Here we have Megatron in his Cybertronian Jet mode. Certainly a departure from his more alien appearance from 2007. I love how sleek it looks all around, and it captures a nice balance between being alien while also somewhat looking like a vehicle made in Earth. The gray color is darker than normal, but it has some somewhat golden highlights to make him stand out more. I do wish
It's a design that almost reminds me of G1 Cyclonus, and considering how Unicron's involved with The Last Knight, I feel he makes for a neat homage to the jet mode overall.
Transforming Megatron is fairly involved compared to the other Voyager Megatrons made before The Last Knight, and that includes AOE Galvatron. The only comparable toy in terms of complexity is DOTM Megatron, but the difference was DOTM had some smaller than normal parts and steps that feel annoying to deal with whereas TLK Megatron feels more like a breeze by comparison.
Megatron in his robot mode not only has an asymmetrical design, but I feel is also a happy balance between his G1 posture and the monstrous nature of the movie counterpart. This and TFP Megatron are examples of making nice combinations of designs from different versions of the character instead of going the Beewun route. Added into the mix is the asymmetrical knight deign. This is especially noticeable with the chest and arms. Despite how asymmetrical the design is, it still manages to look symmetrical, almost like how the Thundersaurus Megazord, despite having two totally different arms, doesn't look like they don't belong together.
The side and rear profiles don't look too bad either. You can see how some of the hollow parts kind of ruin the back, but at least the cockpit can sort of hide a majority of it.
Megatron's face sculpt looks sharper than his previous figures, but the only thing that sort of hurts the appearance are the side panels. They could go with looking darker or not being as softly sculpted when put next to the rest of the head. Also, Megatron has some light piping on his eyes, forehead, and even neck! It feels much better than the previous uses of light piping on Movie toys, where they either looked too dark or the eyes looked a lot bigger than they should be (thus making the sculpting look bad).
The articulation is very nice! The head is on a ball joint, the shoulders swivel front and back, hinge in and out, swivel at the biceps, bend at the elbows, and the hands can slightly move inward. There is no waist articulation, but the hips can move front and back as well as in and out, though you should move the waist pieces. They have thigh swivels, pretty good bends at the knees, and some ankle pivots!
His right arm gives him the traditional arm-mounted fusion cannon, which also makes this take on ol' Buckethead the perfect balance between a G1 design and a Movie design. It feels nicely integrated with the design, and while it's missing the Shockwave-esque hose, it looks alien enough to be a threat for any unlucky Autobots or humans.
He has another accessory that can be used if the fusion cannon isn't enough. His sword-ax, which is actually an Ikakalaka, can be used when the Decepticon leader wants to fight against his foes with a melee weapon that can slice them up worse than Prime's sword.
Overall, TLK Megatron is a fantastic figure in the line he originated from. He beats the other Movie Megatron toys made before 2017, and he is also better than the Leader Class figure! While a repaint of this hasn't been made, I do expect him to be in a lighter gray, have the battle mask, and Quintessa's red mark on his face for the Studio Series line. In the meantime, this is the best take of TLK Megatron to date...though Rendsora is neat despite being just a massive knockoff with ratchets, finer details, and die-cast. Good luck finding this guy two years after the movie was in theaters!
Final ranking: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ out of ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
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