Here's a shock to fans of the movie and show: I had never seen the movie nor the show before sitting through the newest Transformers output by Michael Bay. I knew mostly nothing about the characters' origins, what powers they have, or why they have so much inner drama between them. I got a lot of those questions answered (except the last one), but it doesn't make me a die-hard fan of them after one sitting.
The Transformers are weird. The animation doesn't go into much detail about how their bodies change into a car or jet (just a lot of pieces flipping and melding into a piece of transportation, which they really don't need to happen seeing as all of them could fly somehow). The voices and personalities are the best thing about the series, and in the movie, big names like Robert Stack, Judd Nelson, Leonard Nimoy, and Orsen Welles (?) are amongst the "names" to promote the "film." The movie doesn't seem like a movie; it seems more like a long episode based around concepts that probably take too long to animate for the series, but then mashed them all together for the movie so that the plot could sort of make sense. The music is standard 80's arena rock (with great classics as "The Touch" by Stan Bush...later parodied in "Boogie Nights" as the hit single that Dirk Diggler tries to record) and off-choices like Weird Al's "Dare To Be Stupid" which have nothing to do with the action on screen. The sounds were classic Transformers, from the "changing" sound to the sound of portals and laser blasts. All of the artwork was exceptionally well drawn (with an anime-feel to the setting) and reminded me of animes like Akira.
Getting back to their weird qualities, these technological marvels, the Transformers, go around blowing crap up like it means absolutely nothing to them, and then trying to preach the goodness and magic of a Matrix (which doesn't have anything to do with Keanu Reeves). When Megatron throws a piece of lumber into Optimus Prime, it goes into his armor with no problem, but he can take hits from lasers and all and not feel anything? Why weren't they all created equals with similar qualities if they all just operate computers without a problem as their only "job?" Hell, even the worthless dinobots were flying (the heavy brontosaurus flying?), and others couldn't? I was just in shock at the stupid "anything goes" mentality of creators of these scripts. But I know they were trying to get more kids in the theaters so they can see which toy to pick out at the store next time...and speaking of kids, is it really necessary to throw the words damn and s_hit into the script? It's just stupid writing to try and push the envelope to let you know you're watching a movie and not the show. Why not show a scene with RC boning HotRod while you're at it.
All in all, if you liked the show as a kid, you probably should have seen this about 10 times so far. The new DVD was released with a Transformers transferable sticker, a metallic action card, and some pretty good trivia that you may want to store up in your memory banks for when you and your friend are challenging your knowledge on the subject of interchanging robots. It was good, but I think the new movie shows a better view of the random challenge of being a robot in this crazy, mixed up world.
The Transformers are weird. The animation doesn't go into much detail about how their bodies change into a car or jet (just a lot of pieces flipping and melding into a piece of transportation, which they really don't need to happen seeing as all of them could fly somehow). The voices and personalities are the best thing about the series, and in the movie, big names like Robert Stack, Judd Nelson, Leonard Nimoy, and Orsen Welles (?) are amongst the "names" to promote the "film." The movie doesn't seem like a movie; it seems more like a long episode based around concepts that probably take too long to animate for the series, but then mashed them all together for the movie so that the plot could sort of make sense. The music is standard 80's arena rock (with great classics as "The Touch" by Stan Bush...later parodied in "Boogie Nights" as the hit single that Dirk Diggler tries to record) and off-choices like Weird Al's "Dare To Be Stupid" which have nothing to do with the action on screen. The sounds were classic Transformers, from the "changing" sound to the sound of portals and laser blasts. All of the artwork was exceptionally well drawn (with an anime-feel to the setting) and reminded me of animes like Akira.
Getting back to their weird qualities, these technological marvels, the Transformers, go around blowing crap up like it means absolutely nothing to them, and then trying to preach the goodness and magic of a Matrix (which doesn't have anything to do with Keanu Reeves). When Megatron throws a piece of lumber into Optimus Prime, it goes into his armor with no problem, but he can take hits from lasers and all and not feel anything? Why weren't they all created equals with similar qualities if they all just operate computers without a problem as their only "job?" Hell, even the worthless dinobots were flying (the heavy brontosaurus flying?), and others couldn't? I was just in shock at the stupid "anything goes" mentality of creators of these scripts. But I know they were trying to get more kids in the theaters so they can see which toy to pick out at the store next time...and speaking of kids, is it really necessary to throw the words damn and s_hit into the script? It's just stupid writing to try and push the envelope to let you know you're watching a movie and not the show. Why not show a scene with RC boning HotRod while you're at it.
All in all, if you liked the show as a kid, you probably should have seen this about 10 times so far. The new DVD was released with a Transformers transferable sticker, a metallic action card, and some pretty good trivia that you may want to store up in your memory banks for when you and your friend are challenging your knowledge on the subject of interchanging robots. It was good, but I think the new movie shows a better view of the random challenge of being a robot in this crazy, mixed up world.