Transformers: The Movie (1986)

[Trinary]

Woo! So glad to see this one come up in the queue!

This movie has a weird place for me. It's one of my favorite childhood movies and I can quote 90% of it. I love its epicness and scale, the awesome music, the dialogue, its exciting atmosphere, the at-times gorgeous animation ... but it kills off established, iconic characters to make way for the new toys, er, characters--which is such a huge misstep that it makes it very hard to give a damn about the new new guys.

It's a severely flawed work that I still really love. Kind of like what Linkara said about the Prologue to Infinite Crisis.

[CharlesPhipps]

Weird fucking observation.

This is basically The Force Awakens.

I also think this is the best Galactus story ever done.

[RobbyB1982]

Moviebob's lengthy review of the film in Really That Good came away with much the same take. "Its NOT a good movie. But the action, colors, music, memorable moments, the first 1/3 being epic, the general weirdness, all combine to overcome that fact." ANd I pretty much agree with that. Its unlike anything else and it aimed big and ended up at the very least, legitimately interesting, and re-watchable and quotable. But not good.

Of course, Chuck put in a joke about just knowing he's going to end up doing a Touch music video at some point. That's usually not the sort of thing that ends up in the script unless he's got something planned. I wonder where the inevitable video will be? ANd is it anything on this month's slate in order to make the joke really land? It won't be in a Trek episode, and probably not for the first episode of Orville... and I can't imagine it working in Empire. So... where?

[Steve]

*sniffle*

....what, I saw this when I was fucking 3, 4 years old! I had my toddler heart crushed by the sight of Optimus Prime dying, and thirty years later the scar is still on my psyche!

Thankfully I didn't see "Dark Awakening" until many years later, otherwise... urgh.

That said, I still love this movie, I bought the soundtrack years ago, Vince DiCola's score is awesome, and despite basic issues with the story and plot and killing some of my favorite characters... it's a Goddamned classic and still far-fuckin-superior to anything Bay's done with the franchise!

[Steve]

Of course, Chuck put in a joke about just knowing he's going to end up doing a Touch music video at some point. That's usually not the sort of thing that ends up in the script unless he's got something planned. I wonder where the inevitable video will be? ANd is it anything on this month's slate in order to make the joke really land? It won't be in a Trek episode, and probably not for the first episode of Orville... and I can't imagine it working in Empire. So... where?

A very interesting question indeed...

[Independent George]

I saw this in the theaters when I was nine. I haven't thought about it since, but watching the review, I'm kind of freaked out at how graphic some of those death scenes were.

I also remember I freaking hated Hot Rod. The problem with giving him the hero's journey is that he never makes the choice to grow as a person and become the hero. He touched a magic artifact, and suddenly all his flaws from earlier just disappeared. There is no recognition of his errors, no earnest attempt to become better than he was. A wizard did it, and now he's the leader. Hurray!

[Darth Wedgius]

Little bit of trivia - Looking at the performers, Cyclonus is partly built from Harry Mudd. Well, Roger C. Carmel, anyway.

[CrypticMirror]

Ah Rodimus, the Jonathan Archer of the giant robot universe.

I wish i knew where the idea that girls didn't buy robot toys came from, I loved my transformer toys when I was a girl. I was stoked that there was this female Autobot and I hated there was no toy of her. Then again, I remember how disappointed I was when the Masters of the Universe line produced She-Ra toys and they were just glorified barbie dolls so maybe it was a good thing that there was no Arcee toy back then. As an aside I hate what the G1 comics have done with Arcee as a character (she was originally a male Autobot that got tortured into being a girl...!) so perpetual disappointment with how \transformers creatives deal with female fans is my ground state (where is my Anode and Lug toy, btw?). I'll give them this though, at no point in the movie did Arcee feel like the tagalong chick (that was Wheelie, the Jar Jar-Neelix-Wesley of the robot world who annoyed me even when I was a kid), she held her own in the action and it felt like she was an equal partner.

As for the robot death. Maybe it was spending all that time with my grandfather and watching war movies with him, UK WW2 movies are often a lot more downbeat than John Wayne-American ones are, and I kinda was used to seeing beloved characters bite the dust in heroic last stands and doomed defences. Optimus' death felt like a familiar story beat there. If anything it was Starscream's death that really caught me off guard, I was so used to him acting out and then getting smacked down that I fully expected Galvatron to show up and smack him around a bit and he'd fall back in line again while verbally sniping away in the background. That death was not a familiar story beat and that was when I felt the rug being pulled out from under me.

