I think I have probably bought every version of The Transformers: the Movie I've ever seen for sale. My first copy was a VHS tape they sold at Suncoast Motion Picture Co. for about twelve bucks, and I watched that tape until it was pretty much unwatchable. Since then there have been numerous rereleases and versions on DVD and Blu-Ray and now Ultra HD. I actually don't even own a device that can play 4K discs right now, but I imagine I will some day.

So for now, we're talking about the fullscreen Blu-Ray disc that is included with the steelbook set in addition to the 4K version. When the 30th anniversary version came out, I was impressed with the picture clarity and level of discernible detail, but I was bothered by it only being available on widescreen. Fullscreen is my go-to choice for watching The Transformers: the Movie when I can help it, because the film was animated in fullscreen, as if it were an episode of the television series, and it was formatted for theatrical release simply by chopping off the top and bottom of the picture. You don't lose a lot of super important detail, but you do lose some.

I've been very vocal about my dissatisfaction with the Sony DVD release from 2006. While they did include both a widescreen and a fullscreen disc, the color transfer on each was different, for some reason, and the fullscreen version looked awful. Hot Rod was this muddy brown color in most scenes. It was unwatchable.

However, this new release is gorgeous. The animation lines are crisp and clean, and the colors are beautiful. I watched through the entire film and, despite having seen it many dozens of times, there are still new, little details I'm noticing.

Director Nelson Shin made an effort to make nearly every scene feel "alive" even when there's not a lot going on. The computer monitors at Autobot City and the Moon Bases are always dancing with tiny, almost imperceptible graphics. The damaged shuttle on the Planet of Junk has hull breaches and visible wiring that spark faintly. The Matrix comes alive with electricity when Rodimus Prime opens it. It's all so beautiful.

The commentary track is the same one with Flint Dille and Sue Blue and Nelson Shin from the 20th anniversary release, making it fifteen years old now. However, there are new interview segments with Flint Dille, Dan Gilvezan, Gregg Berger, Neil Ross, and others. I love listening to these guys telling stories about what it was like during the recording sessions.

Going forward, here's what I want to see for the next new-and-improved release of the movie. There are artificial intelligence programs that are already capable of frame interpolation, with the computer basically guessing what it thinks a frame would look like that comes between two sequential frames. They can take stop-motion or cel animation and upscale it to 60 frames per second (animation tends to be 24 fps), creating much smoother animation that flows beautifully.

Here's an example of what I'm talking about (I especially love the Tom and Jerry footage that starts at about 2:50 or so):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IK-Q3EcTnTA

I'm predicting that when this technology becomes more affordable and widely available, this will become the gold standard for film and animation, and all home video releases will have this level of interpolation applied to it.. So maybe we can look forward to this for the 50th anniversary edition of The Transformers: the Movie!

Other random stuff from the movie I noticed today:

On Lithone, when Unicron's mandibles first make contact with the planet, you can actually see a tiny little Kranix and Arblus watching from the window.. I never noticed that before.

The squid on Quintessa didn't hurt Kup until Hot Rod opened fire. As soon as Hot Rod started shooting at it, that's when it ripped off Kup's arm and leg. Hot Rod is an idiot.

I will freely admit that I don't usually pay too much attention to the Junkions. They're all kind of homogenous to me and mostly the same colors. However, there do seem to be at least eight or nine distinct designs. That's potentially a lot of neo-G1 armybuilder toys from Hasbro. I'm sure their upcoming generic Junkion toy will be modified from Studio Series Wreck-Gar in some fashion (a different head and color scheme, at the very least) but actually some of the Junkion troops would need a whole new toy design to really do them justice (there's one guy who has two wheels in the center of his chest in robot mode, for example).

Inside Unicron, you can see the little speed lines from the recoil of Arcee's gun when she's opening fire on his internal defense systems.

Also inside Unicron, just before Rodimus Prime shows up, there's a little fake-out when one of the internal defense claws grabs Springer and his eyes and mouth turn orange for a second. I think it's meant as a callback to Prowl's death, and a way of teasing the audience for a moment, but of course Springer survives.

During the celebration on Cybertron, in the crowd of assembled Autobots, Spike in his exo-suit is standing next to Bumblebee but his exo-suit glass is colored grey. You can't see his face. So, I guess maybe the exo-suit toys we've gotten with no defined faces (Leinad from HasCon Arcee, the Buzzworthy Bumblebee version) are technically accurate!

Zob (my son is spraying Axe body spray everywhere in the house and I can literally taste it in my mouth)

On Friday, August 20, 2021 at 9:03:23 PM UTC-4, Zobovor wrote:
> I think I have probably bought every version of The Transformers: the Movie I've ever seen for sale. My first copy was a VHS tape they sold at Suncoast Motion Picture Co. for about twelve bucks, and I watched that tape until it was pretty much unwatchable. Since then there have been numerous rereleases and versions on DVD and Blu-Ray and now Ultra HD. I actually don't even own a device that can play 4K discs right now, but I imagine I will some day.
>
> So for now, we're talking about the fullscreen Blu-Ray disc that is included with the steelbook set in addition to the 4K version. When the 30th anniversary version came out, I was impressed with the picture clarity and level of discernible detail, but I was bothered by it only being available on widescreen. Fullscreen is my go-to choice for watching The Transformers: the Movie when I can help it, because the film was animated in fullscreen, as if it were an episode of the television series, and it was formatted for theatrical release simply by chopping off the top and bottom of the picture. You don't lose a lot of super important detail, but you do lose some.
>
> I've been very vocal about my dissatisfaction with the Sony DVD release from 2006. While they did include both a widescreen and a fullscreen disc, the color transfer on each was different, for some reason, and the fullscreen version looked awful. Hot Rod was this muddy brown color in most scenes. It was unwatchable.
>
> However, this new release is gorgeous. The animation lines are crisp and clean, and the colors are beautiful. I watched through the entire film and, despite having seen it many dozens of times, there are still new, little details I'm noticing.
>
> Director Nelson Shin made an effort to make nearly every scene feel "alive" even when there's not a lot going on. The computer monitors at Autobot City and the Moon Bases are always dancing with tiny, almost imperceptible graphics. The damaged shuttle on the Planet of Junk has hull breaches and visible wiring that spark faintly. The Matrix comes alive with electricity when Rodimus Prime opens it. It's all so beautiful.
>
> The commentary track is the same one with Flint Dille and Sue Blue and Nelson Shin from the 20th anniversary release, making it fifteen years old now. However, there are new interview segments with Flint Dille, Dan Gilvezan, Gregg Berger, Neil Ross, and others. I love listening to these guys telling stories about what it was like during the recording sessions.
>
> Going forward, here's what I want to see for the next new-and-improved release of the movie. There are artificial intelligence programs that are already capable of frame interpolation, with the computer basically guessing what it thinks a frame would look like that comes between two sequential frames. They can take stop-motion or cel animation and upscale it to 60 frames per second (animation tends to be 24 fps), creating much smoother animation that flows beautifully.
>
> Here's an example of what I'm talking about (I especially love the Tom and Jerry footage that starts at about 2:50 or so):
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IK-Q3EcTnTA
>
> I'm predicting that when this technology becomes more affordable and widely available, this will become the gold standard for film and animation, and all home video releases will have this level of interpolation applied to it. So maybe we can look forward to this for the 50th anniversary edition of The Transformers: the Movie!
>
> Other random stuff from the movie I noticed today:
>
> On Lithone, when Unicron's mandibles first make contact with the planet, you can actually see a tiny little Kranix and Arblus watching from the window. I never noticed that before.
>
> The squid on Quintessa didn't hurt Kup until Hot Rod opened fire. As soon as Hot Rod started shooting at it, that's when it ripped off Kup's arm and leg. Hot Rod is an idiot.
>
> I will freely admit that I don't usually pay too much attention to the Junkions. They're all kind of homogenous to me and mostly the same colors. However, there do seem to be at least eight or nine distinct designs. That's potentially a lot of neo-G1 armybuilder toys from Hasbro. I'm sure their upcoming generic Junkion toy will be modified from Studio Series Wreck-Gar in some fashion (a different head and color scheme, at the very least) but actually some of the Junkion troops would need a whole new toy design to really do them justice (there's one guy who has two wheels in the center of his chest in robot mode, for example).
>
> Inside Unicron, you can see the little speed lines from the recoil of Arcee's gun when she's opening fire on his internal defense systems.
>
> Also inside Unicron, just before Rodimus Prime shows up, there's a little fake-out when one of the internal defense claws grabs Springer and his eyes and mouth turn orange for a second. I think it's meant as a callback to Prowl's death, and a way of teasing the audience for a moment, but of course Springer survives.
>
> During the celebration on Cybertron, in the crowd of assembled Autobots, Spike in his exo-suit is standing next to Bumblebee but his exo-suit glass is colored grey. You can't see his face. So, I guess maybe the exo-suit toys we've gotten with no defined faces (Leinad from HasCon Arcee, the Buzzworthy Bumblebee version) are technically accurate!
>
>
> Zob (my son is spraying Axe body spray everywhere in the house and I can literally taste it in my mouth)

I own far too many copies of this movie, and I will still pick this up, thanks to this glowing review.

