BEAST
WARS: TOY REVIEW
Name: MEGATRON
Allegiance: Predacon
Function: Predacon Commander
Beast Mode: Mecha Tyrannosaurus Rex
Average Price: 26 AUD
BEAST MODE
Height: 13cm
Length: 26cm
Gather round children, let me tell you a story. The first
time I saw this was when Griffin
(Matthew Griffin), Dirge
(Darren Cilenti), Darren Saint and myself gathered at Dirge's house where
Griffin had been parasitically staying at. :-)
Anyway, around late arvo, one of Dirge's mates pops over
(I think his name was Mark?) who's mum had just come back from the States
and brought back the two Transmetal leaders. I instantly thought that Megatron
was the better looking of the pair. I was slightly disappointed that Megatron
had been shrunken down from Ultra to Mega size, but I just loved his new
look! And he had hands! "Look!" I said to everyone, "he has hands!"
I made an issue of this, because one thing I never liked
about the previous Megatron was the lack of hands in robot mode. More about
that later.
The moulding is really cool. Megatron is covered with
an array of do-hickeys and whatchamacallits (sorry if I'm getting too technical
here). Dammit, they look cool!! This mode has fourteen points of articulation,
most of which are focused on the highly flexible tail. The vents on the
hips also spin. Weee...
The toy is primarily bronze. On the sides of each shoulder
blade are two silver circular designs which, to me, look like some kind
of medieval Japanese clan insignia. :-)
On the back of the shoulders is the name "Megatron" inscribed
in purple writing. The hip vents are a purple chrome and so is the head.
The head has bronze and brown accents and the eyes are red. The hands and
tail are beige, although the tail tip is accented with bronze. The legs
are bronze with beige accents and the feet are chrome-purple.
The only drawback with this mode is that the robot fists
are clearly visible on the underside.
TRANSFORMATION TO VEHICLE MODE
Flip up the hip vents to form VTOL (Vertical Take Off and
Landing) thrusters. Flip up feet to reveal... uhh... rollerskates.
VEHICLE MODE
Typical of Transmetals, the vehicle mode is just a modification
of the Beast Mode. An "intermediate" mode. You're just looking an the beast
mode with thrusters and skates. Yes. Skates. Let's move on...
TRANSFORMATION TO ROBOT MODE
Remove tail. Flip up the hip sections entirely. Flip the
shoulder blades forward. Unlock (the lock is the part that was connected
to the tail) and rotate waist 180 degrees. Take out robot arms. Flip down
beast head to expose robot head. Lock beast hip sections onto clip on head.
Attach tail onto either fist as a weapon.
ROBOT MODE
Height: 15cm
Points of Articulation: 26 (including tail)
Fantastic! As I mentioned before, the fact that he has
hands really excited me. They've attempted to give him a reptilian
look in robot form and it works quite well. The big shoulder pads and overall
posture of the toy look great giving him a somewhat aristocratic look.
Yesss. However, the shoulder pads do restrict some mobility in the shoulders.
The robot lower legs are identical to the beast legs. This was somewhat
of a disappointment, but a feature that's common among Predacon leaders
(Galvatron
is one exception). The tail weapon looks really awkward and down right
silly, but it's actually quite a lot of fun to play with. (-:
The torso is dark brown with nice purple accents on the
chest. The chest is moulded to resemble a reptilian-like head and there
are two red eyes. Weird. The head is also dark brown and the face and the
centre of the forehead are purple. The eyes are red and the teeth are white.
Yep. Unfortunately like the previous Megatron, his teeth are gritting;
another typical Predacon leader feature. However, it probably looks the
least constipated of them all.
Another slight drawback is that the waist cannot turn
because the back VTOL thrusters are clipped onto the back. However, these
thrusters can be taken out to give Megatron a VTOL feature in robot mode
(which he used when entering the Ark in the show).
RUB STICKER LOCATION
Open the left VTOL vent thing. See it? Good.
OVERALL
A cool looking toy that's fun to play with! My favourite
Transmetal. Highly recommended. Yesss...
VARIATIONS
1. Blue variant; same toy as described above, except the
chrome purple parts are chrome blue.
2. Japanese version; same toy as described above, except
the word "Megatron" is replaced with "Destron."
3. Silver Megatron; a repaint of the Japanese version
done by TV Magazine and Comic Bon Bon (they're both the same company).
The chrome purple has been replaced with silver. Only ten were made and
given away as prizes by the aforementioned magazines.
BEAST TRIVIA
The Tyrannosaurus Rex is the best known species a very large carnivorous
genus of dinosaurs known as Tyrannosaurus. Tyrannosaurus lived during the
Late Cretaceous Period (beginning 136,000,000 years ago). Fully grown,
Tyrannosaurus was possibly the largest land carnivore of all time. Tyrannosaurus
was over 14 metres long and the skull alone was more than 1.2 metres long.
Tyrannosaurus was a biped, walking about on its powerful hind legs. If
the animal stood upright, it was over 6.4 metres tall, but the more conventional
pose was stooped with the body carried forward. It has been estimated that
Tyrannosaurus would have weighed in excess of eight tonnes. The body was
massive and the neck was short and thick. The skull was very large in relation
to the body and was armed with large, pointed teeth, 15 centimetres long.
These teeth were serrated and were effective at cutting and slicing. The
forelimbs were small and useless, except perhaps for grasping at close
range. The long tail served as a counterbalance to the body. The musculature
was very well developed, especially those muscles used for biting and chewing
and for support and mobility.
Tyrannosaurus was probably a rather rare animal with possibly only one
individual per 160 square kilometres.
Bibliography: Encylcopaedia Britannica
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