserve it.
Of course, without the show, the toyline suffered here. Without the promotion provided by the show, toy sales here declined, and as a result, several stores ceased to stock the toys. The toyline here was something of a shambles. A small trickle of first wave Transmetal 2s, and that was about it. Hasbro decided to bring out the Beast Machines line mid-year. This really was the last nail in the Beast Wars UK coffin. Beast Machines toys replaced the Transmetal 2s on toy shelves, many of the later toys were never seen or sparsely distributed, destroying any hopes for getting some of the rarer toys of the line.
On a wider scale, Beast Machines continued to cause widespread divides and rifts in the fan community. Beast Machine fans acused of being childish and disrespectful of the past, Beast Machines haters being accused of being small-minded and living in the past. The release of Car Robots in Japan served to catalyse this rivalry, several fans seeing the Japanese line as refuge, Takara as their saviour (am I being too dramatic? Probably, but this is the impression I got from many). The ending of the Beast Machines show (which I will not spoil) triggered huge outrage and disapointment in many, making this year an overly traumatic one in the fandom.
The rare gems this year? An improving Beast Machines toyline towards the end of the year in the US was encouraging, as were tapes of Beast Wars Season 3 being released in Britain. Despite the trauma it caused to the Transmetals 2 toyline, the UK Beast Machines range slowly getting into synchronisation with the US one, with the practically simultaneous release of the Deployers was a huge improvement on the usual year-long delay.
So hopefully, we've been through the worst of it, and things can only get better from here. Hopefully.
-Aardvarktron