For a future release, I'd be interested in the inclusion of the foreign dubs, along with subtitles. I'd be interested in what nuances were gained/lost in translation, and what liberties were taken along the way. For example, the Junkion speech pattern is so specifically keyed to American television culture; was everything just directly translated for an audience who would have no understanding of the references, or was the dialogue localized to reflect Japanese/Hungarian/Chinese/Portuguese/etc pop culture? We live in an increasingly globalized world, and TF is a brand that clearly crosses borders in a way that properties like G.I.Joe do not - it would be interesting to see how our favorite robots translate to other cultures.

As a pipe dream, I would love to see an official original video animation showing what the other Transformers were doing during the events of the movie.

How did Shockwave hold the planet together during the Unicron assault? How did Starscream so easily gain the assent of the other Cons to be crowned leader? Did the others truly want him all along, but were held back by fear of Megatron? Where were the other gestalt teams? I can imagine a guy like Slingshot wanting to take a swing at an evil god all on his own. Elita 1 and the femmes? How did Vector Sigma respond to the approach of Unicron, if at all?

They could easily interpolate archived footage and audio from TFTM for context while telling an original tale set in the same time period.

If done with the proper care, it could be an amazing companion to TFTM. Then again, given Hasbro's track record w the Bay films, Go90, and Netflix, maybe it's best to leave it alone....

On Saturday, August 21, 2021 at 9:39:37 AM UTC-6, Codigo Postal wrote:
> For a future release, I'd be interested in the inclusion of the foreign dubs, along with subtitles. I'd be interested in what nuances were gained/lost in translation, and what liberties were taken along the way.

Funny you should say that, because I actually encountered a foreign-language dubbed version of the movie just the other day. I forget what language it was in, but it had English subtitles so you could see what changes they made. It was interesting.

At your prompting, tonight I researched the Hungarian dub of the movie. There were two separate dubbed versions (Televideo and Mirax) with the second one generally being more authentic and accurate to the film. In the first dub, the Decepticons are always called the Toads for some reason (and not just by the Autobots; during the coronation, Starscream addresses "my Toady brethren"), Hot Rod is called Fishing Rod, Kup is renamed Policeman or Space Cop, the Dinobots are the Iron Animals, and one of the individual Sweeps gets named Claws. The second dub corrects these mistakes, but consistently calls the monster-planet Unicornis instead of Unicron. Also, it's terribly profane. At the film's open, Ironhide asks Optimus "when are we gonna get those sons of bitches?" When Blurr is trying to force the Dinobots to board the shuttles, he calls Grimlock a "cute little baby dino" and gets "you asshole, I'm Grimlock, not a baby!" in respnse. Galvatron, taunting Hot Rod inside the depths of Unicron, calls him a little chicken-shit.

> For example, the Junkion speech pattern is so specifically keyed to American television culture

At least in the Hungarian dub(s), they tone down most of the references to specific television programs and speak much more generally, saying things like, "Stop, thief! You're not welcome here! Go back to where you came from!" One of them does make a reference to International Telephone & Telegraph (ITT) though.

I want to look at other foreign language versions of the movie, too, but that's probably not going to be tonight.

> As a pipe dream, I would love to see an official original video animation showing what the other Transformers were doing during the events of the movie.

Agred, that would be awesome. Unfortunately, I think the time for that is lost past. We've lost too many of the original voice actors to do it justice. I've got an idea, though. Get back to me in like a year or two.

Zob (not gonna say anything else right now)

On Saturday, August 21, 2021 at 11:39:37 AM UTC-4, Codigo Postal wrote:

> How did Shockwave hold the planet together during the Unicron assault? How did Starscream so easily gain the assent of the other Cons to be crowned leader? Did the others truly want him all along, but were held back by fear of Megatron? Where were the other gestalt teams? I can imagine a guy like Slingshot wanting to take a swing at an evil god all on his own. Elita 1 and the femmes? How did Vector Sigma respond to the approach of Unicron, if at all?

All good questions! Here's some of my answers...pure head canon for what it's worth!

-Given the state of at least one side of the planet in that final shot of Unicron's head orbiting Cybertron, it's arguable if Shockwave DID hold it together. The Decepticon casualties were probably massive.

-Regarding Starscream, I'm sure he was just as polarizing a figure in-universe as he was out of it. So I'm sure he did have his own clandestine supporters among the ranks. Based on what we see in the Movie I think it's fair to say that at least Astrotrain, Ramjet, and Thrust were "in" on the coup.

-I don't think Slingshot and the Aerialbots were there for the final battle, since the Autobots were all supposed to have been exiled from Cybertron. I agree though, I can definitely see him or Air Raid eagerly flying towards Unicron guns blazing. And I don't think combining would be a good idea; you're still way too small to make a difference against Unicron but you're just giving him a bigger target. For all we know, maybe the Sunbow universe's versions of Pirahnacon, Liokaiser, Megatronia, Monstructor, etc WERE there and all got destroyed for their trouble.

-Elita 1 I've always just had the feeling was already dead at this point. The other femmes, if they were still alive, would probably have been on the Moonbases or at Autobot City, but anywhere but Cybertron (see what I said about the Aerialbots). An if Elita was at Autobot City and survived that battle, she is certainly conspicuous by her absence at Prime's deathbed.

-Good question about Vector Sigma. My head canon is that Vector Sigma IS Primus in the cartoon (or at least an avatar or conduit for him) so I'm sure he/it would have had quite the reaction. Maybe there was stuff going on we didn't see on the planet, like VS possessing someone to rally the Decepticons to fight similar to how Primus possessed Xaaron to rally the troops in the comic.

My biggest question about the Movie has always been, how the hell did Megatron intercept Ironhide's shuttle when Ironhide had such a huge head start? And my best guess (which I just came up with recently) is that maybe Earth wasn't actually Ironhide's first stop, and there is a lot about "the special run" that we don't know...

On Sunday, August 22, 2021 at 9:32:43 AM UTC-4, Sky Raider wrote:
> On Saturday, August 21, 2021 at 11:39:37 AM UTC-4, Codigo Postal wrote:
>
> > How did Shockwave hold the planet together during the Unicron assault? How did Starscream so easily gain the assent of the other Cons to be crowned leader? Did the others truly want him all along, but were held back by fear of Megatron? Where were the other gestalt teams? I can imagine a guy like Slingshot wanting to take a swing at an evil god all on his own. Elita 1 and the femmes? How did Vector Sigma respond to the approach of Unicron, if at all?
> All good questions! Here's some of my answers...pure head canon for what it's worth!
>
> -Given the state of at least one side of the planet in that final shot of Unicron's head orbiting Cybertron, it's arguable if Shockwave DID hold it together. The Decepticon casualties were probably massive.
>
> -Regarding Starscream, I'm sure he was just as polarizing a figure in-universe as he was out of it. So I'm sure he did have his own clandestine supporters among the ranks. Based on what we see in the Movie I think it's fair to say that at least Astrotrain, Ramjet, and Thrust were "in" on the coup.

It'd be interesting to see who Galvatron accepted back into the ranks after the attempted usurpation by Starscream. We know he excommunicated Blitzwing for his treachery, and exiled Octane for his misdeeds. In "Carnage in C-Minor," he returns to using Soundwave as a second-in-command, a likely demotion for Cyclonus after the events of "Webworld." Ramjet, Dirge, and Thrust are, IIRC, rarely seen in Season 3 - one or more die during the events of FFOD like so much expendable cannon fodder, while another is presumed dead in the Decepticon crypts in "Starscream's Ghost."

That Astrotrain continued in Galvatron's service despite Blast-Off being a similar option for interstellar transport implies that he was either not a Starscream supporter, or escaped Galvatron's wrath regardless.

>
> -I don't think Slingshot and the Aerialbots were there for the final battle, since the Autobots were all supposed to have been exiled from Cybertron.. I agree though, I can definitely see him or Air Raid eagerly flying towards Unicron guns blazing. And I don't think combining would be a good idea; you're still way too small to make a difference against Unicron but you're just giving him a bigger target. For all we know, maybe the Sunbow universe's versions of Pirahnacon, Liokaiser, Megatronia, Monstructor, etc WERE there and all got destroyed for their trouble.

