>>35389
>>35392
What you're thinking of is that for a long time, every version of Transformers released in Japan was said to be the same continuity, even when it seemingly didn't make sense. So they said even the live action movies took place in the same universe as the G1 cartoon, for example. They tried to say the various anime from the 2000s were all somehow the same reality, even though they clearly weren't.
In the west, this was sort of similar. The English dub and Japanese dub of the cartoons are technically different continuities, especially since Japan had an OVA that America didn't get (and the OVA sort of replaces stuff that Japan didn't get), but they aren't all that different. The end of the American cartoon also doesn't match up with Japanese canon, as it didn't air there, and they instead made many new anime that continue from a slightly different ending, but if you squint, it's fine, it's easy enough to overlook and follow.
Now, in America, there was always both the cartoon and the comics. They were different continuities, but they had some shared elements, and then Beast Wars (and Beast Machines, basically just seasons 4 and 5 of Beast Wars) just acted as if they were both canon, referencing elements from both continuities. The comic and cartoon continuities are very different, but the cartoon has so little continuity that it's easy to ignore, and when Beast Wars references elements from the cartoon, you can almost just assume those things slotted in somewhere in the timeline of the comics. I mean, it doesn't work perfectly, but it's easy to squint and overlook it.
It gets more complicated when you bring in the UK comics. The UK comics reprinted the American comics, but then made new stories to go between American stories. Due to a couple things in the reprints that were changed here and there to make the new stories slot in better between old stories, this is again considered a different continuity technically, but really it's so close that there are only a few sticking points, and if you squint, it's fine. The writer of the UK comics got hired to write the American comics later, and he is basically the main Transformers writer to this day. The UK comics also do a lot of future stories and alternate timeline stuff that ties into the movie, which otherwise isn't really referenced in the American comics. So if you count the UK comics, and how they tie in the movie elements (which is where most of the important cartoon continuity really is), then Beast Wars making reference to both makes more sense.
So if you squint a bit, then it's very easy to overlook that the American cartoon, American comics, UK comics, and Japanese material, are different continuities. In that case, it's easy to just act as if everything up to 2001 is all one continuity. 2001 is when they released Transformers: Car Robots, which in Japan actually does work as a sequel to G1, but was a reboot in the dub. Everything up to Car Robots kind of works as one continuity if you squint.
There were also convention exclusive stories. Comics and prose stories that you could only get if you went to the official Transformers conventions (but now you can just read them online). They do things that more directly tie together G1 and Beast Wars, and also reference the Japanese stuff as if it's canon. You need to read a convention exclusive prose story if you want to learn the real death of Optimus Prime and Megatron. It's stupipd they did it this way, but it's actually a pretty good story. The most important story that most closely links G1 and Beast Wars is technically non-canon because it was given away at a non-official convention, but it was still written by Simon Furman, the UK comic writer who became the main writer, so basically it's "non-official" but yeah it's canon. Official convention stories also do stuff after Beast Machines, which will be important later.
After Car Robots, they did Transformers: Armada. In English, this is another clear reboot, just like Robots in Disguise (Car Robots' dub) was. As far as I can tell, it's also a clear reboot in Japan, but some official guide pages published in manga volumes or whatever said that somehow it was the same continuity as before. Until this point, everything released in Japan did work as one continuity, but this is the one that fucks it up. Now what makes it weirder is that the next two anime series were sequels to Armada, and they're called "The Unicron Trilogy," but in Japan, the third one, Transformers: Cybertron, was not part of this continuity, and was instead a reboot, but later materials would try to tie it back in to the two anime before it.
Meanwhile, in the convention exclusive stories, the Beast Machines and G1 characters were pulled into a multiversal battle against Unicron. It's revealed that Unicron is a singularity, there is only one Unicron across the multiverse. I guess he inhabits many different bodies, since we see him get destroyed in multiple universes. Also, in the G1 cartoon he has a totally different origin than every other continuity, but fuck it, I'm sure there was some weird explanation in some obscure story somewhere to explain how that scientist didn't really invent Unicron, but was just subconsciously influenced by Unicron's spirit to build a body for him, or whatever.
So Unicron also pulls in characters from the Unicron Trilogy, and the story of this multiversal battle against Unicron switches from the point of view of the Beast Machines characters to the point of view of the Unicron Trilogy characters. So now this is technically one "continuity," but it's two different universes that are largely unrelated except for this one obscure story.
But Unicron being a singularity means that every other universe that mentions Unicron actually has the same Unicron, so they're all related. But it's not usually that important if Unicron is actually one mind, so whatever. The movies were part of a multiverse, but you didn't need to worry about that. There was some magazine page in Japan that said the movies were somehow the same continuity as G1 and everything else, but that made no sense to anybody, and was basically just a funny piece of trivia. I'm sure Japanese nerds just ignored it.
Oh yeah, I should mention that all this time, there were more comics, but after Marvel stopped publishing Transformers in the early '90s, later comics were all different continuities. Eventually IDW Comics got the rights and made their own Transformers continuity that lasted quite a long time. As far as I know, that continuity didn't cross over with anything else in a major way, but due to Unicron being a singularity, they were the same multiverse and some elements established in the IDW comics, relating to Unicron, Primus, and the multiverse, would be considered canon to everything else.
Meanwhile, Hasbro tried to make an "Aligned Continuity," a new continuity that would just try to use the best elements from all the continuities and create one new one that they could use going forward. So the games Transformers: War for Cybertron and its sequels were the same continuity as the tv show, Transformers: Prime and its sequels. But War for Cybertron and its sequels were so successful that they eventually did a game that crossed over the War for Cybertron continuity, and thus this Aligned continuity that had been going for years. Crossing over these continuities fucked up everything so hard and made so little sense that they shortly afterwards just did a story (in comics, I think) that made it so Unicron was no longer a singularity, and everything was just separate now. I guess continuities that did cross over more explicitly, like G1-Beast Machines/Unicron Trilogy, might still have the same Unicron. I don't know. It doesn't matter because it's not like they ever revisited those continuities later.