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by Cth (cth@clickcom.com)
This
Weeks DVD selections were brought to you by:
The letter "O" and the number "2717"
It's finally on DVD, so let's take a closer look at this gem
of 80s animation..
Transformers: The
Movie
Cover
2/5 (Awful; Poor design;
Tacky yellow banner proclaiming Collector Edition)
Direction/Story
5/5 (Atmospheric; Excellent
soundtrack; fluid animation; acting talent amazing)
DVD Layout
3/5 (Some animated menus; easy to navigate)
Extras
2/5 (The re-addition of the fabled curse word; interview; storyboards)
OVERALL
3/5 (If you're a Transformers fan or completist)
2/5 (If you have it on VHS already or just not really interested
in animation)
COVER
I can't get over how much I dislike this cover.
It's bad enough it looks like a bootleg photocopy of the actual movie
poster. I mean, if you go to put
the poser on the case, at least make sure it fits.
As it currently is, the text proclaiming "Collector's Edition"
is in a bigger font size than the movie title itself.
Or maybe I'm overreacting. It
would have been nice to see a newer poster for the DVD
DIRECTION
Check out the voice talent on this film... Eric Idle, Orson
Wells, Leonard Nimoy, Judd Nelson, Robert Stack, That Speed Talking Guy, etc,
etc. This movie is closer to
"Heavy Metal" than it is to your typical Disney flick and that's
obvious from the beginning. From
the re-imagined theme song, to the first glimpse of Unicron.
Not since Akira has there been an animated film with such attention to
shadows and was willing to kill off major characters.
Truly you get a sense of the epic scale of this story and that's due to
the direction.
STORY
Unicron, a planet eating planet (don't ask) makes it's way
across the galaxy. In it's path is
the planet of Cybertron, home of the Autobots and Decepticons.
A distress call is put out and the Autobots are aware of the problem.
Unfortunately, at home, they face a closer threat, that of Megatron and
the Decepticons. In the course of
the fight, the Autobots almost lose the city to Megatron and Devastator until
Optimus Prime shows up. Through
trickery Megatron mortally wounds Optimus and Optimus returns the favor.
During their escape, the Decepticons dump Megatron into space where he's
found and reconstructed as Galvatron by Unicron.
Back on Earth, Optimus passes the Matrix to Ultra Magnus, but not before
Hot Rod gets chosen by the Matrix first. It
turns out the
Matrix can kill Unicron, so it's out to destroy it.
The Autobots travel into space to try and stop Unicron who transforms and
a huge battle ensues.
LAYOUT
Slight adjustment period with the menu navigation.
You don't have to press "ENTER" on the remote to select an
option, just move to it and it automatically rotates the menu around.
Luckily, it's only 3 buttons but still it could be a problem if it were
more.
EXTRAS
Menus that "transform".. well really shift
themselves around. An
interview with the composer. Also,
some storyboards from the film which are always fun to view.
No commentary track though. Or
DVD-ROM features. Even a pic of the
toys like the Playstation game would have been nice.
DON'T
MISS
Chapter (I kid you not) "A Dirty Word". Back then
this was WAY controversial. It
garnered a PG rating for one word :) Kids
everywhere were talking about this and parents everywhere paled when they took
their kid to the movie at that point. I'll
tell you what the word is, but you have to be quiet.
"SHH..IT's a secret." At least this settles for everyone if it was real or
imagined. Like those Boba Fett
rocket figure toys. And for the
record, those figures were produced, but scrapped.
FINAL
WORD
One of the best animated films of all time and deserves to be
in every collection. I believe it
also started the trend of adding "The Movie" after the title.
It's a great purchase, although I would have preferred more extras.
There was a lot of potential for a cool layout, but was never realized.
And as I stated in my column, it's worth it to hear all these actors
forced to say bizarre lines.
Copyright©2000 Cth