THE
TRANSFORMERS: THE MOVIE (1986)
Director:
Nelson Shin
I'm among the oldest
members of what could loosely be defined as "Generation
Y." And I could be a little biased, but the Gen Y'ers around
my age had the coolest childhoods ever. The toys were cooler, the
TV shows were cooler, the movies were cooler, and the cartoons
were cooler. And thanks to Ronald Reagan, we were the first to
see a new way products were marketed to kids. Prior to the '80s,
the Federal Communications Commission strictly regulated how
things were advertised to youngsters. But in 1984, the FCC
decided to open the floodgates and do away with most of their
restrictions. Thanks to this, toy manufacturers started making
their own cartoons based on their products. Soon we were seeing
cartoon versions of G.I. Joe, Masters of the Universe, M.A.S.K.,
the Care Bears, Rainbow Brite, Strawberry Shortcake, and
countless others. And let's not forget one of the more memorable
ones, the Transformers. The creation of Hasbro, the Transformers
began as a series of action figures before transitioning to their
own popular syndicated cartoon not long after the FCC dropped
their restrictions. The cartoon even inspired a movie,
appropriately titled The Transformers: The Movie. It was
the second animated movie released in the summer of 1986 that was
based on Hasbro toys, following My Little Pony: The Movie.
Both underperformed so badly that Hasbro's yet-to-be-released
G.I. Joe animated movie had its theatrical release cancelled and
was sent direct to video. And although the Transformers movie was
a critical and financial failure, long-time Transformers fans
continue to hold it in high regard. I wasn't really into the
Transformers when I was a kid, and I thusly have no sort of
nostalgic feelings for it. So let's see if the movie holds up for
an outsider looking in.
It is the distant year 2005, and the
villainous Decepticons have conquered the Transformer homeworld,
Cybertron. Forced to retreat to Cyberton's moons, the heroic
Autobots aren't willing to take this sitting down, and make plans
for an attack. They launch a supply shuttle to their base on
Earth, but the Decepticons catch wind of this and launch a
full-scale battle on Earth. The Autobots manage to rebel their
enemies, but not before their commander, Optimus Prime (Peter
Cullen), is mortally wounded by the Decepticon leader, Megatron
(Frank Welker). Before he dies, Optimus Prime chooses Ultra
Magnus (Robert Stack) to succeed him as leader of the Autobots,
bestowing upon him a powerful talisman known as the "Autobot
Matrix of Leadership." With his dying words, he states that
the Matrix of Leadership will shine a light when the Autobots are
in their darkest hour.
Meanwhile, a fuel shortage
in their spaceship prompts the fleeing Decepticons to lighten the
load by throwing their wounded out the airlock, including the
injured Megatron. As the remaining Decepticon lieutenants argue
over who will be the new leader, the castoffs are left to drift
through space. They ultimately encounter Unicron (Orson Welles),
a planet-sized machine that consumes other planets for fuel.
Unicron retrieves them and offers to rebuild them on the
condition that they destroy the Matrix, the only thing that could
possibly destroy him. Megatron reluctantly agrees, and is reborn
as Galvatron (Leonard Nimoy). Galvatron's first order of business
is to destroy his treacherous underling Starscream (Chris Latta),
taking command of the Decepticons as he did when he was Megatron.
He then finds Ultra Magnus and defeats him long enough to steal
the Matrix. With Ultra Magnus out of commission, Hot Rod (Judd
Nelson) steps in to lead the Autobots on a mission to reclaim the
Matrix, defeat Unicron, and take out the Decepticons once and for
all.
If you don't eat, sleep,
and breathe Transformers, you probably aren't going to like The
Transformers: The Movie that much. In fact, I'll guarantee
you won't. The whole thing is utter nonsense from start to
finish, thanks to ugly animation and terrible writing. But I'd be
stupid to expect anything more out of it. The movie was produced
with the sole purpose of selling toys, so if Hasbro's stock went
up after this, good for them. But since I've always been
relatively indifferent to the Transformers, I can't really see
why the movie is so beloved. Yeah, there are the stories of kids
losing their minds because Optimus Prime died, but I couldn't get
over how bad the movie is. Maybe it's one of those cases where
I'd appreciate it more if I were a kid in 1986 instead of as an
adult in 2009.
