Essays & Lore | Knackered Robots: The Blog

What Measure of a Megatron

Posted on July 1, 2019 by tainkirrahe

Hi, I’m Becka.

Hi Becka.

And I just…really love Megatron.

What?

Well! I mean! He’s just such a great character, isn’t he? Such a cool villain with a really rad name and he’s normally all silver and angry and always mucking up his plans…

Ma’am, this is a Wendy’s.

…Okay, if I buy some of whatever a Wendy’s sells, can I carry on talking about Megatron?

No.

Fiiiine. I’ll just have to do it the old-fashioned bloggy way, then.

It’s July 2019, which means that Megatron has been my favourite Transformer for a decade now. Hugo Weaving’s particularly impressive olfactory skills were my first exposure to the character, sitting in my parents’ living room cheering on the cavalcade of robots whose importance to pop culture I did not quite understand at that point, and thinking the big silver guy all covered in ice like that pack of sausages I bought two years ago and left in the freezer “for emergencies” was pretty damn cool. The G1 cartoon soon followed, and then Transformers: Animated, and then a brief stint with Transformers: Prime (it’s awesome, but not for me), and finally a complete binge of Beast Wars. Recently I have dabbled tentatively with Beast Machines and am considering doing a full days’ marathon, but for now I am content with fast-forwarding through the episodes to find the Megatron parts.

(I’m sad they never made a toy of his adorable little traitorous drone).

But hitting my 10 year Transformers anniversary (Anniformersry? Sorry, Thew) made me wonder just why I liked this character so much – why I consider myself to be a moral person with good judgement, but it’s always the villain who attracts my attention. Usually this signifies that the protagonist/protagonist team of a franchise is just a bit wet, but the strength of Transformers has always been that the heroes are just as interesting as the villains – after all, they’re there to sell toys. You can’t sell a toy of Boring McVanillapants when Boring McVanillapants is a giant space robot and needs to be at least as interesting as a Furby.

I’ll admit I am that sort of person who always finds the villain more interesting than the protagonist, usually because the protagonist exists to maintain the status quo whilst the villain exists to shake it up (note I am not using ‘antagonist’ here because sometimes this includes characters who purport to be on the ‘good side’ but are so into maintaining the status quo that they loop right around to being the ‘bad side’ – the best current example I can think of is Heaven still wanting a holy war in Good Omens when Aziraphale and Crowley’s relationship proves that peace is achievable).

And villains just downright have more fun, usually because they don’t really care about how they appear to those around them. I’m not a sociopath advocating for The Joker to be our next messiah (because the people who do usually end up being those people who think that SJW is an insult and consider Superman being an immigrant story to be Modern Diversity Ruining Comics), but I am saying that watching Jack Nicholson fart around Gotham City doing ridiculous shit will always be infinitely more entertaining than watching Christian Bale brood in a cave.

Also, villains are just sexier.

So yesterday on Ye Olde Twitters Dot Com, I asked my followers who their favourite Megatron was and collated the responses together per Megatron to see what exactly the wider Transformers fandom (as represented by people who follow me, obviously not a scientific sample but still with more street cred than an Antivax blog) considers to be The Quintessential Megatron Qualities. I’ve gone through the 151 replies (no wonder my phone ran out of battery quicker than a Sega GameGear) and picked out the key words each respondee has applied to their Megatron of choice to deduce how to create The Ultimate Megatron, and not because I want to take over the world or anything. Have you seen the world? It’s a mess. Who wants to run a mess? I have a hard enough time remembering to hoover.

From my admittedly crap science brain (look I got a C at GCSE, what do you want from me?) here are the five key areas that must be fulfilled to create the ultimate Megatron:

Scary
Goofy
Competent
Sexy
Have An Arc

Bear with. I break these down below.

Let’s get judgemental.

Okay, you’ve heard it enough from me but now I want to hear it from you all:

Which Megatron is your favourite, and why?

— Becka 🔜 TF Nation 2019 💕 (@tainkirrahe) June 30, 2019

The Scare Factor (Transformers: Prime)

A good villain has to be scary in order to lend gravitas to what they’re trying to achieve, and if that was purely what this contest was rated on then Transformers: Prime Megatron would have the whole shebang in the bag. And then he would probably put that bag in some sort of horrific blender and drink whatever came out because the guy is crazier than a bag full of cats.

