As "corny" as the animated 1986 Transformers movie is...

[JediKnightButler]

Transformers The Movie (1986) is one of my favorite movies of all time. I loved it as a kid and ever since they (finally) re-released it on DVD (I actually hadn't seen it for 14 LONG years) I watch it and/or listen to the soundtrack rather often. The first 30 minutes of the movie culminating in Optimus Prime and Megatron's final duel was simply spellbinding. While the rest of the movie seemed kind of uneventful until close to the end the whole thing was and still is cool for a hardcore Transformers (G1) fan such as myself. I was really sad that they killed off Prime and some of my favorite first season characters (I didn't even know that the Transformers could get killed off prior to the movie). However, I was ecstatic when they brought Prime back later on in the 3rd season. To me he was THE real "chosen one" of the Autobots and neither Ultra Magnus nor Rodimus Prime could be the leader that he was- as was made painfully evident during the 3rd season. The movie featured a TERRIFIC soundtrack (kudos to Vince DiCola's instrumental rock score in particular), top-notch animation that far surpassed the TV show, and tons of memorable lines by all of the characters.

I was VERY reluctant to see Michael Bay's 2007 live-action movie but I actually ended up liking it more than I thought I might. I wasn't crazy about most of the character designs but at least they kept Prime mostly the same. Having Peter Cullen reprise his "role" as Optimus Prime and re-using the "One shall stand...." line were the best things about it. The movie had some really humorous parts too. I love the operator scene, as well as Bumblebee taking a "leak" on that prick agent. It's too bad that they couldn't have gotten Welker to voice Megatron but oh well. He got painfully little screen time before he "died" (although it doesn't look like he is going to stay dead- as I suspected). Hopefully, now that the introduction is out of the way, the next movie will build on some of the strengths of the first movie.

My favorite was, is, and always will be the 1986 animated movie however.

 

[FalTorPan]

However, I was ecstatic when they brought Prime back later on in the 3rd season. To me he was THE real "chosen one" of the Autobots and neither Ultra Magnus nor Rodimus Prime could be the leader that he was- as was made painfully evident during the 3rd season.

Although I, too, prefer Optimus Prime over Rodimus Prime, in Rodimus' defense, Optimus had five million years of leadership experience. (He was created from the remains of Orion Pax some nine million years in the past, and he was in "stasis lock" for four million years. And yes, that's from memory. Scary, but true.) For all we know, Optimus in his early years was no better than Enterprise-B captain John Harriman.

 

[JediKnightButler]

However, I was ecstatic when they brought Prime back later on in the 3rd season. To me he was THE real "chosen one" of the Autobots and neither Ultra Magnus nor Rodimus Prime could be the leader that he was- as was made painfully evident during the 3rd season.

Although I, too, prefer Optimus Prime over Rodimus Prime, in Rodimus' defense, Optimus had five million years of leadership experience. (He was created from the remains of Orion Pax some nine million years in the past, and he was in "stasis lock" for four million years. And yes, that's from memory. Scary, but true.) For all we know, Optimus in his early years was no better than Enterprise-B captain John Harriman.

Point taken. Rodimus was only in command of the Autobots for, what, a year, so who knows how he might've matured had he been a leader longer. He seemed more cool (and strong) at the end of the movie than he seemed to be on the TV show. He seemed to maintain many of Hot Rod's qualities, specifically being rather impulsive.
We saw Prime as the leader of the Autobots for 2 years on the TV show and 18 more years (off screen) between the show and the movie not even counting the amount of time between the time he came into being and when the Transformers left Cybertron for Earth (and the million years between then and their recovery from stasis).

 

[Bishbot]

Actually I do hate most of Bay's films. I mean, with a resume including the following:

The Island
Bad Boys II
Pearl Harbor
Armageddon
The Rock
Bad Boys

I don't think my attitude is too hard to justify.

Although, I didn't mind The Rock.

