Product: The Transformers - The Movie (1986)
Rating: 4.0
The Last Great Hand-Animated Movie
The Transformers: The Movie features the best modern hand-drawn animation, no doubt about it. This movie was made without the aid of computers, which is mind-boggling considering the sheer amount of detail that has been put into all 130,000 frames of animation.The story is fairly straightforward and drags a bit at times, but there is plenty of action and interesting visuals to keep most viewers entertained. There is even a touch of humor sprinkled throughout the movie and several highly emotional scenes.The incredible cast from the TV series (Peter Cullen, Susan Blu, Frank Welker, Chris Latta, Scatman Crothers, etc.) has been joined by some of the biggest names in Hollywood to handle the voice acting (Robert Stack, Judd Nelson, Leonard Nemoy, Orson Welles, John Moschitta [the Micro Machines and Federal Express commercial fast-talking guy], etc.), and it is some of the best. No one will ever forget the trademark voices of Megatron, Soundwave, Starscream, Optimus Prime, Grimlock, etc.The soundtrack is almost non-stop, with songs like "Dare to Be Stupid" by "Weird Al" Yankovic, "The Touch" and "Dare" by Stan Bush, "Hunger" by Spectre General, and "Instruments of Destruction" by NRG, and fantastic instrumentals by Vince DiCola.It's a shame that Hasbro and Sunbow Productions had discarded almost everything related to this movie over the years, hence the lack of extras on the DVD (the storyboards are interesting and the interview with composer Vince DiCola is better than nothing). Also, the people who put this DVD together wanted to do a fresh transfer of the original film in widescreen format, but the print was badly damaged and beyond repair. Some say the DVD was instead remastered from a pristine laser disc copy of the movie, hence the lack of widescreen.The audio on this disc has been tastefully remixed in crystal clear surround sound and stays true to the original stereo version (no "new and improved" sound effects have been added, thankfully). The picture is extremely high-quality with minimal compression artifacts. The colors are bold and everything stays sharp throughout most of the scenes.Whether you are a fan of The Transformers or just a fan of high-quality animation, you will not be disappointed with The Transformers: The Movie DVD.