Can we just talk for a moment about why Megatron has paintings of himself all over his base? This characterization of Megatron might fit the Beast Wars Megatron, but Siege Megatron does not seem overly vain. So what's the deal with the paintings?

 

He was... okay? He never did anything wrong, but he never did anything worth mentioning? He had no charisma, no real personality beyond typical evil-doer. His freedom fighter rhetoric is getting old and felt hollow given we have absolutely no idea what is truth and what is lies. We never saw the Decepticon uprising, so we have no idea just how harsh or unfair their treatment was. Which would be fine if it weren't the entire backbone of his motivation and the impetus for the war itself. Considering the entire war is sparked by the conflict between Prime and Megatron, not knowing what that conflict is kinda dampens the entire series and Megatron's character.

Come to think of it, nothing actually important about Megatron was shown, only told through other characters. He was supposedly friends with Magnus, but we have no idea what that friendship was like. He has some relation with Alpha Trion, but we have no idea what. He and Optimus have conflict, but as mentioned we don't really know what exactly.

Then maybe they should've changed that?

And maybe they should've, like, actually shown the beginning of the war. Either start the story there or at least show flashbacks giving us some idea of what it was about.

Inconsistent character logic? Not exactly unheard of in this show.

 

This is one of the biggest problems in the franchise, and a reason why I wish they would really cut down the timespan in which the war is supposed to take place. Like a hundred to a few hundred years makes more sense.

 

To build up a Cult of Personality. Those paintings aren't for Megatron, they are for his followers. That's propaganda 101.

 

Also, who do you suppose the artist was? What other paintings were there that we didn't see? Does Megatron wear a hat in any of them?

 

He is fine. He is just like other Megatrons we know. Merciless (against both his enemies.. and allies), wants to rule Cybertron, etc.

 

I thought he was good. Way better than Optimus.

 

Megatron was pretty close to being a bonafied anti-hero and I wish they would have just nudged him a little further in that direction.

I kinda liken Prime to being Batman and Megatron to being Punisher. Both are badasses but the Punisher is a seriously bad dude even though he points himself in the right direction, mostly.

I wish they'd played up that element with Megatron more. A few times they have Megatron pushback against death or torture but then he just immediately relents and goes with the flow. The opening scene is a great example. One minute, he wants to win the sparks and minds and not 30s later he orders the seekers to execute them. He tells Shockwave to cool it on the Magnus torture and then 10s later cranks the juice up to 11.

I would have liked to see him pretty violently push back against stuff like that.

I also really wish, since this is war with militaries and stuff, that we would have seen *any* kind of camaraderie or brotherhood on the Decepticon side. It's been millions of years of war with huge chunks of it fighting with the same soldiers. Like, let's see those relationships.

 

Megs totally has a topless-on-horseback painting of himself somewhere.

 

Yeah, that really bothered me. I don't understand what the point of his moral waffling was when it didn't go anywhere. I thought they might do a sort of "fall from grace" storyline where at some point Megatron drops all pretenses and declares his ambition for conquest after losing sight of his original goals... but no, he's still preaching his "peace-seeking" nonsense right until the end. It's almost like the writers wrote him to be deceptively kind, in that he'll attempt to weasel in new recruits for his army, only to reveal his true personality once he doesn't get his way, and then started believing his lies themselves.   It's just weird flip-floppy morals.

We kind of got a glimpse of that when Megatron seemed genuinely upset over Impactor's loss, but again, it went nowhere, and didn't exist in any other 'Cons who were all just typical bullies and sadists.

Which begs the question... why is Megatron in this freedom-fighter persona when the people he's preaching to are the typical Decepticon rabble? What do a bunch of dumb thugs care about his promises of peace? Wouldn't they rather follow a ruthless leader who promises them glory and domination? The Decepticons should have been more like what you described, with close camaraderie and genuinely believe in Megatron's rhetoric. It's mis-matched.

 

meh, he's megatron. but i think for now, cyberverse version may be the superior iteration to WFC

 

He's alright. I still think MTMTE had better development. Had they developed this one a wee bit more in the motivations department, he would've been my favourite Megatron.

 

One of the better Megatrons. He's so calm and calculated.

 

I just watched 2 episodes. Megatron in Neflix AFC kinda insteresting to me... Like they brought something new on him. Especially when Magnus negotiated to him. I'll watch the rest of it if I have free time.

 

I'd rather get an entire series focusing on the beginning of the war if they want to go that route. Just like in Star Wars you don't see the beginning of the war or the backstory of the bad guy right away. Impactor and Megatron's speeches about the energon mines gave enough info to know their motivations for this story. And the nice thing is Magnus didn't just info dump he walked Megatron through his history by taking him to Alpha Trion's memorial.

 

I almost like him... except for one thing... Why does he have such prominent big pouty lips... It's really weird that I'm more concerned Megatron is going to kiss someone than kill them.

 

To distract you from THOSE. FOREARM. GAPS.

 

What forearm gaps? Well I guess it worked.

 

I was actually kind of annoyed by Optimus Prime and the Autobots, and was rooting for Megatron and the Decepticons by episode 4 or 5.

Megatron's voice kinda got on my nerves, I wish he would talk faster, not so monotone but that's alright. He's the supreme evil-doer.

Overall, I'd say he's awesome.

Did you see how slow they talked and moved?

I'm surprised it was only a million years or war and not a billion...  

 

This begs the question: Who are the villains? I dont mean that in a "this is so deep it plays with your mind" way, I mean the cons were supposedly oppressed by the Autobots in the past, per Impactors line about it, then why are the Autobots depicted as underdog heroes and the cons as manipulatively evil? What kind of message is that? The oppressed are the bad guys? What are they trying to say? I feel like not even the writers knew what they were doing there and just threw it in because they read something about it on wikipedia.
I prefer the aligned version where it was one oppressed group that succumbed to war because of ideological differences among each other of how the new world should be, resulting in the separation and formation of both factions.