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Transformers: The Movie (20th Anniversary Special Edition) -Sony (1986)
Summary: Be amazed and shocked children of 1986, your world is going to be rocked. My Thoughts: If there is any movie from my childhood that I have a love/hate relationship with, it’s Transformers: The Movie. Hell, this is the hardest review I’ve had to write so far, simply because of my mixed feelings about this thing. Still, I slog through it for you, dear readers. As anyone who is familiar with this film will tell you, Transformers did one big thing and that was to completely change the course of the beloved television series with this film. So to say that Transformers: The Movie is a big deal for the franchise would be an understatement.
Transformers: The Movie begins with a rather promising start of a big robot planet eating a much smaller planet, then breaking into a hair metal version of the familiar Transformers theme song. This is where the weirdness begins. Transformers: The Movie takes place about twenty years into the future from the where cartoon series left off, which was a pretty big shock for most kids. Everything is different, Spike, the kid in the television series, is now a grown man with a kid of his own. More importantly, The Autobots (the good guys for the uninitiated) have taken control of their home planet of Cybertron from the evil Decepticons. The Decepticons are far from defeated, however. Their leader, Megatron, decides to intercept an Autobot shuttle headed for earth so they can sneak past the Autobot defenses while their guard is down. This is all part of a normal Transformer day, until the Decepticons start killing the Autobots. They don't just knock them down, freeze them, or any of those other wonderful cartoon cliché’s, when they get hit with a Megatron destro-blast they're doomed. When Prowl dies, it’s about as gruesome as it gets for a robot kicking the cyber-bucket. I remember being completely stunned when I watched this as a kid. I kept thinking, “They just didn’t kill those guys. It must be some sort of a ploy.” Wrong. This is the phase of the film that I like to call, “What the fuck is happening!?” This is the main problem of Transformers: The Movie. The creators felt the need to kill off a bunch of beloved characters in order to launch a new product line without thinking that kids thought of these robots as people. This mindset led to the most controversial part of the film, which is Optimus Prime’s death. What a heart breaking moment that was for any kid who liked the Transformers. There really isn't much that I can say about this moment than what everyone else has said before: It totally sucks balls. Megatron gets off a little easier as he is turned into the more powerful Galvatron. The same goes for most of the Decepticons. They just got turned into other robots. You could think that random robot space boat looking guy was really still Thundercracker inside.
Another problem with Transformers: The Movie is that we’re introduced to a bunch of characters that act like they’ve been around forever and look nothing like the original transformers. It’s not a big coincidence then that the survival rate for a character that looks like a futuristic car or jet is 100%. The other characters that get to live might look like an old school Transformer, but if they were voiced by someone your parents would know then they'd live too. This led to plot points that didn't really make sense for kids in the 80s. "Hey, Ultra Magnus or whatever the hell your name is, you get to be the new leader even though we've only known you for a grand total of five minutes." What? Why didn't Ironhide get it? Oh wait, he's dead. Speaking of the new Transformers, this film has the pleasure of introducing three of the most annoying characters in the franchise: Blur, Wheelie, and Wreck-Gar. It's like getting three Jar-Jars for the price of one. Now don’t get me wrong, Transformers: The Movie isn’t all bad. There are several sequences that are really done well. Perhaps the best scene in the whole film is where Starscream finally fulfills his dream of taking over the Decepticons by ejecting Megatron and several other of his brethren out of their shuttle. When Megatron comes back in the form of Galvatron, he gets his revenge in a rather shocking and cool way. The weird scene with the Quintessons holding court and executing anyone regardless of guilt or innocence holds up well, and is one of the best parts of the film. You also get a rather decent end battle and some nice smashing of things courtesy of the Dinobots. The biggest flaw of the plot is its non-stop series of happenings that seem to be almost irrelevant to what’s going on. There’s no explanation just what in the hell the Quintessons are, or exactly what Unicron is or where he came from, he’s just this big destructive force fucking up everyone’s day. This is obviously a product of this film being one giant toy commercial. Fit as much merchandise in as possible and explain it all in the ongoing series is the theme of Transformers: The Movie. Animation here is kind of hit and miss. While some scenes like the opening look great, other scenes don’t hold up as well. It does look better than most animated films from that time and it certainly beats the hell out of any standard episode of the series. It’s amazing how much detail there is at times. If only the whole film could have been consistent, then it would be perfect. The voice acting is one area where this film really shines. Peter Cullins and Frank Welker both do amazing work as Optimus and Megatron respectively. Their replacements of Ultra Magnus, voiced by Robert Stack, and especially Galvatron, voiced by Leonard Nimoy bring a lot to the film. It’s too bad that both of these actors couldn’t come back to the series, but at least Frank Welker still had a job. The other “big name” voice actor, Judd Nelson, does a great job as Rodimus Prime and an even better job as a relic of the 80s. (All you Judd Nelson fans take note: He’s got a role in a film called Little Hercules in 3-D, which also has the entire Hogan family! Do I smell comeback!?)
