Also in G1 Optimus was a cartoon, not a CG model.  

 

He was jostled out of the seat when the Maximals flew off in the Ark Shuttle.

QED.

 

or the pretenders did it.

 

Megatron isn't that much bigger than any of the other characters, at least not till he becomes TM2. Him Optimal Optimus, Tigerhawk, and Depth Charge were the biggest characters on the show. That being said Megatron was a TINY T-Rex. Grimlock was probably more of the right size and he was just as big as Prime.

 

Well honestly, I always thought that Megatron's original dino body was larger than his Transmetal one, but maybe that had to do with the bulk of his head & tail than anything else. You're right though, as the TM2 version was pegged as being hella huge, and we could probably add Rampage to the list of big dudes.

 

You can compare most characters' size to Optimal Optimus as he was soooooo much larger than every other BW robot. In fact, I seem to recall one scene where he looked right into Optimus Prime's face and you could see their heads were just about the same size as each other.

...AHA! Found it:

 

I was thinking of a different size comparison scene that I was very disappointed I couldn't do with the toys because they're so out of scale with each other. There's a scene I believe right when Cheetor finally gains control of his TM2 body that Optimus picks him up and can wrap his hand all the way around Cheetor. It was like a huge hulking character trying to hug Cheetor without crushing him.

And I can't find a screen cap of that but I'm fairly certain it was in Feral Scream part 2.

 

Yeah, whilst the scale is fairly consistent in the show, it's a lot harder to duplicate in toy form. Having said that, even the majority of the BW figures aren't THAT out of scale with each other.

 

Like, some of the early toys were outa scale (the original Optimus Primal being an ultra when he was closer to a mega & Terrorsour being a Basic when he was closer to a Deluxe on the show), but the other toys were pretty well in scale with each other, at least as much so as they could without breaking class sizes, and especially once we got the Transmetal characters. For example, we had...

Biggest - Optimal Optimus & Dragon Megatron

Ultra - 1st Megatron, Depth Charge, Rampage & Tigerhawk

Mega - TM Primal, TM Megs, Inferno & Scorponok

Deluxe - Dinobot, Silverbolt, Cheetor (all), TM Rattrap, Waspinator (all) & Tarantulus (all)

Basic - Quickstrike


... now I know there were a few more & that a bunch of toys weren't from the show, but considering that we didn't have multiple toys for the same body (at least not in the main lines), I think the Beast Wars figures stayed very true to the show when determining the size classes as well.

 

In the toy line the first Megatron and Primal are in the same size class as their TM2 forms but in the show they're actually the same size as their TM forms. I think Megatron seems bigger because of the way his tail folds out and his head fits on this arm plus the back pieces. TM Megatron has a more sleek design that seems more compact than the original. I don't think they really gain or loose any mass at all.

I always kind believed that the reason the TM2 forms are so big is because they were gained from the sparks of the original Prime and Megatron who are larger robots and I think the bodies were mutated to something more to size with the original Autobots and Deceptions.

 

Yeah, that made sense, especially given the scene with Optimus growing out of his skin while Rhinox shat his nonexistent pants.

 

Why do I get the feeling G1 Prime's size was sort of inconsistent throughout those episodes? Can anyone confirm/disprove?

I just remember Megatron flying past the G1 guys in the Ark and they're MASSIVE compared to him, and then in later episodes Optimal Op is around the same size as Prime, but only like twice - 2.5x as big as the other beast warriors.