Name: Megatron
Series: Movie Tie-ins
Allegiance: Decepticon
Alternate Mode: Cybertronian Tank
Thanks to Goktimus Prime for loaning me Megatron for this review
TANK MODE
Height: 15cm Length: 25cm Width: 18.5cm
A grey tank like thing with black treads and various black elements elsewhere, Megatron has a red trigger on top of his turret and two bronze thrusters at the back, but has an otherwise visually underwhelming colour scheme. While I wouldn't say his colours are bad, it's difficult to embrace an ill-defined vehicle in such dull colours. The colours do broadly match those we'd expect to see on a Megatron toy, although this vehicle is so ill-defined that I wouldn't say it ends up looking distinctly like a Megatron toy.
As I said, this is a tank-like thing. Megatron has well defined treads - two per side in fact. There are grey gunpods on either side and a fairly abstract turret on top with a single cannon at the front, but he's more of a thing on treads than a true tank, since the top section is a protrusion with a cannon in front more than an actual turret. Oh, and the thrusters at the back aren't especially tank-like. Megatron's head is visible behind a sort of ski-mask at the front, between the treads. The sculpt here is complex and alien - a feature of the movie toys - but the entire vehicle mode is too alien to really work visually.
Sadly there's not much play value here to save this mode. The red trigger fires a single black missile from his rather ornate cannon. There's a grey blade hanging out the back of the turret, which can be released by pressing a black button on its right side. The blade flicks out to cover the red trigger, so it's not especially menacing. The gunpods on either side are targetable, which is probably the nicest element of the play value here. There are grey wheels under the treads, but they're too small for him to roll well & the treads sag a little anyway.
Overall this is a disappointing vehicle mode. The colours work well enough and the detailing is very good but these aspects aren't enough to save Megatron from his overly alien vehicle mode which doesn't really look like anything. This isn't helped by the fact that this vehicle mode offers little by Leader class standards. It does what it has to - just - but I expect more from a flagship toy.
TRANSFORMATION TO ROBOT MODE
Lift up the turret, fold out to one side as the right arm while the smaller left arm (nestled under the turret) folds out to the other side. Unclip and lift up the thruster section, unclip the treads and pivot back, which will activate a transformation sound. Unclip the rear treads and fold the groin halves into place. Rotate the rear treads and swing into the front treads, pivot up the silver panels on the front treads as kneecaps & straighten his legs. Fold out the feet. Rotate both arms and clip the shoulders into place - the right shoulder joint has an extra fold. Split & fold down the ski-mask in front of his face, fold the head down. Position the arms and gunpods now on his hips and you're done
ROBOT MODE
Height: 29cm Width: 21cm
A grey robot with black on his feet, shins, right shoulder and left hand along with various elements on his chest and face, including his mouth and eyes. There's a small gold block on his chest with a black stamped Decepticon logo. Much of the black on the head and chest is actually transparent red plastic, although this is only obvious when lit up. The kneecaps have a slight silver sheen for some reason. Again the colour scheme is pretty simple, although this time it has better definition thanks to the complex colour placement. It fits movie Megatron well, and the robot mode is better defined so his colours work better now than in vehicle mode.
Megatron's chest & head feature a very complex sculpt, with several pieces making up his chest. Both look rather alien, as does the thin left arm, which ends in a hook-like hand. The right arm is essentially the turret, and ends in the missile launcher. I don't like how one arm is a massive chunk of gimmick and the other a thin scrawny affair. His boots are solid & chunky, which only serves to make the left arm look even sillier.
The play value here is centred on the right arm's gimmicks (which are the same as inn vehicle mode and the electronics in his chest. If you slide the hold block down he'll exclaim "I AM MEGATRON!" as the red LEDs nestled inside his head and chest flash 5 times. The mouth & eyes light up quiet nicely, but it's still an underwhelming primary feature for a Leader class toy. There are gears inside which chest which spin as the block moves up and down.
The poseability is fairly limited - especially for such a large toy. His head can wiggle to the sides a little, and doing so causes some elements on the chest to move (a side effect of the spinning gear feature, and one I think is better than the actual gimmick). His left shoulder rotates and lifts out to the side while the elbow is hinged with a rotator below the shoulder. The hand is a black clawed affair, with three claws. The much longer central claw opposes the other two and can fold in to grasp. The right shoulder rotates while the turret ratchets out to the side. There's no elbow joint - or even an elbow really. When the arm swings, there's a sort of rain sound and the LEDs flash. I suspect the sound is meant to be gunfire. The hips swing and lift out to the sides, all on ratcheting joints to support the significant upper body weight. His knees are hinged with rotators while the feet can fold down a little and the rear treads serve as useful heelspurs. There's not a lot of poseability, but it's passable since most of what he does have is in his legs, giving Megatron a range of stances.
This is Megatron's better mode and it's more the focus, really. I can't say I like this mode a lot, but it does what it has to do and the colours & details are on point. The arms both have shortcomings and the gimmicks don't add a lot for all the shortcomings they introduce.
VARIATIONS
There is a black repaint called Shadow Command Megatron, but no actual variants that I'm aware of.
OVERALL
With a terrible vehicle mode and fairly lame gimmicks, Megatron continues the trend of underwhelming toys bearing his name. I don't really blame Hasbro since they had to work with an alt mode devised by the movie people which was never going to work well on a toy. His electronics & action features in the right arm/turret are all somewhat mundane & lame, but I guess they had to spice up this toy somehow. His robot mode is okay but the arms are horribly mismatched. Unless you're a completist of ROTF toys, this is a toy which can be safely skipped - 2.5/10
|
