The Transformers: The Movie (1986)

[GiveMeYourBaby 102]

This was one of my favorite movies growing up, but it is absolutely bonkers. Some of the things worth discussing:

1. shark robots

2.80's power ballads, including one originally written for Stallone's Cobra

3. that all the main characters die and get replaced so Mattel could sell new toys

4. Hot Rod is the worst

5. this was Orson Welles's final credited movie role; wherein he plays a planet that eats other planets

6. endless car puns

7. how this hot mess was still better than Michael Bay's versions

[Snake 165]

This was one of my favorite movies growing up, but it is absolutely bonkers. Some of the things worth discussing:

1. shark robots

2.80's power ballads, including one originally written for Stallone's Cobra

3. that all the main characters die and get replaced so Mattel could sell new toys

4. Hot Rod is the worst

5. this was Orson Welles's final credited movie role; wherein he plays a planet that eats other planets

6. endless car puns

7. how this hot mess was still better than Michael Bay's versions

 

I mean he basically killed Optimus

[Rattrap007 52]

This was one of my favorite movies growing up, but it is absolutely bonkers. Some of the things worth discussing:

1. shark robots

2.80's power ballads, including one originally written for Stallone's Cobra

3. that all the main characters die and get replaced so Mattel could sell new toys

4. Hot Rod is the worst

5. this was Orson Welles's final credited movie role; wherein he plays a planet that eats other planets

6. endless car puns

7. how this hot mess was still better than Michael Bay's versions

1.) Sharkticons

2.) Which song?

3.) Odd considering they were made by Hasbro..

4.) But he is played by John Bender!

5.) Did you see the size of him at that time? He WAS the size of a planet.. probably devoured them too. Perfect casting..

6.) What puns? I don't remember car puns.

7.) Agreed..

[wyldride 285]

"Hang on -- We're dying when we get shot now? When did that become a thing. Seriously, we've been shooting each other for years and we fall down and then pretty much get back up again. What's the point of being machines if we can't just be repaired?" - Hot Rod in a deleted scene, probably.

[Quasar Sniffer 4174]

This was everything I loved about Transformers when I was a kid and I still adore the FUCK out of it, even if so much of it is geared towards selling new toy models. Yeah, they killed Megatron, but we got Galvatron voiced by Leonard fucking Nimoy. And ROBOT SHARKS?!?! AMAZING!

 

Hot Rod sucks though.

[Quasar Sniffer 4174]

Oh, and this is the only soundtrack that I actually listen to in my free time. I am a fan of the most grim, brutal, and (not surprisingly) elitist forms of Death and Black metal.... but I also think you should "DARE! Dare to keep all you dreams alive!"

 

This podcast has The Touch...

[PlanBFromOuterSpace 3138]

"Hang on -- We're dying when we get shot now? When did that become a thing. Seriously, we've been shooting each other for years and we fall down and then pretty much get back up again. What's the point of being machines if we can't just be repaired?" - Hot Rod in a deleted scene, probably.

You must ALL see the "GI Joe" episode of "Community" if you haven't already! It answers SO many questions.

[Rattrap007 52]

You must ALL see the "GI Joe" episode of "Community" if you haven't already! It answers SO many questions.

 

Seen it. Loved it.

 

"I want to see women's boobs!" - Cobra Commander

[Lando 2019]

The actual video for The Touch is just as good as the song itself:

 

Also, I didn't know Stan Bush was like a Kenny Loggins of action films:

[Wien 401]

[Skeevins 322]

This was everything I loved about Transformers when I was a kid and I still adore the FUCK out of it, even if so much of it is geared towards selling new toy models. Yeah, they killed Megatron, but we got Galvatron voiced by Leonard fucking Nimoy. And ROBOT SHARKS?!?! AMAZING!

 

Hot Rod sucks though.

 

He gets better in Season 4, when he's just a huge asshole to everyone all the time. When he's not ruling a planet, that is. There were a lot of peace talks in those episodes. It was a weird time.

