Brikar

"Transformers: The Movie"
Starring: Eric Idle, Judd Nelson, Leonard Nimoy, Robert Stack, Orson Welles

MOVIE
Well. Here we are. 20 years this movie has been around, a constant cult-classic that's been released and re-released on video numerous times in different versions. It finally comes to DVD in a respectable 2-disc edition featuring (at long last) a 16x9 Anamorphic Widescreen transfer, remastered and color-corrected to look and sound as best it can.

Damn. There it is. "Transformers: The Movie". Possibly the best example there is of the 80s-style of extreme commercial sheen and excess. With a ridiculous 80s power-ballad soundtrack, wildly uneven animation, an all-star cast and a story designed to introduce an entire new line of toys, "Transformers" can only be described with one word: Awesome.

Much of the movie is spent watching in horror as 95% of the cast of the first two seasons of "Transformers" die horrible, painful deaths either at the hands of the Decepticons or Unicron, a planet-sized Transformer that eats planets. The Autobots (and many of the Decepticons) are quickly slaughtered and replaced by new characters that would continue on in the show's third season. In the movie, they're voiced by big-time actors (at the time) like Judd Nelson, Robert Stack and Leonard Nimoy (who provides the villainous Galvatron far more gravitas than even the talented Frank Welker could).

All thoughts of logic or plot structure are thrown to the wind in favor of loud, sometimes incomprehensible action sequences set to some of the worst 80s rock you'll ever hear. The two high-profile tracks from Stan Bush ("The Touch" and "Dare") are the worst kind of uplifting pop-rock, and appear a totally inappropriate number of times in the movie, as though the producers were trying to get the most out of the money they spent on it.

And yet, despite all that, "Transformers: The Movie" is a highly enjoyable experience. People talk all the time about movies where you can turn off your brain and simply enjoy them... and TF might be the pinnacle of such things. There's no intelligence to the script, and the animation is full of mistakes like mis-colored characters and robots that appear again later after they died in an earlier scene. But there's an undeniable charm to the whole deal. You're willing to accept it almost blindly because it's so utterly ridiculous.

It's pure 80s, through and through, and for once that ain't really a bad thing.

VIDEO
Presented for the first time in 16x9 Widescreen, "Transformers" looks fantastic. The colors are bright and bold, with excellent, deep blacks. The widescreen version was cropped from the full-screen version, which is available on Disc 2, but the movie was presented in theatres in widescreen. Fans have been clamoring for some kind of "lost" widescreen version for years, only to discover that there never was such a thing. Sony did the next best thing and just made a new one. Props.

AUDIO
The 5.1 Surround track is pretty rockin' here, too. There's lots of activity from the rear speakers, especially when the rock music kicks in. That said, there's not a lot of bass to be had. There's just enough to keep the movie from sounding weak, but it's not the floor-rocking kind of bass one wants from a movie with so many explosions. The age of the material and the rather low quality of many of the effects to begin with really contributes to any weaknesses here. The music sounds much, much better than the sound effects and vocals.

FEATURES
Disc 1 features an Audio Commentary (which, I'll admit, I didnt' listen to yet). The only other feature really related to the movie is a split-screen comparison between the previous transfer and the new, which is like night and day, I'm telling you. Otherwise, it features an ultra-brief "featurette" about the upcoming live-action "Transformers" movie from Steven Spielberg and Michael Bay. Basically, Bay, Spielberg and the screenwriters Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci ("Alias", "Mission: Impossible 3" "Star Trek XI") come on for about three minutes to tell us all how excited they are. Wildly insightful. The teaser trailer that's been available for months is also included, as well as a trailer for the 20th Anniversary DVD (that you've already bought, since you're watching it) and for a new release of the original "Transformers" TV series on DVD.

Disc 1 also contains an episode of the "Transformers" cartoon entitled "Scramble City" that preceded the movie but was never seen in America. While this is interesting to include, the way it's presented is strange. Over the episode, you hear a "fan commentary" by two prominent Transformers "collectors" and owners of popular TF websites. There are no english subtitles for the episode, so you can't even just ignore the commentary to read the episode if you wanted to.

Disc 2 contains three featurettes of varying degrees of interest. "The Death of Optimus Prime" is the one that holds the most promise, but alas falls short due to the fact that the voice of Optimus Prime himself, Peter Cullen, is not present at all. In fact, this is something that hurts the rest of the featurettes as well, that the only cast member present is the voice of the lone female Transformer, "Arcee". The insights from the producers and directors on this stunning moment are great, but one can't help but want to hear from Cullen about the death of his iconic character.

"The Cast and Characters" is another good featurette, but again lacks any insights from the cast of the movie. The third featurette is "Transformers Q and A", which presents a number of questions to the producers and director, many of which are genuinely interesting.

