Product: The Transformers - The Movie (1986)
Rating: 3.0
Definitely not the series' finest hour
Transformers: The Movie seems to garner a lot of praise among TF fans, both for its story and its musical score. Problem is, the story manages to eliminate many of the characters we spent two years caring about (including series favorites Optimus Prime, Megatron, Ironhide, Wheeljack, Brawn, and Starscream) and replaces that core cast with a group of new characters (which means-big surprise-new toys), a distinct deviation from the series' general loyalty to existing characters. The score is at times impressive, but the songs..... *groan* Other than Weird Al Yankovic's "Dare to be Stupid", the songs are C-grade '80s metal, and the classic TV series score by Johnny Douglas and Rob Walsh would have suited just as well (if not better). And the existence of the Matrix is particularly sloppy since we had seen Prime's innards twice before without the slightest mention of a Matrix of Leadership.Complaints about the film aside, its presentation is the best possible. The audio is remastered in Dolby 5.1, and the picture has been restored to equal brilliance. The movie is not, however, in widescreen, and the picture quality of two scenes (the opening attack by Unicron on the machine planet and the battle on Junk) have moments that are somewhat less brilliant, almost as if they come from the old pan-and-scan VHS master (meaning that the widescreen elements may truly be lost forever). The extras (storyboards from two scenes never animated by Sunbow and an interview with composer Vince DiCola) are interesting, but certainly lacking for a film that, despite my issues with it, really was a major event for children of the '80s, and is therefore not to be missed.