[GTZippy 0]

This was one of my favorite movies growing up, but it is absolutely bonkers. Some of the things worth discussing:

1. shark robots

2.80's power ballads, including one originally written for Stallone's Cobra

3. that all the main characters die and get replaced so Mattel could sell new toys

4. Hot Rod is the worst

5. this was Orson Welles's final credited movie role; wherein he plays a planet that eats other planets

6. endless car puns

7. how this hot mess was still better than Michael Bay's versions

 

 

1. Not just Sharkticons, but those creepy Quintesons also.

2. The Touch. I mean, really there is nothing more that needs to be said.

3. The only thing that saved me from having a breakdown as a child watching all of favorite heroes die was the Dinobots surviving. But what happened to Sludge? Was he holding out for more money?

4. Hot Rod: The chosen one to replace Optimus Prime. He also got Optimus killed. Then he did such a shitty job they had to bring Optimus back to life.

5. Orson Wells, when asked what he had done on one of the finals days of his life (after doing voice-over work for Unicron), said that he had been a child's toy that day.

6. Not just car puns. Lets take a look at everything here. "Let's kick tailgate." '

Me Grimlock kick butt."

"I've got better things to do tonight than die." (someone really thought this line was worth being in a movie)

"I talk some TV. And now the news, don't touch that dial." We get it, Kup is old.

I fell like I need to stop at that.

7. Yea, better on the whole. If you edit out all of the scenes with Hotrod you are left with a solid Saturday morning cartoon.

 

 

This needs to happen. I would bet money you could even get Peter Cullen in the studio to talk about his reaction to finding out his character was going to die.

 

MAKE.

THIS.

HAPPEN.

[MichaelBrown 9]

I'm still pissed the matrix chose Hot Rod over Ultra Magnus.

Are you kidding me?

Yeah you killed Optimus, but Starscream? Starscream!!!

I gotta calm down.

 

[Prof. Horatio Hufnagel 16]

I'm not sure this movie would be all that great for HDTGM. I don't think there's anything really bonkers about it, and it succeeds pretty well at what it set out to be. It is interesting for what it was; for instance, I believe it was one of the first cartoon movies with a cast of very well known actors doing the voice work.

 

One thing I always thought was funny about the movie (warning: TF fan here), was the discontinuity between the film and the TV series at the time of release. Apparently, production for the film took two years, which means that it was started during the first season of TF. That's why the movie only has first season characters and all the other Autobots and Decepticons seem to have vanished. It also explains why the Autobots are so frightened of Devastator, even though by this point in the series the Autobots have their own gestalt teams. Where the hell are Defensor and Superion?!

 

Another thing that has always driven me crazy: in a far shot of the "Autobot vs. Decepticon Battle" during the first half of the movie, we are shown lasers that travel in arcs!!! Bad movie physics to the extreme!

 

However, if you are interested in truly bonkers Transformers stuff, then I suggest you check out the comic where:

 

The writers had to explain why Megatron sometimes transformed into a gun small enough that people could fire it, and sometimes his gun form was big enough for Starscream to fire comfortably (they explain this somehow; something about molecular structuring).

 

They also had to explain "where" Optimus Prime's trailer comes from when he transforms, or more generally, where do all the firearms that aren't part of a character's build come from?! (The answer to both: all Transformers posses a small pocket "subspace" that they can store items in and retrieve from wherever they are).

 

Different artists put their own spin on the designs, leading to Transformers that for some issues have cheekbones, tongues, eyeballs, etc.

 

The comic was put out in the US and the UK, but they each had their own story arcs and universes. Later, Marvel decided to combine them, leading to a DC-level of retconning driven to its limits.

 

Lastly, by the end of the series the comic had gotten so batty that many transformers couldn't even transform anymore!

 

All that said, the comics were pretty good. Apparently the series did just well enough for Marvel to keep it going bi-monthly, but not well enough for the higher-ups to pay it any attention, so the writers were not afraid to take risks. Like I said, eventually the Transformers don't even transform.

