The classic Transformers time-travel storyline, Beast Wars, will officially be making a return in part 3 of Netflix’s Transformers: War for Cybertron trilogy – subtitled, Kingdom. A line of Beast Wars toys has been revealed, though Kingdom itself is still likely a ways off, as part two of War for Cybertron, subtitled Earthrise, does not have a confirmed release date.
The original Beast Wars series ran for three seasons in the late ‘90s. The storyline followed the heroic Maximals and villainous Predacons, descendants of the original series’ Autobots and Decepticons. They crash land on a prehistoric Earth and take the forms of various animals instead of vehicles. The show was a major forerunner for CGI cartoons and was somewhat polarizing in the Transformers fan community due to how different it looked and felt from the original series. Critically, Beast Wars has been widely praised, and it even won a Primetime Emmy in its day for groundbreaking animation work.
A post on the official Transformers Instagram account confirmed that Kingdom would be the third of the War for Cybertron trilogy, and also revealed a number of the new toy designs for the Beast Wars line. The shown figures include new versions of Beast Wars classics like t-rex Megatron, Cheetor, and Rattrap. Collectors will be able to preorder the toys starting Friday, September 26, at 5:00 pm EST, according to the post.
The return of Beast Wars and faithful designs of the new toys are sure to excite fans of the original series. Transformers: War for Cybertron’s first six-episode season titled, Siege, released in July to high critical and widespread praise. The debut season received a perfect 100% critical score on Rotten Tomatoes, and an 86% audience score. The aggregator site’s critical consensus calls the first season “Visually stunning, surprisingly deep, and still a lot of fun.”
War for Cybertron has been a welcome surprise for fans of the classic Transformers series and toys, as the first season harkened back to the ‘80s days with its look, feel, and character designs. While the modern live-action film franchise has been criticized for being uninspired for many of its more recent entries, 2018’s Bumblebee was a commercial and critical success. Like the Netflix series, Bumblebee paid homage to the origins of the franchise to great effect. With a potential Bumblebee sequel on the horizon, alongside Earthrise and Kingdom, the future of Transformers looks bright. There are even rumors of a live-action Beast Wars film on the distant horizon, which means a lot fo great content is on the way for die-hard fans of the Maximals and Predacons.
