2011 Flashback Review - Transformers (1986) Movie

[griffin]

I'm seeing if we can make Boxing day a commemorative day for the Original Transformers series and Movie, as it was the day of release of the 1986 Movie in Australia.

Yes, it has now been 25 years today since that Movie hit our big screens here... what are your thoughts on it, both now and then?

So if you have a chance over the Christmas long weekend, pop on the DVD/Video/laserdisc/digital copy etc, and post up what you think of it right now (after watching it), and what you thought of it the first time you saw it (and when that was).

[Jaisun]

This was the first ever movie I went to see with a friend without supervision (we were 6, so it was a big deal), and it has stuck with me so long. Although I didn't watch it today, I watched it 2 days ago, so it's still quite fresh in my mind. I'm not really a reviewer or critic, but as is, flaws and all, it is truly a staple in my existence. Yes, some may delve into it's animation/plot/continuity/physics/colour errors, but for a 6 year old TF fan seeing it on the bigscreen, it couldn't get any better (well, aside from an entire MISB G1 series landing in your lap (ouch!)). That is how I prefer to remember it, so I re-watch it with a pinch of salt, remembering that it is indeed 25 years old, it is indeed to advertise toys, and it is indeed one of my fondest memories.

[GoktimusPrime]

This was the first ever movie I went to see with a friend without supervision (we were 6, so it was a big deal),

Absolutely! :eek: I was a bit older and went with my brother and cousin (who was 3 and fell asleep during the film) - and we were supervised by my father. The first movie I was allowed to watch in a cinema without adult supervision was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!! :D

I should be able to find 80 min some time today to watch the movie (heh, ironic... just this morning I was talking to Ben Yee about TFTM on DVD :p)

[Jaisun]

The first movie I was allowed to watch in a cinema without adult supervision was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!! :D

Lols, that was my second unsupervised film outing XD Still puuurty cool in my memory bank, but not as cool as TFTM =o)

[griffin]

That's funny, as it was also my first "unsupervised" movie, as I went with a friend I had recently met, to a theatre in Ipswich that was about 10 minutes walk away from the motel we were staying at.
I guess that next level of independence in our childhoods helped make this particular movie more significant in our lives.

When I went to see it, I wasn't expecting anything spectacular, because I didn't even know it existed before my friend asked me about going to see it... and I think I may have been thinking it would just be an extra long regular episode.
Then again, the UK comic story "Target 2006" story may have been here by then (it was out around September in the UK, and the Movie was out here some 4 months after the US), so I may have been prepared for the new characters and setting.
I don't even think I was upset over Prime's death... I do remember that we were both just so amazed at what we had just experienced.

[Tetsuwan Convoy]

I think I went to see it for my birthday. My Mum went with me as well. She says she was bored, as she believes that I made her see this and Mcahinemen and the Rock lords in the same week :p

I know I was upset at the death of Prime, but not enough to be too sad about it, especially since he always showed up in the early season TV cartoon repeats. However I must admit that my interest started dropping off as the Transformers galavanted about space. I didn't really get back in until Powermaster Op was about, so I guess there ya go, I was affected more than I thought...:D

I enjoy it still to be honest, I keep a copy on my laptop and put it on when at work. Rarely actually watching it, just litening. Kind of like Monty Python, doing my own impersonation of the characters as they speak.:o

When I sat down to watch it when I got the DVD (the longest break as I hadn't found it on video), I remember thinking "Wow, that's action right from the start to the end." I still think that now, the action never really lets up.

Sttill enjoy it now, more as an audio feature I guess though.

[GoktimusPrime]

A schoolmate of mine spoiled the whole story for me (at that age I didn't care about spoilers - I actually welcomed them!). :p I also remember there was that saturday morning cartoon show hosted by one of the Daddo brothers (Cameron?)... and they showed a preview sneak-peak of the scene where Galvatron is confronting Unicron... can't remember if they went and showed Unicron transforming or not, but I don't think they did.

I honestly don't remember hearing anyone crying when Optimus Prime died, but I definitely remember people gasping and giggling when Spike said, "Aw shit", and everyone burst out laughing when Slag said, "Excuse me!" :D

Never saw Battle of the Rock Lords in cinemas... there's no way my parents would've let me see both movies, and I think I made the right choice. ;)

[griffin]

25 years ago today, the original (http://tfwiki.net/wiki/The_Transformers:_The_Movie) (and for some, the best) Transformers Movie was released to Theatres in Australia. (and I feel so old, because I was one of the few lucky ones to see it at the Theatre during that original release)

With Boxing Day being the only verified release date for anything Transformers related in Australia, I'm wanting to see if we can make it a "Transformers Day" in this country.