Here’s his word cloud of the terms the responses used to describe him:

Yeah, this, basically.

Whilst several people talked about his eventual redemptive arc in the Beast Hunters film, most focused on the fact that the guy was a big terrifying ball of spikes and malice who posed a legitimate threat to Optimus Prime and his merry band of resistance fighters by sheer brute force alone. Megatron may have had an entire army behind him and more brains on him than the usual depiction of the character, but it’s easy for his army to do their jobs when the enemy has already retreated because their general has just snorted a whole bunch of crystal meth and cracked a boulder in half with his head.

The Goofiness Factor (G1 & Unicron Trilogy)

Oh Frank Welker, what did we ever do to deserve you? Not enough, that’s what.

Despite the near legendary status of the G1 designs only a few responses mentioned G1 Megatron, which I find surprising, especially when you consider that Transformers as a fandom is still very much centred around the Sunbow cartoon from 1984-1986; even Hasbro itself is reverting to the aesthetics and world that cartoon brought, for better or worse.

But what isn’t surprising (at least to me) is how the fandom remembers the Big Grey Gun Man – despite the 1986 film ramping his threat status up from Ha Ha He’s Running Away to Holy Shit Now We’re Running Away, many still remember him as, uh, well:

Iconic.

It seems that the general consensus of Sunbow Megatron that, whilst certainly recognisable, he’s just a bit of a doof and not taken anywhere near as seriously as the Megatrons who followed him.

The Unicron Trilogy Megatron seems to have had the same fate, although not quite as badly as his sample pool was tiny:

Not as iconic, but still very Megatron.

Oh, and a grand total of one person talked about G1 Marvel Comics Megatron. They described him as a “putz”. Really, there’s not a lot more I can say about that. Except that “putz” is a good word.

Putz.

The Competency Factor (Transformers: Animated)

You probably expected Beast Wars to appear in the subheading above, but you’d be wrong. Whilst he was the most intelligent Megatron to grace our eyeballs in 1996, the silky voiced Tyrannosaurus Rex has a category all of his own below.

Instead, sheer bloody competency falls instead squarely on the broad shoulders of the equally seductive Transformers: Animated Megatron, whomst Transformers Twitter decided by an overwhelming majority was a) the best one and also b) the most terrifying one because of just how capable he was – even when reduced to just a head in Professor Sumdac’s laboratory.

So he’s a bit brainy then, eh?

Most Megatrons have a temper that eventually snaps and ruins their plans – but TFA Megatron is the cool, calm, stoic, patient plotter that our ideal Megatron candidate clearly needs to be at spark. He’s not the brute archetype exemplified by G1 and TFP Megatron; he’s the guy who sits and bides his time and then strikes when he deems the iron is hot enough, even if he has to set it on fire himself to do so.

The Sex Appeal Factor (Beast Wars)

We live in the blessed time of galactic hyper space year 2019, in which people are free to fancy consenting adults of their choice so long as they’re not weird about it, and therefore naturally some of the answers mentioned the, ah, aesthetics of certain Megatrons.

Whatever it was we as a race did to deserve Frank Welker, take that and double it for David Kaye: Transformers Twitter is incredibly thirsty for the man’s vocal chords, and with good reason. Beast Wars may have had some slightly dodgy (unfinished, badly textured) CGI when it first premiered in 1996, but it did boast an incredibly impressive voice cast that helped to make it the memorable show that it was. Scott McNeil is the one we all whisper about in hallowed tones as we consider that most of the show is just him having a nice natter to himself, but we also can’t drop enough praise on Gary Chalk and David Kaye for giving us another unforgettable Prime/Megatron pairing.

Beast Wars Megatron is interesting because whilst I have (jokingly – everyone fancies every Megatron, it seems) put him under the sexy subheading, he also exemplifies the first two qualities we have discussed: he’s terrifying, and he’s also goofy as hell.

He’ll kill you, but you’ll have a whale of a time with the whole experience.

I’m not sure how many of these answers carry the above forward to Beast Machines, the black sheep of the franchise in which Megatron develops a taste for tying himself to the ceiling and wearing a shower curtain he found in B&M Bargains and everything is Grimdark and Very Serious, but in the meantime we can all universally agree that whilst TFA Megatron might be the quickest to secure a victory, BW Megatron would have the most fun doing it.