In-universe, I'd speculate that we can account for the absence of Omega and the Combiner teams if we assume they were either:

a) exploring the far reaches of the galaxy for recruits and/or resources,
b) fortifying the Moonbases from a Decepticon assault,
c) in stasis lock due to a severe lack of energy (hence Prime’s comment that they needed more energon to launch a full-scale assault), or
d) in captivity on Cybertron.

Had they been on Earth, it beggars imagination that they would not have been seen at the Battle of Autobot City. The 2006 IDW comic adaptation posited that the gestalts were off fighting Menasor, but that wouldn’t square with Kup’s fear in the face of the combined Devastator. He’d only be that intimidated if he knew that no help was on the way.

>
> -Elita 1 I've always just had the feeling was already dead at this point. The other femmes, if they were still alive, would probably have been on the Moonbases or at Autobot City, but anywhere but Cybertron (see what I said about the Aerialbots). An if Elita was at Autobot City and survived that battle, she is certainly conspicuous by her absence at Prime's deathbed.

Elita's absence is telling - and Arcee does seem to be the only living femme on Cybertron. You're right - they probably had been wiped out, likely in the post-S2/pre-Movie time period when Megatron reclaimed Cybertron.

>
> -Good question about Vector Sigma. My head canon is that Vector Sigma IS Primus in the cartoon (or at least an avatar or conduit for him) so I'm sure he/it would have had quite the reaction. Maybe there was stuff going on we didn't see on the planet, like VS possessing someone to rally the Decepticons to fight similar to how Primus possessed Xaaron to rally the troops in the comic.

Internecine fighting between Bots and Cons seem to have largely ceased after Unicron began his assault, Galvatron v Rodimus notwithstanding. Maybe VS did unite the factions. We don't see Shockwave again; perhaps he didn't survive. One wonders who else would have been capable of leading a united defense. Soundwave always seemed more capable in the comics, less of a leader in the cartoon, and even moreso for Ratbat. Magnus was on the Junkion ship, Prowl/Ironhide/Ratchet had bought it, Jazz was held captive inside Unicron, and so on.

It was Wheelie, wasn't it...

>
> My biggest question about the Movie has always been, how the hell did Megatron intercept Ironhide's shuttle when Ironhide had such a huge head start? And my best guess (which I just came up with recently) is that maybe Earth wasn't actually Ironhide's first stop, and there is a lot about "the special run" that we don't know...

Interesting - the time delay never occurred to me before. Assuming Megatron can't bend the laws of space-time, Ironhide and his crew either ran into an unexpected delay, a separate stop, or both.

What exactly was he carrying on his "special run?" Prime states they don't have enough energon cubes; surely, Autobot City on Earth is a more likely site for extraction and storage of the energon they need to amass for a full-scale assault. Therefore, he needs energon to be brought from Earth to the Moonbases. Why then, send some of his most trusted and senior advisors in an otherwise empty shuttle on a high-profile course to Earth?

My best guess: Prime was using them as a cover for the true energon transport. Earth's shipment of energon to Moonbase 1 would pass unnoticed if Megatron could be tempted by the juicy prospect of a high-profile shuttle launch, news of which was "accidentally" leaked to the Cons via a cassette spy.

(Notably, Prime used this stratagem in MTMTE with Ravage, and it didn't work then either).

Ironhide et al were never meant to die; they were meant to entice and delay Megatron and inflict some damage (hence the presence of Brawn, and the armed to the teeth Prowl and Ratchet), while the energon shuttle from Earth slipped by unnoticed.

For all we know, the energon did make it to Moonbase 1, but Prime underestimated Megatron's resolve, leading to the tragedy that ensued.

On Monday, August 23, 2021 at 10:38:41 PM UTC-6, Codigo Postal wrote:

> That Astrotrain continued in Galvatron's service despite Blast-Off being a similar option for interstellar transport implies that he was either not a Starscream supporter, or escaped Galvatron's wrath regardless.

Astrotrain was the guy who crowned Starscream during the cornonation. That would pretty much make Astrotrain his staunchest supporter by default!

Galvatron's first action as Decepticon leader was to dispense with the rival element and reclaim the rest of his army. He took care of the potential usurpers by making a point of killing Starscream. There's no way he could have executed every single Decepticon who made a bid for leadership (it was basically all of them). Even if he had intended to keep his eye on Astrotrain in the future, his little lava bath on Thrull probably effectively put an end to a lot of his long-term plans.

> In-universe, I'd speculate that we can account for the absence of Omega and the Combiner teams...

Remember that despite not being present during the events of the movie, we see that the Stunticons and Combaticons were in very poor condition when we finally saw them in "Five Faces of Darkness." So, I think they were off somewhere battling the Protectobots and the Aerialbots. Maybe losing the last vestiges of the Decepticon foothold on Earth. Maybe Earth Defense Command also played a part.
> My best guess: Prime was using them as a cover for the true energon transport. Earth's shipment of energon to Moonbase 1 would pass unnoticed if Megatron could be tempted by the juicy prospect of a high-profile shuttle launch, news of which was "accidentally" leaked to the Cons via a cassette spy.

The shuttle crew seems untenably small, especially knowing that Megatron might have tried to intercept them. I guess Prime might have just been really strapped for troops and those four were all he could spare. (There are a lot of Autobots we don't see in the movie... where were Inferno and Tracks and Smokescreen and Red Alert and Warpath and Powerglide and Cosmos and Seaspray?)

I feel very strongly that if the "special run" really was meant as a diversion, Prime would have informed Ironhide, one of his most trusted advisors, rather than keeping him in the dark and potentially sending him to his death. Clearly, the plan was to eventually collect enough energon together to fuel an Autobot campaign to reclaim Cybertron. It's a shame Prime botched the touchdown in the fourth quarter. In a roundabout sort of way, that shuttle run was what led to Prime's death.

Zob (needs to learn how to actually sleep at night)

On Tuesday, August 24, 2021 at 12:38:41 AM UTC-4, Codigo Postal wrote:
> It'd be interesting to see who Galvatron accepted back into the ranks after the attempted usurpation by Starscream. We know he excommunicated Blitzwing for his treachery, and exiled Octane for his misdeeds. In "Carnage in C-Minor," he returns to using Soundwave as a second-in-command, a likely demotion for Cyclonus after the events of "Webworld." Ramjet, Dirge, and Thrust are, IIRC, rarely seen in Season 3 - one or more die during the events of FFOD like so much expendable cannon fodder, while another is presumed dead in the Decepticon crypts in "Starscream's Ghost."
>
> That Astrotrain continued in Galvatron's service despite Blast-Off being a similar option for interstellar transport implies that he was either not a Starscream supporter, or escaped Galvatron's wrath regardless.

I've always kind of figured that Galvatron had a bit of a grudge against everyone who was on Astrotrain that fateful day and voted to have him (Megatron) thrown overboard. And I think he probably took Soundwave's "betrayal" (if only through inaction) the hardest, hence why we don't see him at Galvatron's side very often until it was Cyclonus's turn for him to be pissed off at, as you pointed out. He seemed happy to see Blitzwing again in FFOD, but he sure was quick to fly off the handle and accuse him of treachery over the whole Decepticon Matrix thing. Megatron would've have probably listened to him, or for that matter not trusted the Quintessons to begin with. Octane...well he wasn't there (unless he's standing around just off camera during the Decepticon scenes in the Movie...which I suppose IS possible...) but again, Galvatron had pretty much flipped his lid at that point. Octane actually WAS plotting against him, but the funny thing is Galvatron never actually found out about that. It was the broken clock being right twice a day kind of thing. Astrotrain might've simply been too valuable to get rid of, like that one guy at work who is the only one can do XYZ or work a shift no one else wants. Blast Off is just one guy and can't be everywhere at once.

Just as an aside I never bought that Ramjet and Dirge died during FFOD, I just write it off as AKOM silliness. Putting aside that they all appear later, I never understood why fans latched on to their "deaths" and not, say, Divebomb, who also gets blown to bits by Trypticon in Ghost in the Machine in another bit of classic AKOM animation.

> In-universe, I'd speculate that we can account for the absence of Omega and the Combiner teams if we assume they were either:
>
> a) exploring the far reaches of the galaxy for recruits and/or resources,
> b) fortifying the Moonbases from a Decepticon assault,
> c) in stasis lock due to a severe lack of energy (hence Prime’s comment that they needed more energon to launch a full-scale assault), or
> d) in captivity on Cybertron.

I don't think they would've been at the Moonbases simply because it begs the question: how did they escape Unicron? Or do you mean they accompanied Prime to Earth once they got the distress call? But the other ideas seem possible, sure. Them being prisoners on Cybertron is an interesting idea that could also account for Elita and her group, if she was still alive.