I have also tried a few times to get theatres here interested in having the Movie screened, even as a one-off anniversary deal, but none have been interested.
So the next best thing is to watch it today, 25 years after seeing it for the first time waaaay back in 1986.

http://www.toycollectors.com.au/blog/042.jpg

But before that, a flashback of when I first saw it.
After only just moving to Ipswich from Perth just a couple weeks, a friend I had recently met at the Motel who was the same age and was an even bigger fan of Transformers, suggested we go and see the Transformers Movie. I was like, there's a Transformers Movie? We were allowed to go, which was at a Theatre about 10 minutes walk away, and we were both blown away by all the action. We were both only 11, and we were just as excited by this movie as we were of our new-found independence (of adult supervision).
It wasn't until a number of years later that I saw it again on TV and on Video, and as soon as it was released on DVD, I bought it... actually, I bought it 3 times - each version was a different edit - the US version, the UK version (which was what we had at theatres here), and a hybrid version that combined the two versions to include the bits each one had that the other one didn't.
But that wasn't all... I also had to buy the soundtrack CD, because this movie was ahead of its time by having a soundtrack of "non-kiddy" songs on an animated movie. And it was so 80s with its sound, that much of it has been as timeless as the 80s genre, in terms of being able to play the CD and still nod (and sing) along with it.
The two songs by Stan Bush (The Touch & Dare), the two songs by Spectre General (Hunger & Nothin's gonna stand in our way), and even the Transformers song by Lion... all some of my favourite songs, ever.
Those songs, and the score by Vince DiCola, gave the movie a constant background of upbeat music, that complimented and heightened the excitement of the action, that was already there from start to finish.

So, back to present day. With a viewing of the Movie just an hour ago, I found myself still enjoying it, after all these years. I certainly don't watch it often any more - probably less than once a year - but I have seen it more times than I could care to guess, so knowing it almost word-for-word can make it a little less interesting (if you know exactly what is about to happen or be said, every minute of the movie).
I am amazed at how well the movie was written, considering it wasn't expected to be much more than an extended toy commercial. It manages to identify the main character roles, and stay true to them throughout the movie (as opposed to the three recent Transformers Movies, that has characters contradicting themselves with their personalities and character traits), not to mention being able to fulfil a perfect plot structure that has the hero characters progressively separated to the worst possible point, and then slowly regroup and carry out the climax of the story at the end. All the while, keeping the action happening as much as possible, and not be bogged down with too much dialogue or emotion.
Sure, there's sadness and joy, fear and humour... but the core theme of an action adventure is exactly what this movie achieves.
The turning point in the movie is what gets me the most, emotionally. We have the Autobots at their worst, spread out to the point of hopelessness, and then the Dinobots arrive (while Hot Rod and Kup are fighting off the Sharkticons on Quintessa). With the rock music playing in the back, and the Dinobots "saving the day", we being a momentum of all the separated Autobots regrouping, for their big final battle at the end of the Movie.
Which brings me to the other emotional part of the movie. Hearing Optimus announcing to us that Hot Rod was now Rodimus, and having Rodimus telling Galvatron that this was the end for him. The ultimate "saving the day" moment of the movie... making you feel that everything was going to be okay, and a happy ending was coming.
I guess most would expect a greater emotional moment during the Death of Optimus scene... but I don't think I was ever sad by it. Not sounding heartless. I just think that maybe I was already aware of the "changing of the guard" from the UK comics at that time (because the movie was released 4 months after America and UK), so the comics by then were already detailing the new characters and the future universe. Or maybe it was that "future universe" element that had me not worrying about the death, because it was 20 years into the future (the movie was set in 2005), and I would have felt that we still had 20 years of Optimus Prime stories before this movie "occurs" in 2005.

Animation errors aside (and this movie has a fair few), this movie had very detailed animation, of a standard that was higher than cartoons, or even animated movies, at that time. Just look at some of the screen shots of the the Movie (if you don't have a copy of it), and you can see how much detail was in every frame.
And going back on the plot element for a second, the climactic end portion of the movie is well directed... or written, as it follows a similar structure to the end of the Return of the Jedi - jumping between three subplots that are all related, but separate from each other. It keeps your mind actively watching what is going on, while also getting that extra level of satisfaction when all three subplots intertwine and merge into the final defeat of Unicron at the end.

The negative elements of this movie to non-fans would be the gruesomeness of some of the deaths and robot corpses (which traumatised a lot of the fans when they first saw it as kids), the "heavy" rock music for a young kids animated movie, and the inclusion of a couple of swear words, just so that the movie distributor could gain a PG rating in America (which was calculated as being a more profitable rating than G).

Well, after 25 years and dozens of viewings (probably at least 50 by now), I'm still rating this as a must-see film, by fans (new and old) if you haven't seen it yet.
And if you have seen it, see it again this weekend... to celebrate this quarter-century milestone of the Movie that helped give Transformers a Legacy that has lived on through to the present day - and I'm not just talking about the Traditions of Optimus Prime always dying or Megatron always turning into Galvatron.
It gave us fans of Transformers a significant benchmark (an Animated Movie) to hope Hasbro/Takara would one day replicate or exceed... and now they have, with a Live-Action Movie. And not just one, but three and counting.
Here's to the one that helped make all this possible... 25 years ago.

[Sam]

After all these years, the animated movie still remains one of my favourite films of all time.

[Tetsuwan Convoy]

On the blurb on the back of one of my dvd releases, it states that the Movie has animation techniques that had never been used before. Anybody aware of which ones it is referring to?

[loophole]

I cant actually remember a time where I hadn't seen the movie its like star wars its has just always been there, but in saying that The Transformers movie still remains as one of my top favourite movies. I have watched it countless time and will still continue to watch it.

I had just recently finished watching season 2 of transformers so then naturally the movie was next. One thing I did find was at the beginning of the movie was that the Decepticons were all characters that we knew from the first 2 seasons so I already had some attatchment to them, even though further one they get rebuilt into new decepticons but at least they had a bit of an origin on why these new decepticons were suddenly there.

Whereas with the autobots all the new characters were sort of just shoved in as though they had already been around for ages but as an audience we really have no idea who they were and that sort of bugged me a little. A little more of an introduction would of been nice.
Especially when there were all these other characters from the first two seasons that didnt get used mainly from the second season as nearly everybody from the first season were killed off faster than you can say "transform and roll out" or were "eaten" by Unicron and were never seen until the end of the movie.

And it also seemed a little odd that they used the dinobots and not the arialbots or another group of autobots as the last half of the 2nd season the dinobots are never seen and are sort of forgotten about and all of sudden "there back"

Just a couple of thoughts i had while i was watching the movie. I still love this movie and will never stop doing so.

[griffin]

And it also seemed a little odd that they used the dinobots and not the arialbots or another group of autobots as the last half of the 2nd season the dinobots are never seen and are sort of forgotten about and all of sudden "there back"

That was the one unfortunate things about the Movie - the story was written during the production of the first Season, so it only featured first season characters and a few early second-season characters... with the focus being on the third year toys, that must have already been in development at the same time as the second year toys (which themselves were mostly pre-existing pre-Transformers moulds anyway).

[heroic_decepticon]

TFTM still remains one of my favourite, if not the favourite, animated movie of all time, to me.

the 80s
I was too young to watch it in the cinemas back in 1986 and TBH, am not even sure that they screened it in Singapore cinemas. The first time I saw it was on TV, as a "Friday special" starting from 5pm. I remember my brother and myself sitting glued in front of the TV, trying to 'record' every image into our brains for posterity because we thought we'd never get to see it again (VHS Tapes not being readily available to us).

the 90s
True to our suspicion, we never saw it again till at least another 5 years later when we purchased a VHS tape of TFTM from some shopping centre in Malaysia where we were holidaying. I only ever watched that tape 2-3 times because our family never had a tape player that worked for very long so every time I wanted to watch it, I'd need to do it at my auntie's place.

the year 2003
Then I came to Australia and attended my first Supanova convention where there was a Madman booth. I bought a dvd of TFTM, the one with the Don Figuroa cover. This, I watched again and again since 2003. At least 5-6 times a year. I also bought other versions - the Sony remastered one, the Rhino version, Metrodome Reconstructed version, etc.

on our wedding night (2008)
My wonderful wife, E, watched TFTM with me on our wedding night. She had seen it once before and agreed that it was special enough to warrant another screening on our wedding night. That was awesome.

2009
Some Sydney members will know that my apartment has a mini-cinema accessible to all tenants. I watched TFTM there 2-3 times, which is the closest to a cinematic experience I got for this movie.

