BW Megatron was far more entertaining and charismatic. He was also more sinister believe it or not as several of his plans involved genocide, murder, taking advantage of literal childlike innocence. He was really f*cked up. Hmmm, yeeeeesss.
BW was a better leader. G1 Megs wpuld win in a fight though, as people dont seem to realize G1 transformers are the size of large vehicles, while BW transformers are the size of larger than normal but still fairly normal sized animals. He could just step on him.
^ This, Tyranno Megatron was a much crazier and scheming leader than G1
you really get to see the difference in size not only when they break into the Ark but when Primal merges with Prime he becomes sooo much bigger also but id throw out there that Dragon Megatron might have a chance against OG Megatron
I was assuming that since BM was mentioned, we were at least using Dragon Megs, as that was his default alt-mode for the majority of that series. I'm fairly confident that form could stand up to G1 Megs. Much greater mobility, and powerful enough to do major damage.
That doesn’t make him a better leader. I don’t believe he was tbh. I believe he’s overrated and was against inferior competition than megatron who faced Optimus. He got lucky had all of cybertron and stilll blew it.
G1 Megatron. That dude managed to pull together an entire army of psychopaths during the waning era of the Golden Age with Charisma, leadership skills, and actual combat skills he honed in the Kaon Fighting Pits. With skill, power and fear he managed to pull such a rag tag bunch of civil militia into a cohesive fighting unit that overthrew a long standing planetary government, and he did it not by deus ex machina as BW/BM Megatron did, but through skill and strategy.
Plus, lets add in the fact that BW Megatron was following G1 Megatron's plan when he swiped the Golden Disk that kicked off Beast Wars. The entire "Altering of the timeline" plan was G1 Megatron covering his bets in case he lost the Great War in a conventional sense.
The difference is, BM Megatron succeeded in conquering Cybertron. He straight out won the war. He was only defeated afterwards because a handful of rebels were given upgrades by what was essentially God.
G1 Megs, on the other hand, suffers from the fate of most 80's cartoon villains. He was given a badass rep, and we were told he was intimidating, yet at the end of the day, he always came across as an ineffectual *****.
BW megatron was lucky and he was defeated at the end of BW by the same rag tag bunch of heroes. Megatron was in command as well but went down due to Unicron and Rodimus Prime. He used his savvy despitr being beaten by Optimus to use Hot Rod’s stupidity to his advantage. No Megatron didn’t come up any shorter than the BW Megatron who had a rubber ducky for ****s sake. BW Megatron gave him the highest praise. Gen 1 had to deal with Starscream and we see he was even able to **** with the BW predacons as well. Gen 1 was far superior in terms of power, strategy, tech, and forces.
BW was very good and great at times but Gen 1’s Movie is untouchable.
Those ragtags didn't win at the end of BW though, as Megatron immediately escaped, and proceeded to subdue all of Cybertron. Hell, they only stopped that plan thanks to Tigerhawk, yet another form of divine intervention.
As for the G1 movie, it is excellent, yet I'd go with Beast Wars and Beast Machines as the greater achievement. The themes it covered, and the strength of characterisation, essentially saved the entire franchise in the West. Megatron was a large part of that.
He was strapped to a ship iirc. He was soundly beaten despite all his hijinx. He sent a virus he didn’t conquer it by force. He was lucky.
BW was deeper and I liked beast machines far more than BW personally but for me gen 1 was the best. The movie is one of my favorites and Optimus Prime is one of the only heroes I’ve ever loved as my favorite from a series. Megatron is the best villain imo and based off his history he’s a better leader than BW Megatron who went up against far greater opponents than BW Megatron ever did. I think we can both agree Optimus is greater than Optimal.
We both know Megatron from gen 1 would rip BW or BM Megatron’s circuits out.
Also, just a heads up, the '86 animated movie? Megatron had conquered Cybertron by 2005, It even says so in the opening scroll so... this undermines everything you just said.
How so? G1 Megatron achieved his conquest with the aid of an army, and still lost it in the end. BM Megatron took over Cybertron all on his lonesome, and would have succeeded utterly had the Oracle not directly intervened. G1 Megs has very few feats approaching BW's consistent level of cunning and guile.
@Quanchi: I too enjoyed the hell out of BM. The way it explored the ideas of free will and agency, along with the dichotomy of the natural vs the technological, was exceptional in several ways. The religious undertones between Primal and Megatron grabbed me as well. You could write a ****ing thesis on the relationship between those two.
As to the fight (the least interesting component of this thread, imo) it is obvious that G1 would defeat BW in his earliest incarnation. However, it was established that transmetal Megatron did have the firepower to kill a G1, while also possessing a VASTLY more fuel efficient form. If we translate that to his upgraded dragon form, which possesses even more firepower, the same greater fuel efficiency, and cuts down the size disparity but quite a degree...well, the waters become far murkier.