>> Had they been on Earth, it beggars imagination that they would not have been seen at the Battle of Autobot City. The 2006 IDW comic adaptation posited that the gestalts were off fighting Menasor, but that wouldn’t square with Kup’s fear in the face of the combined Devastator. He’d only be that intimidated if he knew that no help was on the way.

I really don't like that comic and it bothers me that some newer/younger fans think the original Movie is somehow beholden to it. ("See! This comic PROVES where Omega Supreme was!") In fairness, Devastator should be pretty terrifying no matter what. I like to play with the idea that Dragon Beast (from the original script) WAS there and well...add him to the Autobot casualty pile.

> > My biggest question about the Movie has always been, how the hell did Megatron intercept Ironhide's shuttle when Ironhide had such a huge head start? And my best guess (which I just came up with recently) is that maybe Earth wasn't actually Ironhide's first stop, and there is a lot about "the special run" that we don't know...
> Interesting - the time delay never occurred to me before. Assuming Megatron can't bend the laws of space-time, Ironhide and his crew either ran into an unexpected delay, a separate stop, or both.
Part of me really likes the idea that Ironhide and company had an off-world adventure of their own, one last hurrah for old time's sake before that infamous scene. Maybe the special run involved picking something up somewhere? Maybe Ratchet and Brawn weren't even on the shuttle to begin with? Note that Prime never explicitly said it was to get energon. He just cut Ironhide off while he was yapping about attacking the Decepticons, and the bit about not enough energon could have been explaining to Ironhide why they weren't doing that now, not as an explanation for his new mission.

There is another idea I have for how Megatron beat the shuttle to Earth, which I'll get to...

> My best guess: Prime was using them as a cover for the true energon transport. Earth's shipment of energon to Moonbase 1 would pass unnoticed if Megatron could be tempted by the juicy prospect of a high-profile shuttle launch, news of which was "accidentally" leaked to the Cons via a cassette spy.
>
> (Notably, Prime used this stratagem in MTMTE with Ravage, and it didn't work then either).
>
> Ironhide et al were never meant to die; they were meant to entice and delay Megatron and inflict some damage (hence the presence of Brawn, and the armed to the teeth Prowl and Ratchet), while the energon shuttle from Earth slipped by unnoticed.

It's an interesting idea, but wouldn't the Decepticons still have detected a second shuttle entering Cybertronian airspace? I mean there's ways around that (fly in through a sensor shadow from the moon itself or something), but I dunno.

So, my other idea is that Megatron used one of the warp gates that are suddenly everywhere in FFOD to jump ahead to Earth's solar system, or even had a spacebridge terminal in the asteroid belt or something. But then this just begs the additional question: why didn't the Decepticons take this space bridge or warp gate back home?

And a possible solution for THAT is, Astrotrain ran into trouble with some pursuing enemy forces (Omega Supreme? Aerialbots? Sky Lynx?) who destroyed the bridge or gate and that's why he had to fly home the long way which of course led to people being tossed overboard. That could account for some Autobots that are conspicuous by their absence, and it might even explain how Thundercracker and Skywarp got so banged up (dogfight in space?) because they looked fine enough when escaping the City. It seems pretty clear that the Decepticon escape aboard Astrotrain was rushed and unplanned, because the whole battle was becoming a SNAFU for both sides at this point and Starscream was now acting commander and was all "Screw this, I told you we should have attacked the Moonbases!" anyway. Or, Astrotrain himself was damaged in the fighting and wasn't able to make the flight fully loaded like he'd usually be able to.

Lots of fun stuff to think about!

On Tuesday, August 24, 2021 at 8:11:41 PM UTC-4, Zobovor wrote:
> On Monday, August 23, 2021 at 10:38:41 PM UTC-6, Codigo Postal wrote:
>
> > That Astrotrain continued in Galvatron's service despite Blast-Off being a similar option for interstellar transport implies that he was either not a Starscream supporter, or escaped Galvatron's wrath regardless.
> Astrotrain was the guy who crowned Starscream during the cornonation. That would pretty much make Astrotrain his staunchest supporter by default!

I've always been really eager to see what SHOCKWAVE's reaction was that day, especially when Astrotrain got home. I don't think a "Oh hey Shocks...I'm leader now btw" from Starscream must've gone over very well. I've seen a lot of fanfics over the years (of varying quality of course!) where Galvatron doesn't enter the picture for whatever reason and Shockwave or Soundwave or someone is plotting their own plans to depose Starscream. It would've been pretty entertaining to watch it play out.

> Galvatron's first action as Decepticon leader was to dispense with the rival element and reclaim the rest of his army. He took care of the potential usurpers by making a point of killing Starscream. There's no way he could have executed every single Decepticon who made a bid for leadership (it was basically all of them). Even if he had intended to keep his eye on Astrotrain in the future, his little lava bath on Thrull probably effectively put an end to a lot of his long-term plans.

He sure doesn't seem to like Astrotrain very much in The Big Broadcast of 2006, for what it's worth. Also note that Astrotrain seems really eager to kiss his ass in Chaos when they're working together.
> Remember that despite not being present during the events of the movie, we see that the Stunticons and Combaticons were in very poor condition when we finally saw them in "Five Faces of Darkness." So, I think they were off somewhere battling the Protectobots and the Aerialbots. Maybe losing the last vestiges of the Decepticon foothold on Earth. Maybe Earth Defense Command also played a part.

Depending on how much time passed from the Movie to FFOD (were we ever given a definitive answer?" I always figured they were either damaged in the fight with Unicron or they got into a skirmish with the Autobots sometime soon after when they re-took the planet. Earth Defense Command? You give the flesh creatures too much credit against Menasor and Bruticus, I think. :P

> The shuttle crew seems untenably small, especially knowing that Megatron might have tried to intercept them.
We see later that you really just need two bots to fly a shuttle. Hot Rod and Kup fly it okay on their own, while the DInobots are just standing around in dino mode. To fly it *well* on the other hand, maybe needed some more hands. Actually come to think of it the Dinobots would have been a hell of a security team to have on board if that was really Prime's plan. The hijack scene would've gone down very differently...

> where were Inferno and Tracks and Smokescreen and Red Alert and Warpath and Powerglide and Cosmos and Seaspray?
All of them but Cosmos and Seaspray are explicitly mentioned as being at Autobot City in at least one preliminary version of the script. It's up to each fan to decide if they want to apply that to the finished film of course.

> I feel very strongly that if the "special run" really was meant as a diversion, Prime would have informed Ironhide, one of his most trusted advisors, rather than keeping him in the dark and potentially sending him to his death.
I would agree with you here. Although, just another fun idea to play around with, if you want to let Prowl borrow any of his personality from the first IDW continuity (a cloak and dagger guy at best, a war criminal at worst) it seems like the kind of black ops trickery he'd be in on with Prime. Or even his idea, making his pretty gruesome end a nice bit of comeuppance. I don't really like the idea but I'm surprised more fans haven't thought of it..

>It's a shame Prime botched the touchdown in the fourth quarter. In a roundabout sort of way, that shuttle run was what led to Prime's death.
It's definitely the proverbial throwing an interception when you just have to run the ball in. There were a lot of tactical and security blunders in that movie, on both sides.

On Wednesday, August 25, 2021 at 11:28:46 AM UTC-6, Sky Raider wrote:

> I think he probably took Soundwave's "betrayal" (if only through inaction) the hardest, hence why we don't see him at Galvatron's side very often until it was Cyclonus's turn for him to be pissed off at, as you pointed out.

Raksha once posited that Soundwave only put a bid in for Decepticon leadership because he knew it was the best chance of recovering Megatron. Had he won control of the Decepticons, he would have turned Astrotrain around and collected Megatron from space. I find that logic hard to argue with.

> Astrotrain might've simply been too valuable to get rid of, like that one guy at work who is the only one can do XYZ or work a shift no one else wants.

Yeah, but Astrotrain's usefulness was arguably reduced during season three, partly because of the existence of the Decepticon mothership (which Galvatron continued to use as late as "The Rebirth") but also because it seems like every single Decepticon could fly in space during season three.

> Just as an aside I never bought that Ramjet and Dirge died during FFOD, I just write it off as AKOM silliness. Putting aside that they all appear later, I never understood why fans latched on to their "deaths" and not, say, Divebomb, who also gets blown to bits by Trypticon in Ghost in the Machine in another bit of classic AKOM animation.

Well, Dirge and Ramjet were 1985 toys so they were arguably more "killable" than the Predacons, who were introduced in 1986 and were still new toys when Divebomb allegedly "died." I tend to think the deaths were indeed scripted to happen (Dirge had a marker in the Decepticon Crypt, after all) and their later appearances might have been the mistake. But, it's hard to say. In-universe, we have to accept that Ultra Magnus punched them both to death, but they must have gotten rebuilt.