The Character Arc Factor (IDW 2.0 &Bayverse)

Transformers Twitter identified having a character/redemptive arc to be an essential ingredient for two Megatrons: More Than Meets The Eye/Lost Light’s Autobot Megatron, who probably doesn’t surprise you, and Bayverse Megatron, who probably does. Several also mentioned TFP Megatron’s arc, but it is less pronounced that the other two (and certainly more rushed), so I have left it with a mention above.

If there’s one thing you can say for MTMTE/Lost Light’s Autobot Megatron, it’s that he’s the giant robot version of the popular British toast-improver Marmite (shut up it is). You either love the fact that the writers tried something new with a tired old character and in doing so raised some significant questions about the morality of forgiveness, or you think a mass-murdering genocidal maniac being spared prison time wasn’t that great an idea in the first place. Whichever half of the coin you find yourself on, the arc itself has become an important part of IDW Megatron’s character now that that universe’s story is complete and finished, and arguably it does flesh him out in a way that had not been properly explored before.

This is so sad, Alexa, play The Touch.

But also of consideration is Bayverse Megatron. A lot of fans like to snigger behind their hands at the Michael Bay films for having ridiculous stories that make no sense, because those fans apparently have never watched the original G1 cartoon. (A lot more people take issue with Bay’s casual use of racism and misogyny and – yeah, that’s the real issue to discuss right there). But if you watch Transformers, Revenge of the Fallen, and Dark of the Moon – the Shia Trilogy – you will notice that this Megatron has the best character arc of any of the other characters. Tumblr user trinarysuns has created a fascinating breakdown of the evolution of this Megatron which first tipped me off to this, but it was also mentioned by other Twitter users among the consensus that Bay Megatron is a babe:

This is remarkably less tragic, Alexa, play Death Of Optimus Prime.

Perhaps I should have put him under the ‘sexy’ subheading after all.

Conclusion

Well, there we have it: the essential ingredients of what makes Megatron…Megatron. These aspects may be shared amongst a handful of different interpretations, but slap them all together and you’ll have yourself the best possible incarnation of the giant metal man with the good legs.

Pictured: good legs.

In terms of popularity, TFA and BW Megatrons were by far the most mentioned and discussed (and, to my mind, are the closest to possessing all aspects mentioned), with TFP Megatron taking second place. G1 and Unicron Trilogy were hardly mentioned, and RID was woefully under-represented.

The Machinima Megatron was mentioned twice, but the data here is far from clear as he was defined as:

Having >:3c energy
Being an asshole

And being An Old Person I don’t know if these two qualifiers are mutually exclusive or not.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, the police are here to escort me out of this Wendy’s. Apparently I’ve been hogging all the free wifi.

I Want To Tell You About Transformers!: The Lore

Posted on December 18, 2018 by tainkirrahe

“I am: THE LORE.” – Sylvester Stallone as Alpha Trion

UNDER CONTRUCTION – LAST UPDATE 18/12/18

“Look,” I hear you say, because you are the imaginary person I just made up and therefore I control your thought processes and speech patterns, “Transformers is a franchise all about alien robots who turn into cars, right? How complicated can the story around that be? Wasn’t this whole thing started to sell toys?”

The answers to the above, in no particular order, are: yes, yes, and incredibly to the point where I regularly have to look things up on TFWiki to make sure I’m not going mad, misremembering, or confusing Transformers with Go-Bots or Power Rangers again.

Transformers has existed in various forms since 1984, and in the grand tradition of shows like Doctor Who has survived for nearly forty years by regularly switching up characters, aesthetics, and lore. This is, of course, incredibly confusing if you discover the franchise by watching Transformers: Prime on Netflix only to find your beloved Knock Out doesn’t exist in most other continuities and that Optimus Prime used to smile quite regularly. Well. Sound like he did, anyway. He didn’t really have a mouth until Transformers: Animated.

Confused yet? Good. It gets worse.

The Key Players (AKA March of the Bumblebees)

Backstory

A very, very basic premise of most Transformers fiction is as follows.

