Transformers: The Movie (1986)

[GloatingSwine]

Transformers titles for the post 9/11 generation has sucked just as badly as everything else for the post 9/11 generation.

What about Transformers: Animated?

Transformers: Chins is the best Transformers show of all.

[AllanO]

This review convinced me to sit down and watch the Transformers DVD I had sitting on my shelf, and let me know the 4/3 is the more detailed rendering.

The storyboards for the movie are 4:3, but they had "cheat lines" marked on the storyboard templates indicating where the widescreen was going to go, so the movie was made in 4:3, but nothing important ever happens in the very top or bottom of the screen, because it was made in 4:3 for widescreen.
Which basically just means there is no wrong way to watch the movie. If you want to watch in 4:3 for more picture, that's good. If you want to watch in widescreen so it's big and beautiful theatrical-style on your HDTV, that's good too. Both versions are the intended version, and I'm very glad the recent release included them both.

Interesting, I wonder how standard the practice was, and was it just about standardizing animation practice or was it about having an for home video etc.

Certainly better than the practice I noticed on one old direct to video release where they cropped it to widescreen even though it was not designed for it and so loses significant details with no recourse to the original cropping.

Note my DVD (not Blu-ray) was the 20th anniversary edition, which also included both formats (each on a separate DVD). Given that standard def does not look that great on a really big HDTV I probably did well just playing it on the old 4:3 screen I have around.

[GloatingSwine]

Filming in 4:3 and cropping the frame to Academy Ratio was the standard practice for basically everything because that's what shape the cameras were.

On movie sets it also allowed things like mic booms to get closer (the cameraman would have bars on his viewfinder that showed what wouldn't be in frame).

[animalia]

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!

Cheetor is Hot Rod done right.

[Beastro]

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!

Cheetor is Hot Rod done right.

Cheetor's arch had over an entire season of a TV series to mature and grow and then a further two to display those changes.

Hot Rod had less than an hour and a half of a movie with A LOT of other things going on in it where he was a main character but not the center of it in the least.

He touched a magic artifact, and suddenly all his flaws from earlier just disappeared.

I vaguely recall the series maintaining that, since I too hate him and tuned him out when he was on Season Three of the series. where when things are at peace he's Hot Rod and what Hot Rod is like, then when things go to hell he whips the Matrix out and becomes Rodimus and all wise and noble (so they can keep showing both toys, of course). It makes him into something of a crippled hero, since his whole personality changes.

It would be like if Popeye was a bleating coward until he was tripping on spinach or everything that made Roger Ramjet, Roger Ramjet was in his Proton Pills.

[RobbyB1982]

Originally posted March 14

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?

I laughed uncontrollably when we got the the video that had the inevitable AMV. Of course it was something not actually on the schedule.

Of course it was My Little Pony.

[Winter]

In regards to Unicron and him being more of a Lovecraftian monster there's this tagline from the movies poster that I've always liked.

Beyond Good. Beyond Evil. Beyond You Wildest Imagination.

Now like most film taglines at the time, or even most movie taglines today, this was most likely unintentional but it does fit with both the Matrix and Unicron. Both could be seen as being neither evil or good but both also are very cosmic in nature. Unicron goes from world to world eating whatever it wants with no given motive while the Matrix is something that will save the Transformers in their darkest hour even though the Autobots themselves don't seem to know what that darkest moment is.

Even those who have come in contact with the Matrix and are chosen by it, Optimus and Hot Rod, don't really seem to understand it beyond just having vague ideas as to what it can do. In fact the only one who seems to know what the Matrix is, how it works or who is capable of using it is Unicron which, for me at least, adds to the cosmic horror element of the character.

Another thing that I feel adds to the horror element is how Unicron is able to "see" things from galaxies away and both times we see what he sees we get the few times he actually gets agree and all three are in relation to the Matrix, whether it is being passed to someone, Galvatron preparing to double cross Unicron and Galvatron bring it directly to Unicron during the final battle.

