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Megatron


Liege Evilmus

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I think that's one of the major appeal to Transformers- it's okay to root for the bad guy! Not many other franchises personify all the villains. Stormtroopers, cobra armies, LOTR orcs...all mindless faceless cannon fodder.

Not in Transformers!

The entire army has names! From Megatron to Soundwave to Skystalker to Sledge...

 

 

...and I think that's one of the perceived faults to the two movies: characterization. The 'Cons don't get personalities cuz it's ''against the rules'' to like and identify with the bad guys. When it comes down to it, only the leader gets a personality....but one you're supposed to hate, so you're rooting for the leader of the good guys to whoop his ass. What it boils down to is that Bonecrusher, Brawl, Long Haul, Rampage, Ravage....ALL the 'Cons were created to die. It's not an abnormal thing in all movies for that to happen- but we, as Transformers fans, are just not used to the bad guys dying.

 

I didn't like the lack of love for the 'Cons, but I understand why it was done that way. That's why I like All Hail Megatron...the bad guys get some screentime (panel time?). The simple conversations between Megs and Hook, Thundercracker and Skywarp and the Insecticons...it allows us to see them as characters, not just carcasses-in-waiting.

 

I hope they rectify this in the future, but no love lost if they don't. :)

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Bludgeon is my hero, as was the reason why that name was my original handle.

 

And to add, Megatron wasn't evil although he was calculating. Evil being point of view. If Raksha had a fan club, I'd join it!

 

 

very good point!

 

I have the G2 comic where Megatron kills Bludgeon, I love that cover!

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I think that's one of the major appeal to Transformers- it's okay to root for the bad guy! Not many other franchises personify all the villains. Stormtroopers, cobra armies, LOTR orcs...all mindless faceless cannon fodder.

Not in Transformers!

 

The entire army has names! From Megatron to Soundwave to Skystalker to Sledge...

'cept for those purple Seekers. And admit it - nobody cared about Sunstorm until e-Hobby decided to make a toy of him! If that never happened, he'd still just be a random nameless yellow jet who appeared in the first episode of the G1 cartoon!! :D I personally have always cared about Hauler though, but that's cos he was named (otherwise he'd just be some random crane, which ironically, he was in the Japanese dub of MTMTE! :P).

 

And how many people here have ever given ANY thought to poor old Warrior? Does anyone even know which Decepticon I'm talking about?! (without having to click on that link?!:P)

 

As for Stormtroopers, I kinda had a soft spot for TK421. Poor bastard had his armour stolen by a farmboy, old paedophile, a pirate and his oversized dog. He didn't deserve that. Or did he?! ;)

 

...and I think that's one of the perceived faults to the two movies: characterization. The 'Cons don't get personalities cuz it's ''against the rules'' to like and identify with the bad guys. When it comes down to it, only the leader gets a personality....but one you're supposed to hate, so you're rooting for the leader of the good guys to whoop his ass. What it boils down to is that Bonecrusher, Brawl, Long Haul, Rampage, Ravage....ALL the 'Cons were created to die. It's not an abnormal thing in all movies for that to happen- but we, as Transformers fans, are just not used to the bad guys dying.

Well ultimately you want to audience to empathise with the story's protagonist(s), so naturally you're going to spend more time developing that/those character(s). Antagonists _can_ be further developed too, but it's a lesser priority compared to the development of the protagonist. Look at Darth Vader, in the first Star Wars movie (A New Hope) he didn't get _that_ much character development. He was basically a dark, spooky evil Jedi who we now was once a good Jedi and former pupil of Obiwan Kenobi. For the entire movie he just skulked around threatening people and being mean and evil. Grrr! It wasn't until they were able to make sequels that the Vader character was further expanded and we got to learn more about who he was; but even then, it was in relation to further developing the main protagonist (Luke Skywalker). Even in Return of the Jedi, Anakin's redemption was part of Luke's story. It wasn't until they went and made the prequels and Clone Wars series that we finally got to see stories that actually focused on who Anakin Skywalker really was.