Millions of years ago on a planet called Cybertron, a race of sentient machines known as Transformers or Cybertronians were at war. They were at war a lot. Like, all the time. A super duper serious war. You know how Americans love baseball? Well Transformers love war. It’s kind-of their thing.

The Good Guys are the Autobots, who believe in truth, freedom, And The American Way™. They are led by Optimus Prime, a noble Chosen One who was upgraded from a younger Orion Pax by a Cosmic Macguffin known as The Matrix. Wherever Optimus goes, you are almost always gaurunteed to find a Bumblebee (inexpensive kid-appeal boy) or a Ratchet (grumpy medic) not far behind.

The Autobots fight against the Bad Guys, the Decepticons. More recently the source of the war has been over the Decepticons being an oppressed under-class who finally rose up to challenge Autobot supremacy under the leadership of an ex-Gladiator called Megatron (formerly Megatronus but he shortened his name so he could get through autographs quicker. Maybe). Megatron has a loyal lieutenant called Soundwave who is way overdue a promotion, and a backstabbing lieutenant called Starscream who is way overdue an ass-kicking.

So, war. War never changes. The Autobots and the Decepticons fight over their homeworld for millions of years, eventually ruining it, and at some point one faction or the other decides to strike out into the galaxy to either find help or hide some sort of Macguffin. Their travels almost always end up on Earth, where the Decepticons try to enslave the planet/extract its energy whilst the Autobots fight for the Freedom of All Sentient Beings.

A lot of buildings get blown up.

In the Beast Era (don’t worry, I’ll explain later), the Autobots eventually evolve into the Maximals, and have a significant key player called Optimus Primal (no relation), whilst the Decepticons evolve into the Predacons who have a key player called, er, Megatron (…no relation). Later still, the Predacons became Vehicons.

Biology of The Transformers

Transformers are sentient machines who do not require human pilots. They can transform between Robot Mode and Vehicle Mode (or alt-mode) using a piece of internal, inbuilt hardware called their t-cog. They have visible souls called sparks which usually reside in their chest and are hella cool I mean they can see their own souls just by opening their chest holy moly that’s SO AWESOME.

Ahem.

Like organic creatures they require energy to live, most commonly consumed by a blue-or-pink liquid called energon. They can apparently live for millions of years so long as they remain undamaged and have an adequate supply of energy. If a Transformer is badly damaged then they can go into a state known as stasis lock and remain in this condition for quite some time, which is a brilliant excuse for over-sleeping on a Monday.

Sometimes an entire group of Transformers can merge with one another to form a Combiner, or Gestalt, which is just like a really huge robot made of smaller robots. If you’re a Power Rangers fan, then – just think of the Zords all coming togerher. Each Transformer usually has its own duty in forming the Gestalt, and the resulting fusion has its own personality. The most famous Combiner is most likely Devastator, who is formed out of construction vehicles called Constructicons because irony is great.

So, that’s the lowdown on what the Transformers are, but what about all them cool films and telly episodes and comics then eh? Well, I hope to cover that below. I really did try to keep each entry short, but, uh, I’m not so good at being short. Unless we’re talking height. I’m OK at that.

The Telly: Cartoons, CGI Cartoons, And Really Good CGI Cartoons

Generation One: The Transformers (G1)
1984 – 1987

Developed as a Saturday Morning Cartoon by Hasbro in order to sell their new range of fancy robot toys to all the little girls and boys, “The Transformers” told the story of how the Autobots and Decepticons brought their war to Earth…by accidentally crashing their ship, the Ark, into a volcano four million years ago. The Autobots and Decepticons are reawakened when said volcano gets a bit rumbly in the modern day, and voila! Robot war!! ON MODERN EARTH!! …Well, 1984, anyway.

For Seasons 1 and 2, the Autobots typically aimed to prevent the Decepticons from destroying the planet or enslaving its populace through a series of outlandish plots and schemes that grew more ridiculous as the series progressed. They had human friends called Sparkplug (a mechanic), Spike (his son), Carly (Spike’s girlfriend, I guess, she deserved better, it’s fine), and Chip Chase (interestingly one of the only disabled characters I’ve ever seen who is just played as a regular person). Raoul, a Dodgy Youth what stole cars and breakdanced, also appeared in two episodes as Autobot Tracks’s friend. Oh, and Autobot Powerglide has a human girlfriend called Astoria Carlton-Ritz that one time. Look, it was the 80’s. A human dating a robot apparently just made more sense back then.