My attitude towards Bay is similar, although I quite enjoyed the first Bad Boys, and as you say, The Rock is all right. I do like Transformers though. I think Bay is actually a very good director, for a certain kind of film, but he's a TERRIBLE writer, and he can't pick good scripts. Seriously, I know Orci and Kurtzman get a lot of stick for dumbing down Transformers or whatever, but I listened to Bay's commentary for the movie - a lot of what you thought was stupid or unfunny was a Bay rewrite. He's often saying "I don't know I put this in here, I just thought it was funny, and I guess it is."

 

[MNM]

Am I wrong?

You can't be wrong about your opinion.

Of course you can.

I loved both movies, and would quite happily watch them back to back.

 

[Peach Wookiee]

I love the animated movie. I watched it last night. It did and still rocks!

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

... it was a loud, garish nonsensical mess.

Okay. Add bad animation to that, and you have the cartoon movie.

 

[Bishbot]

... it was a loud, garish nonsensical mess.

Okay. Add bad animation to that, and you have the cartoon movie.

I'll give Jimbo the benefit of the doubt - it is CLEARLY not a film for everyone, but the animation is pretty good. It wasn't cutting edge, but there's nothing wrong with it. The G1 tv show was riddled with bad animation, but the movie really steps it up.

 

[Chaos Descending]

Secondary props for using the sig line from the Marvel TF encyclopedia: "Freedom is the right of all sentient beings!"

That was actually Optimus Prime's signature quote from his filecard found on the back of the G1 toy's box.

 

[Saul]

However, I was ecstatic when they brought Prime back later on in the 3rd season. To me he was THE real "chosen one" of the Autobots and neither Ultra Magnus nor Rodimus Prime could be the leader that he was- as was made painfully evident during the 3rd season.

Although I, too, prefer Optimus Prime over Rodimus Prime, in Rodimus' defense, Optimus had five million years of leadership experience. (He was created from the remains of Orion Pax some nine million years in the past, and he was in "stasis lock" for four million years. And yes, that's from memory. Scary, but true.) For all we know, Optimus in his early years was no better than Enterprise-B captain John Harriman.

I think in one of the early Marvel UK comics before he became Optimus Prime, when he was Orion Pax there was a flash back story where he planned to blow up a bridge with Megatron on it. Orion Pax got trashed while Megs survived. I think with Hot Rod having to prove himself as a leader was a bit of character development at least.

 

[Pingfah]

The original movie was poorly animated and had terrible music, but it had some good voice talent, a strong concept and acceptable writing.

The new movie is very poor in the effects/animation department also. The robots don't look anything like transformers and are WAY too complicated with too many spinning bits and look pretty flimsy. Despite being very well executed in the technical sense, the style the effects have been designed in is horrible and half the time you can't tell what the hell is going on, just balls of whirring metal things flying everywhere at breakneck speed.

The music is OK, i like Smashing Pumpkins and a few of the other contributors. The voice talent is OK as well, glad to see the original Optimus back, but Megatron and Starscream were just really boring unimaginative voices.

The strong point of the new film is the writing I think, it flowed along very nicely and the human characters were believable, amusing and engaging. But as somebody above stated there seemed to be parts that suddenly didn't fit, like somebody had squashed them in there.

 

[davejames]

I'd give the Bay version a slight edge myself. As a big fan of the original cartoon, I always find the original movie to be a lot of fun... up until Optimus dies halfway through and all the boring new characters take over. And then it just becomes completely unbearable (and sorry, but Unicron makes for a really dull villain).

The Bay version is definitely loud and overblown at times, but the robots and FX are so jaw-droppingly cool, and truly awe-inspiring, that I don't really mind all that much.

And depite it's flaws, I just find it to be a much more consistantly entertaining movie.

When he was given the opportunity to direct Transformers, Bay received a guaranteed cinematic hit on a silver platter.

That's how strong the concept is.

The budget and special FX crew were the true stars, more than anything he did.