 

That's one reason why I quite enjoyed reading Megatron: Origins - it explained _why_ Megatron founded the Decepticons and became their leader. From the Decepticons' POV he really was their saviour and hero, fighting against Autobot oppression. And just watching Megatron rip Apex Armour Sentinel Prime apart with his bare hands was sweet as. :D

 

I didn't like the lack of love for the 'Cons, but I understand why it was done that way. That's why I like All Hail Megatron...the bad guys get some screentime (panel time?). The simple conversations between Megs and Hook, Thundercracker and Skywarp and the Insecticons...it allows us to see them as characters, not just carcasses-in-waiting.

I didn't really like AHM. Sure, the Decepticons got a fair bit of screentime, but I don't think they were really well developed. It was more like a general showcase of Decepticons being really violent and wrecking heaps of stuff. At one point they _started_ developing Thundercracker, who I think is one Decepticon CRYING for more character development (I mean come on, his G1 tech specs bio states that he is the one Decepticon who is unsure of the Decepticon cause); I liked how he started questioning how things were being done... but then it went nowhere! Guh?! Wasted potential... :(

 

My favourite moment in AHM though was when Frenzy first appeared and actually used his REAL power of generating deadly and powerful sonic waves, as was originally stated in the G1 tech specs bio and seen in the G1 and G2 comics (in G2 Wheeljack amped him up so much that he (cheerfully) vibrated himself to death!). But that's just a small treat... there was little substance or depth in AHM that impressed me. :/

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That right there is the crappy part, take Vader(star wars sucks) OK big spooky guy. so what do they do to develope him, 3 crappy movies and a crappy cartoon series about him being a good guy!?!

 

Everyone I know who heard new Star Wars was coming out hoped to see 1 thing, the big spooky guy kick some ass, nope.

 

I know it sells, and is PC friendly, but hero worship is why we live in an age where Big Wheels are sold in kits with helmit, knee, and shoulder pads. What the hell ever happened to scabs!?!

 

That just sucks.

 

So to all your rash reason and other BS, I'd like to quote Dirge as he sheered a building and rained shards of glass on the crowd below, "let us teach them a lesson in sorrow"

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btw, Star Wars is technically my religion. Yes, I actually put "Jedi" down as my religion in the last two national censuses. So yeah anyway, you're kinda saying that my religion sucks. But it's okay... I'm thinking about changing my religion to "Transformers" in the next census. I accept Optimus Prime as my personal saviour. He died for the salvation of humanity and rose again from the dead! :D (^0^)

 

I know it sells, and is PC friendly, but hero worship is why we live in an age where Big Wheels are sold in kits with helmit, knee, and shoulder pads.

Yeah but "hero" and "villain" are subjective notions. The protagonist is the central character to the story, whereas the principal opponent for the protagonist is the antagonist. Now the protagonist is usually portrayed as the hero and the antagonist the villain, but not always. As the central characters to the story, more emphasis will be placed on the protagonists because that's simply how the story functions. It is possible to have villains as protagonists and heroes as antagonists. If you look at Megatron: Origins, Megatron was the main protagonist. He got a lot more character development than the main antagonist, Sentinel Prime. So arguably Megatron was the "hero" and Sentinel Prime was the "villain" in that story. Beast Machines, particularly the first season, was interesting in that both Optimus Primal and Megatron could be seen as either heroes or villains; it was open to audience interpretation. Optimus Primal sought to achieve technorganicism on Cybertron, but became deluded and tried to aim for total organics, nearly destroying Cybertron in his quest. The Maximals also sought to return individual free will to Cybertron. Megatron saw himself as Cybertron's saviour, maintaining it as a mechanical world and defending it from any organic impurities. He also removed individual free will in order to maintain peace through tyranny. Although liberty was lost, there would never be any future conflict on Cybertron under Megatron's new world order.

 

Heck, even in Star Wars a lot of people saw the Empire as being good, and there were heroes within the Empire (e.g. Baron Fel). As pointed out in Clerks, the Rebel Alliance was essentially an extremist left wing terrorist organisation and the Emperor was an elected tyrant!

 

Or heck, look at Kill Bill. The protagonist (the Bride) isn't exactly heroic in that story as she goes on her quest for vengeance! :D

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To be honest with you, I dont think Megatron get's shafted. He's a big deal to Transformers fans and he gets almost as many repaints and figs and Prime during a toyline. Through out the entire first movie, Megatron was talked about over and over before he was revived at the end. People know who he is if they care. Him and Starscream.