[Skeevins 322]

My favorite Rodimus moment in Season 3:

 

The Autobots learned of a lost Cybertronian colony known as Paradron after one of its citizens, Sandstorm, arrived on Cybertron begging for help. It seemed that Galvatron and the Decepticons had seized control over the planet and its vast energon reserves. Rodimus Prime and the Autobots staged a tactical infiltration, but the escalation of violence between the two forces led to total devastation. Rodimus gave the pacifistic Autobots of Paradron his impassioned "Move it or lose it!" speech before hustling them off-world so that Ultra Magnus could blow up their home. As Sandstorm sat there mourning the loss of his world, Rodimus Prime gave him some solemn advice.

“ Well, no need to get all mushy. Cybertron's a better place anyway—not so...perfect. ”

[GiveMeYourBaby 102]

I just watched Transformers Age of Extinction on Netflix and it reminded me that I still want this to be the first Transformers movie HDTGM'ed. Someone else mentioned that when you go into a Bayformer movie you really only have yourself to blame. I actually love this movie. It was one of a flicks like Nausicaa that I watched over and over as a kid, but it really is a bizarre moment in film history.

 

Trans '86 had a budget of $6 million, it grossed 5.8.

 

I would love to see a HDTGM double feature with AoE.

 

Is Hasbro's meddling worse than AoE's product placement?

In which movie does Megatron get shortchanged the most as the series's primary villain?

Which plot device is the most shoehorned? The "tactical nuke" seed bomb or the Matrix?

[GiveMeYourBaby 102]

I would also like noted voice over actor John H Benjamin to be the guest. HDTGM hasn't done an animated movie since The Smurfs.

[NundercoverBrother 174]

At the age of 8 I was baffled to hear a cartoon character drop an "Oh Shit" (Spike when Unicron ate his starbase)

HDTGM hasn't done an animated movie since The Smurfs.

Not an animated movie at all.

[Grand Moff Talkin' 20]

I saw this movie in theater on my 12th birthday and I gotta say, that's still in my top 5 best birthdays ever.

 

I knew every single line of dialogue and could recite it (this is how we killed time on the bus before smartphones brought the internet to us).

 

I owned the toys of Kupp, Rodimus Prime, Galvatron, Ultra Magnus and Blurr, even though they were much shittier toys than the original Transformers. I was pissed that the sexism that made Arcee the only female Transformer also made her pink and not a toy. I really wanted an Arcee toy.

 

This movie was like someone at Hasbro watched Heavy Metal and said "let's do that" and that's why it's better than Bays movies.

[GiveMeYourBaby 102]

At the age of 8 I was baffled to hear a cartoon character drop an "Oh Shit" (Spike when Unicron ate his starbase)

 

Not an animated movie at all.

 

Fine. A movie with animated characters.

[GiveMeYourBaby 102]

Just in time for the 30th anniversary!

 

http://io9.gizmodo.com/transformers-the-movie-is-finally-coming-to-blu-ray-fo-1781557384

[joel_rosenbaum 1269]

Can we talk some more about Orson Welles? Specifically late-career Welles? I'll just let Orson do the talking:

 

 

[GiveMeYourBaby 102]

Orson Welles was in declining health during production. Shortly before he died, he told his biographer, Barbara Leaming, that he had spent the day "playing a toy" in a movie about toys who "do horrible things to each other." Film historian Joseph McBride quotes Welles saying of his participation: "I play a planet. I menace somebody called Something-or-other. Then I'm destroyed."Welles' voice was apparently so weak by the time he made his recording that technicians needed to run it through a synthesizer to salvage it. The voicework for Transformers: The Movie was the last movie project he worked on, as 5 days after his final dubbing session, Welles died of a heart attack.

[GiveMeYourBaby 102]

This interview with the writer is fascinating.

 

https://toddmatthy.com/2013/12/31/he-killed-optimus-prime-an-interview-with-ron-friedman-writer-of-transformers-the-movie/