General Information: Images:
Text from Hasbrotoyshop.com:
“THE BATTLE BEGINS” Prepare for a fierce faceoff with these two opponents! In robot mode, the mighty OPTIMUS PRIME figure is poised for battle with his double-handed ion axe, while the menacing-looking MEGATRON figure will be ready to fight back, wielding a fusion cannon! Convert the cannon to a sword for added battle excitement! Gear up for land versus air combat too, when you convert the figures to Earth Truck and CYBERTRON Fusion Fighter in vehicle mode! Victory is within reach – but who will claim it? You decide! Figures come with an exclusive DVD featuring “THE BATTLE BEGINS” episode from the TRANSFORMERS ANIMATED series!
Images:
In the original Transformers series, we met several key characters on Cybertron before they came to Earth. While they all had Cybertronian vehicle modes, their robot modes all looked like ones built to transform into Earth vehicles, which of course was a cost-saving measure. Still, this is a mistake that subsequent series tried not to make, and "Transformers Animated" is among them. Before he gains a new body on planet Earth, Megatron had a Cybertronian form as well. This figure represents the deluxe version of this figure. It was included with a deluxe sized Optimus Prime figure and a DVD featuring the pilot of "Transformers Animated" titled "The Battle Begins".
Robot Mode: One of the best places to see this combination of influences is the upper body. His head's helmet section is clearly a riff on the movie Megatron, with a sharp, angular shape that comes to a point above the nose and at the ends on either side of his chin. It even has tooth like protrusions on either side and three raised points on the top of the head, one resembling a small fin on top. This definitely evokes the movie Megatron's helmet. However, the face is a much more human face than movie Megatron had, with smooth cheek and jaw sections and a regular pair of eyes, nose and mouth (set in a slightly annoyed looking scowl). His chest also combines G1 and movie influences. The outer layer of detail is made up of angled and pointed sections, most notable in the center where a four sided diamond shape sits in the center of his chest. However, the sections in between these angles are not choc full of criss-crossing details. Instead they are relatively smooth except for two small raised lines on either side of his chest that are design homages to similar lines on G1 Megatron's chest. The rest of Megatron's robot form follows suit in design. His arms and legs all have diamond shaped and angled designs from his shoulder armor to his feet. To emulate the "Animated" design look, his shoulders and chest are very wide, but then they shrink down significantly at the waist and upper legs before angling outwards into his lower legs and feet which are wide and sculpted with a slight angle to them. The overall effect is a very formidable looking character. This figure carries over all the major details from the animation model and adds to them a bit. Everything from the larger details such as his chest design to smaller ones such as the spike like designs on his abdomen are present. On his back there are some line details on either side near the shoulders that were added in for this figure. Also added in are some raised lines on his thighs that are not present in the animation model. Megatron is cast in dark silver, translucent red and dark grey plastic. A bulk of the figure is dark silver while the lower legs and parts of the hips are dark grey. Translucent red can be found on joints like his hip ball joints and the upper arms, which look fantastic. Metallic red paint is used for some of the red details from the animation model such as the waist area and the front portions of his feet. Dark grey paint is used on his fists, shoulders and the front of his waist to match up details with the animation model. Metallic pink paint is used for his "battle damage". I'm not exactly sure how pink equates to damage. My guess would be that it represents Energon or some type of energy glowing or leaking from the damage. The damage patterns are found on his head, shoulders, chest and right foot. Rather than using a splotchy pattern or spray patterns, the designers decided to embelish with the "Animated" style and create jagged damage details. With the pink color, they look almost like flames, but it's a rather odd looking way to represent battle damage. I am curious if this means down the line we can expect an individually packaged redeco of this figure with no battle damage. Megatron has seventeen points of articulation in this form. Several of these are ball joints including his shoulders, hips and head. Unfortunately, his posability is limited if you attach his cannon to either of his arms. Because the ball joint on his hips are not very tight, he winds up leaning over to one side. I've tried posing his legs, bending the knee joints a bit, repositioning his arms and so on with no success, he just flops over no matter what. However, if you take the cannon off, this doesn't happen. This is a bit frustrating since he really is a nicely sculpted figure with plenty of articulation points. While I may normally say "This may just be mine so be cautious." I have heard of this particular flaw across the board from fans, so it is a line-wide problem. The quickie fix is to put some clear nail polish on the ball joint to tighten it up, but this is somthing that shouldn't be necessary to do at all. Megatron includes his fusion cannon, a nicely designed futuristic take on the traditional round cannon using an octagonal design for the barrel instead. This cannon has two blades on it. Flip the cannon barrel up and you can swing the red blade out for Megatron to use as a weapon. It's an odd looking blade weapon however since the barrel doesn't sit on anything or totally fold back. It just kind of sits there at an angle. This cannon has a peg that can be connected to his lower right arm or into one of his fists. The blade that does not rest on a hinge can be detached, but the pegs do not match the size of the holes on his fists, so I'm not sure what the point of it all was. It feels almost as if there was an abandoned feature early on in design. Megatron's "action" feature is built into the waist. Turn his upper body to the side and it snaps back in a "punching" motion. This is basically the Transformers equivalent of a design feature used on classic 1980's He-Man figures, and it is amusing to see it built into a Transformer in the 2000's. I really hate being down on any figure, especially when I know the kind of work that goes into creating one. However, Megatron's mode is a disappointment because it is a really great sculpt with a good paint job (odd battle damage not withstanding) but its functional problems just bring it down so many levels it's sad. Transformation to Vehicle Mode:
Vehicle Mode: There are few new design elements here. The wings are dark grey and the hoverfans in the center are a nice touch. Other than that, almost all the bits here are obvious carry overs from the robot mode. The end of the cannon does resemble an odd type of cockpit, with some V shaped translucent red parts that one could interpret as cockpit windows. I can't even argue that the designers embelished on the animated design, because frankly that one was even less defined than this figure. However, taking into consideration that this form appeared on screen for all of one episode, and for maybe a minute to boot and you can easily see why a whole lot of effort wasn't put into it.
