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Amazon.com The American update of the 1985 Japanese Transformers series is based on a computer game and a line of toys from Hasbro. Beast Wars may have looked snazzy in 1996, but computer graphics have progressed so far, so quickly, that the weightless animation and simply rendered backgrounds pale beside contemporary games, let alone series. The ongoing struggle between the good-guy Maximals led by Optimus Primal and the evil Predicons continues. Although there are lots of battles and shootouts, the high-tech weapons do very little damage. The characters screech and argue before undergoing transitions from their animal to mecha forms to cries of "Maximize!" or "Terrorize!" The target audience for the disc is clearly Gen-Yers who grew up watching the show and/or playing the game. Unrated; suitable for ages 8 and up: Violence. --Charles Solomon