One of the big problems of the transformers movies is that they're pandering, 1 dimensional schlock. Sure the 80s show was just as much so, but it was a product of it's time, and it was decent pulp sci-fi at the time. Still, all boys franchises from the 80s had to evolve to feed a new generation of kids, and not every franchise had a successful transition to the 90s, Thundercats was abandoned only to be remembered by 90s kids as one of the Founding Toonami Shows, He-Man had an unsuccessful sequel leaving the franchise to never to return again until the new millenium, GI Joe (the granddaddy of all action figures) was always on and off as far as popularity since the 1960s, and most boys toylines (old or new) from the 90s were overshadowed thanks to Power Rangers and Pokemon eclipsing their stars. Transformers was not one of those franchises, in fact, it made a CGI TV show that was just as good, if not better than most of the best G1 had to offer...
In 1991, Hasbro (maker of Transformers) acquired Tonka and by extension Kenner (who will make the Beast Wars Toys). Because Transformers were suffering since 1990 (at least) in the US, in 1995 Hasbro had Kenner produce Transformers for a new generation, after a year of Research and Development, Beast Wars came to be as a more animal version of Transformers. Transformers G1 did feature animals too, but they were more robotic than live looking, It was a pretty drastic change. So much so that G1ers didn't approve of the new designs (even spawning the infamous Trukk not Munky), however other fans found them to be rather cooler than the blocky looking G1 designs (with a couple fan favorites being Megatron and Waspinator).
A few months later, The CGI Cartoon (by Canadian company Mainframe (best known for series like ReBoot and Shadow Raiders)) premiered in syndication. It followed Optimus Primal (no, I did not misspell that) and his Maximals fighting against Megatron and his Predacons. They eventually get sucked into a wormhole, and land on a prehistoric Earth and have to scan for animals to change into while looking for ancient alien artifacts and Energon. Since this is ancient earth, there's very little to no humans in this series. so we get more developed Transformers, leading to the characters having more depth than their G1 counterparts.
In season 2 the Transformers turned into Transmetals. They got a vehicle mode, Immunity from the Energon, and Megatron was much more powerful this time around. The series (especially the Second Season) was more mature than G1, with gruesome death scenes for a kids show, torture scenes (not annoy characters and/or the audience, literal torture), and more mature stories in general. Characters got killed off, with some not coming back to life. Remember when Optimus Prime was killed off in G1? This is a more EXTREME VERSION of that. The Dark tone was reminiscent of series like the Headmasters back in G1. Unlike most toy commericals in the form of 30 minute TV Shows, this didn't talk down to it's audience. This series spawned two video games (neither of which were anyone's best work) and even won a Daytime Emmy Award in 1997 for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation...
The show was so successful it made it to Japan with a 4Kids style dub and probably the most catchy or the most stupid opening theme ever. This pissed off many fans of the show, but it caught on with young kids at the time... it was successful enough for an episode to be repackaged as a movie, and there was also a manga. It even had 2 traditionally animated sequels with a similar tone and 2 new staring heroes, them being Lio Convoy and Big Convoy (Convoy being Optimus Prime's Japanese name) That also had a movie which came with a repackaged episode of the original series... However in the US, We got something a little different...
Beast Machines was the sequel to Beast Wars made for Western Audiences. It followed up after the end of the first series, when Beastformers left for Cybertron, but it appears to be deserted. They have their organic sides try to take over, but as the series progresses they balance both sides out. The series ends with peace being brought to the galaxy once more after the permanent defeat of Megatron... The series tried to keep the mature theme going, but it's philosophies weren't always the best written. It still was a decent little cartoon, it was intelligently written 8 times out of 10, and great production values. A successor was planned, but never came to be due to the relatively poor sales of Machines compared to Wars.
So yeah, the Beast Era of Transformers... Not as bad as you think, heck the G1 era wasn't as good as you remember it either. Hey TF movie guys, where's my Beast Wars Movie? Oh wait, you'd probably F that up as much as you did with G1, and G1 wasn't that interesting to begin with for the most part. Ah well... guess we can't all be winners...
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