Angry Robot of the Week

He’s big; he’s angry; he’s also a bad guy, but not necessarily that smart (if you’re the bad guys do you really call yourselves ‘Decepticons’? That’s just asking for trouble!) This week, Alasdair Stuart tells of one of the towering greats.

Angry Robot of the Week
Week Three
Megatron

Let’s talk about Megatron, the universe’s favorite bucket-headed robo-fascist. I’m in my early 30s, so he, along with the Anthony Ainley master, Darth Vader and the 1980s Tory party are basically the epitome of evil for me. Megatron even wins out over the others, largely because whilst the Master was evil he had an unhealthy love for velour jackets and hating the Tory party was less a conscious decision and more an unofficial tenth GCSE.

My name’s Ben Elton, thank you and goodnight. Just kidding. Or am I?

Yes.

OR AM I?

YES.

Anyway, Megatron will be forever known to me as the Nazi-headed Decepticon leader who transformed into a gun. He was big, he was loud, he killed things and Frank Welker voiced him. He’s a classic, iconic villain, Claudius with a fusion cannon, a transformable Ghengis Khan. He killed Optimus Prime, attempted to enslave Earth, survived death, served a planet-eating transformer and continues to stride across the worlds of Transformers canon with fire in his eyes and a burning need for conquest in his heart, even today.

He’s not this week’s Angry Robot though. Well, not really.  You see, Megatron has a legacy, one so powerful that in the future of established Transformers continuity, a group called the Predacons rise up, embrace the Deception principles of violence, conquest and blowing up smaller lifeforms and cause havoc. Their leader even takes the name of his esteemed predecessor, Megatron and engages in a pitched battle with a group of Maximals, the successors to the Autobots, that culminates in them crashing through a disturbance in space onto a desolate, savage planet.

Prehistoric Earth.

Beast Wars is one of the oddest, and to my money best, iterations of the Transformers cartoon for several reasons. The uber-plot, which involves God-like aliens, the Voyager probe’s golden record and the original Transformers, still dormant and undiscovered is complex, epic and ambitious whilst the character design and dynamic, which evolves several times over the course of the show is arguably the best it’s ever been. Any series which features an evil Predacon scientist, whose alternate mode is a Tarantula, cackling maniacally and screaming ‘LIIIIIIIVE!’ as he creates new life above a volcano in a lightning storm has got to be doing something right, after all. Then there’s Rattrap, the Maximals’ saboteur and espionage specialist who comes complete with a long-suffering world view, a sarcastic sense of humor and a New York accent, but we’ll save him for another time.

Most of all though, this is a show made for Megatron. The new ‘bot in town owns the series from the get go, a suave, charming sociopath who is often outnumbered but never outgunned. Over the course of the series he uses a creaky alliance with the Maximals against the mysterious aliens the Vo to kill Optimus Primal (he gets better by the way), persuade one of the original Decepticons, Ravage, to spare his life and quite happily decides to eradicate the infant human race in order to ensure victory in the future. This is a robot who embraces the long view and does so with a casual violence and brutality that is offset by how oddly charming he is. You hate him, you know he wants to kill your entire species, but still, he’s kind of cool.

Plus? He’s a Tyrannosaurus Rex in alternate mode. Not only that, but later he’s a metallic Tyrannosaurus Rex. With jet turbines. Later still he becomes a dragon – for me, the metallic, flying T. Rex is the epitome of bad-assery. There’s something about him hovering in mid-air, rubbing his tiny little T-Rex arms together, going ‘Ha ha ha ha, yeeeees’ that’s almost Shakespearean. Megatron knows what he wants and, if he can’t persuade you to give it to him, he’ll either kill you as a robot, kill you as a flying dinosaur or get one of his minions to do it, probably in the distant past. Oh and he does actually conquer Cybertron, which is more than the original ever managed. Of course he’s eventually defeated but that’s not the point. The point is, Beast Wars Megatron is our angry robot of the week.

Name: Megatron
Aliases: Technically? Megatron
Occupation: Commander of the Predacons, Rule of Cybertron, T.Rex that flies
Power Sources: Energon, His Unshakeable Belief That He’s Better Than Anyone Else, Ever
Notable Personality Traits: Conquering planets, violence, going ‘Ha ha ha ha yeeees’

Next week: Sonny from I, Robot and why he wants your iPad.

In the meantime, here’s your moment of Angry Robot zen, paying tribute to both Megatron’s favorite words and his voice artist, the mighty David Kaye: