Transformers 1986 Movie anniversary day (Australia) - DEC 26th

[griffin]

uhh "This day 18 years ago, " you mean 28 years ago

Ooops, typo.

[Paulbot]

Saw it in the cinema (at Chadstone). Loved it. Still no movie I've seen as many times.

[griffin]

Still no movie I've seen as many times.

Hmmm, now that I think about it, that would be true for me too.

[VERT]

Yeah I went to see it on boxing day 1986 with a friend of mine. At the Entrance cinema.

[griffin]

Is this release date of the 1986 movie the earliest confirmed/verifiable release date for Transformers in Australia?

Like, does anyone have any evidence, or know where to find it, of the first screening of the cartoon, the first release of the comic or the first release of the toys here?


I know the release date of the Movie is like two years into the history in this country, but at the moment it is probably the only commemorative date that is Australian for Transformers (which is why I make such a big deal about it)... which is a pity, but I suppose I could see if anyone at the Hasbro office would know where to look in their archives for some 1984 release data.
Hmmmm, I should have come up with this idea earlier in the year, in case they do have some official dates on file, and we could have had a nominated 30th anniversary day some time earlier this year.

[Paulbot]

I looked through some online newspaper archives lately (when I found that 1985 article in my sig - the earliest TF thing I could find) but that resource is not exhaustive.

[GoktimusPrime]

Saw it in cinemas - the George St. Hoyts cinema to be exact (in 2007 I saw the first live action TF movie in the same cinema complex (now called Event Cinemas). My dad took my brother, cousin and myself along to watch it. My cousin (who was a preschooler at the time) fell asleep, but my brother and were totally pumped!

A friend of mine who already watched the movie before me already told me that Optimus Prime would die and be replaced by Ultra Magnus, but then Hot Rod would become Rodimus Prime and replace him, and that Megatron would be rebuilt as Galvatron. I didn't care about spoilers back then. I must admit that I never made the connection that Hot Rod and Rodimus Prime were one and the same until then (ditto Megatron and Galvatron; although Galvatron's G1 tech specs portrays him as a different character, as we're seeing in the IDW comics atm).

My thoughts at the time included:
+ Spike swore!
+ Wheelie's voice. It was nothing like how I'd imagined it, and had been playing with my Wheelie toy up till then. I'd just given him a more exuberant voice and made him occasionally bust a rhyme (much like Blaster), but after seeing him continually speak in rhyme in that high pitched voice, I adjusted the way that I played with Wheelie. But character-wise, I always played Wheelie as a "Wild boy" survivor like character (I'd recently read Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book, so I based Wheelie on Mowgli).
+ Oh, so Scourge IS a Decepticon jet! Up till then I honestly thought that was a boat, and did think it was odd that he'd been placed with the Decepticon Jets in the 1986 catalogue.
+ Huh... so the Sweeps are just clones of Scourge. I'd imagined that the Sweeps are an army of various different kinds of generic Decepticons, but not all clones.
+ Huh... so the Junkions are all... okay, you get the idea.
+ So that's how you pronounce "Rodimus." I'd been saying "Roh-dimus" instead of "Rod-imus." Hot Rod ---> Rodimus! I get it now! Oh wow... that wasn't worth getting.
+ Awww... didn't get to see the real Ultra Magnus inside that armour. Maybe in the cartoon after the movie? (seriously, I wanted to see it)
+ zOMG! Transformers can die on screen now?!? (I was already used to seeing die in the comics, but seeing them play for keeps on screen was a new thing)
+ Wooo! This soundtrack ROCKS!
+ Oh, so NOW I know which actor plays which Transformer! Optimus Prime is voiced by Peter Cutler! (yes, I incorrectly recalled "Cullen" as "Cutler" until I saw the movie again on VHS about a year later )
+ There's a girl robot! Hmm... I wonder what R.C. stands for?
+ I want an Exo-Suit!
+ Whoa, Metroplex is huge! (why is the toy so small then? ) -- at the time, I didn't realise that Autobot City and Metroplex were two separate entities; I assumed that they were one and the same when I was watching the movie.
+ Unicron = e p i c

P.S.: Poll (re: how did you first watch TFTM?)

[drifand]

I never watched this in the theatre, for me it was released in a shopping mall, playing on VHS with transformers toys for sale. It was the first time out parents allowed my brother and I to watched till the end as you know this movie triumph over all transformers movie in terms of story.

[Tober]

I remember seeing it with my brother in the Hay St cinemas in Perth. We checked out the new toys again afterwards and got a Hot Rod.

'Star Wars' and 'Macross: Do You Remember Love?' are the only two movies I've seen more times.

[Ozgardian]

I think so... Just went through the Canberra Times newspaper archive & 26/12/86 was its first screening in Canberra. I actually went to see Labyrinth 1st & saw Transformers in January. 3 most memorable moments 1."Did he just swear in a Transformers cartoon?!?" ...yes I remember Spike swearing in the cinema! 2.Crying at Primes death. 3.Unicron, that is one mother of a robot. ...A death Star that transforms? Hell yes!