(DISCLAIMER: This blog is not for profit. All images and footage used below are property of their respective companies unless stated otherwise. I do not claim ownership of this material. New to the blog? Start at the start with Snow White.)
“So that’s why I’ve decided I should go back into therapy. I’m just worried that, what with my last psychiatrist turning out to be an immortal Lich King who tried to trap me in a hell dimension for all time…”
“Your trust was betrayed. And now you worry that you may not be able to trust anyone again.”
“Exactly.”
“Mouse, if I am to help you, you must feel comfortable in opening up to me. Only then can we overcome your issues and help you reach your true potential.”
“My true potential?”
“Yes. You should be killing people. Like, all the time.”
“Huh. Well, I did feed a friend of mine to a shark two weeks ago.”
“Excellent, then we are already on the road to recovery. But first we must deal with your trust issues. I am going to hypnotize you now.”
“Okay.”
“Listen to my voice. I am going to reactivate memories that have long since lain dormant. We are going to put you in touch with your inner child.”
“What the…what’s happening?”
“Hey, where am I?”
“What the…who are you?”
“He’s not really here Mouse. He is a psychological projection of you when you were a child.”
“Wow. I got REAL fat.”
“Ah yes. I forgot. I was a real charmer. What exactly am I supposed to do with him?”
“Spend time together. Reconnect. Try and recover the trust and innocence that you once had, and then we’ll be killing people together in no time.”
“Fine. What you want to do?”
“What do you normally do?”
“Honestly, I spend most of my time watching cartoons and then making stupid jokes about them.”
“So…you haven’t actually changed in twenty three years?”
“Well I don’t wet the bed anymore. You want to watch cartoons or not?”
“Okay. Oh! Oh! That one!”
“What? No. It’s AWFUL.”
“Nuh-uh! It’s the BEST MOVIE EVER!”
“Kid, look, I know you have a lot of fond memories of this but, trust me, as someone who reviews animated movies for a living…”
“Really? You get paid to do this?”
“…Fine, let’s watch the movie.”
Excuse me, it’s time for my hourly can of coke.
“And they were AWESOME!”
“And they were PURE EVIL.”
I was voted TIME’s “Most Adorable Warlord” in ‘89.
Japan? Never change.
“AWESOME!”
“Passable.”
All the money.
“YES!”
“Maybe.”
The movie begins with a pretty damn trippy sequence in outer space where Unicron, a massive planet sized machine drifts ominously through space. And I have to say, this animation is…
“AWESOME!”
“Actually…pretty awesome!”
Not quite Disney standard obviously, but light-years better than the TV series. The first shot of Unicron in particular is incredibly detailed but also wonderfully fluid. Unicron approaches the planet Lithone and, as it’s terrified inhabitants flee, devours the world whole. Now, I know what you’re thinking, giant planet sized machine that destroys planets? Death Star rip off, right? Wrong. Unicron is actually much closer in concept to Galactus, the world-devourer of Marvel comics lore, which makes sense given that Marvel came up with the entire Transformers mythology. Oh, but make no mistake, this movie goes through Star Wars’ wastebasket and sniffs its old panties to a ridiculous degree. In fact, take a shot everytime we see something ripped from Star Wars.
“When did you start drinking?”
“Let’s just say there’s a movie in your future called The Three Caballeros that’s going to make you reevaluate a lot of your life choices.”
By the way, I don’t want to imply that The Transformers is unique in aping Star Wars. Pretty much every science fiction/fantasy film made in the eighties did in some way, just read The Black Cauldron review to see what I mean. Anyway, Unicron destroys Lithone and continues on its slow, inexorable search for the next buffet. And I gotta say…that is a really strong cold open. It’s atmospheric and well animated and quickly and effectively establishes the new villain as a force to be reckoned with. Now the Transformers theme starts up and if you can somehow resist the urge to belt out “TRANSFORMERS!” then you have no soul. And then we get a…what the fuck is this?
Take a shot.
Okay, my problem with this is not that there’s a text crawl. A lot of writers will tell you that text crawls are lazy, bad writing and that all exposition should come naturally through the dialogue and action but I don’t really mind them to be honest. If it’s done well, a text crawl can be a quick and efficient way to set up the world of the story without the need for clunky expository dialogue. And as for them being bad writing, well, some of the best screenplays in history have used establishing text so I don’t really think that argument holds water. Take Bladerunner for example. It has a text crawl at the beginning establishing the basic premise, which means that when Deckard walks through Bryant’s office door it goes like this:
BRYANT: I need ya, Deck. This is a bad one, the worst yet. I need the old blade runner, I need your magic.
