TRANSFORMERS TOYS AND MERCHANDISE SECTION

Robot Mode:
Alternate Mode:
Box Art:
Technical Specifications:
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INT
SPD
END
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CRG
FPR
SKL

Sir Auros' review of: Megatron

Name: Megatron
Allegiance: Predacon
Function: Predacon Commander
Sub-Group: NA

Millions of years ago, Tyrannosaurus Rex ruled the Earth. Today, Megatron plans to do the same! Duplicating dinosaur DNA stolen from human research labs, the evil leader has re-engineered his body structure and equipped it with fearsome high-tech firepower! Poisonous paralyzer fluids blast from his gaping jaws, while his powerful pincher claw can cut an enemy in half! Be afraid, earthlings. Be very, very afraid!

The second incarnation of BW Megatron (if you count the alligator version), this is also probably one of the worst of the four versions. Both modes are rather awkward and purple is not such a great color scheme. Not a semi-pastel purple anyway, at least Mainframe colored him with a darker shade that was almost better. The only thing that really makes the figure worth having is that it is the first incarnation of a compentent Megatron...

Alternate Mode:
Ugly, ugly, ugly. Not only is it a really unrealistic dinosaur post-Jurassic Park, but it's purple and has a watergun gimmick as its only real form of interaction. No poseability and you're lucky if you can even get it to stand on its own. This is not the mode to display the figure in unless you're really into this mode from the show or have suffered brain damage and for some reason think it's snazzy. Either way, do seek counseling, because this mode is just bad. Perhaps if it were slightly more realistic or actually had some decent articulation, it wouldn't be so bad. The realism I can forgive, because this was from the first series of Beast Wars toys, so the whole robot to beast thing was new for the designers, but the articulation could have been much better.

Robot Mode:
This is slightly better than the beast mode, but it's still not on the same level as Optimus Primal's mold. Firstly, the figure suffers from the ultimate sin for Transformers. It has no hands. On one side you have a T-Rex head and the other you have a tail turned giant nutcracker. There's not even a whole lot you can do with the handless arms anyway. The head is exceedingly hard to pose in any working position and the pincher is useless. The figure also has those stupid "mutant" heads that many figures in the first series had. I don't know why they're there, but I don't like them. There's a pathetic lack of coloration in this mode. You have purple and black and while I usually like evil figures claiming those colors, it just doesn't work on this one because the purple is not dark, Decepticon purple and the black obscures details. So you have this mass of black and light purple plastic, two useless arms, and legs that look exactly like they do in beast mode. The one brilliant thing about the robot mode is the excellent sculpting on the head. It's very similar to the G2 Megatron head and makes an impression mainly because it's so well-captured by Mainframe studios in the show based loosely (other than name) on this line.

Transformation: 8 Pretty rough transformation and the instructions are just awful.
Durability: 10 Extremely tough toy and high-quality plastic.
Fun: 5 Not great for poses in either mode, and if you play with it in robot mode, the torso is very apt to disconnect from the back and fall down.
Price: 4 Wasn't worth the price they were asking for it when it came out and it's still not worth that or the usually slightly inflated prices for it on ebay.
Overall: 6 Would it have been so hard to just make a giant alligator instead of a botched Barney the dinosaur? At least it did lead to the much nicer TM Megatron mold...