The Transformers:
The Movie
1986
D: Nelson Shin
**********
Pros: Animation, Music, Action, Solid First Act, Some
Good Lines
Cons: Weak Writing, Meandering Plot, Inconsistent
Animation, Continuity Errors
…something
momentous happened.
An epic battle
between good and evil that changed the world with great loss of life on both
sides.
I speak of course about
Transformers: The Movie.
I was only one when this movie came out, so technically
it’s before my time, but it still has a great amount of nostalgic value for
me.
This is because my brothers watched
Transformers and
G.I. Joe religiously, and therefore I was exposed to them at a
young age.
Transformers, along with
Star
Wars and Disney, were things I was weaned on.
I spent the middle of my childhood isolated
from this film until I was reintroduced to it in high school.
I was more aware of the flaws then than I was
as a small child, but it was still a thrill to revisit.
For all those flaws, it’s still leagues
better than the travesties that Michael Bay had the nerve to pass off as
“Transformers” movies.
The movie,
which was released after the first two seasons of the show, begins with the
robotic planet Unicron (Orson Welles) attacking and devouring a populated world.
The sequence is effectively atmospheric
despite one goofy use of stock sound effects.
After the prologue, the narrator (Victor Caroli) explains that the year
is 2005.
The evil Decepticons have taken
over the Transformers’ home planet of Cybertron, and the Autobots have
regrouped to its moons.
A Decepticon spy
observes
Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) ordering Ironhide (Cullen) to lead a
supply run to Autobot City on Earth while also communicating with Jazz (Scatman
Crothers),
Bumblebee (Dan Gilvezon) and a now-grown
Spike (Corey Burton).
Iron Hide would rather “bust the Decepticons’
chops” (an expression I have
never
heard outside
these cartoons), but he obeys.
The message is relayed to
Megatron (Frank Welker),
who intercepts the Autobots’
shuttle and slaughters its crew.
The scene is
actually remarkably brutal. While the
characters are robots, and there is no blood to bleed, the visceral quality of
the action rivals that of many R-Rated films.
While the Decepticons were usually depicted as ineffectual in the
cartoon, Megatron is done f---ing
around. The animators were not squeamish
about showing the technological equivalent of gore. This is exasperated by the fact that this was
a movie marketed toward children, a more sensitive demographic, and that these
were beloved cartoon characters for them.
The explanation for this was cynical as it gets. This was a toy-based franchise, after all,
and Hasbro decided to introduce a new line of Transformers to replace the old
characters, hence the Soviet purge. The
filmmakers saw themselves as hired guns and were surprised by the fact that these
deaths actually upset fans! This is odd
because they clearly put some effort into making these deaths
sad. It’s amazing how sometimes artists
don’t even realize the appeal of what they’re making.
On earth young
Autobot Hot Rod (Judd Nelson, in his obligatory “Just got famous last year”
voice role) is fishing with Spike’s son Daniel (David Mendenhall), when the
Decepticons attack Autobot City. Hot Rod
and an older Autobot named Kup (Lionel Stander) to join the fight. Despite the efforts of Ultra Magnus (Robert
Stack), Springer (Neil Ross), Arcee (Susan Blu), Blurr (John Moschitta, Jr.)
and Perceptor (Paul Eiding), the heroes are hopelessly outnumbered. Blaster (Buster Jones) sends a distress
signal, which brings Optimus Prime to the battle. Prime seeks out Megatron and confronts him
alone.
The battle
itself is one of my favorite fight scenes.
It’s well-framed and choreographed, and the viewer gets the impression
that this is a personal, emotional battle between good and evil where the fate
of the world hangs in the balance.
Both
parties have decided that the conflict must end on that day.
While inspiring 80’s rock is playing.
This is how a fight between Optimus Prime and
Megatron should play out,
Michael Bay.
Optimus eventually beats Megatron and is
about to finish him off when Hot Rod, seeing the latter reaching for a hidden
laser, pounces on him. However, all he
does is ruin Prime’s clean shot, allowing Megatron to fatally wound our
hero. Optimus manages to deal one last,
incapacitating blow to the villain.
Starscream (Chris Latta),
seeing an opportunity, orders a retreat so he can leave
Megatron and take command but, being an idiot, he makes no effort to prevent
Soundwave (Welker)
from rescuing his master.
Thus, he throws a decisive victory with no apparent profit.
In a scene
which caused much wailing and gnashing of teeth in real life, Optimus Prime
dies in an Autobot hospital room, but not before transferring the Matrix of
Leadership to Ultra Magnus. The scene is
poignant and broke the hearts of children everywhere. I’m not sure I can think of a cartoon
character so beloved by a generation being so brutally killed off during the
height of his appeal.