Cosmic Horror elements are something I'm a bit of a fan of and something you rarely see in a kids show, for obvious reasons. Even Vaatu from the Legend of Korra was just evil for the sake of it, or Darkseid from the DCAU was just a tyrant who sought to rule/destroy all creation and for reasons we can understand, even if we don't agree with him. But what makes Cosmic Horror Monsters like Unicron, Cthulhu or Mass Effects Reapers, (until ME3's ending came around) so terrifying is that we don't know why they do what they do and the only means of stopping them, (again until ME3's ending came around) is likewise something that is beyond our understanding.

Just wanted to say that as I've had this thought in the back of my head for a while and wanted to share it.

[animalia]

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!

Cheetor is Hot Rod done right.

Cheetor's arch had over an entire season of a TV series to mature and grow and then a further two to display those changes.

Hot Rod had less than an hour and a half of a movie with A LOT of other things going on in it where he was a main character but not the center of it in the least.

Agreed. All that extra time to develop is WHY he was done right.

[ChrisTheLovableJerk]

Well, since this got a new post, I may as well add my two cents about the movie.

It's fun as hell and terrible as hell. It's bad, but a good time.

People love to hate on the the Michael Bay movies and the man himself as if they were he was Hitler and the films were concentration camps, but this movie is no real better than those; the whole movie is essentially product placement, it's full or errors of both animation and continuity-wise (Shrapnel shows up prominently during the chase on Junkion despite being dead, The Matrix wildly contradicts previous episodes) and things that make no sense whatsoever (Where is everyone else? Why is Magnus magically okay after he's literally blasted into spare parts while Prime dies from a few blasts he should have simply shrugged off?).

It's a film that fascinates me, as I don't think I've ever seen something that is essentially a Franchise Killer (and let's not fool ourselves, it nearly did) be championed and hailed as a masterpiece of epicness years later... mainly to spite the live action films that saved the franchise and made it popular again, despite the downgrade in quality after the first one and between Bumblebee (though I enjoy AOE and DOTM enough).

I've tried to patch up the screenplay, even do a frankenstein-hybrid of the various scripts out there and the final film to cover it up, though sadly I always tend to lose interest after the Battle of Autobot City.

I think it has to do with the movie being on DVD and VHS, and being more available to the viewing public than the show after it went off the air, so this was many people's introduction to the series and they didn't see a problem with Brawn, Ratchet, Prowl, Ironhide, Wheeljack, Windcharger, Thundercracker, Skywarp, and the Insecticons being unceremoniously killed off and didn't see the earlier episodes of the show to know those characters, so wouldn't be affected by them.

Still the movie has a lot of memorable music and scenes, and is well worth watching.

[CmdrKing]

Well, think of it this way.

Transformers the Movie, despite being an intensely cynical move to push a new toyline, is filled with new concepts for the franchise, has a bunch of absurd and unique visual sequences, puts in quite a few excellent performances from the cast regulars, and has a lot of intensely memorable moments.
This goes into detail for "big deep meaningful" reasons in addition to the above if you're interested, buuuut it's long and you don't need THAT much to get at why people might like it.

Transformers (2007) has its strong points! The craft and attention to detail in the CG models are undeniable, Michael Bay has a very distinct style, and there's some moments here and there I guess. But it's very muddled, visually hard to follow, forgettable as heck, and just not very aesthetically pleasant. It's absolutely a better-made movie than the 1986 film, but if you introduce both movies to someone at the same time, I gotta think most of them will find the animated movie more interesting.

No mistake, there's definitely an animosity between franchise Transformers fans and movie fans who've mostly seen the Transformers films, and nostalgia absolutely plays a part in that, but the idea that the 1986 film is just a more interesting and enjoyable movie is not that inexplicable.

Bumblebee is wayyyyy better than both though. Combining a skilled animator with good actors, a decent script, AND a good budget is some real best of both worlds stuff. It's criminal that it'll probably end up being the least-profitable of the film franchise.