Hello stranger!
Time today to pull a very un-Thew move and get into some early Generation One!
Sometimes you gotta. Now, I feel pretty comfortable saying G1 is the most broadly
beloved bit of the whole Transformers thing, right? Like, it's properly cherished as a
cornerstone of 80's nostalgia and general pop culture iconography, which is kinda the
reason I don't tend to bother talking about it that much, cos I tend to assume
everybody already knows everything about it. Like how many times have you heard the story?
"In 1984, America's Hasbro captured the imaginations of kids everywhere when they imported an assortment
of Japanese robot toys to become the Transformers!
Diaclone! Microchange! Yoke-San! Bob Budiansky!
Ho ho, Gobots!
You know.
And I do find myself mildly estranged from that experience of the early Transformer times,
like it feels like I'm listening to everyone else's version of events, y'know? 'Cos when
it all kicked off I was around, in the sense that I was technically alive, but I couldn't fully
enjoy the Transformers launch 'cos I was preoccupied with trifling crap like figuring out how to
stand up. And the way everyone's always banging on about the very beginning makes me feel
like maybe I haven't been doing G1 right? Like, is my reissue-driven, freebie-drenched,
Headmasters-and-later version of a Transformer-fueled childhood still valid if it doesn't quite
line up with what the mainstream remembers?
What I'm getting at is that I still feel like, on some level, those very first original toys
are almost too precious and sacred to even critique. Like, they're not FOR me, they're
for the big kids at the back of the bus, just be like "yeah, cool, love it, great!"
and scurry on back to my little weirdo zone with Carnivac and Squeezeplay.
But here's what the gatekeepers won't tell you about classic G1...
It's a messy bitch.
Like even the most legendary figures have got plenty of weird shit goin' on.
So deep breath, eyes forward, and let's finally embrace the stupid majesty of Generation 1 Megatron!
Yes yes y'all, the OG most villlainest b-boy is in full effect and honestly the fact that
it's even in my house is wiggin' me out! 'Cos in my world, Megatron was somebody who showed
up a decade late in a giant green shellsuit. Like I'm pretty sure the UK didn't even get
this one, nobody I knew had one, not even Johnny "my dad bought me a Unicron" Woodford
tried to sneak THAT one past. I'd never even seen one in a shop until like TFNation,
so up until very recently I'd had literally zero hands-on time with a G1 Megatron.
And I gotta tell ya...
it is a shitshow.
Check it out, right from the moment you look at it you know something ain't right. It's
all like, too wide AND too narrow, it's just the wrong shape! So, naturally, I love it.
So the figure that would become Megatron was originally the Takara Microman Gun Robo P38
U.N.C.L.E., before it transmorphed into Megatron via the miracle of rebranding, and this particular
one has gotta be one of the copious re-releases, but I don't really know which 'cos I got it
loose, hence no laser gun but yes sword. Honestly I'm good as long as he's got the arm blaster
and isn't shagged.
So it's definitely an interestingly made toy, there's LOADS of die-cast on the go so he's
REALLY heavy for a lad this size, and the construction's so sorta fiddly and mechanical.
The whole thing just about hangs together on this miniature scaffold. It's honestly
such a blag, like the arms and head don't even really attach to the body, they just
kinda hover near it and hope to God you don't peek round the back. And I have 100% time
for that, it's pure theatre! And we know for a fact they started with the alt-mode so the
way they've achieved this robot form out of it is just so obtuse and roundabout,
you gotta give it up.
Anyway, the bod itself is a gloriously gleamy horizontal gunlump adorned with those fabulous
Wild West twirly chest hairs, cheeky exposed electro-midriff and a satisfying shoulder arch.
But it immediately collapses into catastrophe the moment you venture below the waist, much
like your mum does. Like look at this dumbass pelvis-plinth juttin' out like a friggin'
belly balcony, complete with this pubic piss pipe and his trigger in just the most inappropriate
spot possible. TOUCH IT! (shudders) Has YouTube got an HR manager?
Legs ain't much smoother, and they're only mildly less disturbing. Check out the massive
Decepticon hip chunks! That ass goes ALL the way back! I love the smooth plastic sheen
on these bits, lookin' like saucy black knee-highs and hot pants showin' off a cheeky bit of
metal thigh. Just a shame how it looks from the front, like the legs are five mil wide
and a mile deep, and these hideous waist-girders are so unappealingly basic.
What are you, Meccano?
Still, I guess the inside legs are lookin' pretty slick with these massive deep red
panels. Honestly the colours on this thing are so crisp and powerful - silver, black,
red, done. Also I love how pretty much all the details are just stickers.
Posability's basically not a thing. Like he's got this reluctant five-degree hip-swing and
some basically acceptable but weirdly centred shoulder spin. Arms themselves are just a
couple o' clumsy gun chunks with these lumpy little fists pokin' out with strange sideways
palm-ports. He's also got the eyepiece for the gun mode mounted up by his right hand
there, which I believe is supposed to act as some form of
Ah, it's the best thing in Transformers, I swear to God! I love how he has to heft it mightily
above his head just to point it forward - SO alpha. You can also assemble a sort of rudimentary
battle station out of the rest of his gun chunks
which just looks sensationally badass. There's also this weird stupid over-the-shoulder sniper
mode that I can never quite remember how it works. There we go, for when you absolutely
positively HAVE to make him look 30% stupider.
Also he's got a sword.
Which brings us to Megatron's head, which is its own fascinating little freakshow. 'Cos
I always found it a smidge strange how everyone else had all these cool space-bot futureheads
and there's Megatron in his daft throwback WWI helmet, so it does feel good to finally
see for myself where that came from. It feels good and has also slightly ruined my life.