DECKARD: Bryant, I was quit when I walked in here. I’m twice as quit now.
And not like this:
BRYANT: Deckard, a space ship full of replicants has crashed on earth, and you don’t need me to tell you why that’s a problem. Because as you know, Earth is off limits to replicants.
DECKARD: Replicants? You mean those psychotic androids that for some reason we designed to be indistinguishable from humans and that I’ve been hunting for most of my adult life?
BRYANT: Exactly. I need you to be my Bladerunner.
DECKARD: Your cop/mercenary for hire? But I’m no longer in that line of work, having become increasingly jaded by all the senseless killing that the job entails.
BRYANT: You mean retirement?
DECKARD: Right. Because that’s what we call killing replicants here in Los Angeles in 2019.
It don’t exactly flow, is what I’m trying to say. So I don’t object to text crawls as a general rule. This one though, I have beef with. Firstly, you can have a cold open or you can have a text crawl but having them both makes no sense. See, the whole purpose of a cold open is to drop the audience into the story with no explanation (“cold”) and have them make sense of the story as it gradually unfolds. Whereas a text crawl is something you have at the very beginning of the movie to prepare the audience with specific information before the movie begins. You can’t have a text crawl between scenes because it completely take you out of the movie. We’re being dunked in and out of the story like a baby at a Christening with an overly enthusiastic priest. And honestly, it’s not even necessary. The storyline of Transformers is not War and Peace.
Similar cast size notwithstanding.
The kids in the audience already know what the score is, and the adults are presumably going to be able to figure out that the “Decepticons” are probably not the good guys. And to cap off this dispatch from the Department of Redundancy Department, the text recap is narrated. So…why even bother with a text recap if you’re going to have some random bloke reading it anyway? Because Star Wars had a text recap. Why else? Alright, well, fair is fair, this narration does actually clear up one or two points that might have been confusing even for the fans in the audience. Whereas the TV show was set in the eighties, the movie jumps ahead to the far distant future of 2005 when Optimus Prime and most of the Autobots have left Earth. And who can blame them?
Optimus Prime: “Done. I’m fucking done.”
The Autobots have established bases on two of Cyberton’s moons and are preparing to launch an all out assault on the planet to take it back from Decepticon control. Here’s something I never got; who exactly is on Cybertron right now? I mean, is it just Decepticons? If so, then what is Optimus Prime planning on doing with this population once he’s won? Ruling over them? Enslaving them? Crushing them all into cubes? Or is there just a massive population of Autobots chafing under Decepticon rule? Or maybe they’re all just normal Cybertronians who don’t identity with either faction? Do they even care who rules over them? Are they just like “Sure, Megatron’s a tyrant but he keeps the gigantic transforming trains running on time.”?
“I think you’re over-thinking this.”
“I got your coffee! But they were out of cream, oh Mighty Megatron!
“Once again you fail me, Starscream!”
“Brawn! Prowl! Ratchet! Ironhide! Noooooooooo!”
“You okay?”
“Everyone…everyone I know and love is going to die someday. Aren’t they?”
“No! No, no, no. Some of them will outlive you.”
Great. Now I feel bad for Shia La Beouf.
Take a shot.
And there’s Perceptor. He turns into a microscope.
I had Perceptor. Brought him in to school one day. Got the ever living shit kicked out of me.
“Windcharger! Wheeljack! Nooooooooo!”
“Looks like we arrived in the nick of time, Jazz.”
“Yes sir.”
“Know what that makes us Jazz?”
“Big damn heroes sir.”
“Ain’t. We. Just.”
Optimus Prime rolls into Autobot city to the cheesetastic track “The Touch” by Stan Bush which has since become basically the national anthem of Transformers fans. Prime has also brought the Dinobots, autobots that transform into dinosaurs (don’t ask, we’ll be here all day) led by their leader Grimlock. Ohhhh boy. Grimlock, Grimlock. See, when this movie was made the conventional wisdom was that all dinosaurs had brains the size of walnuts. So the creators of the series thought that the best way to reflect this would be for the Dinobots to be…um…well, there’s really no other way to say it. Grimlock and the Dinobots are “special”. I’m not even kidding. There’s a bit where Grimlock asks Kup to tell him “about the petrorabbits.” Part of me hopes there’s a fan dub out there where the entirety of Of Mice and Men is done with Transformers.