Final Thoughts: 
Images:
Text from Hasbrotoyshop.com:
“THE BATTLE BEGINS” Prepare for a fierce faceoff with these two opponents! In robot mode, the mighty OPTIMUS PRIME figure is poised for battle with his double-handed ion axe, while the menacing-looking MEGATRON figure will be ready to fight back, wielding a fusion cannon! Convert the cannon to a sword for added battle excitement! Gear up for land versus air combat too, when you convert the figures to Earth Truck and CYBERTRON Fusion Fighter in vehicle mode! Victory is within reach – but who will claim it? You decide! Figures come with an exclusive DVD featuring “THE BATTLE BEGINS” episode from the TRANSFORMERS ANIMATED series! Optimus Prime's appearance in "Animated" is largley influenced by previous incarnations of the character. Specifically he draws influences from Cybertron Optimus Prime and by virtue of that, his G1 predecessor Star Convoy. In a bit of an "off screen" homage to the original Optimus Prime, the "Battle Begins" two pack features an Optimus Prime figure that is based largely on the appearance of the original Optimus Prime from Generation One.
Robot Mode: The replacement/retooling of parts is rather extensive on this figure including:
The interesting net effect of all these altered parts is that Optimus looks a lot bulkier than his previous form. The three parts that contribute most to this are his chest (which is wide and rectangular), the parts connecting his chest to the arms (which raise a bit higher than the equivalent parts on Cybertron Mode Optimus Prime) and finally his arms, which are more rectangular, larger parts that give him some added mass. His axe weapon is also much larger than the small double axe from Cybertron Mode Optimus Prime and it also has the large thruster detail opposite the axe blade. Because of the way the chest section with the shoulder ball joints is set behind the chest plate, it gives the illusion that the arms are constantly pulled back slightly, as if Prime is about to prepare for a strike. It's a really nice visual trick and plays out very well. The resculpted face looks really great. While I've grown accustomed to the look of Animated where Optimus Prime has a regular mouth, I prefer Optimus Prime with a mouthplate. It's so iconic to the character's appearance that he always seems to look more serious with it. Note that even in Beast Wars, Optimus Primal was given a mouth, but pieces of the mouthplate were kept intact to maintain that "Optimus Prime" visual connection. The new arm pieces definitely give Optimus a much more simple, yet aggressive appearance. The rectangular shape definitely matches the animation model while harking back go G1 Optimus Prime quite a bit. His chest plate uses the animation design, with the angled windows and a slanted row of headlights on each side. His lower legs represent a significant design change, featuring two wheels that can roll in vehicle mode (but not in this form) instead of tread like designs on the outer leg with tiny wheels on the back of the legs. This too is accurate to the animation model and looks very cool. While the red/blue/silver palette Optimus is known for is used on this figure, different shades are used. He has dark blue, dark red, translucent blue and silver plastic parts. The blue parts are much darker than those on Cybertron Mode Optimus Prime and the red is a shade darker as well. The translucent blue is used to make pieces like the chest plate and axe while silver plastic is used for the elbow joints and upper legs. Black plastic is used for the wheels. Paint applications are done in red, black, silver, light blue and yellow paint. The chest is painted red leaving only the windows exposed. The axe weapon's handle and the rocket piece are painted red as well along with the side panels on Optimus' lower arms. Silver is used to accompany the red on the chest and axe blade while filling in the mouthplate color. Yellow is used for small details such as the lights on his chest plate and the rectangular details on his hip section. Interestingly, the designers chose not to paint the lines on his feet as they did with Cybertron Mode Optimus Prime (which would have made it more show accurate). Black paint is used on the back and sides of his waist as well as the edges of his feet. Black is also used for Optimus' "battle damage" details which are a series of very stylized jagged designs on his face, right arm, chest, hips and waist pieces. While I can appreciate the idea of battle damage on the figure, I really wish it had been done with more traditional spray lines or some equivalent. The way the damage is drawn here, it looks more like some black gooey substance was tossed at Prime or that Venom's symbiote is trying to take him over. It's an interesting look, but not quite what the designers were going for. Optimus has thirteen points of articulation in this form. Several of these including his shoulder and elbow joints are on ball joints, so his range of motion is excellent. All his joints are very tight, allowing him to strike poses without flopping around. The waist piece on the figure has been made to twist and then spring back forward, allowing him to swing his axe or "punch". Since Megatron has this feature as well it makes perfect sense that Optimus would have it as well, allowing fans to have the figures "battle" each other. Transformation to Vehicle Mode:
Vehicle Mode: Optimus' colors reflect the intent to pay homage to G1 Optimus Prime. Whereas the animation model normally has black coloring underneath the silver stripe running from the front to the sides of the vehicle, the section under the stripe here is red. The lightbar also differs from other versions of Animated Prime in that both sides are translucent blue as opposed to one side being red and the other blue. I'm not a big fan of the "battle damage" designs on this figure, and in vehicle mode it just looks off. I sort of hope down the line this figure is done with a "clean" G1 inspired deco and released individually.
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