So check it, the face is lookin' pretty aggressively grouchy with these spooky glazed-over golden
eyes with this cool ass three-pronged crown, which is definitely a strong look, but like,
check it out - right here, that's where the actual robot head ends, and the rest of it,
the whole famous helmet, is just some housing. It's kibble! So Megatron's unmistakeable iconic
character design has basically been misrepresenting a chunk of incidental alt-mode crap as his
actual head, while his actual actual head with the brilliant chunky 3-fin just got played
off as angry eyebrows.
Is it me? That's scandalous!
I mean, I get it, that's some hefty kibble, you gotta do something with it, but it's played
such a huge part in the look of the main villain of the whole show, and it's just a leftover
flap! D'you know what that means? Every Megatron since day one to wear the helmet and the heavy
downset brow has just been perpetuating a lie that Floro Dery sold the world to cover up
for a weird bit of toy design! What the Hell's going on? Why do we not talk about this?
Did I just not get tagged in that particular thread? You don't respect me
So yeah, Megatron's original robot mode is certainly somethin'! It's got a scrappy non-standardised
early-effort energy and it certainly reflects the feel of the time, and it does pure radiate evil!
Sure it's a sloppy bugger that just barely holds it together,
but it does hold it together! Same.
[BLASTBEATS AND YELLING]
Transformation's actually super fun! Like that whole back-and-shoulders construct is
so satisfying to reconfigure, the metal components feel great, everything swings and slides and
clicks in place with an uncomplicated mechanical vim.
And the gun mode's actually really nice! It just keeps things dead simple and clean as
an eerily true-to-life Walther P38, with its trademark skinny barrel and all-business build,
complete with a clickin' trigger and a lovely grip, and all that die-cast weight feels super
cool in your hand! I ...really don't like how much I like this.
Anyway, you can bosh the fusion cannon on top to become a little see-through scope thing.
It doesn't magnify or anything but you can look. Plus you got all the add-on gear, like
a little shoulder stock, and this lovely long... bullet...pipe? I dunno. I don't know guns.
There's even a spring-loaded shootin' mechanism in there, but it's not much use when you ain't
got any of the little plastic bullets. Poor deactivated gunny.
And that's kind of it for the pistol mode! Like it certainly puts the "Gat" in Megatron,
and it is pretty entertaining in a morbid way, but you gotta wonder why this is the
toy the Hasbro team picked to be the main antagonist of the entire franchise. I mean
it's famous to us, now, but Megatron being a gun really doesn't make a lot of sense.
I know, I know this is entry-level Transformers discourse, but, it's the G1 Megatron review,
we gotta go there.
'Cos don't ya think it would have been easier for everyone if Megatron had just been a tank
from the start and skipped the whole gun thing? Partly because of the controversy, the international
bans and orange plugs, and the morals of marketing a realistic replica firearm to impressionable
kids, it's all very iffy, but like, even in-universe it falls apart real easy. Like, it is classic
stuff and of course I love it, but the whole shrinky-down mass displacement thing just
requires WAY too much explaining and technobaggage. And even tactically it's so dumb that the
commander of an army would become a hand-held weapon for somebody else. Ooh, look out, here
he comes! The maniac tyrant! Scourge of the universe! Punisher of the innocent...
Starscream's Targetmaster.
Yeah. Starscream.
You gotta routinely place the outcome of the battle, not to mention
your entire life, literally in the hands of Starscream! The verifiable least trustworthy
character in anything ever! A man defined by deceit and treachery and disrespect specifically
towards Megatron. That dickhead coulda just yeeted him out into space whenever he felt like it!
How's it going, Dirge.
And it doesn't even REALLY make sense in the context of the toys of the era! 'Cos if
you must go with a gun, then why go with THIS stumpy clunkster, when they could so easily
have gone with Browning, the other 1983 Takara Gun Robo that they presumably had the rights
to, or could have easily got the rights to, with a way slicker and handsomer design that
doesn't transform into the gun the Nazis used.
So you have to presume they went with this guy because of THIS? All this Man from U.N.C.L.E.
add-on bunkum? THAT's more important than the quality of the robot? You're just gonna
bung this wiry weirdo in a huge box full of plastic playset crap with a higher price point
and patent it and package it and slap it on a plastic lunchbox and now you're selling
it, you're gonna sell it. It's almost like the toy industry... is about money.
But look, I didn't come here today to just slag off your favourite toy, all right? We
don't do that here. I just don't know where they get off casting a ponderous pistol punk
like this as a main character, especially next to the timeless class of like Soundwave
and Optimus Prime. It's just not on the same level toy-wise, y'know?
I guess what I mean is that it's just amazing to me that THIS is our villain. That this
stodgy little freak became THE Megatron, a character so integral to the DNA of
Transformers and the nerdsphere as a whole that it's hard to imagine a world without
him. That all those memories, all those stories, all that legacy essentially grew out of such
a mid-level C-grade oddball toy with a couple of cool design cues and a bit of an aura.
That this awkward little wretch somehow resonated through time and ballooned into a God-tier
icon of that gleeful baddie life. All I'm sayin' is, believe in your dreams.
G1 Megatron, then. Is he rubbish? Hell no. Is he good? Eeehhhh...
But is he the absolute boss?
I mean, yeah.
Huge thanks this time to our mate Joshua over in Florida, and indeed, brrra-ta-ta-ta!
Whay, we did it! That took ages, sorry about the wait on that. And huge thanks this time
to our mate Laura Gilmore for pledging to the show, thank you buddy!
Yippee-ki-yay, Mother Hubbard!
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Robocentric vocabugasm.
SCIENCE!