OMFG! This is a huge ass piece of plastic. Takara’s recently released Megatron from Transformers Beast Wars Masterpiece line is simply amazing! This monster piece of plastic is way over the top and a ton of fun to play with. In robot mode.
First a history lesson. Transformers Beast Wars was a cartoon that aired in the mid ’90s (1996ish?) and lasted for a few years. It was continuity based, set in the original series timeline. The cartoon was completely computer animated, which was a huge thing for the time. It was well written, had some serious respect for the original series and did a great job tying the timelines together.
Without doing research, I think, the Autobots were Maximals and the Decepticons were Predacons. This led to some cool designs and concepts. Optimus Primal became a big gorilla, and Megatron a Tyrannosaurus rex, and the list of coolness goes on.
Back in the late ’90s there was a toy line for the show, of course, and they were glorious. They featured new engineering allowing for more posability and they looked great. I had all of them I think, getting rid of them during a great purge some years ago. Yeah I know. When Takara started in with Beast Wars in the Masterpiece line, I was skeptical; I was thinking Masterpiece quality is amazing but can they make the leap from cars and vehicles to animals?
And they could! My first purchases are Optimus Primal and Megatron, the latter being a no brainer once I saw the product pictures. Holy crap Megatron looked amazing in both animal and robot mode, so I ordered him and then Optimus Primal, cannot have the yin without the yang. I was not disappointed with the arrival of Megatron.
The box is ginormous. The blister inside is ginormous, and the T-Rex in the blister is ginormous. And gorgeous, I mean really really beautiful. Taking Megatron out and playing with him out of the box in dino mode was a pleasure, serious fun time. And then I transformed him. Holy crap. Megatron has one of the most annoying transformations from beast to robot modes. Twisting and turning and the waist. PEOPLES… beware of the waist, it does not twist and turn as you would expect, it’s more like levers, slides and hinges. Holy crap even the instructions didn’t help, I had to break out the spot lamps and workbench to figure this one out. But once you figure it out, and get him into robot mode? SO MUCH FUN!
And then you transform him back into a t-rex.
Do I even need to go on? My son, the now famous transformer of transformers has even given up. So if the dino mode pics look awful well there’s a reason. And for the record Megatron is displayed on the shelf in robot mode.
He comes with some extras, not much, a couple of faces and pew pew cannon. Otherwise, really, with the size of this monster, nothing more is really needed.
The dread question, is Megatron worth it? The answer, for me, is yes. I have a personal love of Beast Wars, I love the designs, the cartoon, and getting Masterpiece quality toys of Maximals and Predacons is a no brainer. However, I’ve started a third job as cleaner in order to pay my toy collecting bills…
You are in luck! You can still get Megatron at BigBadToyStore.