Meanwhile,
the Decepticons are flying home on Astrotrain (Jack Angel) requests that they
jettison weight. They decide to
sacrifice their wounded, and Starscream is only too happy to get rid of
Megatron. For some reason, Soundwave
just lets this happen. While drifting in
space, Megatron encounters Unicron, who tasks him with destroying The Matrix,
as it is the only thing that can destroy him.
In return he gives Megatron a new body, transforming him into Galvatron
(Leonard Nimoy).
Other Decepticons are
transformed into Cyclonus (Roger C. Carmel),
Scourge and the Sweeps. I love the transformation scene. I live for 80’s aesthetic, and nothing says
that like using traditional animation to simulate computer effects. Galvatron travels to Cybertron, assassinates
the newly crowned Starscream and leads the Decepticons in a second attack on
Autobot City. The overwhelmed Autobots
are forced to retreat into space.
Meanwhile, Unicron attacks Cybertron’s moons, consuming Spike,
Bumblebee, Jazz and Cliffjumper (Casey Kasem).
Spike rather infamously drops an S-Bomb in the scene.
It’s here
where the wheels come off. The movie’s
overall premise is sound: the leader of the protagonists is lost in a costly
battle, and the remaining heroes’ backs are to the wall until a new leader
emerges among them. However, this idea
is poorly executed due to the meandering nature of the plot. While being chased through space by the
Decepticons, the Autobots are separated and crash land onto two planets. After Ultra Magnus is destroyed and relieved
of The Matrix by Galvatron, his group is attacked by a group of robots called
the Junkions led by Wreck-Gar (Eric Idle).
Their obnoxious gimmick is that they speak in advertising slogans
gleaned from Terran broadcasts. Imagine
my annoyance when the “Autobots” are reduced to this gag in a certain movie.
Meanwhile on
the other planet, Hot Rod and Kup are captured by the Quintessons, a sinister
race of robots who seem to share Tumblr’s attitudes on due process.
I will note that the movie does not do the
obvious thing and team Hot Rod up with Daniel, instead making the latter a
minor member of the other group.
They
briefly meet Kranix (Norman Alden), the sole survivor of the planet in the
movie’s intro, but he is quickly executed after telling them about Unicron.
They are rescued by the Dinobots (who have
found an annoying new character named Wheelie (Welker) whom Michael Bay somehow
managed to make
more annoying) and
make their way to rescue Ultra Magnus’ group.
Hot Rod makes peace with the Junkions with a universal greeting that Kup
had recently taught to him.
This greeting
is treated like some obscure knowledge among Autobots, which would make it somewhat
less than universal.
Also, considering
how effective it seems to be, you’d think the Autobots would make a point of
teaching it to each other more often.
The Junkions reassemble Ultra Magnus (which is funny considering that
Optimus Prime, who was shot a couple times, was a hopeless case And Magnus was
blown into a million pieces) and promise
to help our heroes fight Unicron in the final battle, but not before dancing.
The biggest
problem with this plot is the weakness of the designated protagonist. It’s painfully obvious throughout the movie
that Hot Rod is destined to inherit The Matrix, on account of his being a new,
younger character given a disproportionate amount of attention. There’s also some clumsy foreshadowing as
well. Granted, I like a good redemptive
story, but Hot Rod doesn’t really do much to earn his status as a leader. He may have good chemistry with the lovably
curmudgeonly Kup, but he doesn’t display any real tactical insight throughout
the movie. In order to make him look
more worthy, the writers disingenuously make more experienced and likable
characters look incompetent in artificial ways.
Optimus gives The Matrix to the wrong person, who understandably
displays a moment of indecisiveness during a heated battle. But then again, it wasn’t Ultra Magnus’ bottomless stupidity that
necessitated this succession in the first place.
With The
Matrix in his possession, Galvatron attempts to use it against Unicron, but he
cannot open it.
Unimpressed, Unicron
transforms into his robot form, ingests Galvatron and attacks Cybertron out of
spite.
The
transformation sequence is
great, but the end result is disappointing.
Unicron’s robot form looks like an oddly proportioned cartoon devil with
a vampire’s popped collar and a mouth that seems perpetually hung open in dull
surprise.
The Autobots arrive and ram
their ship into Unicron, once again becoming separated from each other inside
the monster.
Daniel rescues Spike,
Bumblebee, Jazz and Cliffjumper from Unicron’s digestive system.
Hot Rod faces off against Galvatron and
defeats him, obtaining The Matrix and using it to destroy Unicron from the
inside out.
He has now become Rodimus
Prime, and now transforms into a tractor trailered version of his sports car
form, which is pretty awesome.
Our
heroes escape Unicron has he explodes,
dancing feverishly until the end.
 |
| This is how Orson Welles died. Striking a literal disco pose. |
The day is saved, and the stage is set for the third
season of the show.
The movie’s
plot really isn’t very good, and after the first act it’s almost completely
dependent on the animation and music to retain the viewer’s attention.
Transformers:
The Movie is a feast for the senses for anyone who, like me, harbors an un-ironic
and unapologetic love for 80’s style.
