>>93557458Controversial even by the standards of other Transformers reinventions, Beast Machines is remembered by some as a series which tried to tackle heavy philosophical concepts, discussing such issues like what it meant to live in an increasingly technological society, the dichotomy between the desires of the individual and the needs of the whole, the inevitability of conflict and inequality in a free society, the ugly consequences of fanaticism, and the paradox of a living technological world. Story editor Bob Skir describes the series as a "religious epic novel for television". Most of the Transformers franchise lore about sparks, their abilities, and the mechanism of their life cycle, was introduced or developed in this series.
The series amassed many detractors early on, who complained that core cast portrayals were inconsistent with how these personalities had been established over the years of the preceding Beast Wars series. Examples include Megatron being a far grimmer villain with a completely different agenda from before; Rattrap appearing to be too cowardly; Rhinox apparently choosing to become a villain (though it sounded like he was no longer in his right mind); and, later on, Silverbolt being a grim, vengeance-driven soldier with none of his former goofy-noble personality. Critics also alleged a "hippie" agenda behind Beast Machines, with Optimus Primal becoming an anti-technology guru (it was actually intentional that Primal was going too far and he'd moderate his views in Season 2), and criticised Bob Skir's decision that the Maximals would not use guns (though big swords and highly destructive laser blasts were okay).