There have been lots of movies made over the years that had strong concepts, that nevertheless never become hits. I would argue that having Bay's name attached was a BIG motivating factor in getting a lot of people to see this movie-- it told people that this was going to be a huge, flashy "Event" that couldn't be missed.

Yeah us fanboys and scifi nerds can't stand the guy, but general audiences freakin love him.

Hell, even though I don't care for most of his stuff either, I have to admit the pairing of Transformers and Michael Bay sounded like a perfect match. This was a movie that NEEDED to be big and loud and over the top, and he delivered that perfectly.

 

[Nerroth]

Comparing the two is a tad unfair story-wise, since the '07 movie was introducing what amounts to a brand new setting (to those who didn't read any of the prequel comics or the Ghosts of Yesterday novel) whereas the '86 movie was working with a set of characters and settings that had already been developed on screen and in comic form.

But for the record, I like both, as it happens.


(And I absolutely love Transformers: The Score! By far the best thing to come out of the '07 movie.)

 

[Bishbot]

Both are great fun, but lets be honest, both have their problems. The 1986 movie makes for an excellent story by the standards of the cartoon, but is almost incomprehensible as an actual standalone movie. The 2007 movie is, in so many more ways, a proper movie, but it sets itself up as nothing more than a big dumb blockbuster.

 

[Gatekeeper]

The shuttle scene from "Transformers: The Movie" left me emotionally scarred for, oh, a few minutes. Prowl, after all, was one of my favorite Autobots — AND THE DECEPTICONS GUNNED HIM DOWN!

Oh, well. At least Prowl nearly took out Starscream with a headshot before getting blown apart by the Constructicons.

Gatekeeper

 

[Unicron]

Yeah, kind of sucks he got killed by a good shot from Scavenger. At least the other Autobots got slain by Megatron.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

The shuttle scene from "Transformers: The Movie" left me emotionally scarred for, oh, a few minutes. Prowl, after all, was one of my favorite Autobots — AND THE DECEPTICONS GUNNED HIM DOWN!

Oh, well. At least Prowl nearly took out Starscream with a headshot before getting blown apart by the Constructicons.

Gatekeeper

And did you notice that from what I could tell the only major Decepticon to get offed was Starscream aka the traitor.
(Megatron just got a new look and voice but it was still him he just called himself Galvatron now)

This the death Prime and most of the significat Autobots, the fact that Prime's chosen replacement was a butterfingers allowing the guy who accidently contributed to Prime's death to become the leader, makes me believe that the 1986 movie was an exercise in Decepticon propaganda.

 

[Bishbot]

The shuttle scene from "Transformers: The Movie" left me emotionally scarred for, oh, a few minutes. Prowl, after all, was one of my favorite Autobots — AND THE DECEPTICONS GUNNED HIM DOWN!

Oh, well. At least Prowl nearly took out Starscream with a headshot before getting blown apart by the Constructicons.

Gatekeeper

And did you notice that from what I could tell the only major Decepticon to get offed was Starscream aka the traitor.
(Megatron just got a new look and voice but it was still him he just called himself Galvatron now)

This the death Prime and most of the significat Autobots, the fact that Prime's chosen replacement was a butterfingers allowing the guy who accidently contributed to Prime's death to become the leader, makes me believe that the 1986 movie was an exercise in Decepticon propaganda.

I think you can safely say that Thundercracker, Skywarp and the Insecticons also bought it, but their deaths aren't dwelt upon, and are at least a little ambiguous. There weren't really as many major Decepticons as there were Autobots though. I guess they could have killed off Soundwave, but everyone loves Soundwave.

 

[Ethros]

^ I just like how the movie is set in 2005, yet the Decepticons are still sticking with the tape player

 

[Bishbot]

Hell yes - I think we missed out on the "identical white boiler suits" phase as well, and of course, in Season 3 of the cartoon, it becomes obvious that the Soviet Union is still alive and well in 2005.