I have the unfortunate problem of living in Australia, where the government is even more crazy than in America - MP Megatron is flat out banned and will be siezed by customs, orange cap or not, because ohnoes, terror!!1 This really sucks because MP Megatron is the one transformer I've actually really, really wanted this year and I'm not about to go getting a gun licence and going to court over it like some of the fans here are doing. Despite what the government thinks, I don't want to hold up banks, cause trouble on planes or intimidate the dick that's tailgating me on the freeway, I just want what looks like it could possibly be the most awesome transformer ever, for my own entertainment (and the occasional camwhoring). It's been a few months since I asked the boys in Chinatown to call me if they get any in, so I've lost hope and come up with a plan.. seeing as those hardworking scanning screen monkeys in customs have come to recognise Megatron, maybe one could get through in pieces. Ball joints are ever so wonderful for dismantling things.. or would he need to be unscrewed, creating a puzzle of break-down-in-tears-rubix-proportions? If the parts are thrown in with a few other random loose junked transformers, maybe even sent in two seperate packages, it might just work. A random unidentifyable bit of metal from Megatron's foot isn't going to be anywhere near as obvious on the scanner as say, the junky chest of a G1 Prowl, and thankfully cars are not yet banned >.> Does anyone think this would work? or more importantly is anyone willing to help?
perhaps but gettting some 1 to do that for u and putting it back togeather woud probable be quite a hassel.......me sleppyessd fjskf....
There are certain ball-joint parts that come off quite easily. Indeed, they fall off sometimes if you just look at it too hard. His shoulder kibble, hip kibble, and calf kibble come off quite easily. The fusion cannon slides right off. I haven't tried this myself, but it looks like you could split it in two (lengthwise) if you undo some of the screws on the side. If you look between his legs, there's a screw that holds Megatron's lower half to his upper half. It's actually really friggin' scary if you think about it, because getting his chest to un-collapse from his abdomen means you have to yank on that every time. People break that all the time. Anyway, I've taken my toy apart at that toy myself. It's very easy to unscrew and screw back on. My advice? Take off the hip, arm, and calf kibble. Unscrew Megatron at the waist. Put the top and bottom body into robot mode. If you left the lower body in gun mode, it'll look identical to the bottom half of a gun, trigger and all. In robot mode, the trigger snaps into the calf, and it just looks like a bunch of legs. And of course, the upper body doesn't look like a gun either, in robot mode, but in gun mode it looks just like the top half of a gun.
he has very few ball joints, mostly for the parts of his armor that have to be adjusted, like on his shoulders and legs. nothing structural, aside from his feet. he'd have to be unscrewed. I don't have one though, as I believe I'm the only person in the US to have customs confiscate their megatron. have someone disconnect the halves like explained above, put the arm kibble armor (if not the arms themselves) and the gun barrel in a package with the legs. send the body seperately. no way they'll be able to figure out what the hell it's supposed to be. maybe have them pack the parts in junker G1 prime trailers along with some minicons or something. really throw them for a loop. just make sure the silver parts are padded. you don't want that sexy finish getting scraped up.
I would try it, disassemble him as far as you can possibly go, break it up into 3 boxes, shipped over a staggered time, maybe from diffrent post offices and you should get through.
the WA thing is news to me, I have a friend in that state who could send it on to me (I'm in Victoria), there would be less chance of it being seized but if it was, we'd probably both be accused of gun trafficking or something equally rediculous, *sigh*. Lets hope I can figure out how to put unscrewed Megatron back together with more success than when I tried to fix Blackout's automorph
My brother took two hatchets and more knifes than Locke (well 8) to europe and back again. Got them through customs fine. Checked luggage, they really don't care what's in their as you can't access it. And the drug/food dogs don't smell for plastic. Or maybe Canadian, British, and German customs just don't give two shits about their job. Still something to think about.
