BWII??

[heavyassault]

[glow=red,2,300]Just wondering....Was it Maximals vs Pred vs Cons?

[/glow]

[Imperator]

In Japan they didn't see the need to differentiate between the factions of G1 (Autobot and Decepticon were known as Cybertron and Destron, and the Maximals and Predacons kept those names in BW), so they were just Cybertrons and Destrons no matter the forms they took*. BWII originally did something similar to Beast Machines, in that the Cybertrons took animal alt modes and the Destrons stayed vehicular. Somewhere along the line several Destrons got upgrades and became the Cyber Beasts, which were heavy remolds of certain original BW molds. But they were still just Cybertrons and Predacons.

*This inevitably caused problems when the second season of the US BW cartoon arrived, since their being on Earth rather than any old planet suddenly became important, as was the differentiation between Autobot and Maximal / Decepticon and Predacon. The biggest headache was caused with Optimus Primal and Optimus Prime - in translating it they'd assumed that the two characters were the same, and had them both called Convoy. Uh-ohs!

[Moonbug]

Takara always name the Cybertron leader Convoy - in their universe there are lots of Convoys. It's almost like it's a title.

The story for BW 2 goes ....

Beast Wars was HUGE in Japan and as such Takara couldn't wait for Mainframe to finish the second BW series, so released their own "fill in" line - to keep the interest. This was Beast Wars Second - as Imperator says a line where the Cybertron's were animals (led by Lio Convoy) and the Destron's were vehicles (led by Galvatron).

They both landed on the planet Gaia, where they fought over Engroma Energy (or somthing like that). The planet was rich with is, but also contained a secret - a race of robotic insects (Insectrons).

During the series the Destron's "powered-up" into animals.

In the Movie, Oprimus Primal (Convoy) gets summond through time / space by Lio Convoy in order to defeat Galvatron and Manzin-Zarak. (this also explains the multiple-convoys)

In Beast Wars Neo of cause you gain Big Convoy, set in the same universe as BWII at the same time (well straight after), Big Convoy is sent on a mission to find Lio Convoy and ends up fighting the Destorons (it was odd that they used different names in that series)

[Imperator]

Just as an aside, this is from BWTF.com:

In the Japanese translation of Beast Wars, the character we know as Optimus Primal was in fact, the original "Convoy" or "Optimus Prime". That is why the Cybertrons are in such awe at his presence. Also note that he says he has to return to Energois, not Earth. In the Japanese translation of Beast Wars, the war was taking place on Energois, not Earth.

www.bwtf.com/bws/movie/review.shtml

So while it is true that pretty much every Cybertron leader (barring God Ginrai and Star Saber) has been a Convoy, in Beast Wars what Mainframe made clear in the CGI BW series was a distinct character seperate from Optimus Prime, in Japan no such distinction was made, and Optimus Primal was assumed to be the Convoy. With all the problems that would come about in The Agenda when Convoy comes face to face with... Convoy!