So after reading so many people complain about the design choice, I couldn't help myself but wonder if Bay had a reason behind for giving Megatron tusks. At first I thought it might be to match up with a faction of knights since animals were used as symbolism. I did find an elephant but nothing I read about the order seemed to matched up with what Megatron was. But then I stumbled upon an article titled "The Meaning and Symbolism of the Hunting Scenes in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight." My interest was peaked since I was looking for animal symbolism when it came to knights and the articles dealt with one of the knights of the round table which is part of the theme of the upcoming film. So I clicked on the article and read through it completely. Sure enough my eyes widened when I stumbled upon the explanation that seemed to fit Megatron nicely. So in the story, without going into too much detail, the hunter is on his second day of hunting and he is pursuing a boar. The boar was thought to be elusive but prone to face his attacker and strike back. The boar was not easy to kill since he does managed to attack and injure the dogs before finally being slain. The description of the boar does match up with what is shown of Megatron in the movies, elusive for the fact he is capable of disappearing from sight if he wishes, hard to kill not only for how he can go toe-to-toe with Optimus but also for the fact he never quite stays dead, and can cause quite the damage considering even Optimus has had some bit of struggle taking him down and would have lost if not for intervention. There is a chance that this is nothing more than a coincidence, but with how much focus Bay is wanting to put on the theme of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, it's safe to assume this might be where he got the idea from.
Sounds reasonable, although part of me thinks that anything other than the obvious is over reading things. Cynicism aside, I don't mind the tusks, even if I'm not keen on the design in general.
A boar! Of course! I should have thought of that before. The animals I kept thinking of for comparison were a walrus and an elephant, but a boar makes a lot more sense.
Hahahahaha! "Tusk"...... Does Starscream have feathers as well? One thing for certain is that Bayformers NEVER has to make sense. So put your feet up I guess...
I think the tusks, (really horns, tusks come from your mouth not your head) along with his melee weapon and burly design, are to make him look more barbaric. Much like the previous new designs in AOE were patterned off of different historical warriors.
I understand that completely, hence why I also brought up the possibility of it just being a coincidence. But still even if it was unintentional, it's still nice how his design seems to match up with something from the lore of King Arthur. Especially since King Arthur and the Knights of the Roundtable are a huge theme in TLK.
Interesting! He reminds me the ram also What is his melee weapon, I missed that? Is it sword or ax or something different? I have thoughts that he could be the Black Knight in the past, because he look like a barbarian, as Dinobots too. Maybe he wanted to be apart of Knighthood (16 swords in Armoury in Lockdown's ship), but wasn't accepted, got angry and since that times his Decepticon life began.
It's like a swordaxe? It's a sword, but the tip flares out into like an axe head kinda. It has a name but I don't know it, but it's more of a barbarian's wepaon than a more elegant sword like Prime has. It's in his concept art.
It's well within the realm of possibility. It's pretty hard to track down everything that inspires people in their creative work. Plus the symbolism of the boar has been around for a very long time so that's sprinkling symbolism into a lot of stories. Even Game of Thrones has it's big events thrown into motion because of a boar hunt turned deadly.
That's a good catch. Boars are very dangerous to confront in real life as well as in folklore in general so if anything this fits thematically with Megatron's role in TLK perfectly. This does also raises the question if Megatron will indeed have abeast mode because of this.
The horns/tusks mean nothing really in robot mode...as he could easily alter their shape, size and positioning when he transforms. They do indicate a beast mode to me, but I don't think that they indicate 'what' beast he will be.....