Cliffbee.com Movie Voyager Megatron Toy Review

Individual Review




Name: Megatron
Series: Movie Tie-ins
Allegiance: Decepticon
Alternate Mode: Cybertronian Plane

Thanks to Tiby for loaning me Megatron for this review



PLANE MODE
Height: 6.5cm Length: 26cm Width: 23cm

   A silvery-blue jet with lots of transparent blue "ice", this version of Megatron is meant to represent the character while frozen. The wings are mainly transparent blue with solid tips while there are some transparent blue plates towards the front with silver paint wash on them. There are three gulls at the front, the two smaller side hulls have brass coloured tips, rounding out a simple yet confused colour scheme. While the plates at the front can pass for ice caked onto the plane, the ice for wings makes no sense - especially when the wingtips are silvery-blue plastic. The ice areas also carry a stalactite like texture, just to make sure the ice can't pass as just transparent blue wings.

   While this jet concept has proven difficult to translate as a toy - none of the movie Megatron toys have quite made the idea work, the intrinsic ice here not only looks strange but prevents Megatron from really looking like plane. While some is peripheral enough, the wings just don't work. Megatron's legs float somewhat awkwardly under his fuselage - they do clip in under the tail but there's a big gap under the middle of the fuselage and his feet hang out the back awkwardly. As with most other Movie Megatrons, the head is clearly visible on top.

   There's some play value here, although none of it is that impressive. There's a visible transparent blue missile in the central hull, pushing the underside of this hull in fires the missile. Which is a dumb idea, because this means that in trying to access the trigger, you place your hand right in front of the missile. For some reason they've bothered to paint this underside trigger silver. It looks good, although it's not really prominent enough for this paint application to really make a difference. Megatron has the obligatory wheels underneath, although they're tiny and composed of hard plastic, so they're not much use. He lies flat on the table, at least. There are ice blades which fold out on the wingtips - increasing his wingspan considerably. The bladed wings swing forward in a pincher movement, which looks good even if they can't grasp anything.

   While there's plenty of detail in his sculpt, much of that is ice and this feature is badly placed. The colours are good, but again the ice placement ruins their potential. This is at best a messy alternate mode, at worst it's a mess of ice and Megatron bits. The missile launcher is a good idea badly done while the iceblades on the wingtips are probably the best feature of a very disappointing plane mode.

TRANSFORMATION TO ROBOT MODE

   Unclip the right hull from the central hull, unclip that central hull from the fuselage. Unclip the robot feet, swing the legs down into place, which causes one of the ice plates to automorph down, revealing his head. Fold the wings down as a backplate. Rotate the hulls into place as arms, stand him up, splaying the feet as you stand him.

ROBOT MODE
Height: 17cm Width: 23cm

   A silvery blue robot with ice panels on his shoulders, chest and ankles, Megatron has a black face with transparent blue eyes (and a good lightpipe), brass coloured claws and minor black elements here and there. The colours work a lot better this time, since the ice plates more or less work as intended now - they're ice covering the robot, not part of it. The silvery-blue looks good now that it's allowed to properly dominate, so I like this colour scheme.

   While there are some kibble elements here - a clip on the right elbow and the wings on his back - they're acceptable. The wings were visible in the film, anyway. The central hull sits on the outside of his left forearm, forming a sort of missile launcher, and you can position it in a way that makes use of that silver paint. It can't do the fusion cannon thing, but at least it's a presentable weapon. The hands aren't very convincing, since the claws don't separate properly, but they are clearly hands thanks to the colour differentiation.

   The feet are... awkward. They don't actually clip open during transformation - as soon as you lift him off the table the feet and heelspurs spring shut on each other like a deertrap. It doesn't take much for these springs to overpower the toy and tip him over, so the effective range of poseability is limited. Anyway, his head turns, his shoulders swing, his elbows rotate and hinge inwards. The waist turns while his hips swing and lift out to the sides. His knees rotate but don't bend and there's no real foot or heelspurs poseability, thanks to the springs. Megatron can aim his weapon, but the jointing in his legs is wasted.

   There's not much here in terms of play value - what we do have is carried over from the plane mode. The missile launcher is accessible, and this time you can keep your hand away from the missile, with some care. The iceblades form impressive spines on his backpack - which is a sort of cape. They look majestic and somewhat menacing - for all of the ice's failing this feature is nice. The backpack can swing up, allowing the wings to claw forward, which would be useful for Megatron is close combat.

   Well, the cape is good and the missile launcher is useful this time, however his feet are awful. The colours are much better on than the plane mode, mainly because the positioning of the ice makes a lot more sense. His poseability is very limited, and his arms are too messy for Megatron to really display well, but this is his better mode.

VARIATIONS

   None that I'm aware of.

OVERALL

   While none of the Movie Megatron toys are great, this one is the loser of the lot. The ice idea has merit, and it essentially works in robot mode, but it utterly fails in vehicle mode - and the vehicle mode is weak anyway. The ice wings were just a bad idea, along with the springs in his feet. The colours are decent enough, misplaced transparent blues notwithstanding, but there's just too much that doesn't work here. I'd recommend the leader instead. While that toy also has some problems, quite a few are easily corrected and they're not as dire as those here to begin with - 2/10

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