“Autobots like us, that fight Decepticons, are the loneliest robots in the galaxy. They got no family. They don’t belong no place. They come to a planet and get some energon and then they head to another planet and blow that energon, and the first thing you know they’re fightin’ Decepticons on some other planet. They ain’t got nothing to look ahead to.”
Alright, so in the cartoon series the Autobots never actually killed any of the Decepticons, so naturally Prime is eager to make up for lost time, gunning them down in numbers that would make Rambo proud. He comes face to face with Megatron and the two go at it. Megatron pulls out a glowing energy sword…
Take a shot.
…and slashes Prime who counters with the ancient Japanese trick of punching the snot out of him. Kup runs up and yells at Optimus to “finish him off!” and Optimus casually picks up a gun and prepares to shoot the defeated Megatron as he begs for his life. You know what? Revenge of the Fallen took a lot of shit for a lot reasons, almost all of them good ones, but there was one scene where Optimus Prime casually executes a defeated Decepticon that had the fans up in arms because “that’s not what Optimus Prime is about”. Compared to this movie, that was fucking restrained. This movie. Is less restrained. Than Michael Bay. You just think about that. Megatron sees a gun on the ground and manages to grab it and fire off a shot. He fatally wounds Optimus Prime, but not before Prime punches him clean off the building, leaving Megatron a broken hulk on the ground. Starscream taunts Megatron and kicks him in the nads and orders the Decepticons to retreat. They climb on board Astrotrain, a normal sized Autobot who can nevertheless transform into a shuttle big enough to carry all them because the true enemy of the Decepticons is not the Autobots but Antoine Lavoisier and his principle of the conservation of mass.
“CURSE YOU ASTROTRAIN!”
“Suck my balls!”
I haven’t actually had a chance yet to mention my favorite Decepticon, Soundwave. Soundwave is Megatron’s right hand man and was always depicted as being unfailingly loyal to Megatron (as well he might be, since they’re both voiced by Frank Welker). I always loved him mostly because of the cool modulated voice, but also because his dedication to Megatron was so noble, even, dare I say it? Tender. And I think this scene shows this better than anything else could. As the other Decepticons high-tail, Megatron gasps “Don’t leave me, Soundwave.” Soundwave simply responds “As you command, Megatron” and gently takes his fallen leader in his arms and carries him to safety.
And IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIeeeeeIIIIIeeeeiIIIIII will always love YOUUUUUUUUUUUOHHHHHHHH!
Yeah. Basically.
Now Finnegas has been trying to catch the Salmon of Knowledge for years, which will grant the first person to eat it all the wisdom of the world and allow them to clean up on the game show circuit. Finnegas finally catches the thing and tells Fionn to cook it for him while warning him not to take so much as a bite from it (this guy needs wisdom? The devil you say!). Anyway, Fionn innocently burns his thumb on the fish and then puts his thumb in his mouth, thereby getting the wisdom by accident. I bring it up because this is pretty much what’s happening here. Hot Rod is the first person to touch the matrix of leadership and therefore is destined to become the leader of the Autobots, even though Prime intended it to go to Ultra Magnus…
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!”
“What’s “Game of Thrones”?
“It’s a fantasy series with dragons where everyone dies.”
“Ooooh! Can I watch it?”
“NO YOU CAN NOT!””
“Hasbro kill Transformers all the time, Mouse.”
“Do they feel good about that?”
“They feel powerful.”
“I’m…still…selling well…in…Europe…”
But Starscream tells him to screw off and throws him into the cold reaches of space. The Decepticons then try to decide who will be the new leader. Starscream nominates himself, but the Constructicons point out that they combine to form Devastator, who’s the biggest Decepticon and damn, but that’s a solid platform to build a campaign. Soundwave announces his candidacey by simply noting that “Soundwave: Superior, Constructicons: Inferior.” Sigh. Political discourse has just gotten so coarse, hasn’t it? Anyway, the Decepticons have a big punch up while Astrotrain yells at them to just fucking wait until they’re somewhere where they’re not going to shoot him in the kidneys.
Thought I was going to make a fat joke? Fuck you. Man was a legend.
And yes, this was Welles’ last film role before he died, recording his last session only five days before the end. A British comedy show (Spitting Image I think) did a skit where they showed a film commemorating Orson Welles’ life, showing how he started out with small roles in cartoons and pea commercials, before graduating to classic films like Othello and The Third Man before finally achieving his masterwork, Citizen Kane (the joke of course being that they’ve played the film backwards). Welles’ voice was so weak that serious audio restoration had to be done on it to make it usable, and Welles certainly did not give two piping hot fucks about the film. And yet…the man does not phone it in. Honestly, Welles gives probably the best performance in this whole thing, voicing Unicron as a bored, sardonic god. Which, considering it’s Orson Welles voicing a toy commercial is probably appropriate. Unicron orders Megatron to destroy the matrix of leadership because it’s the only thing that can stop him because of reasons. Megatron asks what’s in it for him, and Unicron replies “Your bargaining posture is highly dubious”.
“What do you want? What in the depths of your ignorance DO YOU WANT?!”
But he reformats Megatron into a new character, Galvatron and whoah whoah whoah…back up. Movie, did you just write out Frank Welker? No. That’s it. Fuck you. I’m done. You do not just write out Frank Welker. I don’t care who you got to voice this “Galvatron”, there is no actor alive who could possibly be awesome enough to replace Frank Fothermucking…
Objection withdrawn.
Alright, so Megatron is now Galvatron, voiced by Leonard Nimoy. Unicron then turns the Insecticons into new Decepticons called Skywarp, Cyclonus and the Sweeps (and exactly who is transformed into who is something debated by Transformers fans with the same intensity that the divinity of Christ was debated at the first council of Nicaea.) Unicron also gives Galvatron a sweet new spaceship.
Sold seperately.
Galvatron promises to destroy the matrix and sets off for Cybertron where Starscream is being crowned as the new leader of the Decepticons, complete with crown and a pink cape.
Thus began the reign of Starscream the Fabulous.
“Nooooo…I’m still selling well in Europe!”
“…”
“Nothing?”
“No. I think this movie has completely dulled my horror of death and killing.”
“We should talk.”
“For over five eons the Autobots had peace, democracy and brotherhood and what did it get them? The transforming cuckoo clock.”
I dunno. The figures from Europe are looking awfully soft.
Take a shot.
Oh my God. Roddenberry, you whore!
Take a…wait.
Well, apparently they’re not impressed with how he’s stressing the umlauts because they throw both Hot Rod and Kup in a dungeon. The Quintessons, who rule over the Sharkticons, run show trials where all defendants are pronounced “innocent”…and then fed to the Sharkticons. In the pokey they meet Kranix, the last survivor of Lithone, the planet Unicron scarfed in the cold open. And…then the guards burst in and drag him away to be killed while he begs to be spared because he is literally the last one of his race in the universe.
Behold. The enemy. I shall teach you to hate him.
Oh, not even in the same league. Next!
Gurgi? Oh no, much worse than Gurgi.
Hmmm…nope, even worse than Zini.
Cheezel T. Weasel? Ohhhhh…
For someone who begins every sentence with “Me Grimlock!” he is a surprisingly eloquent orator.
Meanwhile on the planet Junk the Decepticons attack and blast Ultra Magnus to pieces, taking the Matrix of Leadership and screwing off. The surviving Autobots (yes, there are actually some still alive in this fucking charnel house) then get attacked by the Junkions, native robots to the planet Junk who talk entirely in advertising slogans, which I suspect was the language this screenplay was written in before being translated into English.
You haven’t really experienced this movie before you’ve heard it in its native Junkion.
Look at that mustachioed bastard.
All hope seems lost but then a massive, phallic shaped spaceship appears overhead and plows deep and hard into the yielding planetary mantle.
“Almost sexual, isn’t it Smithers?”
Hot Rod, Kup, the Dinobots and Satan Himself exit the ship and Hot Rod gives the universal greeting to the Junkions, taking care to correctly stress the umlauts. This makes the Junkions friendly and they even use some of their magic resurrection ointment (‘kay) to bring Ultra Magnus back to life. This is then promptly forgotten about because of course there is no one else that stuff would be useful for.
Shake a tot.
Cheer up lads. Worse things happen at sea, y’know.
And the Autobots crash their ship right through one of Unicron’s windows.
Shtake a shtosh…
Hot Rod gets seperated and finds himself face to face with Galvatron. At first, Galvatron tries to ally with Hot Rod against Unicron but Unicron tortures him to remind him who’s in charge and Hot Rod has to fight the enemy who he watched kill his beloved older mentor.
Tahske a shtot cuz I’m sexy!
Galvatron pins Hot Rod to the ground and starts choking him, saying “First Prime. Then Ultra Magnus. Now you. It’s a pity you Autobots die so easily or I might have a sense of satisfaction.”
“I mean, this erection is a semi! At best!”
But then, the Matrix of Leadership opens and Hot Rod hears the voice of his mentor speaking to him from beyond the grave.
*PUKES VIOLENTLY*
And he hears Optimus saying “Arise…Rodimus Prime.”
300 years later.
“Awesome!”
“Not great but better than it had any right to be.”
“Thanks kid.”
“No problem fatso.”
“Seriously, how did you survive to adulthood?”
“What about you? What’s your score?”
“Nine million!”
“No, it’s out of a hundred.”
“Nine million out of a hundred!”
“Fine.”
unshavedmouse 
If baby mouse gives 9 million out of one hundred then it should be 90,000%. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WritersCannotDoMath
I did laugh well at the joke with Soundwave and Megatron. Frank Welkers stick together meaning they are good buddies with Sharptooth, Fred Jones, and Curious George.
My movie like this (I was born in ’96) will be the Land Before Time sequels, especially five. I am in the middle of a backwards (save the best animated film ever for last) marathon of one a day right now and six is tonight.
It’s out of a hundred, not divided by a hundred. Sixty out of a hundred is sixty percent.
My mistake.
In fairness this is the first time I have ever been right about maths so your link to Tv tropes was certainly justified. And what do i have to do to get on the Baleful Polymorph page anyway?
For some reason I never got into Transformers as a kid. But I do like the Micheal Bay movies. More specifically, the first one.
I honestly had a blast with that movie.
Really enjoyable read! (as per usual)
And I’m looking forward to what you think of “Bolt.” It seems like a movie you could either love or hate. So, I have no idea what to expect! (I personally don’t like the film. It wasn’t a ‘bad’ movie, it just wasn’t memorable, like AT ALL. Seriously, try to find ANY Bolt merchandise at a Disney park.)
By far the best TV show to come out of that era was Robotech. Which is honestly kind of insane because it was actually THREE separate shows from Japan that were cobbled together to create a three generational epic story about humanity’s desperate struggle against an invading alien race. My uncle introduced me to Robotech when I was little and I love it. It’s actually pretty damn great. Transformers is just not.
My favourite was Bravestaar.
You referenced Bravestarr in Pocahontas.
Transformers was before my time, and one of the few 80’s cartoons that I haven’t gotten into by watching it in college. I definitely appreciate why others like it, but I can’t really see past the commercial glut without any nostalgia goggles to aid me.
That’s not to say I don’t like any merchandise-driven cartoons. Heck, the huge show of MY childhood, Poke’mon, was probably even worse than transformers because it’s trying to get me to buy toys AND a game!
Ah, who am I kidding, I’m glad my parents bought me the Poke’mon games, it’s why I’m a gamer today.
AND one of my favorite cartoons of recent years, LEGO Ninjago, is arguably a worse offender still. I’d say it has a better written plot than the Transformers cartoon though. (I’m just gonna plug my review blog again, if you want me to stop just say so: http://orangechels.wordpress.com/ )
When it comes to Star Wars knockoffs, this movie is not as bad as Star Chaser.
Good review Mouse! Although I’ve never seen this movie nor anything Transformers related, you keep entertaining me with your humour and excellent writing, looking forward to seeing your Bolt review!
Thanks man.