> So, my other idea is that Megatron used one of the warp gates that are suddenly everywhere in FFOD to jump ahead to Earth's solar system, or even had a spacebridge terminal in the asteroid belt or something. But then this just begs the additional question: why didn't the Decepticons take this space bridge or warp gate back home?

> It seems pretty clear that the Decepticon escape aboard Astrotrain was rushed and unplanned, because the whole battle was becoming a SNAFU for both sides at this point and Starscream was now acting commander and was all "Screw this, I told you we should have attacked the Moonbases!" anyway.

Starscream could have pressed on and probably could have won the battle. Prime was close to death so the Autobots would have been forced to withdraw and abandon the city in order to take him somewhere and try to save him. But, as always, Starscream was more interested in proving Megatron wrong, and retreating for Starscream proved the Autobot City attack was a failure and Megatron had made the wrong decision.

> Lots of fun stuff to think about!

I can't believe it's been 35 years and yet we can still find some things about the movie to talk about. That's kind of awesome. It's always been one of the most talked-about subjects on this newsgroup, mostly due to it being widely available on VHS (and later on DVD), but also because it's kind of the quintessential Transformers adventure.

Zob (rearranging my storage room and it's taking many days)

On Wednesday, August 25, 2021 at 11:59:15 AM UTC-6, Sky Raider wrote:

> I've always been really eager to see what SHOCKWAVE's reaction was that day, especially when Astrotrain got home.

Since Shockwave was removed from the hierarchy for most of the time we saw him, it's hard to say how he fits into the overall command structure. He seemed to be giving orders in "The Ultimate Doom" with Soundwave nearby, so he evidently outranks him. Unlike comic book Shockwave, though, the cartoon Shockwave never really seemed to have any aspirations or any desire to sieze command.

> Depending on how much time passed from the Movie to FFOD (were we ever given a definitive answer?)

We know the movie takes place in 2005 but that season three takes place in 2006. (Rodimus says something about "the last big party of December" in "Five Faces of Darkness," but who knows whether we can take that at face value or not.)

> All of them but Cosmos and Seaspray are explicitly mentioned as being at Autobot City in at least one preliminary version of the script. It's up to each fan to decide if they want to apply that to the finished film of course.

It's interesting to think about what *could* have ended up happening in the movie, based on scripts and storyboards and whatnot, but the fact remains that there were Autobots who remained unaccounted for during the movie. Some of them were obviously still alive (the Mini Autobots, Omega Supreme) but some of them never appeared during season three at any point so I tend to think something horrible happened to them all.

> There were a lot of tactical and security blunders in that movie, on both sides.

Where's Red Alert when you need him?

Zob (he never would have let half that shit go down)

On Tuesday, August 24, 2021 at 8:11:41 PM UTC-4, Zobovor wrote:
> On Monday, August 23, 2021 at 10:38:41 PM UTC-6, Codigo Postal wrote:
>
> > That Astrotrain continued in Galvatron's service despite Blast-Off being a similar option for interstellar transport implies that he was either not a Starscream supporter, or escaped Galvatron's wrath regardless.
> Astrotrain was the guy who crowned Starscream during the cornonation. That would pretty much make Astrotrain his staunchest supporter by default!
>
> Galvatron's first action as Decepticon leader was to dispense with the rival element and reclaim the rest of his army. He took care of the potential usurpers by making a point of killing Starscream. There's no way he could have executed every single Decepticon who made a bid for leadership (it was basically all of them). Even if he had intended to keep his eye on Astrotrain in the future, his little lava bath on Thrull probably effectively put an end to a lot of his long-term plans.
>
> > In-universe, I'd speculate that we can account for the absence of Omega and the Combiner teams...
>
> Remember that despite not being present during the events of the movie, we see that the Stunticons and Combaticons were in very poor condition when we finally saw them in "Five Faces of Darkness." So, I think they were off somewhere battling the Protectobots and the Aerialbots. Maybe losing the last vestiges of the Decepticon foothold on Earth. Maybe Earth Defense Command also played a part.
> > My best guess: Prime was using them as a cover for the true energon transport. Earth's shipment of energon to Moonbase 1 would pass unnoticed if Megatron could be tempted by the juicy prospect of a high-profile shuttle launch, news of which was "accidentally" leaked to the Cons via a cassette spy.
> The shuttle crew seems untenably small, especially knowing that Megatron might have tried to intercept them. I guess Prime might have just been really strapped for troops and those four were all he could spare. (There are a lot of Autobots we don't see in the movie... where were Inferno and Tracks and Smokescreen and Red Alert and Warpath and Powerglide and Cosmos and Seaspray?)
>
> I feel very strongly that if the "special run" really was meant as a diversion, Prime would have informed Ironhide, one of his most trusted advisors, rather than keeping him in the dark and potentially sending him to his death. Clearly, the plan was to eventually collect enough energon together to fuel an Autobot campaign to reclaim Cybertron. It's a shame Prime botched the touchdown in the fourth quarter. In a roundabout sort of way, that shuttle run was what led to Prime's death.
>

Well, I don't insist on it.

Truthfully, the kind of ruthlessness I suggested doesn't seem to comport with G1 Prime. He was always more feckless than ruthless, a leader whose most well-known quote, the noble "freedom is the right of all sentient beings," comes from his tech spec, when his actual most common catchphrase in G1 was "I don't know."

They say a leader can be judged by his ability to admit his weaknesses, and by that standard, Prime was an exceptional leader. Upon his resurrection, and at nearly every opportunity in "The Rebirth," he seized the opportunity to proclaim his complete lack of ideas regarding what to do next. Perhaps it was a function of losing the Matrix, or perhaps a newfound humility stemming from all of his poor decisions in The Movie, i.e. failing to prevent Laserbeak from spying on him in what should have been a high-security area, failing to protect Ironhide, Prowl, et al, failing to execute Megatron when he had the chance, failing to pass the Matrix to a more worthy candidate than the woefully unqualified Ultra Magnus, and of course, failing to stay alive on his deathbed.

As Zob said, had Starscream not given the order to retreat, it's entirely possible that the Cons could have overwhelmed the grieving and dispirited Autobots and won the battle once and for all. Prime's every decision, including his prima donna decision to charge headlong into battle by himself rather than deploying his backup troops more effectively (e.g. using his most vicious warriors, the Dinobots, more judiciously, rather than throwing them in a kamikaze attack against Devastator) nearly led to the complete extinction of the Autobots.

In a very real sense, Prime is the reason for the Fall of Autobot City. The very preventable deaths of Windcharger, Wheeljack, and presumably many others, are very much on his hands (of steel).

> > In-universe, I'd speculate that we can account for the absence of Omega and the Combiner teams if we assume they were either:
> >
> > a) exploring the far reaches of the galaxy for recruits and/or resources,
> > b) fortifying the Moonbases from a Decepticon assault,
> > c) in stasis lock due to a severe lack of energy (hence Prime’s comment that they needed more energon to launch a full-scale assault), or
> > d) in captivity on Cybertron.
> I don't think they would've been at the Moonbases simply because it begs the question: how did they escape Unicron? Or do you mean they accompanied Prime to Earth once they got the distress call? But the other ideas seem possible, sure. Them being prisoners on Cybertron is an interesting idea that could also account for Elita and her group, if she was still alive.

I suppose the gestalts could have been stationed on the Moonbases, as the moons were the most vulnerable to Decepticon attack due to their proximity to occupied Cybertron, and therefore required the strongest reinforcements. Possibly, like Jazz and Cliffjumper, they were held inside Unicron's interior, and were only saved from destruction by Daniel's closing of the lid on the digestive vats.

> >> Had they been on Earth, it beggars imagination that they would not have been seen at the Battle of Autobot City. The 2006 IDW comic adaptation posited that the gestalts were off fighting Menasor, but that wouldn’t square with Kup’s fear in the face of the combined Devastator. He’d only be that intimidated if he knew that no help was on the way.
> I really don't like that comic and it bothers me that some newer/younger fans think the original Movie is somehow beholden to it. ("See! This comic PROVES where Omega Supreme was!") In fairness, Devastator should be pretty terrifying no matter what. I like to play with the idea that Dragon Beast (from the original script) WAS there and well...add him to the Autobot casualty pile.

I agree - that splash page seemed very fanwanky and out of place in a book that was otherwise slavishly devoted to rehashing the source material word for word.

(It also seemed like a waste to bring back Bob Budiansky to essentially transcribe the Movie, a task literally anyone else could have done, including the fan who sat next to me during the 2018 Fathom Events screening and insisted on reciting every line in the movie, complete with hand gestures).