I still don't understand why UM got blown to pieces and lived, but Optimus died. Personally I feel it would have been bolder of the writers to kill UM there to prove things were still serious. He doesn't really fulfil any story purposes after that anyway.

I did like most of the new introductions. Arcee was a joy for me to see, a badass but still feminine figure, Kup was pretty much my Grandfather in robot form, and I did like Springer even though he didn't do much but be Optimus Mk2 in many ways. I would have had Springer be the new Prime if I had had my way. And Blurr, whom I decided would also be a girl Transformer too for some reason.

I did love that movie though. It was fun.

[Aotrs Commander]

Ah, good old TFTM!

Yes, this was my own cultural touchstone (I watched it SO MANY TIMES on video as a child).

I was, at the time, considerably younger than Chuck (I would have been seven by the time the movie aired in the UK). I was also getting the UK comic run at the time, which meant I had a fair bit of lead in. (And, due to UK TV's terrible scatter-shot, repeat-filled way of airing cartoons - then as now, the comic was my primary window into the franchise.)

I was thus a little bit, perhaps more shielded from the character deaths, since that happened in the comics more frequently (though didn't start in anger until after the movie).

And I, like Chuck, did not see much of a distinction between human and robot characters, because they were, y'know CHARACTERS. But I have to thank Transformers, at least, for the censors not seeing this distinction (because idiots, though there is at least a bare-minimum seperation away in terms of gore verses robot parts) and allowing Transformers to be more mature in the story telling in the comics (or at least, not patronisingly nonviolent like the A Team was in never showing anyone getting hurt[1].)

I was decidedly more put out by the deaths of Starscream (my favourite, especially in the UK comics were Simon Furman made him much more awesome) and Ironhide and Ratchet than by Prime himself.

The new characters too, were familiar faces by this point, thanks to the UK Target 2006 storyline, which brought Galvatron, Scourge, Cyclonus, Hot Rod Kup and Blurr back in time, and introduced Springer and Ultra Magnus as comtemporary characters. (And marked the first instance Prime "died" though this first time it wasn't actually him being killed as was discovered later.) So I didn't feel that the older characters were getting sidelined as much.

The movie also marked when Grimlock went from just another character (albeit on with more personality on the letters page) so skyrocket to my second favourite, thanks to the movie allowing him to be comic relief somewhat. (The comic later adopted the Dinobot cartoon/movie speech patterns for Grimlock alone - otherwise the Dinobots had talked and acted just like the other Autobots - but framed it is as a deliberate affection, and used as a comedy goldmine on top of Grimlock's character becoming more defined beyond "stupid strong guy.")



The swearing line was omitted from the UK cinematic and video release in the case of Spike (I was greatly surprised to hear about it many years later online), but Magnus's "damn you" didn't even raise eyebrows as a six-year old. (Of course, "damn" is barely a swearword in the UK, even then

Actually, the comic used "Geez" all the time itself, and I started to before my Mum told me what it was derived from and asked me to stop (which I did at the time, because I was a well-behaved lad and also because when I realised it WAs more than just a random word I felt a bit guilty myself[2]). It also made little sense from Springer to be saying in the comic, frankly!



Something of note for me personally was around this time - a bit later, if the date of the TFTM airing in the UK was correct - my baby sister was born and died of congenital heart problems. (I was seven/eight at the time.) I wonder how much TFTM might have subconsciously prepared me (in as much as getting the concept) for that, as I know I heard people comment on how it helped them deal with bereavement beforehand.



The sound track was, for YEARS, something that stuck in my head ever after, second only to Star Fleet (Star Fleet X-Bomber to those of you in the US), only finally taking second string to Pokémon a decade and a half later. (TFTM stands as being the first music CD I ever bought, and one of the less than two dozen I own period. Of which only THREE are NOT soundtracks, and one of those is debatable.) Fight music, os as they say, my jam.



[1]Don't get me wrong, I loved the A Team then and find it hilarious now, but it was a bit silly an disingenuous to have all the guns firing and no-one ever getting hurt. But, sadly, censors have by-and-large never made much sense.

[2]I did not swear much as a child at all until I joined an adult RPG group at ten; then I only swore there, and then (and now) I cheerfully swear like a sailor when annoyed, but still use 50% of my own curses otherwise or when in places where you aren't allowed to (many internet forums, for example!)

[Trinary]

Weird fucking observation.

This is basically The Force Awakens.

I also think this is the best Galactus story ever done.

http://www.lilformers.com/blog/2007/08/20/08202007/