Beast Machines Dinobots

Earlier this week, I talked about one of my favorite Transformers sub-groups, today I'm going to talk about another. Around the same time as the Mutant Beast Wars toys were released, Hasbro also put out the Beast Machines Dinobots. In fact both were previewed at that years Toy Fair and were something I had eagerly anticipated. The toys were made using dinosaur based molds from Beast Wars recolored and sold as new characters except for Magmatron, who was a straight release as the Japanese character on US shelves.

While the idea of a team made solely of repaints may not excite some, hear me out. This was a time when getting toys from Japan wasn't as easy as it is today and four of the toys used molds from Beast Wars Neo. Magmatron was basically the Japanese toy in US packaging (it even says so on the box) while others used the BW Neo molds to create new characters. At the time you usually either waited for BotCon or hopefully could score Japanese toys online. Getting one of the Japanese molds easily at your local store was pretty welcome for most fans.

 Fictionally, they didn't do much. A little here and there in the 3H BotCon fiction and a text blurb on the back of the box. There's not much reason as to why I like them as much as I do, I just do. I like the molds, the colors, and the idea of a next generation of Dinobots. Maybe it was just the right thing at just the right time. The team is pretty obscure these days, obviously overshadowed by the regular Dinobots, and that's ok. Every once and awhile a new Dinosaur based TF will come along and I silently hope for one to be repainted into some sort of homage and of course it never happens. Fortunately there's plenty of Dinobot toys with a surprising amount of variety (movie, Generations, random toys) so I can't complain too much. Just in a world where fans have grown tired of Stepper (who ever would imagine that) one could hope another semi obscure weird batch of homages could see the light.