> And a possible solution for THAT is, Astrotrain ran into trouble with some pursuing enemy forces (Omega Supreme? Aerialbots? Sky Lynx?) who destroyed the bridge or gate and that's why he had to fly home the long way which of course led to people being tossed overboard. That could account for some Autobots that are conspicuous by their absence, and it might even explain how Thundercracker and Skywarp got so banged up (dogfight in space?) because they looked fine enough when escaping the City. It seems pretty clear that the Decepticon escape aboard Astrotrain was rushed and unplanned, because the whole battle was becoming a SNAFU for both sides at this point and Starscream was now acting commander and was all "Screw this, I told you we should have attacked the Moonbases!" anyway. Or, Astrotrain himself was damaged in the fighting and wasn't able to make the flight fully loaded like he'd usually be able to.

Interesting idea; the only objection I can think of is that Cyclonus seems to describe warp gates and the EDC as coming into being only after the events of the Movie (as he relays them to Galvatron in FFOD), IIRC. That said, it would explain why Thundercracker and Skywarp were so damaged that were candidates for ejection...

>
> Lots of fun stuff to think about!

On Wednesday, August 25, 2021 at 7:19:42 PM UTC-4, Zobovor wrote:
> On Wednesday, August 25, 2021 at 11:28:46 AM UTC-6, Sky Raider wrote:
>
> > I think he probably took Soundwave's "betrayal" (if only through inaction) the hardest, hence why we don't see him at Galvatron's side very often until it was Cyclonus's turn for him to be pissed off at, as you pointed out.
> Raksha once posited that Soundwave only put a bid in for Decepticon leadership because he knew it was the best chance of recovering Megatron. Had he won control of the Decepticons, he would have turned Astrotrain around and collected Megatron from space. I find that logic hard to argue with.

Intriguing and entirely possible, given that Soundwave always seemed like a loyal lieutenant.

> > Astrotrain might've simply been too valuable to get rid of, like that one guy at work who is the only one can do XYZ or work a shift no one else wants.
> Yeah, but Astrotrain's usefulness was arguably reduced during season three, partly because of the existence of the Decepticon mothership (which Galvatron continued to use as late as "The Rebirth") but also because it seems like every single Decepticon could fly in space during season three.

For some reason I forgot that he crowned Starscream. Either that means he was Starscream's greatest supporter, or that he objected most strongly, and Starscream found it ironic to humiliate him by forcing him to perform the coronation. After all, Astrotrain himself had attempted to style himself as a leader in "The God Gambit" and "Triple Takeover," even trapping and freezing Starscream along the way. Perhaps this was Starscream's way of rubbing it in.

> > Depending on how much time passed from the Movie to FFOD (were we ever given a definitive answer?)
>
> We know the movie takes place in 2005 but that season three takes place in 2006. (Rodimus says something about "the last big party of December" in "Five Faces of Darkness," but who knows whether we can take that at face value or not.)

I always thought he'd said "last big party of the summer," which makes slightly more sense, but then again, I could have misheard it.

On Thursday, August 26, 2021 at 2:09:57 PM UTC-6, Codigo Postal wrote:
> I always thought he'd said "last big party of the summer," which makes slightly more sense, but then again, I could have misheard it.

Maybe I'm the one mishearing things. A quick Google search confirms that far more people agree with you than with me in this case!

Assuming we can take Rodimus' words at face value, then that puts "Five Faces of Darkness" smack-dab in the middle of 2005, with an unspecified interim between FFoD and the beginning of season three proper, which takes place firmly in 2006. I can think of almost no additional information provided by the movie or the series to narrow it down any further—no mentions of holidays (except for Daniel's birthday), no real indication of the changing seasons (except perhaps for "it's not snowing").

Zob (does it matter? Not really. But it's an interesting exercise)

Thanks, as ever, Zob, for this comprehensive review. Great thoughts, and I'm sold on this version.

I really hope the fall 2021 film screening tour will touch Canadian locales..

On another, TFTM-related homage note: in honour of this year's anniversary, I have transcribed a few of my favourite tracks from the score for vocals and piano. If anyone would like exceptionally-accurate piano-vocal scores (with MIDI files) of "Nothin's Gonna Stand In Our Way" or "Death of Optimus Prime", to start, let me know!

Joseph
Joe.bardsley@gmail.com

On Friday, August 20, 2021 at 6:03:23 PM UTC-7, Zobovor wrote:
> I think I have probably bought every version of The Transformers: the Movie I've ever seen for sale. My first copy was a VHS tape they sold at Suncoast Motion Picture Co. for about twelve bucks, and I watched that tape until it was pretty much unwatchable. Since then there have been numerous rereleases and versions on DVD and Blu-Ray and now Ultra HD. I actually don't even own a device that can play 4K discs right now, but I imagine I will some day.
>
> So for now, we're talking about the fullscreen Blu-Ray disc that is included with the steelbook set in addition to the 4K version. When the 30th anniversary version came out, I was impressed with the picture clarity and level of discernible detail, but I was bothered by it only being available on widescreen. Fullscreen is my go-to choice for watching The Transformers: the Movie when I can help it, because the film was animated in fullscreen, as if it were an episode of the television series, and it was formatted for theatrical release simply by chopping off the top and bottom of the picture. You don't lose a lot of super important detail, but you do lose some.
>
> I've been very vocal about my dissatisfaction with the Sony DVD release from 2006. While they did include both a widescreen and a fullscreen disc, the color transfer on each was different, for some reason, and the fullscreen version looked awful. Hot Rod was this muddy brown color in most scenes. It was unwatchable.
>
> However, this new release is gorgeous. The animation lines are crisp and clean, and the colors are beautiful. I watched through the entire film and, despite having seen it many dozens of times, there are still new, little details I'm noticing.
>
> Director Nelson Shin made an effort to make nearly every scene feel "alive" even when there's not a lot going on. The computer monitors at Autobot City and the Moon Bases are always dancing with tiny, almost imperceptible graphics. The damaged shuttle on the Planet of Junk has hull breaches and visible wiring that spark faintly. The Matrix comes alive with electricity when Rodimus Prime opens it. It's all so beautiful.
>
> The commentary track is the same one with Flint Dille and Sue Blue and Nelson Shin from the 20th anniversary release, making it fifteen years old now. However, there are new interview segments with Flint Dille, Dan Gilvezan, Gregg Berger, Neil Ross, and others. I love listening to these guys telling stories about what it was like during the recording sessions.
>
> Going forward, here's what I want to see for the next new-and-improved release of the movie. There are artificial intelligence programs that are already capable of frame interpolation, with the computer basically guessing what it thinks a frame would look like that comes between two sequential frames. They can take stop-motion or cel animation and upscale it to 60 frames per second (animation tends to be 24 fps), creating much smoother animation that flows beautifully.
>
> Here's an example of what I'm talking about (I especially love the Tom and Jerry footage that starts at about 2:50 or so):
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IK-Q3EcTnTA
>
> I'm predicting that when this technology becomes more affordable and widely available, this will become the gold standard for film and animation, and all home video releases will have this level of interpolation applied to it. So maybe we can look forward to this for the 50th anniversary edition of The Transformers: the Movie!
>
> Other random stuff from the movie I noticed today:
>
> On Lithone, when Unicron's mandibles first make contact with the planet, you can actually see a tiny little Kranix and Arblus watching from the window. I never noticed that before.
>
> The squid on Quintessa didn't hurt Kup until Hot Rod opened fire. As soon as Hot Rod started shooting at it, that's when it ripped off Kup's arm and leg. Hot Rod is an idiot.
>
> I will freely admit that I don't usually pay too much attention to the Junkions. They're all kind of homogenous to me and mostly the same colors. However, there do seem to be at least eight or nine distinct designs. That's potentially a lot of neo-G1 armybuilder toys from Hasbro. I'm sure their upcoming generic Junkion toy will be modified from Studio Series Wreck-Gar in some fashion (a different head and color scheme, at the very least) but actually some of the Junkion troops would need a whole new toy design to really do them justice (there's one guy who has two wheels in the center of his chest in robot mode, for example).
>
> Inside Unicron, you can see the little speed lines from the recoil of Arcee's gun when she's opening fire on his internal defense systems.
>
> Also inside Unicron, just before Rodimus Prime shows up, there's a little fake-out when one of the internal defense claws grabs Springer and his eyes and mouth turn orange for a second. I think it's meant as a callback to Prowl's death, and a way of teasing the audience for a moment, but of course Springer survives.
>
> During the celebration on Cybertron, in the crowd of assembled Autobots, Spike in his exo-suit is standing next to Bumblebee but his exo-suit glass is colored grey. You can't see his face. So, I guess maybe the exo-suit toys we've gotten with no defined faces (Leinad from HasCon Arcee, the Buzzworthy Bumblebee version) are technically accurate!
>
>
> Zob (my son is spraying Axe body spray everywhere in the house and I can literally taste it in my mouth)

On Thursday, August 26, 2021 at 9:21:46 PM UTC-4, Joseph Bardsley wrote:
> Thanks, as ever, Zob, for this comprehensive review. Great thoughts, and I'm sold on this version.
>
> I really hope the fall 2021 film screening tour will touch Canadian locales.
>
> On another, TFTM-related homage note: in honour of this year's anniversary, I have transcribed a few of my favourite tracks from the score for vocals and piano. If anyone would like exceptionally-accurate piano-vocal scores (with MIDI files) of "Nothin's Gonna Stand In Our Way" or "Death of Optimus Prime", to start, let me know!
>

What an amazing accomplishment - please count me in for a copy! I once asked Vince DiCola if he'd consider releasing the piano sheet music for Artistic Transformations, his piano adaptation of his TFTM score, but he responded that rights issues prevented him from doing so.

On Wednesday, August 25, 2021 at 7:19:42 PM UTC-4, Zobovor wrote:
> On Wednesday, August 25, 2021 at 11:28:46 AM UTC-6, Sky Raider wrote:
>
> > I think he probably took Soundwave's "betrayal" (if only through inaction) the hardest, hence why we don't see him at Galvatron's side very often until it was Cyclonus's turn for him to be pissed off at, as you pointed out.
> Raksha once posited that Soundwave only put a bid in for Decepticon leadership because he knew it was the best chance of recovering Megatron. Had he won control of the Decepticons, he would have turned Astrotrain around and collected Megatron from space. I find that logic hard to argue with.

I remember that. And she thought Soundwave didn't push the issue further out of concern for the safety of the cassettes. Seems like a good theory on the surface.

The problem with her idea though is that we also see Soundwave very enthusiastically voting "aye" with the rest of the mob to throw the most heavily damaged out of the airlock. He could have easily abstained from voting if he'd really wanted to. Now you might say that maybe Soundwave didn't intend or expect for that to also include Megatron, who presumably had VIP status thanks to being their leader...but come on. This is Starscream we're dealing with here. There's no way Soundwave wouldn't have seen that coming. I've seen other fans handwave it as an animation error ("oh, Soundwave wasn't REALLY voting yes!") but that's just trying to force the actual movie to fit their explanation at that point, and not the other way around.

I'll be honest, I don't have a completely airtight explanation for Soundwave apparently turning on Megatron either. My best guess is that maybe Megatron had done something to make Soundwave question his loyalty in the intervening 20 years that we never saw, or maybe the troops were just that disillusioned with the the way the Autobot City attack ended IN the movie itself. IE, Megatron beaten and humiliated by Prime, considered to have nearly gotten a lot of his troops killed, etc. A sentiment that would no doubt be stoked by Starscream who, again, was vocally against the whole thing to begin with.

It's also possible that Soundwave had no problem with scooping up Megatron off the battlefield (no sweat off his back) but had his limits when it came to him giving up his own life by being stranded in deep space and running out of energy. Soundwave might have considered it a kinder alternative for Megatron and company than being executed or tortured to death in Autobot captivity on Earth.

> > Astrotrain might've simply been too valuable to get rid of, like that one guy at work who is the only one can do XYZ or work a shift no one else wants.
> Yeah, but Astrotrain's usefulness was arguably reduced during season three, partly because of the existence of the Decepticon mothership (which Galvatron continued to use as late as "The Rebirth") but also because it seems like every single Decepticon could fly in space during season three.

They could always fly in space, we just never saw them get the opportunity to demonstrate it. We see Starscream flying in space a couple times before the Movie. I don't think many of them besides Astrotrain could fly fast enough to traverse interstellar distances on their own though...maybe Cyclonus and Scourge, but even then they probably are usually launching from the unseen mothership in season 3. Also, you need Astrotrain for carrying around energon, weapons, etc.

> > Just as an aside I never bought that Ramjet and Dirge died during FFOD, I just write it off as AKOM silliness. Putting aside that they all appear later, I never understood why fans latched on to their "deaths" and not, say, Divebomb, who also gets blown to bits by Trypticon in Ghost in the Machine in another bit of classic AKOM animation.
> Well, Dirge and Ramjet were 1985 toys so they were arguably more "killable" than the Predacons, who were introduced in 1986 and were still new toys when Divebomb allegedly "died." I tend to think the deaths were indeed scripted to happen (Dirge had a marker in the Decepticon Crypt, after all) and their later appearances might have been the mistake. But, it's hard to say. In-universe, we have to accept that Ultra Magnus punched them both to death, but they must have gotten rebuilt.

They were older characters but still in the 1986 product line, and I don't think they would be intentionally killing off characters still on the shelves (Starscream's death didn't stop him from still being a recurring "special guest star" character, and there is evidence the Insecticons were never intended to be killed off to begin with). Besides, FFOD is the same saga that gives us Galvatron on Charr cheering on his own rescue mission, Bruticus hanging out with the Combaticons, Broadside aka "the Autobot escape ship" being destroyed also, etc. I wouldn't take any of the visuals in that saga too literally.

Now if Dirge and Ramjet were shown blowing up in say, "The Rebirth", I'd be right there with you.

> > So, my other idea is that Megatron used one of the warp gates that are suddenly everywhere in FFOD to jump ahead to Earth's solar system, or even had a spacebridge terminal in the asteroid belt or something. But then this just begs the additional question: why didn't the Decepticons take this space bridge or warp gate back home?
> > It seems pretty clear that the Decepticon escape aboard Astrotrain was rushed and unplanned, because the whole battle was becoming a SNAFU for both sides at this point and Starscream was now acting commander and was all "Screw this, I told you we should have attacked the Moonbases!" anyway.
> Starscream could have pressed on and probably could have won the battle. Prime was close to death so the Autobots would have been forced to withdraw and abandon the city in order to take him somewhere and try to save him. But, as always, Starscream was more interested in proving Megatron wrong, and retreating for Starscream proved the Autobot City attack was a failure and Megatron had made the wrong decision.

Yeah, Starscream probably could've won the day if he pressed on (although there were at least 3-4 healthy Dinobots still about to consider) but I think there would've been more Decepticon casualties to come if they had stayed.. It's a little bit like the GI Joe movie where Cobra Commander is very quick and very happy to call a retreat in the Himalayas battle as soon as Serpentor goes down.

It's kind of chilling that the Decepticons' plan for the City was apparently simply razing it to the ground and killing every last Autobot there.

> > Lots of fun stuff to think about!
> I can't believe it's been 35 years and yet we can still find some things about the movie to talk about. That's kind of awesome. It's always been one of the most talked-about subjects on this newsgroup, mostly due to it being widely available on VHS (and later on DVD), but also because it's kind of the quintessential Transformers adventure.

It will never get old.

On Thursday, August 26, 2021 at 3:57:14 PM UTC-4, Codigo Postal wrote:

> They say a leader can be judged by his ability to admit his weaknesses, and by that standard, Prime was an exceptional leader. Upon his resurrection, and at nearly every opportunity in "The Rebirth," he seized the opportunity to proclaim his complete lack of ideas regarding what to do next. Perhaps it was a function of losing the Matrix, or perhaps a newfound humility stemming from all of his poor decisions in The Movie, i.e. failing to prevent Laserbeak from spying on him in what should have been a high-security area, failing to protect Ironhide, Prowl, et al, failing to execute Megatron when he had the chance, failing to pass the Matrix to a more worthy candidate than the woefully unqualified Ultra Magnus, and of course, failing to stay alive on his deathbed.
>
> As Zob said, had Starscream not given the order to retreat, it's entirely possible that the Cons could have overwhelmed the grieving and dispirited Autobots and won the battle once and for all. Prime's every decision, including his prima donna decision to charge headlong into battle by himself rather than deploying his backup troops more effectively (e.g. using his most vicious warriors, the Dinobots, more judiciously, rather than throwing them in a kamikaze attack against Devastator) nearly led to the complete extinction of the Autobots.
>
> In a very real sense, Prime is the reason for the Fall of Autobot City. The very preventable deaths of Windcharger, Wheeljack, and presumably many others, are very much on his hands (of steel).

Ouch! This is one of the more scathing takes on Prime that I've read! However, it's very well worded and certainly entertaining to read. And when you see it all laid bare like that...yeah, some of it is hard to argue against.