Let's start this critique
with the animation, courtesy of Toei Animation. It might have
worked for a Saturday morning TV show, but for a motion picture
to be released theatrically, it sucks. It looks cheap, to be
blunt. Half the time, I wasn't quite sure what was supposed to be
going on, since the animation didn't strike me as being very
detailed. The scaling is inconsistent as well, because some
characters appear larger or smaller depending on what was needed
for the shot. And let's not forget the handful of sequences where
I would swear that the animators were just repeating a few of
frames over and over in order to get the necessary shots. At
least it was counterbalanced by the movie's awesome music. From
the great synth-oriented score composed by Vince DiCola to the
rockin' soundtrack, the music is nothing short of spectacular.
Okay, I'll admit that twenty years of musical evolution have made
the songs kinda cheesy in retrospect. But don't tell me you can't
listen to Lion's version of the Transformers theme song or
"The Touch" by Stan Bush and not get a little excited.
And even though the use of Weird Al Yankovic's "Dare to Be
Stupid" at one point seems really out of nowhere considering
the rest of the songs, the music is totally awesome.
Unfortunately, Ron
Friedman's script isn't so fantastic. It's actually the exact
opposite of fantastic. The plot is insane and disjointed, the
dialogue is forgettable, and it moves from one scene to another
seemingly at random. There's pretty much zero character
development, so unless you've seen every single episode of the
cartoon, you're not going to know anything about anyone in the
movie. And oddly, the movie actually has a pretty huge body
count, while a lot of brand new Transformers appear for the very
first time with barely an introduction. Turns out it's because
Hasbro wanted to kill off as many of the original Transformers as
they could so they could roll out their newest product line.
Classic characters like Optimus Prime and Megatron don't even
appear on the poster, because they've been replaced by all these
new Transformers. Just as the show was a commercial for toys, the
movie is a commercial for new toys. Maybe that's why Friedman's
writing is so sloppy. Why bother coming up with anything
substantial when all you're really supposed to do is make sure a
bunch of new toys get face time while pushing the old ones out of
the way?
Last on my list is the
voice acting, done by a combination of big-time actors and the
usual people from the TV show. The most talked-about member of
the cast is Orson Welles, who died just five days after recording
his dialogue. They supposedly had to run his voice through all
kinds of computer filters to make it sound presentable, though
you still get the feeling that Welles just didn't care at all.
(And if I'd gone from making Citizen Kane to doing
voice-over work as a planet-eating giant robot in an 84-minute
toy commercial, I probably wouldn't care about too many things
anymore.) The rest of the cast, though, aren't too bad. Among the
famous names who contributed, the only negative part came from
John Moschitta, who you may or may not remember as the
fast-talking guy from the FedEx and Micro Machines commercials
back in the '80s. The whole fast-taking thing is okay for
commercials, but having him play a character that talks at
super-speed every time he shows up is annoying. But as a whole,
the celebrity voices — which include Leonard Nimoy, Robert
Stack, Monty Python member Eric Idle, Casey Kasem, Judd Nelson,
and Scatman Crothers in his final movie — aren't bad, even
if they're only really there to collect a paycheck. As for the
usual Transformer voice actors, it's just business as usual for
them. Among them, the only really memorable work comes from Peter
Cullen as Optimus Prime. He's simply fantastic. Cullen makes
Optimus Prime sound like the proud, inspiring hero he should be,
and if there's one positive thing I can say about the
Transformers property as a whole, it's that Cullen rules.
But honestly, I can't say
that I'd recommend The Transformers: The Movie to anyone
that isn't already a huge Transformers fan to begin with. If you
aren't already a fan, I doubt this flick will convert you. I'm
convinced that only the truly die-hard Transformers aficionados,
the ones who absolutely cannot get enough of it, will love this
movie. Me, on the other hand... I didn't care too much for it.
I'm sorry, Transformers fans, but it just wasn't for me. There
are some really cool parts, granted. But for me, those cool parts
are ultimately few and far between. So while I'd give it a higher
rating if I were a fan, I can't justify giving The
Transformers: The Movie more than two stars
on the Sutton Scale. I keep saying it, but if I were more into
the franchise, I'd have probably been able to appreciate it more.
Final
Rating: **