Good review, one I have been waiting on, but the first member of Galvatron’s crew was Scourge, not Skywarp. Skywarp was the black Starscream clone who got turned into Cyclonus I believe. (I’m too lazy to check Tfwiki.net). Also, Europe got the version of the movie with the Star Wars/Flash Gordon scroll. America just got trippy opening credits. Plus America got the version where Spike says “Oh S*hit what are we gonna do now?!” in order to get a PG13
I’d heard about! All the way through the movie I was like “where’s my S bomb?!”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItLgYuDaqMQ Here it is in all of its glory.
The Little Mermaid is from 1989, not 88.
You know, it was really refreshing to see once a review from someone who watched Transformers as a child and doesn’t act as if they were truly THAT awesome. As someone who did grew up in the 80th but with German children’s programming (which is very different from the US one) and responsible pairings who kept shows with hidden advertisements (and as far as possible advertisements in general) away from me, Transformers belongs to me on one pile with He-Man, Power Rangers, Pokémon aso….I never got into programming which was more about selling something than about telling a story.
This in mind – no interest in any of the movies, either. I guess I understand why some people are into them…but I doubt that anyone who doesn’t have the nostalgia feels connected to them.
Yeah, that’s pretty much the case with me. I wasn’t allowed to watch much TV as a kid. Virtually none of the cartoons most 90s kids talk about are familiar to me at all, and the 80s were before my time, so I’m nostalgic about a completely different set of things. (I would crawl across the continent just to see somebody make a damn Bollygum movie.)
Considering that German programming was a little bit different in general (for example to this day one network shows every evening at 17:55 “Unser Sandmännchen” a program specifically geared at children to watch before going to bed, and there are a lot of educational programming, like “Löwenzahn” or “Die Sendung mit der Maus” which are still around, too) I am not that much the odd one out….like I said, the programming is a little bit different. We get American Shows and Anime, too, but they are usually shown on other networks. It’s more odd whenever I talk to someone who is younger than me and has no idea that “Christmas TV Shows for Children” were a thing at one point, or that Czech TV series are something very special.
“Sandmannchen” sounds like our “In the Night Garden”. Well, actually, it’s the UK’s, but they still broadcast it here. I don’t know how it helps kids go to sleep, though, considering it looks like a bad acid trip in a public park.
As a huge Pokemon fan, I will freely admit that the show is guilty of many of the same things as Transformers. However, I also maintain that the Pokemon anime (at least the early seasons) is a legitimately great show that had actual growth and character development, in addition to some awesome animation and battles.
Not one “Matel and Mars Bar Chocobot Hour” reference after your intro showing the tie ins of commercialism and kids TV in that era. A missed opportunity Mouse.
Great review though. I like the use of Hannibal, a great character in a show I otherwise loath, your writing of him was spot on.
Such a guilty pleasure for me. I hate it but love it but I hate it.
Once again, a satisfying review! Never seen any Transformers stuff, but I may have owned a few of the toys. Can’t wait for the next review! (Fun story: I actually read “Of Mice and Men” in 8th grade. Also, Sharkticons? I’d buy the LIFE out of those toys!)
They’re not as cool as they sound.
Well, as a young kid, I was a bit of a shark fanatic, so that’s why I would’ve wanted those Sharkticons.
Hate the be the one guy, but as a fan of the Transformers–seriously, I own a book that details a bit of the history of everything from Gen 1 to, at least, Armada–I’m gonna have to correct you: the Decepticon spying on them wasn’t Ravage, it was Laserbeak. Again, don’t want to be that guy, but the inner fan couldn’t be contained.
Now, with that out of the way, as someone who was born well after Gen. 1 the closest I ever got to Transformers was Beast Wars/Machines, and the Armada series. And quite honestly, Beast Wars was one hell of a show, despite the poor quality to the animation: the writting was ingenious, the characters–starting out as a small cast and casually getting larger for both sides–were well memorable, and some of them had some darker moments that gave them better character growth as the series progressed. Armada did have it’s share of good stuff, but the first half was Transformers and Pokemon mixed into one. Don’t know how that went, but whatever. Everything after that, honestly, I didn’t give two worths for, since they looked stupid. And from what I’ve heard, I’m glad I missed out on them.
The first live action film is a guilty pleasure of mine, but after the second film I have honestly stopped carrying about the live action films. Not even going to see the newest one because I hated how the second one came about and I’m afraid it’s just a repeat of the same ones, but with new robots. The only good worthwhile series that is worth some time is the now canceled series Transformers Prime, which I honestly would consider one of my favorite shows of all time. Seriously, they got Peter Cullen and Frank Welker to reprise Optiimus Prime and Megatron for a new age, and a new style to them. That is freckin awsome.