In fairness, some of the blame can probably be shared by those under his command. From the Moonbase security under Jazz ("No sign of Decepticons here Prime...except for the one watching you right now!") to Autobot City security under Ultra Magnus (and presumably Red Alert?). The only reason the Decepticons didn't get in undetected and do even more damage was because Hot Rod broke the rules and was where he wasn't supposed to be. In the original script Magnus and Kup even chastise him for it, but he probably saved many Autobot lives by alerting them that something was wrong. They could have had even more losses that day.

And in fairness, Megatron committed no shortage of strategical blunders either. From using the Constructicons as his boarding party on the shuttle (lose just one of them in that fight and no more Devastator, who was a key component of the assault) to bringing Astrotrain, presumably their backup escape route, right into the thick of battle instead of keeping him on standby in case they need an emergency extraction (which of course, they did). If Astrotrain goes down, and you also can't steal another Autobot shuttle or something, congrats. Now no one's going home. (In some earlier versions of the script Astrotrain does hang back by the asteroids near where Ironhide was ambushed, and even attacks Prime's shuttle on his way in. That at least makes a bit more strategic sense.)

On Thursday, August 26, 2021 at 8:42:05 PM UTC-7, Codigo Postal wrote:
> On Thursday, August 26, 2021 at 9:21:46 PM UTC-4, Joseph Bardsley wrote:
> > Thanks, as ever, Zob, for this comprehensive review. Great thoughts, and I'm sold on this version.
> >
> > I really hope the fall 2021 film screening tour will touch Canadian locales.
> >
> > On another, TFTM-related homage note: in honour of this year's anniversary, I have transcribed a few of my favourite tracks from the score for vocals and piano. If anyone would like exceptionally-accurate piano-vocal scores (with MIDI files) of "Nothin's Gonna Stand In Our Way" or "Death of Optimus Prime", to start, let me know!
> >
> What an amazing accomplishment - please count me in for a copy! I once asked Vince DiCola if he'd consider releasing the piano sheet music for Artistic Transformations, his piano adaptation of his TFTM score, but he responded that rights issues prevented him from doing so.

Happy to share! If you let me know what email address is best, I can zip my files your way. :)

Also, good to know about the Artistic Transformations scores: makes (unfortunate) sense. Still one of my favourite albums to fall asleep to these days..

JB

On Saturday, August 28, 2021 at 4:46:17 PM UTC-4, Sky Raider wrote:
> On Thursday, August 26, 2021 at 3:57:14 PM UTC-4, Codigo Postal wrote:
>
> > They say a leader can be judged by his ability to admit his weaknesses, and by that standard, Prime was an exceptional leader. Upon his resurrection, and at nearly every opportunity in "The Rebirth," he seized the opportunity to proclaim his complete lack of ideas regarding what to do next. Perhaps it was a function of losing the Matrix, or perhaps a newfound humility stemming from all of his poor decisions in The Movie, i.e. failing to prevent Laserbeak from spying on him in what should have been a high-security area, failing to protect Ironhide, Prowl, et al, failing to execute Megatron when he had the chance, failing to pass the Matrix to a more worthy candidate than the woefully unqualified Ultra Magnus, and of course, failing to stay alive on his deathbed.
> >
> > As Zob said, had Starscream not given the order to retreat, it's entirely possible that the Cons could have overwhelmed the grieving and dispirited Autobots and won the battle once and for all. Prime's every decision, including his prima donna decision to charge headlong into battle by himself rather than deploying his backup troops more effectively (e.g. using his most vicious warriors, the Dinobots, more judiciously, rather than throwing them in a kamikaze attack against Devastator) nearly led to the complete extinction of the Autobots.
> >
> > In a very real sense, Prime is the reason for the Fall of Autobot City. The very preventable deaths of Windcharger, Wheeljack, and presumably many others, are very much on his hands (of steel).
> Ouch! This is one of the more scathing takes on Prime that I've read! However, it's very well worded and certainly entertaining to read. And when you see it all laid bare like that...yeah, some of it is hard to argue against.
>
> In fairness, some of the blame can probably be shared by those under his command. From the Moonbase security under Jazz ("No sign of Decepticons here Prime...except for the one watching you right now!") to Autobot City security under Ultra Magnus (and presumably Red Alert?). The only reason the Decepticons didn't get in undetected and do even more damage was because Hot Rod broke the rules and was where he wasn't supposed to be. In the original script Magnus and Kup even chastise him for it, but he probably saved many Autobot lives by alerting them that something was wrong. They could have had even more losses that day.
>
> And in fairness, Megatron committed no shortage of strategical blunders either. From using the Constructicons as his boarding party on the shuttle (lose just one of them in that fight and no more Devastator, who was a key component of the assault) to bringing Astrotrain, presumably their backup escape route, right into the thick of battle instead of keeping him on standby in case they need an emergency extraction (which of course, they did). If Astrotrain goes down, and you also can't steal another Autobot shuttle or something, congrats. Now no one's going home. (In some earlier versions of the script Astrotrain does hang back by the asteroids near where Ironhide was ambushed, and even attacks Prime's shuttle on his way in. That at least makes a bit more strategic sense.)

Great points. Makes one wonder what the outcome of the war might have been, had more competent leaders taken the reins.

Just think - after a shock and awe attack that left the defenses of their enemy broken, the Cons still managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, and found themselves withdrawing from the war zone in haste and ignominy as their opponents regained control of the ground. Boy, the stuff these science fiction writers come up with…

On Monday, August 30, 2021 at 9:59:01 PM UTC-7, Codigo Postal wrote:
> On Saturday, August 28, 2021 at 4:46:17 PM UTC-4, Sky Raider wrote:
> > On Thursday, August 26, 2021 at 3:57:14 PM UTC-4, Codigo Postal wrote:
> >
> > > They say a leader can be judged by his ability to admit his weaknesses, and by that standard, Prime was an exceptional leader. Upon his resurrection, and at nearly every opportunity in "The Rebirth," he seized the opportunity to proclaim his complete lack of ideas regarding what to do next. Perhaps it was a function of losing the Matrix, or perhaps a newfound humility stemming from all of his poor decisions in The Movie, i.e. failing to prevent Laserbeak from spying on him in what should have been a high-security area, failing to protect Ironhide, Prowl, et al, failing to execute Megatron when he had the chance, failing to pass the Matrix to a more worthy candidate than the woefully unqualified Ultra Magnus, and of course, failing to stay alive on his deathbed.
> > >
> > > As Zob said, had Starscream not given the order to retreat, it's entirely possible that the Cons could have overwhelmed the grieving and dispirited Autobots and won the battle once and for all. Prime's every decision, including his prima donna decision to charge headlong into battle by himself rather than deploying his backup troops more effectively (e.g. using his most vicious warriors, the Dinobots, more judiciously, rather than throwing them in a kamikaze attack against Devastator) nearly led to the complete extinction of the Autobots.
> > >
> > > In a very real sense, Prime is the reason for the Fall of Autobot City. The very preventable deaths of Windcharger, Wheeljack, and presumably many others, are very much on his hands (of steel).
> > Ouch! This is one of the more scathing takes on Prime that I've read! However, it's very well worded and certainly entertaining to read. And when you see it all laid bare like that...yeah, some of it is hard to argue against.
> >
> > In fairness, some of the blame can probably be shared by those under his command. From the Moonbase security under Jazz ("No sign of Decepticons here Prime...except for the one watching you right now!") to Autobot City security under Ultra Magnus (and presumably Red Alert?). The only reason the Decepticons didn't get in undetected and do even more damage was because Hot Rod broke the rules and was where he wasn't supposed to be. In the original script Magnus and Kup even chastise him for it, but he probably saved many Autobot lives by alerting them that something was wrong. They could have had even more losses that day.
> >
> > And in fairness, Megatron committed no shortage of strategical blunders either. From using the Constructicons as his boarding party on the shuttle (lose just one of them in that fight and no more Devastator, who was a key component of the assault) to bringing Astrotrain, presumably their backup escape route, right into the thick of battle instead of keeping him on standby in case they need an emergency extraction (which of course, they did). If Astrotrain goes down, and you also can't steal another Autobot shuttle or something, congrats. Now no one's going home. (In some earlier versions of the script Astrotrain does hang back by the asteroids near where Ironhide was ambushed, and even attacks Prime's shuttle on his way in. That at least makes a bit more strategic sense.)
> Great points. Makes one wonder what the outcome of the war might have been, had more competent leaders taken the reins.
>
> Just think - after a shock and awe attack that left the defenses of their enemy broken, the Cons still managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, and found themselves withdrawing from the war zone in haste and ignominy as their opponents regained control of the ground. Boy, the stuff these science fiction writers come up with…

Just bought and downloaded my cut of this new edition of the film (thank you, iTunes: I worry, still, about the permanence vs. transience of streaming media) - and look forward to taking it in this weekend with all of these helpful comments as context. :)

JB