TFTM has a very dear place in my heart. It has been there with me through almost every stage of my life and I suspect, will continue to play a part. :D

[Skullcruncher]

I dont remember the movie at the cinema but I do remember how I first saw it.

TV3 was showing the cartoon reruns around 1990 or 1991 in New Zealand and they broke it down and ran it weekday mornings over a week. Every morning I taped the weeks worth of episodes and watched it in the weekend. Watching this was shocking for me as all these new transformers were there and the old favourites gone. Then came 5 faces of darkness which I actually enjoyed more than the movie :cool:

In 2001 I finally only found out what I had taped way back then was transformers the movie :o then i ordered a copy from the US... On VHS.

I must have got the DVD around 2007.... now if its gets put on I still enjoy it and for some reason if my girlfriend is around she is asleep within 10 minutes of me putting it on :D

[loophole]

the 90s
True to our suspicion, we never saw it again till at least another 5 years later when we purchased a VHS tape of TFTM from some shopping centre in Malaysia where we were holidaying. I only ever watched that tape 2-3 times because our family never had a tape player that worked for very long so every time I wanted to watch it, I'd need to do it at my auntie's place.

out of all the different versions of TFTM on dvd which would you reccomend, are there many differences between them?

[Robzy]

on our wedding night (2008)
My wonderful wife, E, watched TFTM with me on our wedding night. She had seen it once before and agreed that it was special enough to warrant another screening on our wedding night. That was awesome.

Wow! :eek::eek:

~~

Ah yes, TF:TM. I always enjoy watching it... to be honest, I think the first half hour is the best. The prologue, the battle, the fight to the death, the betrayal, the intro of Unicron... Once Starscream gets fried by Galvy, I start to wander a bit. But up until then, this movie holds my attention like a regular first class sci-fi action film! Love it!!

I remember a time long ago when "2005" seemed like such a long, long way in to the future! :(

[canofwhoopass_87]

One of my all time fav movies. Admittedly, I haven't seen it for a few years now but I've pretty much memorised every line from every scene after watching the crap out of an old VHS copy from my childhood days :D

The music tracks really added a whole new dimension to this movie. Vince Di Cola and those 80's bands gave TFTM legendary status

[kup]

I normally watch it a few times a year but I have actually been holding off from watching it a bit until I receive the Blu-Ray! I want to get a 'fresh' perspective on it so I want to increase the gap from my last viewing to it.

When it comes to the first time I watched TF:The Movie, I am pretty sure that I saw it at the Cinema with one if my parents and cousins when I was very young. However my more memorable moments of myself watching it were in the years that followed on tape in which it was watched again and again until we left the country and required on Pal VHS :)

[Paulbot]

Thanks to the wonders of technology, I can now carry this movie around in my pocket and watch it any time I like.

I was watching some recently waiting for the bus and had an epiphany. I've misjudged Ultra Magnus.

For a long time I would have argued his first onscreen instructions were poorly made: Why not get Blurr to tell Blaster to radio Prime for reinforcement? He'd have got there quicker than Perceptor. Why not get Blurr to transform Autobot City, he could have done it quicker than Arcee and Springer and wouldn't have run the risk of getting stuck in that tunnel (like Starscream almost did). What Autobots weren't aware that the city was under attack, Starscream (and other seekers presumably) were already striking within the city walls.

Then I realised something that's been there the whole time. The Autobot's moon bases are secret bases. Despite having heard that line so many times, given that it accompanies a Decepticon spy infiltrating the "secret base" it's easily overlooked. We don't know when the Decepticons learnt there was an Autobot presence on the moons, but it didn't seem to be news when Laserbeak returned, and Starscream saw it as the "real threat". The Autobots though must have thought there secret was still protected.

I've always interpreted the report of security status was more about making sure the shuttle didn't get attacked on departure, but actually of course it's more about sneaking it out so the Decepticons weren't alerted to their presence. Part of this secrecy would have extended to radio contact. That's why Spike has to pass a message to his son via Ironhide, instead of being able to call home personally.

So making the decision to break the radio silence was a big deal, so to give that instruction to Blaster, Ultra Magnus chose the highest ranked of those at hand. Blurr would have got there quicker but would Blaster have trusted the command from such a frenetic character, or from Magnus's right hand man (as he's depicted through most of the rest of the film). That wasn't a bad call after all.

(So if that call was right, could I defend the decision to have Springer and Arcee transform the city? Well the process is rather ridiculously complicated, but it does appear to have sequences that require two people acting at the same time, and Blurr's speed would have been at a disadvantage if the pair had to act in unison often during the procedure.)