
Last time we finished off Marv Wolfman’s rather confusing story treatment. However, I have THREE bibles to work with here. Given that I wanted to do another of these story bible/writer’s guide reviews ever since I finished the Star Trek: The Next Generation guide and it’s been a long time since I had the opportunity I’m more than happy to continue.
The first season guide is over 40 pages and for some reason the cover page is the last page in the available PDF file. Since the pages are numbered this time I should have an easier time about it. Also, this file will allow me to copy/paste rather than having to transcribe from the original transcript, with some minor formatting fixes on my end. That means I can speed up things on my end and you’ll be sure any typos are theirs and not mine. Mine should be easy to spot as it will be in the regular text. I should also note that it’s the third draft, dated May 12, 1999. The final show aired in September, 1999. I don’t know if that’s a long enough turnover but if not it would explain some other flaws. Now you may want to get a copy for yourself and read along. I can currently help you there.
Depending on what nonsense TwitterX does by the time you read this, there you go. With that let’s get on to the actual story bible for the first season of Transformers: Beast Machines, this time written by the show’s head writers, Marty Isenberg and Bob Skir. I mention in the past that a lot of the anger and disappointment against this show was pointed at Skir since at the time he was doing Q&A articles on a Transformers fan site while Beast Wars head writers Bob Forward and Larry DiTillo did a mostly loved show and talked to fans directly on the newsgroup alt.toys.transformers, even hiring ATT member Ben Yee of Ben’s World Of Transformers as a consultant. Beast Machines however fell into the hands of Dan DiDio, who in DiDio fashion wanted something darker and displaced from previous continuity despite being a direct continuation with many of the same characters. Between this and Alex Kurtzman on Transformers projects you get an idea of how someone will approach another franchise by what they do to Transformers. That’s how we ended up with DiDio’s Darker DC and Secret Hideout’s Star Trek. So how does this new guide start out?









