10 Years Ago...

 

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.  

This screencap is cherry-picked, but look at it.  JUST LOOK AT IT.

       I also love the music.  Not being a communist, I love 80’s metal, and this move has very high-quality examples of the genre.  Most of the songs have a great hardcore feel to them that fits the atmosphere of this movie.  The classic Transformers theme gets a great cover for the movie by Lion.  Stan Bush’s “The Touch” is an excellent song as well.  However, the soundtrack isn’t all great.  Bush’s “Dare” is a pretty annoying song.  For some reason a scene features a Weird Al song whose message the movie’s writers took to heart.  Vince DiCola composed a synthesized score for the movie, and like most synthesized scores it alternates between sounding effectively atmospheric and downright goofy.

      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 – 20^th 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.