When a good friend of mine walked out of the theatre after seeing Transformers One last year, he sent me a text, with zero preamble, that just read “Megatron was right.” That about sums up the flavor of discourse around Bryan Tyree Henry’s take on the bad guy.
A peak moment in cinema.
From his origins as D-16 the miner, to the leader of a revolution, he felt like the movie’s real main character. Usually, when a modern genre film (i.e, a Marvel movie) gives their supposed bad guys understandable motivations, they make sure they do something horrible, like shoot hostages, to make it clear that they’re still bad guys. In Megatron’s case, honestly, the film doesn’t seem to protest too much when he takes some more extreme measures towards the finale, and feels like it sort of agrees with him.
And even rewards him with this cool final upgrade.
Whether you agree or disagree, he’s certainly a compelling character, which made me immediately pre-order his Studio Series figure, one of only two Transformers One releases in the line so far, along with an Optimus for him to fight. The Optimus, reviewed last week, had his bright spots, but was a little underwhelming in places, so let’s hope the bad guy comes out on top.
Robot Mode
~He’s got legs…and he knows how to use them!~
Okay, so there’s two things you might notice about this guy right out of the box. The first thing is that Megatron’s got legs for days. Seriously, I think they’re longer than his torso. But, honestly, after studying the tape, this is actually how he looked in the animation. Remember, this figure’s specifically based on D-16’s final “Megatron” form from the last few minutes of the movie, after equipping himself with the Megatronus Cog, and from what I can tell, yes, his last upgrade did give him really long legs, it just tended to be less obvious thanks to the cinematography and framing.
A lot of shots were like this.
The second thing you might notice is that he’s got the wrong fusion cannon. Megatron’s big final upgrade gave him a thick, three-barelled cannon, which the cinematography even emphasized. But instead, this figure’s rocking his second-form, more G1-style cannon, the one that popped out of his arm when he was fighting Starscream.
Another moment of pure cinema.
I’ll blame this one on the usual problem of toys needing to be ready for production years before a movie’s out, and often not having access to finalized designs. Considering how accurate the rest of him is, it’s impressive that’s the only thing they got wrong.
Apple, meet tree.
Because yes, the rest of him is a nicely accurate take on his film’s final form, a recognizably G1 style Megatron, through a filter of Cybertronian greebling, looking more like his classic design than even Optimus does. One thing he does share with Optimus, though, is his height, towering over most other Deluxes, though he doesn’t give the same impression of hugeness thanks to how lanky he is.
He’s learning about theatrics.
Uptop, he’s got the usual Megatron buckethead, in a form that’s a little bit shorter and wider than most Mega-Mugs, topped off with a facial expression I’d describe as “serious and focused.” Like Optimus, a neat thing about him is that he doesn’t automatically scan as being a part of the movie’s stylized design language, and feels like he could fit in with any set of mainline Decepticons.
He can inspire troops from any toyline!
His colors, meanwhile, feel like they should come across as bland, but somehow manage to work. See, they didn’t give him the movie’s shiny silver deco, opting for flat gray on most of his body, with black on his extremities, and accents of red and yellow. There is a bit of silver paint, on his face, backpack, and the little weapon on his left arm, but it’s mostly gray. And yet, it somehow works?
Most of the silver’s around back.
I think they just picked a good shade of gray, one that isn’t too dull, or too flat, and picks out his details just right. One thing that he reflexively feels like he’s missing, though, is a Decepticon symbol right smack dab in the convenient flat panel in the middle of his chest, but it’s blank.
Feels like it should go right in the middle there.
But, again, that’s film-accurate, since his last upgrade made Sentinel’s carved-in version vanish, and he doesn’t get a new one until the post-credits. I think I’ll just find a random Toyhax one and stick it there once this review’s done.
These legs are great for doing squats!
And they can kick reeeeal far!
Megatron’s build quality is, frankly, extremely impressive, especially after how hit and miss it was on Optimus. First of all, despite his skinny proportions, he’s got a bit more mass and density than you’d expect. But more importantly, all of his joints are nice and tight, and he’s got a general feeling of sturdy solidity to him that’s hard to define, but definitely appreciated. One interesting thing about how he’s built is his knee joints, which lock into a straight position with a click, and need to be unclipped to be posed.
He’s not Optimus, but he knows how to keep on truckin’.
Speaking of poseability, that’s another area that’s way better than I expected. The advantage of those long legs is that they can really move, and he’s got all the swivels and tilts you need to get a bit silly with it.
Gams that launched armies.
The rest of him’s also got the expected joints, including wrist swivels, and I think it’s the fact that he’s so lanky and noodly that makes him feel extra-bendy.