I own all the original series episodes, and yeah they’re nothing but cheaply made commercials for the toys, but I still enjoy them on account of knowing where they started from. And they’re still a bit of fun as well. Funny enough, while I own a copy of the movie–this one–my first time watching it I had no idea who the people getting killed or any of these bots were apart from Megatron and Prime. But after some digging up and research I became aware of who they are. Still, like the Horned King, I think the big reason anyone should see this movie is because of Unicron and what Wells did for him. Honestly, he’s one of my favorite characters because he’s sort of like The Devil: destroyer of anything living, and makes deals with others to get what he wants and has the power to do so (it’s also explained in the mythology why he’s like this, but I’m not going to go into detail, cause honestly this post is getting too big for it’s own good).
It’s funny you mention a text scroll, cause over here, at least with the copies I own, there isn’t one and it’s just a small credits of who they got in the film along with the band Lion’s take on the Transformer’s theme song (freckin’ badass if you ask me). Still, must be different for various places.
Anyways, I’ll stop now. Still a really good post none the less. I have to agree: as a fan, it’s awesome; but it’s not a good movie by any standers. Just something that’s fun to watch and have a good time despite how it looks, like RHPS. Good one, as always.
Beast Wars was a HUGE part of my childhood. Dinobot’s story still gets to me.
That intro music
Here in Sweden, up until I was ten years old or so I only had two channels of television. Transformers aired on neither of them, but there was a videotape. A glorious videotape, in which timetraveling pirates, dinosaurs that had survived the meteor and space travel were mixed with giant transforming robots. I adored that video tape. Oh, how I adored it. Mammoths versus truck-bots were everything that my childhood heart could possibly crave, and so I became a Transformers fan despite not really following any of the shows until Transformers Animated hit DECADES later.
As such, I knew of this movie but had never actually seen it. I was more or less aware of the plot beats and the big moments, but I thought I didn’t really HAVE to see it. I practically knew it from reading about it, and I thought it wasn’t necessary watching. But when you posted that you were going to review it, I thought “what the hell, might as well check it out so I really know what it’s all about”.
And let me tell you something, I… was absolutely right.
This movie really is the epitome of dumb fun, as Transformers G1 itself seems to have been back in the day. The moment when Grimlock and the Dinobots burst in a metal door to grill Sharkticons, or when Grimlock dropkicked Unicron in his ROBOT ASS (to no real effect but my eternal amusement), or when robots are riding giant motorcycles that are also giant robots for no real reason, and Optimus Prime goes Rambo on the Decepticons to a ballad so cheesy it defies rational minds (although did he really kill anyone, I don’t recall if they actually kill of some actual Decepticons or if he just injures them) and Galvatron FINALLY ends Starscreams scheming ways, I am once more that little child watching giant robots wrestle dinosaurs, and I could not be happier about it.
And then there are moments like when someone decided to waste Eric Idle’s talents on spouting barely audible commercial jingles. Or the mindboggling mood whiplash when we cut from scenes of truely GRUESOME robot deaths to wacky shenanigans, like how Ultra Magnus is shot to pieces and then “AHYUCK WACKY JUNKIONS ATTACK WHILE SPOUTING WACKY LINES TO “DARE TO BE STUPID”” or when the last survivor of his race is mercilessly devoured only to then have Hot Rod and Kup create a whirlpool by riding around at the bottom of a pool REALLY FAST in order to escape it, or how Unicrons sheer size seems to have such a gravitational pull that he utterly distorts time and space, seeing as the timescale (and scale in general around him) makes no sense, (Jazz and Spike and Bumblebee get absorbed by Unicron, but for some reason they are not brought to the digestion line until DAYS later, like whut?), dance parties…
So yeah. It really is both DUMB, and FUN. As an adult watching all this crazy unfold, I can say that I really do get what made Transformers so beloved. Say what you will about this movies harsh cynicism and inability to build drama, characters (even if I do actually like Ultra Magnus and Kup in the short amount of time we get to know them, if only for that one sequence where Ultra is unable to deal with Perceptors nerdyness and Kup being Kup in general), sensible plotlines and so on, but it sure never is boring. There is always some spectacle unfolding, whether it’s cool-looking mecha-planet vistas or fight scenes, and as a child there would be no way to protect one self. There would only be sweet surrender to the madness, and as such it really is hard to criticize it because… well, it does pretty much do exactly what it set out to do.
