There’s one really good reason Beast Wars: Transformers needs a reboot in 2026

For nearly a decade, the demise seemed permanent. While the franchise continued on in Japan, it disappeared from America with little hope of return. In an era well before reboots of such properties was commonplace, Transformers seemed like nothing more than a fad that would live only in the past.

That changed in September 1996 when a radically different type of Transformers show debuted. Beast Wars was the work of a Canadian company named Mainframe Entertainment, who had previously found some success with the first-ever CGI-animated half-hour cartoon series, ironically titled Reboot.

Rather than rehash the same premise of “Robots in Disguise” that transform into vehicles to hide among humans, Beast Wars featured robots disguised as animals with no humans in sight. The series begins when two ships crash on an Earth-like planet — complete with our same species of animals — after a conflict in space. One ship was crewed by four honorable Maximals (the equivalent of the Autobots) who all chose mammals for their animal forms. The other housed Predacons (the equivalent of Decepticons) who chose various bugs and extinct dinosaurs (sourced from fossils) for their animal forms. While Maximals and Predacons were sworn enemies, both were stranded on this unknown planet and longed for a return to their homeworld of Cybertron, the same place their ancestors, the Autobots and Decepticons, hailed from.

In the original Transformers, both teams consist of seemingly dozens of members, with many characters inserted into the series with scant explanation as a completely transparent ploy to sell more toys. And while Beast Wars was also made, in large part, to sell toys, the limitations on computer-generated cartoons at that time meant Mainframe Entertainment’s budget and computer processing power could only handle so much. This limited the series, at least at the beginning, to just five characters on each team.

This limitation would end up being the show’s greatest asset, because instead of perpetuating stories with the constant introduction of new characters, the heroes and villains of Beast Wars were explored with a depth and dedication almost entirely unseen in Transformers, which had only a few really interesting characters and dozens of others that amounted to little more than cannon fodder.

To use the Maximals as an example, as they were somewhat more deeply explored than the Predacons, there was the leader, Optimus Primal, whose beast mode was a gorilla. While not quite the commanding presence Optimus Prime was on Transformers, he also didn't need to be. Optimus Prime commanded an army of Autobots, while Optimus Primal was a mere ship captain on a scientific exploratory mission. There was also the youthful Cheetor (the cheetah), the smart-alecky Rattrap (the rat), and the hulking yet surprisingly sensitive Rhinox (the rhinoceros). Finally, there was Dinobot, a velociraptor who quit the Predacons and joined the Maximals in the first episode, and whose story — and ultimate death — would bring the show to its emotional and storytelling zenith.

In time, it was discovered that this Earth-like planet was, indeed, Earth, just a few million years before the human race took over and, of course, before the Autobots and Decepticons began their conflict on the planet. At the time when Beast Wars takes place, both the Autobots and Decepticons lay dormant underground aboard the Autobot ship The Ark, which had crashed a few more million years before Beast Wars takes place. With the help of a golden disk that is really hard to explain, the Predacons figure out where they are (Earth) and when they are in the Transformers timeline (before the Autobots and Decepticons wake up, but well after they’ve arrived on Earth). When the Predacons become aware of this, they plot to change the future which saw their ancestors, the Decepticons, defeated. This, presumably, would benefit all Predacons.

In one plot to change the future, the Predacons locate the African valley where the human race first appeared with the idea of killing those humans, who had crucially aided the Autobots during the events of the original Transformers series. With only Dinobot nearby, the once-Predacon takes down his former teammates one-by-one, saving the human race. In the end, Dinobot wins, but he is beyond repair, giving the series — and to many fans, all of Transformers mythology — its most emotional moment.

In another plot, the Predacons seek to destroy the still-dormant Optimus Prime, rendering the future Autobots leaderless. The assination is stopped by Optimus Primal by merging his spark — essentially a Transformer’s soul — with that of Prime. For fans of both Beast Wars and Transformers, this moment represents the most rewarding, layered moment in the canon of the original Transformers timeline.

While this all might sound like a lot of complex mythology, it unfolded slowly over three seasons of Beast Wars which amounted to 52 episodes. And while new characters did arrive, that only happened a few times each season, giving most new Maximals and Predacons their time to shine.

So why does such a rock-solid series need a reboot? It comes down to watchability. For those who grew up with the series, CGI cartoons were entirely new. Fans at the time would marvel at the technology. Speaking more personally, Beast Wars was the coolest cartoon on TV in the late 1990s, and when I have revisited the series as an adult, which I’ve done several times, I can be transported back to that time where all I see are great characters with complex stories.

However, the technological limitations which inadvertently helped Beast Wars develop its characters back in 1996 represents its greatest limitation 30 years later. For newcomers to the series who have lived with dozens of Pixar movies and video games in 4K, Beast Wars isn’t just dated, it’s unwatchable. While the voice acting is nuanced, the faces which present those performances seem frozen in a narrow range of expressions. Objects often intersect each other without logic and there are countless gaps and glitches that only distract from the story. While there are plenty of dated and cheaply-animated 2D cartoons throughout the history of animation, technological advancement makes 3D animation age in a way 2D just doesn’t.

To draw a comparison, back in 2005, Peter Jackson remade King Kong, not just because he loved the original, but, as he explained in interviews, because he felt that the original film was so dated — being in black-and-white and having claymation stop-motion monsters — that many young people would never watch it and get to experience any version of King Kong. To Jackson, the best way to honor the film that made him want to be a filmmaker was to remake it. Say what you will about Peter Jackson’s remake — yes, it is too long and it is overindulgent — but it revived King Kong for generations to come.

Applying that logic to Beast Wars, maybe the best way to honor this series is a total reboot of the Maximals and Predacons, totally separate from whatever else is going on with the Autobots and Decepticons. Since Beast Wars ended (I’m purposefully ignoring its terrible 1999 follow-up Beast Machines) Maximals and Predacons have existed in the numerous Transformers reboot shows, but always as an animalistic component to the Autobots and Decepticons. And when the Maximals and Predacons made their big screen debut in 2023’s Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, they looked cool, but they were little more than the featured guests of the Autobots. These characters deserve more than that.

In 1996, Beast Wars revived Transformers and gave it a whole new audience entirely separate from the original cartoon. Many, like myself, only found Transformers because of Beast Wars. Beast Wars also enjoyed massive toy sales and proved that “Robots in Disguise” was more than just a one-off. Maybe it’s time to see if they can do it again.