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These are all my Optimuses (not including Optimus Primals, Lio Convoy or Big Convoy):

allmy_optimusprime.jpg

 

And these are all my Megatrons (not including BW/BM Megatrons, BWII Galvatron or Magmatron):

allmy_megatron.jpg

 

I took these pics last year, hence the absence of any ROTF Primes & Megatrons... but as you can see, the number of Optimus Primes outnumbers Megatrons. :/

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Even as a goodies fan, I totally agree that it sucks how the baddies are so vastly outnumbered. :( It'd be nice to have a Decepticon for every Autobot. But again, this is something I totally loved about Beast Wars, which I mostly collected in versus sets like...

+ Optimus Primal vs Megatron

+ Rattrap vs Terrorsaur

+ Cheetor vs Waspinator

+ Dinobot vs Tarantulas

+ Tigatron vs Blackarachnia

+ Rhinox vs Shadow Panther

+ Polar Claw vs Scorponok

+ Scuba vs Thrust

+ Lio Convoy vs Galvatron

+ Big Mos vs Auto Stinger

+ Big Convoy vs Magmatron

+ Mach Kick vs Archadys

...etc.

 

Even though BW toys released by Hasbro weren't available in VS sets (except for the Basic leaders), they still had more or less the same toys, thus roughly the same even distribution of Maximals vs. Predacons. Just another reason why Beast Wars rocked. :D

 

*sigh* It's also a bit of a cheap cop out too when the baddies need to resort to clone troopers too (e.g. Sweeps, Sharkticons, Vehicon drones, purple Seekers etc.); although it's cool for the Insecticons as it creates that swarm effect with hive mentality. But otherwise it's not terribly exciting seeing the goodies fighting against endless legions of "gumbies" (the Stormtrooper effect).

 

This was parodied well in Austin Powers (Gold Member) where Austin's father tells a generic bad guy that there's no point in even _trying_ since he doesn't even have a name tag and is thus a completely expendable character, so the dude just decides to fall down instead of trying to fight Nigel Powers! :D

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Repaints really add to the outnumbering too.

 

Take TF2 Scout Dead End, 3 versions of that evil looking little guy 2 of which are Autobots!?!

 

It is a fact though that Autobots tend to outnumber Decepticons. I don't think I'd mind that as much as most stories portray the Autobots as the majority if they made the Decepticon figures larger. Many Decepticons being manufactured as war machines origionaly where fewer but larger then the Autobots.

 

How cool would it be to have a line with deluxe(which tend to make up a majority of a line) Autobots paired against Voyager and Ultra Decepticons!

 

We could have Decepticon Scouts, but they would have to function in some type of minion/minicon fashion.

 

The Movies, on screen at least, have given us a taste of that. I'd like more though.

 

 

I also want to agree about the even sided, BW vs sets. They came in handy when bulking up my BW collection. And even still, while some where even sided, others like the Silverbolt vs Rampage box really depict the challange that Decepticon/Predicons should be.

 

I hate when Decepticons are reduced to comic relief. It's something that you see alot more when Japan gets involved with a series, but I do not like it.

 

Like sure Waspinator was comic relief, but he could also be taken seriously. Concerning him you were waiting for the joke, he wasn't showing up as the joke. As far back as Scourge and Cyclonus in Headmasters, through all of AEC Japan has always made a joke of villians in Transformers.

 

One of the short comings in Animated was that the series was slathered in that type of jest.

 

 

Now bringing this back to Megatron, who's getting ready with his larger forces, I have to bring up the alt.

 

Nostalicly, Megatron's a gun. I understand, same as Soundwave no longer working as a walkman. Alot of people are hard and silly over making him a tank.

 

Sorry, but I don't have a single tank Megatron that really impresses me. It's fitting, but just doesn't seem right.

 

So this is my idea, it respects the origin of the figure while not insulting the robot. Megatron should be this,

 

 

 

Now I know, it really can't manuver. The way I see Megatron though is that he wouldn't want to or have to be moved.

 

I can see him setting down on a front line laying down massive amounts of firepower as his armies swarm from behind him taking out any survivors, then transforming to inspect the wreckage.

 

Yeah I said it in another thread, but the idea is just that good!

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