Admittedly, this is not as cool as a trailer. And it certainly doesn't elicit the tingling sensation Megan Fox gives you when she fixes an engine or graces the cover of Esquire.

But it's apparently a first look, procured by MTV to promote this evening's MTV Movie Awards, and the thing looks legitimately bad ass (is that an Egyptian style headdress going on up in there?).

And it looks slightly different too, right? Shia LeBeouf explains:

Basically, the Fallen is to them what cavemen, Neanderthals were to us. He's the ancestor, the first version of this exoskeleton. He's the first version of this sentient being. That's what he is. He's the origins of what they came from.

He also says the Megatron answers to the fallen thanks to a sort of "Emperor and Darth Vader ... kind of situation."

So long as we're talking Emperor-Vader from the Return of the Jedi, and not that "Noooo!!!" abomination at the end of Revenge of the Sith, that sounds cool enough. [MTV via Film School Rejects]

Do yourself a favor and watch it in HD over at YouTube. [YouTube]