After the 1986 film killed most of the cast in order to make way for new toys (brutal, yes), Season 3 was instead based on Cybertron itself and followed Rodimus Prime (Optimus’s replacement) and his efforts to stop Galvatron (Megatron’s upgrade) from destroying the galaxy’s new fragile peace. This extreme change in style, including the mass murder of many, many beloved characters from Seasons 1 and 2 such as Optimus Prime himself is widely pointed to as being why the franchise started to stall around this time. Apparently Hasbro hadn’t considered that slaughtering latchkey kids’ beloved father icons was perhaps not the greatest thing to do…on the big screen…in the dark…in graphic detail.

Season 4 is only five episodes long and is usually referred to as The Rebirth. It introduces Headmasters (Autobots whose heads can detach to become little people because why not) and Targetmasters (little people who turn into guns for Decepticons to wield because okay this one makes a little more sense?? I guess??).

IMPORTANT:

The above only summarises the Western Transformers continuity. In Japan Season 4/The Rebirth was replaced by a full series called Headmasters which continued on from Season 3 and introduces the Headmasters/Targetmasters in a different way. They then went on to have two further series: Super God Masterforce, and Victory.

So Wait Like What The Heck Is Generation Two Then

There was technically no new Transformers media produced for television in the West in the early 1990’s, but the brand’s toys were relaunched as Generation Two (G2) with a bright neon toyline and, well, the kiddos had to watch something or how else would they know to bug mum or dad for those snazzy yellow Constructions?? So Hasbro repackaged the Generation 1 episodes from Seasons 1 and 2 and rebroadcast them with a healthy smattering of terrible, terrible CGI.

Ah, the 1990’s. I do not miss you.

The Beast Era: Beast Wars (BW)
1996 – 1999

EXTREME. NINETIES. CGI. ACTION.

Initially appearing to be a brand new continuity only for Season 2 to sneakily reveal that it had been a sequel to The Transformers all along (mwahaha, etc.), Beast Wars is possibly the most extreme, hah, transformation that Transformers has ever undergone. (It’s a pun. Do you. Do you get it? Transformation? Yes? Like the robots?? Aren’t you glad you clicked on that link?)

When Megatron – no, not that Megatron, a different one – steals an artifact called the Golden Disk from Cybertron and flees in his vessel the Darksyde with his motly Predacon crew, Optimus Primal and his science team give chase in their ship – the Axalon. During their skirmish, the vessels are dragged through some sort of spacewarp and crash on prehistoric Earth. As there are local dumps of pure energon that would damage Maximals and Predacons alike without protection, both crews are forced to adopt organic-based ‘beast modes‘ obtained from their ships scanning the local wildlife.

Season 1 is an odd mix of standalone episodes with a little bit of arc-building, and CGI that has…not aged well, owing to rushed production. But Seasons 2 and 3? They are All About That Storyline – as in, full on, trying to change history, characters dying, new characters appearing and dying, mystical stuff involving fate and destiny, it’s all very cool. Also there’s lots of death. Don’t watch Code of Hero if you don’t have any tissues in the house, it’s brutal.

Beast Wars is responsible for a lot of lore-building in the general Transformers mythos, and introduced long-standing concepts such as sparks to the franchise. On a personal note I have noticed that a lot of the things fans of the G1 cartoon insist were in there (such as terms like stasis lock) are actually misremembered from Beast Wars.

The Beast Era: Beast Machines (BM)
1999 – 2000

EXTREME. ALMOST NOUGHTIES. CGI. ACTION.

Beast Machines was the direct sequel to Beast Wars and picks up almost immediately after that series’ finale. The Maximals return to Cybertron to discover that Megatron (the Beast Wars one, not the other one, god this is confusing) got there first and has managed to enslave almost the entire populace by extracting their sparks and placing them in emotionless shells known as Vehicons. The series follows Optimus Primal’s attempts to find a balance between technology and organic life whilst Megatron tries to erase anything organic from existence because he’s now a massive germaphobe, or something.

Beast Machines has had a real Marmite effect on the fandom in general: there are lovers and haters, and not many inbetweeners.