Also on Disc 2 is a selection of deleted or alternate footage, much of it brief glimpses or single shots from existing sequences that were recolored or reframed in some fashion. There's an extended opening that shows more of Unicron chewing up the planet, and a look at the original black and red color scheme for Ultra Magnus.

In addition, a trailer and a number of TV spots for the movie are included. We're told to expect an adventure two years in the making, with astonishing wide-screen animation and an original story that will shock us. The last couple are especially interesting, since one of them is a toy tie-in commercial for the movie, with full-on 80s kids playing with Transformers toys. There are also Japanese commercials for "Scramble City" toys which are totally ridiculous - stop-motion battles with Transformers toys, with full music and sound effects and even firecrackers for explosions. Even worse are the American toy commercials, which feature embarrassing child-actors lip-syncing bits the TF theme song and playing with the toys.

OVERALL
The "Transformers" movie finally gets a decent DVD edition! With a great new transfer and some interesting (if somewhat incomplete) bonus features, it's hard not to recommend this total guilty pleasure.

SCORE
VIDEO: A
AUDIO: B+
FEATURES: B-
OVERALL: A-

__________________
"A million monkeys typing until the end of time will produce the complete works of William Shakespeare. Ten thousand monkeys typing for ten thousand years will write a Hemingway. Ten monkeys typing over Columbus Day weekend will give you a Dan Brown."

http://olympusmans.blogspot.com
http://benforrealz.blogspot.com

Bean

Thanks alot Brikar... now I've got "The Touch" stuck in my head.

*opens Limewire*

__________________
"I haven't faced death. I've cheated death. I've tricked my way out of death and patted myself on the back for my ingenuity. I know nothing."

--James T. Kirk

Brikar

You love it.

__________________
"A million monkeys typing until the end of time will produce the complete works of William Shakespeare. Ten thousand monkeys typing for ten thousand years will write a Hemingway. Ten monkeys typing over Columbus Day weekend will give you a Dan Brown."

http://olympusmans.blogspot.com
http://benforrealz.blogspot.com

Bean

I've been listening to it all fucking day... damn you and your reviews!!!

__________________
"I haven't faced death. I've cheated death. I've tricked my way out of death and patted myself on the back for my ingenuity. I know nothing."

--James T. Kirk

Stag

Excellent review Brik. I just picked this up and I have to agree with you. Although, I don't know if this was the DVD or my set up fault, but it seems the soundtrack was far louder and in places drowned out the vocal tracks. Otherwise, pure 80s lameness.

__________________
"I want to do a motorboat on Shatner's manboobs" - Sam Cogley

Bean

Still listening to it..... damned eighties music..

__________________
"I haven't faced death. I've cheated death. I've tricked my way out of death and patted myself on the back for my ingenuity. I know nothing."

--James T. Kirk

Brikar

It's possible either way. There are a few places where the voices do somewhat get drowned out, but it's a problem I had with the movie on VHS, as well, so I'm not sure I can really fault the DVD that much for it. Unicron's voice is a lot of deep bass that can sometimes smush all together, especially with all the rumble from the subwoofer, and some of the voices sometimes suffer from poor recording or a lot of post-process audio effects.

__________________
"A million monkeys typing until the end of time will produce the complete works of William Shakespeare. Ten thousand monkeys typing for ten thousand years will write a Hemingway. Ten monkeys typing over Columbus Day weekend will give you a Dan Brown."

http://olympusmans.blogspot.com
http://benforrealz.blogspot.com

Bean

I may have to dowlnoad this. I remember watching it on VHS a few years ago and it was still awesome. I'm imagining that on the projector with some serious bass it'd kick ass.

__________________
"I haven't faced death. I've cheated death. I've tricked my way out of death and patted myself on the back for my ingenuity. I know nothing."

--James T. Kirk

Brikar

Oh man, I totally wanna get a projector for my apartment.

__________________
"A million monkeys typing until the end of time will produce the complete works of William Shakespeare. Ten thousand monkeys typing for ten thousand years will write a Hemingway. Ten monkeys typing over Columbus Day weekend will give you a Dan Brown."

http://olympusmans.blogspot.com
http://benforrealz.blogspot.com

Bean

Seriously, it's worth the money, especially if you have a surround sound system already. And if you think about it, it's really not THAT expensive. You can get them for less than 1000 dollars now. Cheaper than most notebook computers. And even a lower end model like my Epson is still AWESOME for playing games or having "movie night".

__________________
"I haven't faced death. I've cheated death. I've tricked my way out of death and patted myself on the back for my ingenuity. I know nothing."

--James T. Kirk