One of the most memorable aspects of this film is the music. I really wish to god there was a way of turning off the 80s rock ballads while watching this thing. The theme “You’ve Got the Touch” is filled with campy nostalgia, but it’s so annoying when the lyrics don’t seem to totally match what’s happening on screen. Several times it’s almost too loud to hear the film’s dialogue. If you watch the film in Dolby 5.1 you can overcome this slightly by turning down the rear speakers. Perhaps the most annoying and out of place song is “Dare to Be Stupid” by Weird Al. I like “Dare to Be Stupid” and Weird Al in general, don’t get me wrong. In this instance the song seems completely out of place. The real shame is that the rest of the music in this film is quite good. Like I said, I’d be completely grateful if a version of this film would come out with only the songs with lyrics were taken out. In the end if you like Transformers, you’re going to get this DVD. If you aren’t a huge fan, then you might want to consider renting this. In the end I’m glad I got it. The rush of memories and nostalgia, both good and bad, can’t be beat. I don't know anyone who doesn't have at least some mixed emotions about Transformers: The Movie, but in the end its as good as this kind of film got back then even with toy execs running the show. Extras: This is a two disc set featuring both the widescreen version on one disc and the full screen version on another. I know our stance on Digital Monkey Box is anti-full screen, but in this case we’ll make an exception. Transformers: The Movie was originally filmed in full screen, then cropped. Therefore, the “full screen” edition is actually the real version of the film. I must say that the motion menus are great. Sony went the extra mile to make sure they look cool and the transitions aren’t overly long. I also really like the art that seems to be from the new comic versions of the characters. The box art itself is fairly nifty as the plastic design of the case kind of gives you a Transformers feel. It's too bad that the lenticular cover is a little too big to actually be a cover for this DVD, otherwise the presentation would have been perfect. Disc One: There’s two sets of commentary for your listening pleasure. The first features director Nelson Shin, story consultant Flint Dill, and Susan Blu who is the voice of Arcee. I don’t mean to be culturally insensitive, but I have a hard time understanding the Japanese director. To make matters worse, he either doesn’t understand English completely or is kind of senile. He interrupts the other two and says the same thing a few times throughout. Even the commentary itself isn’t that informative. Oh well, it’s worth a listen if you’re a die hard Transformer fan. The second commentary is done by Transformer fans and it’s a hell of a lot better than I thought it might be. In fact, its tons more informative than the creator commentary and is really entertaining. The guys don’t come off as drooling fan-boys at all and point out the film’s obvious flaws. I liked this so much that I wish that Sony would have them come back for some commentary tracks when they re-release the television series on DVD. “Autobot Matrix of Knowledge” is the film with a trivia track. Yay… “Scramble City” could have been a really great extra. I say could have, because instead of dubbing it or just letting the thing play they put commentary that can’t be turned off. Sure the commentary helps explain some things, but seriously let us watch this without it. Amongst the items in the video gallery are a trailer and some TV spots. There’s even color and sounds tests for those of you who can’t get enough flashing white and black boxes with the Transformers logo. The photo gallery is a nice addition, as it contains some pictures of film characters with profiles and details to get a better idea who each one is. “Sneak Peeks” looks like the dumping ground for features that didn’t have a home anywhere else. Most notable is the trailer confirming that Sony will release the TV series on DVD again and a couple of crappy tidbits (i.e. a trailer and a short featurette) for the highly controversial live action Transformers film. Disc Two: Here you’ll find the DVD Rom content which consists of a trivia game called “Activate Autobot City” and some web content. It’s beyond lame when an extra like a trivia game is put as a DVD Rom content simply so the side of the box can say there’s something on a DVD Rom. And that’s my mini-rant. The web content is… let’s just say the highlight is the bonus wallpaper for your phone that you have to purchase. Unfucking believable. “The Death of Optimus Prime” is a little retrospective on the controversial aspect of Transformers: The Movie. The creator’s try to get away with it by saying they had no idea that kids would care as much as they did. Well, if they would have asked a few they might have found out. Rounding out the featurettes are “The Cast and Characters” which is a little retrospective about the actors and what roles they played and “Transformers Q&A” which is a little Q&A with those who participated in the DVD extras. Both are worth taking a look at. The Video Gallery is loaded all kinds of extra stuff that Transformer’s fans might get a kick out of, like some deleted items. However, this brings up my biggest problems with these extras. There’s no way to turn the commentary off. There are numerous times in the “Extra/deleted Footage” where the narrator will say that the special effects are different, but there’s no way to hear them. Thankfully, the Scramble City commercials are presented without commentary so we can enjoy them in all their Japanese glory. The Transformers US and Japanese toy commercials are a welcome addition to this DVD, although its funny that they blur out the kids faces so they don’t have to worry about any legal problems. Finally, there are some animated storyboards just for you Transformers fanatics. As you can see, there are a lot of extras. Even despite my issues with them, they’re a pretty good bunch of this edition. Score: Film: 7.0 Extras: 8.0 Edition: 8.0 -Paul
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