The animation of this movie is probably one of my favorite aspects of
it.
Its quality is inconsistent, with
some stilted moments and a wide range of detail in the artwork.
I hear there were two teams working on the
movie, with one team being substantially better than the other.
This may have also explained the blatant continuity
errors throughout the movie.
Many
characters show up after their deaths, and the scale is all over the
place.
The problem is bad enough for me
to list in the summary, which is unusual with such mistakes.
However, when the animation shines, it really
shines.
It’s done in a style that could
be described as anime, and it has many clever properties I hardly ever see in
the medium recently.
In fact, I can
think of few cartoons that look quite like this, and I was pleased the job Toei
Animation did on this movie.
The action
is very well executed as well.
Most of
the effects are done traditionally, with one early use of CGI for
the opening credits.
The movie has
good voice acting for the most part.
I’m
not the biggest fan of celebrity voice casting, but most of the roles are
played by respectable actors with distinctive voices.
The one exception is Judd Nelson, whose
generic voice doesn’t make his presence age well.
It doesn’t help that I know of nothing
relevant he did after this movie.
Orson
Welles, who was apparently desperate for money, voiced Unicron in his final
role, but his speech was so weak that the filmmakers had to filter his voice
beyond all recognition.
It was a little
like what would happen with Hugo Weaving’s “Megatron” in
“Transformers,” except it was out of necessity and Unicron was not
a preexisting character
whose voice was
already defined by an another actor.
The usual group of veteran voice actors also appears in this movie,
including Michael Bell (Prowl, Swoop), Gregg Berger (Grimlock) and others.
Aside from my
own nostalgia for it,
Transformers: The
Movie seems to have been a significant movie for many who grew up in the 80’s.
While there had already been other animated
movies that exposed children to darkness and danger while being much better (
Secret of NIMH), I’m not sure I can
think of any before this which involved characters that children had already
grown attached to through a show.
It’s always
momentous
when a show you love gets onto
the big screen, and
Transformers: The
Movie was good example of how to do that.
The animation was significantly improved, the stakes were raised and the
in-universe events were permanent and substantial.
The movie took the show’s premise, the conflict
between the Autobots and Decepticons, and took it to a new level.
Conversely,
G.I. Joe: The Movie failed because its plot discredited the entire
premise of the franchise, but ultimately had no permanent effect on the
continuity.
The Cobra-La twist was so
unpopular it was immediately ignored, and Duke’s death was crudely revised in
response to the reaction to
Optimus’ death.
Also, the animation was not nearly as improved over the show, and the soundtrack was recycled from it.
Transformers:
The Movie was downhill from the end of the first act, and
G.I. Joe: The Movie was downhill from
the opening credits. I still think of
Transformers as the ultimate
TV-to-screen translation, and that’s one of the many reasons I love it despite
all of its flaws.
On my list of guilty
pleasure movies it ranks second, directly below
Batman Returns and above
Ultraviolet.
So while everyone else is selfishly complaining about the lack of hoverboards in 2015, I'll be too busy observing the ten-year anniversary of
Optimus Prime's Death.
 |
| Besides, Transformers promised us this 10 years earlier. |
DVD REVIEW
Transformers: The
Movie – 20th Anniversary Special Edition
2006
Average
Pros: Good Special Features, Sound Options, Picture
Cons: Uncropped Version Is on the Wrong Disc, No English
Subtitles
Years after
Rhino released a barebones edition of this movie, Sony BMG released this
version. The DVD is split into two
discs, one featuring the fullscreen edition and the other featuring the
widescreen. Each disc has a variety of
special features. The first includes the
widescreen edition with multiple commentaries and a neat feature which displays
fun trivia during the movie. One
commentary track includes the filmmakers and some cast members while the second
one is done by a few people who run fansites.
Both are fun to listen to. I
found it amusing how director Nelson Shin, who can apparently barely speak
English, was occasionally goaded by the cast members into commenting on what
was happening on screen. As a result the
poor guy was pointing out painfully obvious events in broken English.
The second
disc has a few decent featurettes and some crude raw footage.
It’s mostly underwhelming, but it is
interesting to see how faithfully the movie stuck to the storyboards.
My main problem with the DVD is that the
movie was actually animated in fullscreen and cropped for theaters, and yet it’s
the widescreen version that is on the main disc with all the good special
features (
and better disc art).
It’s a baffling and
careless oversight.
That as well as the
lack of English subtitles (because to hell with deaf people) prevent me from
giving this DVD an above average rating.
The packaging is a standard DVD case, but I would have preferred the
original movie poster art to the cover it had.
The movie is available in both original stereo and modified 5.1
surround, an improvement over the first DVD. If I
remember correctly the DVD also features promotional materials about the
then-upcoming
“Transformers” movie in
which its filmmakers tell blatant lies about how it’s going to be about
Transformers.