Robots in Disguise (RiD)
2001

Created in Japan and ported over to America with an English dub, Robots in Disguise was the first total reboot the franchise underwent on the telly. The previous continuity of The Transformers -> Beast Wars -> Beast Machines was thrown out and replaced with a brand spanking new cast of characters and supporting canon.

The Decepticons show up on Earth and kidnap a famous scientist, boo! But it’s okay, because Optimus Prime and co. show up to help the scientist’s son find his dad again, yay! But Megatron has created an evil clone of Optimus Prime called Scourge (or Nemesis Prime), boo! And he’s on a quest to find the ancient Fortress Maximus, boo! But that’s okay because Fortress Maximus can only be controlled by human children! Yaa…what?

Help! I’m confused!

Yep, you probably are. Robots in Disguise (2001) should not be mistaken for the cartoon Robots in Disguise (2015) nor the IDW comic Robots in Disguise (2012). And neither do these three separate medias have anything to do with one another. They’re all just references to the franchise’s official strapline. Confusing, confusing references. Thanks Hasbro.

The Unicron Trilogy (UT)
2002 – 2005

Comprising three different cartoons that ran sequentially – Armada, Energon, and Cybertron – the Unicron Trilogy was a co-production between the USA and Japan. It is once again a total reboot and has nothing to do with either The Transformers, the Beast Era, or Robots in Disguise.

The Autobots, lead once again by Optimus Prime, and the Decepticons, lead once again by Megatron, are all after a race of beings called Minicons: tiny, human-sized robots who, when plugged into an Autobot or Decepticon via a process known as Powerlinxing, power up that robot’s abilities. Nothing about this was a Pokemon rip-off. Honest.

The trilogy has a lot of fond fans who will be the first to tell you to buy and love the toys but leave the shows as a happy, somewhat fuzzy, memory due to the bad dubbing and animation quality. There’s also a human character called Rad who is so annoying that he once gave me an actual headache. As in, I had to take paracetamol because of this guy.

The series should be notable for trying to do something with a little more depth with fan-favourite character Starscream, and also for giving everyone an actual Unicron toy – something they had been wanting since the 1986 film.

Transformers: Animated (TFA)
2007 – 2009

Transformers Animated took a good long hard stare at all of the continuities that came before it, nodded to itself, and said aloud: I am gonna take all of these concepts and I am gonna use ’em to make something awesome. And lo, did it come to pass.

Animated follows a crew of Autobot maintenance workers – Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Ratchet, and series newcomer Bulkhead – who crash on Earth in the modern day after finding Macguffin the AllSpark and subsequently being attacked by Megatron for ownership of it. The series is set during what is actually a time of peace, with Cybertron intact and being ruled over by a proper government and everything, and the main struggle of the protagonists is both to survive and to prove to their…somewhat incompetent council that Megatron is still alive and still very much a threat.

The show is somewhat unique in having regular human super villains as well as a looming Decepticon threat, and is stylistically incredibly different to what came before (to the point where some fans refer to it as Chinformers).

Unfortunately the series was cancelled before a lot of plot lines could be resolved, because Hasbro doesn’t want us to have nice things.

Transformers: Prime (TFP)
2010 – 2013

A grittier, darker, edgier, and CGIer series than Animated, Transformers: Prime could not be farther from the aesthetics of the show that came before it. Rebooting continuity again, Cybertron is now a ruined lump of space metal that has been largely abandoned whilst the Autobots and Decepticons battle one another in a series of skirmishes across space. These battles, of course, come to Earth – where the Autobots are assisted by schoolchildren and the US government in ensuring Megatron can’t a) conquer the planet or b) keep huffing all that Dark Energon he’s found what makes him incredibly powerful like.

The show really puts a lens on the fact that Cybertronian culture was kinda sorta a bit of an asshole to Decepticons, who rose out of the mines and gladiator pits under Megatron’s guidance to challenge Autobot authority but, er, at some point went a bit wrong when Megatron’s ego inflated to roughly the size of Mars and he decided he should be in charge of everything, actually. It’s the first television series to turn Optimus Prime from a lighthearted older-brother-or-dad figure into a tired war veteran, and the first television continuity to feature Bumblebee as unable to speak.

TFP was resolved with a television movie called Beast Hunters.