Beast Machines Magmatron Review

Continuing our Transformers Celebration, we’re checking out the 2000 Target exclusive Magmatron from Beast Machines!

Similar to the original Gen 1 Transformers cartoon, Japan had it’s own continuity from the US Beast Wars cartoon. Inbetween seasons 1 & 2 of Beast Wars, Japan had the cartoon series Beast Wars II and Beast Wars Neo. Both of these cartoons also had their own Japanese exclusive toys. Hasbro released many of the dinosaur themed toys from Beast Wars and Beast Wars Neo in the US under the Dinobots subline from Beast Machines. In the year 2000, Target had an exclusive set with Magmatron from Beast Wars Neo.

The box has the typical Beast Machines theme but we also see the Dinobots subtitle prominently. You can also see Japanese characters all over the box (Including the Japanese Transformers logo) supposedly as an homage to the origins of the Magmatron toy. The window box shows the three dinosaurs in the box and the back has Magmatron’s bio and shows his different forms.

 

Here’s all 3 Dinosaurs, Skysaur (Pteranodon) Seasaur (Plesiosaur) & Landsaur (Raptor)

 

Seasaur looks like a typical Plesiosaur. The toy has a multi segmented neck, hinged mouth and ball jointed flippers to allow a more natural movement.

 

Seasaur also has an action feature that when you squeeze his back fins together, the forward fins fan out to look like he’s swimming

 

If you open Seasaur up, you can see he stores two missiles inside. We’ll come back to those in a minute…

 

Next up is Landsaur, he’s a blue Raptor. His legs have knee and ankle joints while the arms just have shoulder ball joints.

 

Hidden inside his tail is a blade missile.

 

Seasaur’s missiles can be put into Landsaur’s mouth and will launch out when you open his mouth. The blade missile will fit into the launcher, but won’t let the mouth close around it.

 

Lastly we have Skysaur. A red Pteranodon with articulated legs, neck and mouth. He also has two missiles that are stored on the edge of his wings

 

When you pull on his tail, the tips of his wings expand out to simulate flying.

 

Here are the 5 different missiles Magmatron comes with

 

All three of the Dinos can combine into a fuzor styled beast called Magmasaur! Seasaur basically wraps around Landsaur’s tail while Skysaur clips on top them both.

 

Their final form is the robot known as Magmatron! As you can see, Landsaur becomes the legs and most of the torso, half of Seasaur becomes the arms and back while Skysaur is the rest of the torso and the head.

 

The other half of Seasaur becomes a shield that can clip to Magmatron’s arm. The launcher in Landsaur’s neck becomes Magmatron’s gun. The figure has a decent amount of articulation but the wrists could use a swivel joint.

 

Magmatron’s headsculpt is nice and mean looking fitting a bestial type of Transformer like him.

 

Now what’s interesting is how Hasbro brought Magmatron to the US. As you can see from the bio on the back of the package, it appears they tried to make him fit into the Beast Machines storyline claiming that the Dinobots are made from the DNA of the character Dinobot from Beast Wars. Since he was a Maximal, it seems they decided Magmatron should also be a “Heroic Maximal” even though Magmatron was the main bad guy on Beast Wars Neo. His bio even calls him the “Emperor of Destruction” (not a title many Maximals would be known by)

 

The spark Crystals on the toys even have the Predacon insignias still on them

 

Magmatron is an interesting combiner toy. Most people would be disappointed by the lack of individual bot modes for the 3 dinos but honestly, most combiner teams are displayed in their combined form anyway so that doesn’t make a difference to me. It’s a cool toy that I’m glad Hasbro was able to bring over to the US.