Welcome, one and all, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to be covering an animated movie from 1986. That movie is "Transformers: The Movie".
Yes, guys, believe it or not, I have never seen this movie. I know that people who have seen this thing, often praise it as a fantastic movie and, quite possibly, the best Transformers movie ever made.Now, my history with Transformers is a little bit odd. You see, I know that this movie is set around the Transformers cartoon from the 80's, which I never saw. Mainly because, I wasn't born in the 80's. My first experience with Transformers was when I watched "Transformers: Cybertron", which I watched way back when Kids' WB was a thing. And I also watched most of "Transformers Prime" both on the Hub Network and on the CW Vortexx.
In terms of movies, I have seen all 5 of the live action Michael Bay "Transformers" movies, and, for the most part, I really enjoyed those movies. Even though the second and the fifth movie are really flawed, I still enjoyed watching them. And as for video games, out of the three Transformers games I have played, the only one I enjoyed was "Transformers: War for Cybertron" on the Xbox 360. That, to me, was the only good Transformers game I have liked.
Now, I really want to like this movie as much as everyone else who saw this movie did. But I also know that this movie could be a massive letdown, because I know what happens when something such as a movie, a TV show, or a video game, is met with very high expectations. It usually means that it's never going to meet those standards that people have set it so high for. But I still have hope that this movie will be really good. And the only way I'm going to find that out, is I shut up, and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Transformers: The Movie".
11 minutes later
Guys, I'm absolutely loving the music in this movie. Every single piece of music that has played so far has been fucking amazing. It's that 80's rock music that I adore, and it's making this movie all the more awesome to watch, and I'm loving every minute of it.
16 minutes later
OK...so I didn't know that when a Transfomer dies, they're entire body just turns to black. That was...pretty morbid, guys.
7 minutes later
Well guys, I just witnessed Starscream's coronation ceremony. And his reign lasted all off, what, a minute? Maybe less than that? And you know what? I can't say that Starscream didn't deserve what he got in the end. So, good on Megatron for getting revenge there.
13 minutes later
Guys, I know I've already said this point earlier, but the music in this thing has still been amazing. I'm definitely going to have to download the soundtrack for this movie. It is just that awesome.
5 minutes later
So, when you are given an "innocent" verdict, you get fed to the Sharktocons. That is something I would have never known.
14 minutes later
OK, guys, do you remember me praising the music throughout this entire movie so far? Well, this song here...kinda sucks. Granted, it sounds cool. But the lyrics are kinda bringing it down a little. Still though...at least it sounds cool. It's just the lyrics that are sorta lacking.
The Review
Well, guys, that was "Transformers: The Movie". And as much as I'd like to continue rocking out to this music, I got a movie to review. So let me shut that off...wow. You know, when I went into this movie, I wasn't sure what to expect. Because, while I have seen a ton of Transformers media, I wouldn't really call myself a Transformers fan. I had heard about this movie for a long time, but I never got around to seeing it. And before watching this movie, the one thing that I was concerned about was how fans of this movie have hyped it up. And the one thing I hate about hype is that, when you have something built up to be this amazing thing, it almost never lives up to it. Guys...this movie lives up to ALL of that hype. And it wound up being amazing. Now, let's talk about this movie, shall we?
Writing in this movie is very strong. At least, in terms of Transformers. Because I know that this is based off of the 80's cartoon show, there are certain characters here who don't get a ton of depth. And I'm mostly referring to the only two human characters in this movie. Spike, and his son, Daniel. Because we see them interacting and working with the Autobots throughout the entire movie. And, at no time, do we even get any kind of background on them. Now, that may have been intentional, because, they are not the main focus in this movie. This was probably because the people who have seen this movie, would also have seen the cartoon that these two were in. Thus, the development for these two characters was more of a focus in the cartoon. Now normally, I would kinda bitch, because I would've liked to have seen more of who these characters were. However, I'm going to give that a pass, because we have a story that is really good and stands out on it's own.
So, the story starts out with what you would expect from a Transformers story. We have the Autobots and Decepticons fighting each other. Which ultimately leads up to Megatron fighting Optimus Prime in a one on one battle. And during this fight, Megatron ends up getting the upper-hand after holding Hot Rod, another Autobot, hostage, and ends up shooting Optimus multiple times. But, of course, Optimus doesn't die from it and ends up beating the shit out of Megatron, ultimately injuring him to near death. Afterwards, it ends up with Optimus Prime dying after he gives the Autobot Matrix to Ultra Magnus, and that it will be opened in their hour of need. And on the flip-side, we have Megatron being disposed of by Starscream, thinking Megatron was just about to die, and thus, is floating in the depths of space until he comes across Unicron, who basically eats planets. And he wants the Autobot Matrix destroyed because he says that it's the only thing that would stand in his way. So he ends up giving Megatron a new look and ends up calling him Galvatron, who he, and a ton of other fallen Decepticons who fell during the battle previously, are after the Autobots again for the Matrix.
Now, before anyone tells me that I spoiled the movie, because I said that Optimus Prime dies, I didn't. For two reasons. One, the back of the case ends up saying that Optimus Prime is lost in battle, thus admitting that Prime dies in this movie. And two, this movie is almost 35 years old. And, at that point, I feel as though the limitations should be lifted for those spoilers, because the movie is that old. Also, as a slight spoiler, at the very end of the movie, we get a narration saying that Optimus Prime will return. So there is that.
