Toy review - Studio Series 34 Megatron (leader)

[Magnus]

Series - Generations
Sub-line - Studio Series
Size/class - Leader
New/remould/redeco - New
Wave - 2
Released here - June 2020
Approximate Retail Price - $49 (Big W Toy Mania 2020 sale price)
Approximate Size - 19cm
Allegiance - Decepticon
Alt-mode - Mack Granite semi-trailer
Main Features/Gimmicks - Screen accuracy; licensed vehicle mode
Main Colours - Beige, brown, grey
Main Accessories - shotgun, cloth cloak, rubberised straps, Igor


Vehicle mode

https://i.imgur.com/Vrv8y80.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/JCdylvF.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/b8MeYmw.jpg

Looking like he drove off the set of a Mad Max movie, Megatron is a customised Mack Granite truck towing a tank semi-trailer. The entire rig is 34.5cm long.

The tractor is moulded in beige-grey plastic, with metallic brown paint applied to simulate dirt. The grille and its spikes are moulded in soft plastic. The truck cab otherwise seems a bit plain, but this is because the on-screen truck had more details, such as the four rear view mirrors and some netting.

The trailer is partly moulded in the same beige-grey, with some darker grey and a bit of painted silver. There are moulded chains to add detail to the trailer, but its appearance is somewhat uneven, with one section showing curved parts that clearly belong to the robot mode. This is where the cloth cloak comes in - you're meant to drape it over this section of the trailer as a tarp and secure it with the rubberised straps, which resemble several chains braided together. The straps hook onto the underside of the trailer.

https://i.imgur.com/kTbgKJj.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/TtyeY4a.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/QlsIckI.jpg

Ground clearance for some robot parts under the trailer is an issue, so not all ten wheels may roll.

Igor

https://i.imgur.com/3wnbNDL.jpg

Megatron includes his little minion, Igor. A head with arms and legs, Igor is cast in grey plastic with a painted green face. His shoulders have ball-and-socket joints, while his legs are joined and pivot back and forth on a common axis. He stands a little under 3cm tall.

Transformation

Somewhat involved, but not too complex. The upper torso is simple enough, but the lower legs are surprisingly complex, as the entire truck cab twists and collapses to form them.

Robot mode

https://i.imgur.com/bTxCke1.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/BOhmFu4.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/C5HnWEP.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/naSzb4I.jpg

Megatron stands at about 19cm to the top of the head. This is with the correct, screen-accurate digitigrade legs, which are bent back at the knees and forward again at a second joint below; if you stretch them out fully, he stands at just under 20cm.

Megatron's articulation is fairly good - the head is mounted on a ball joint, but sideways rotation is hindered by the shape of the collar.

The shoulders rotate forwards and backwards and abduct/adduct in and out, so he can raise his arms up to create a T-pose. There is a rotator that gives limited outward movement just below the shoulder, as well as a rotator between the two joints of the dual-jointed elbow. There is a wrist hinge that gives deviation, so his hands can be 'cocked' up or down relative to the forearm.

The hips rotate the legs in two axes, the knees ratchet, and the second joint below the knee also ratchets. There are rotators just above the knee and below the second joint, and the 'toes' have a rotator that simulates inversion.

https://i.imgur.com/2ATXcjF.jpg

The 'chains' wrap around his torso, with the hooks now on his backpack.

https://i.imgur.com/G15ipWs.jpg

The cloth cloak really adds to the look. The idea of a robot wearing a cloak is one that by all rights should not work, yet the concept artists for Dark of the Moon managed to make it work.

https://i.imgur.com/GTyevGK.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/850YrTu.jpg

Megatron is armed with his distinctive shotgun-like weapon, moulded in grey plastic with some silver paint. This weapon can tab into a port on his back for storage. However, it suffers the same issue a lot of Transformers' weapons have of only being fully sculpted on one side and partially 'hollowed out' on the other due to the way it was moulded.

There are some small ports on Megatron that Igor can peg onto in both modes.

https://i.imgur.com/73aqE0A.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/4GBVq0X.jpg

I'm glad to finally have a nice, larger scale version of this iteration of Megatron, but that doesn't mean it's without issues. The torso has similar 'hollowness' issues to the voyager figure from RotF, but these aren't noticeable unless you're looking at the figure side-on with both arms stretched behind his back, or looking down directly from above. In the case of the latter, it's a non-issue if you have the cloak on, since the shoulders are covered.