Only parts I really don’t like are Hot Rod turning into Rodimus pretty much just because the plot says so, and the movie is never freaking QUIET. It’s like there’s always some power ballad playing in the background, even when the characters are speaking. That’s REAL annoying. Also, Wheelie. Though to be fair, I was surprised by how I managed to tolerate him. I think he would’ve been much worse in the TV Show, here he barely shows up. I think I actually found Wreck-Gar much more irritating, because he had more lines and I had a harder time making out what he was trying to say.
So yes. Not a good movie, not at all. But oh so entertaining when it got me in that childlike mindset. Quite a difference from the upcoming one, shall be interesting to see what you have to say about that one as that was the Disney movie that honestly got me back into watching Disney movies.
Lotta people looking forward to the Bolt review apparently.
I actually knew a girl whose favorite Disney movie was “Bolt.” I have honestly never seen it.
I think it is because hardly anyone mentions it when discussing Disney movies. I have no idea what you think of it. It also seems different, as there is no villain character (Green-eyed man is far from the antagonist in my opinion). It is a man (dog) vs. himself conflict, which Disney does not do much. It makes me wonder how villain will be scored.
I just wanted to point out that in the American version of the Transformers Animated Movie, the text crawl doesn’t exist- neither does the narration that Optimus Prime will return at the end that some of the European releases have. So it’s got that going for it, at least.
I’m given to understand that audiences’ shock at the death of Optimus Prime was the reason why G.I. Joe The (animated) Movie hastily overdubbed dialogue explaining that Duke was in a coma when it was very clear that he was meant to be killed off. The makers of it often regretted that they hadn’t released this one BEFORE Transformers…then they could have gotten away with it. One of the writers pointed out that though they weren’t allowed to kill people off in the show, they always made it a point to show that War Isn’t Fun And People Get Hurt…they wanted to take this to the next logical level in the movie but then Hasbro said, “We’re not going through a debacle like Optimus Prime’s death again.”
Damn, I totally missed this when it went up. I’m blaming Facebook.
You know, when I asked you to do this, I was rather hoping for a loving retrospective which heaped praise on every aspect of this masterpiece of cinema…
Not really, I was expecting a snarky takedown of what should actually be a terrible movie but somehow manages to be Not That Bad (I even saw it in the cinema for the first time a couple of weeks ago, and that made it Actually Pretty Awesome). Thanks for doing the review!
My pleasure dude, and thanks for the donation.
Aww, baby Mouse is just about the cutest thing since sleepy Mouse in that video review of Snow White! Also, does the soul test apply to someone who wasn’t alive during the 80s? ‘Cause if not, I guess I might as well be some sort of inanimate object, I’m thinking maybe some particularly noisy part of a bicycle… A bell? Yeah, I guess.
Wow, guess this was how kids learned about death in the 80s? Poor guys got this while the 40s kids got Bambi and the 90s kids Lion King. Life really isn’t fair, is it? In any case, slaughtering semi-prominent characters like red shirts is pretty harsh, even if they are a bunch of robots. Though if we’re going to talk nostalgia, I’ve got to say, the web hatred I see Shia LaBeouf getting is a bit strange to someone who was growing up when he was that funny guy who was in Even Stevens and Holes and is more remembered for that than for being the nostalgia ruiner people who grew up with Indiana Jones and Transformers apparently loathe him for (that is why people hate him, right? I can only sort of guess, I honestly don’t see what’s to hate myself).
Damn, I’m glad I won’t be around once the folks of Omicron Persei 8 get this movie broadcasted to them. They will not be happy. And if the Earth will survive that wrath, I have a feeling they won’t if they ever catch Half Blood Prince in any form. Aye aye aye. Also, Poké-geeks on here, does the ship that was given to Galvatron and the former Insecticons look like Genesect to anyone else? Am I just seeing things here?
Nice review. Enjoyed it, even if 80s toy advertisement movies are a bit foreign to me. Well done.
So, this is apparently a thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dECm3QvTIvE