Which leads me to, not necessarily a flaw, but more so of a gripe, and it would vary from person to person. If you have never seen anything Transformers related, meaning that if you have never seen a TV show, watched any of the live action movies, or even read a comic book, and you were going into this movie as your first Transformers experience, then you could be totally lost. I could totally see that happening because, if you didn't have any kind of Transformers knowledge, then you would have no idea as to why the Autobots and Decepticons are fighting each other. You would have no idea as to who these two human characters are and where they come from. You could be lost on a lot of this and not understand any of it. However, because I have seen enough Transformers media to understand what's going on, it was easier on me, so I didn't really have that kind of baggage. But I will say that if you really wanted to know more about these characters, and you didn't have any kind of knowledge on Transformers, then, maybe, I would say go watch the 80's cartoon before you jump into this movie. But if you just want to watch this as a fun sci-fi action movie, then this will definitely deliver.
So yeah, guys, writing here is fantastic. At least, in the world of Transformers. What about voice acting? Guys, I'm gonna tell you this now. We have an all-star cast in this movie. We have Eric Idle, Judd Nelson, Leonard Nimoy, and Orson Welles just to name a few big names. And they all turn in fantastic showings. We also have voice acting regulars such as Peter Cullen as Optimus Prime, Frank Welker, Casey Kasem, Corey Burton, and they also turn in awesome showings. When you have all of these names under one movie, it would be a crime if any of these people turned in a bad showing. But since we have a strong script, everybody brings in their absolute best and it makes a great movie even better.
The animation is really good. Because the studio that made this movie is a very well known Japanese animation studio known as Toei Animation. And in case you don't know what shows they made, the few best examples I can give are Dragon Ball, Sailor Moon, and Digimon. And I've known that Toei Animation, regardless of the quality of their shows, mostly makes them look amazing. And this movie is no different. While there are a couple of hiccups in animation, such as a shot here or a shot there, where some characters are running at an angle and the animation looks a little bit janky. But it goes by for a couple of seconds, which nobody is going to notice or care about, because the rest of animation is that good, from character designs on the Transformers themselves, the backgrounds on certain planets, and my personal favorite design has to go Unicron, before he transforms. When he's eating planets, you get a lot of close-ups of Unicron, and the detail on him looks amazing because of these close-ups. So animation, overall, is amazing.
Now moving onto the soundtrack. If you couldn't tell by my reactions, the soundtrack in this movie is fucking phenomenal. Because just about every song in this movie is that classic 80's rock music that I love. And that's partially because of my bias for 80's rock music. We have here songs from Stan Bush and Spectre General, just to name a couple of the artists for this movie, and they're all amazing songs. And while most people who have seen this movie prefer "The Touch", my personal favorite has to go "Dare", because it is upbeat and very memorable. In fact, the soundtrack is this good, that I would highly recommend it to anyone who loves 80's rock music. And even that one song I said that I didn't care for, I may have to give it a few more listens to see if it's any good on it's own. Because I know that the song, which I believe was called "Dare to be Stupid" was from Weird Al. And Weird Al usually makes great songs, so I may give it another chance and see if I'll like it. Beyond that, though, the soundtrack is amazing and I absolutely love it.
Sound-mix, on the other hand, is the one lone issue that I do have with this movie. And it has to do whenever a Transformer has to talk. Now, I totally understand that because most of our character are giant talking robots, you would expect to have some sort of a pitch to their voice. But some of these characters have this really odd ball pitch to their voice, that it kinda makes hard for me to understand what they're trying to say. One big example I can think of is the character of Blur. Blur's gimmick, as far as I could tell, is that he talks really fast. And because he talks so fast, some of his dialogue ends up being skippable. Now, I don't know if he talked like that in the 80's cartoon, assuming he's even in it, but it really stood out for me. Which means that if I end up watching the 80's cartoon at some point, I may have to get use to it. Or maybe it was done better in the show than in the movie. Who knows?
Another character that has this problem, and I don't remember his name, but he comes from the planet Junk. And for whatever reason, his dialogue is even harder to make out, because there's this really weird sound that he makes which I don't know how to describe it. The sound kinda reminds of how R2-D2 from Star Wars communicates. And that's what I kinda hear every time that this character speaks. Not only that, but I can't tell what kind of an accent he's trying to give out. It ranges from either a British accent or an Australian accent. And when you mix it in with that weird R2-D2 sound effect, it makes his dialogue difficult to make out. There was, maybe, like two times where I could understand what he was saying, and other times, it's just complete gibberish. Everyone else, though, who is a Transformer, is perfectly fine. It's just, for those two characters, their dialogue could've been mixed better.
So, when all is said and done, am I able to recommend "Transformers: The Movie"? You bet your ass I can recommend it. This movie is amazing. I can recommend it to fans of Transformers. I can recommend it to children. And if you, yourself, have children, or knows somebody that has children, then they are going love this thing. Even if you haven't seen anything with the Transformers name in your life, but you're a fan of sci-fi movies, then this is also going to be amazing for you. In fact, if I had grown up in 80's and I had watched this as a child, I would've been watching this thing hundreds of times, because it is just that good. And after finally getting a chance to see this movie after all these years, it was definitely well worth the wait.
And, with that, guys, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all in the near future. Peace.
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