It's a little disappointing to see that his back is basically a single large slab with some detail moulded into it, instead of something that has a bit more definition and shape, but it's not as if people will be displaying him with his back out.

https://i.imgur.com/UE8XJME.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/uQYFbpk.jpg

The package insert is an image of Megatron's African hideout in the Serengeti.

Verdict

https://i.imgur.com/ogAaCEe.jpg

I've waited eight years for a leader-class DotM Megatron, with his shotgun and a cloth cloak. While he's a bit smaller than I'd like and has a couple of issues, Hasbro/TakaraTOMY have delivered. Recommended if you like movieverse Megatron in general and DotM Megatron in particular.

[GoktimusPrime]

May we see a side by side comparison with the Voyager please?

[Magnus]

May we see a side by side comparison with the Voyager please?

I don't actually own the voyager, but you can see a side-by-side by skipping to 22:10 of this video. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOiQS0RIsBU)

Again, note that Megatron's height is dependent on how you bend the knees: PrimeVsPrime has his Megatron's knees bent more 'severely' than EmGo. Skip to 7:14 for the comparison. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vywXI6JvOoE)

[griffin]

The truck mode was longer than I was expecting, but the main disappointment I had was how hollow the cab is... which wouldn't be so bad if it had a panel hiding it from the top (when looking at it from the back, in the 3rd photo of the first post).
http://www.toycollectors.com.au/blog/f470.jpg


I will have to dig out the original TF3 version to see the size difference for myself.

[snaketales]

Bot mode is great but the one time I’ve tried transforming him I couldn’t get the trailer completed
Also one of the little tabs behind the cab smokestacks snapped off. Luckily i don’t think it’s a key structural part

[griffin]

Got the TF3 toy out for a comparison with the new one...


http://www.toycollectors.com.au/blog/f474.jpg

[Sutton]

I have really mixed feelings about this one.

There's a lot to like - if you can get past the blocky shoulders and lower legs, it's a great rendition of DOTM Megatron design, with really great sculpting and (on mine) beautiful paintwork. It's also really impressive how it creates a large truck mode, but compresses the bot mode so that it's the same size as the Voyager ROTF Megatron figure (who was a generously sized figure himself) - the disappointing hollow cab makes more sense for that reason as so much of the truck ends up in his lower legs.

Also cool that the truck cab is in pretty close scale to the Voyage Prime figure, and will likely match nicely with the 'Leader' Prime with weapons trailer later on. Oh, and his shotty is BADASS. Nice to see it included with the write figure this time with no ridiculous mech-tech shenanigans.

But there's a lot of niggles holding it back: the badass shotty, cool as it is, can't be held with two hands due to the lack of wrist rotation. And that hollow cab - it limits how you can display the truck, and also makes it flimsy in a lot of places. The second set of wheels like to fold themselves in like a flying Delorian all the time. Displaying the truck without the tarp is not really an option this time around. The old voyager figure was a complete truck without the tarp, this one not so much, what's under the tarp is not really very convincing. Plus, the old voyager pulled off the cool trick of having an articulated trailer despite the inverted transformation scheme.

It also feels really weird having to dress a transformer like one of my daughter's Barbie figures. Sometimes the cloak looks really cool but a lot of the time it hangs in a weird unrealistic way. I wish it were a little softer and heavier so that it hung more realistically, at the moment it looks like an inexperienced 3D modeller's first attempt at cloth physics.

The transformation is NOT joyful. Things don't go where they need to in an easy confident way, the tabs are really non-commital. Compared to say, the BB Movie Optimus, which is much more complicated but everything just works. This one feels like a chore.

But then....when he's on the shelf in bot mode, in a cool pose, that wicked shotty held just right, he's a damn cool looking figure. Put him next to some other successful badass Studio Series Decepticons - Blackout, Long Haul, Rampage - and it looks really good.

So he's worth getting if you like the DOTM Megatron design, as long as you can deal with the frustrations. Bit of a shame he's so hard to get locally so far.

[Magnus]

I thought I'd resurrect this thread, since Megatron is now available at local retail as part of Big W's Toy Mania sale.