He’s even lankier without his accessories!
I think the only thing I wish he had was a head that could look up or down, like Optimus.
He was slouching in this shot in the movie, and the figure can’t pull that off.
When it comes to accessories and features, he’s also got way more going on than I expected. That fusion cannon on his right arm pops off on a five-millimeter peg.
You can exchange it for a larger model, if you want.
Meanwhile, the smaller gun on his left arm can pop off on its own bespoke peg, and you can combine it with the cannon to make a much bigger boomstick.
For when you’ve absolutely, positively got to kill every Prime in the room.
Meanwhile, he’s got two thin lasers pegged into the sides of his backpack, which you can pop off, and turn into pistols, or mount onto his forearms instead of his cannons, leaving a couple 5 millimeter pegs on the backpack.
He may not have the Matrix, but it’s time for some Matrix moves.
In fact, the backpack itself can also pop off on a 5 millimeter peg, giving you even more flexibility.
Oh, and the instructions say you can do this with his smaller arm weapon. I guess so he can have his jetpack from the racing bits.
For when you’ve *also* got to kill every Prime in the *next* room.
And that’s what he feels like: Flexible. There’s a ton you can do with the accessories he’s got, and that’s before mixing in other 5-millimeter compatible things.
Like so.
This is something rare for a Studio Series figure, and makes him feel more like a mainline Legacy figure, in a good way.
~I wear this crown of guns~
Transformation
This is one of those transformation’s that’s a bit more complicated than you expect, but not in a bad way. It’s the way Megatron’s long legs go through several rounds of rotations and flips that usually trips me up, along with the way his torso changes shape and tabs into them. Still, it mostly all works, and mostly all makes sense, with the one exception being the way the gray covers on the backs of his legs sometimes don’t like to properly plug into their altmode positions, unless you fiddle with them a little bit. There’s also a curious choice with his robot head: They have you rotate it, and then fold it into his torso, in a way that leaves his face extremely visible in his vehicle mode, when there’s nothing stopping you from just, like, not rotating it, so it gets hidden a little better, which is how I’ve done it in all of these photos.
Vehicle Mode
~I want a tank with a short body, and a looooooong turret.~
Man, this is a weird-looking tank mode.
“WHAT did you say?!?”
However, it does clear a bar that a lot of Cybertronian tank modes don’t: It actually does look like a tank, and not a pile of random stuff with a turret on top, even if the middle of the tank is blatantly a re-arranged robot torso, with a tucked-away robot head.
The bar to clear here is very low.
Still, it’s a strange shape, with a tiny body near the back, a pair of loooong treads (made from the legs, you see), and an equally long gunbarrel coming from a tiny turret.
The better to blast with.
Still, I don’t think it’s a bad kind of weird. It looks like a science-fiction tank from, like, a strategy video game or something. It’s got personality!
And it’s less of a folded-up person than Optimus was.
His colors are mostly the same, but centering the gun turret and barrel makes the metallic silver paint stand out more, giving him a slightly different vibe.
He’s not Dramatic Capture shiny, but he gets by.
Meanwhile, his build quality’s a bit dodgier in this mode, and it mostly comes down to that turret, made out of his backpack, fusion cannon, and forearm gun. See, it’s mounted on a 5 millimeter port, on a joint, which you can use to raise, lower and rotate, but using a removable part as a load-bearing part of it means the turret’s liable to pop off a little too easily.
It does this a lot.
You can pop it back on, but still, handle it with caution. That rotating turret’s his main feature in this mode, since there aren’t wheels or anything on his treads.
Uhh…Tank you?
Meanwhile, those other two thin lasers are meant to mount on ports outside of his treads, but you can also mount them on either side of the turret, or even take the turret off (on purpose) and mount something else there.
With contributions from his followers.
Like his robot mode, there’s a lot of flexibility here when it comes to accessory use.
Including using Optimus as asphalt!
Overall
I’m surprised at how much I like this figure. For something that, on paper, seems like it ought to be a bit dull, he’s miles ahead of his Optimus counterpart, and that wasn’t even a bad figure.
They both think they’ve just met their idols.’
He’s really solidly built (pop-off tank barrel aside), feels good in your hands, is more articulated than you’d expect, and is surprisingly customizable, with his big loadout of accessories.
D’awww.
Wrong cannon aside, he’s a great representation of the interesting, complex character from the film, and beyond that, he’s just a good, all-purpose Deluxe Cybertron-Mode Megatron. If you have an Optimus for him to fight, like I do, great, but even if you don’t, I think this guy’s worth getting on his own merits.
The throne will fit him, eventually.
For over 200 Bot, Non-Bot, and Retro Bot Reviews, click here to view my archive.
