Formtransers

With Digital Drift now getting into the Transformers movies they started with the 1986 movie, and I'll join them (on that one at least, I doubt I'll watch the big movies... although I do have the Rifftrax versions...). I think I watched it about ten years ago, and first saw it at the Odeon in Lower Hutt back in... 1986? 1987?

Now, this movie takes place in the middle of the cartoon series (which I probably saw, but don't recall it), so we have a brief paragraph introducing Cybertron, the Autobots and the Decepticons... and then the movie gets into it. Lots of 'bots, doing things, transforming, we hit a battle almost straight away... See, Bay! This is how you do it! Trust the audience already has a clue before they get involved and just say "you want robots, here are robots!" And we also get the only two humans in the entire movie, Spike and Daniel... because all the rest of the universe is all robotic. Oh, and one such planet got eaten by the Transformers version of Galactus, Unicron (although I'm sure I heard 'Unicorn' at least once). I like Unicron, huge menace (See Tim Story? You can bring Galactus to the screen as more than a blob!), and quite the effective villain. Converting Megatron to Galvatron is an interesting idea, as is changing the others, and he comes across as very overwhelming (to be honest, when Unicron transforms into robot form, although he looks neat, he does seem to be somewhat more vulnerable).

Anyway, where was I? Unicorn uses Galvatron to hunt down the Autobots and chase them across the... galaxy? universe? random space area? until they have a big fight over Cybertron until the space macguffin ticks over and solves everything. Huzzah!

There are some big moments in this. Optimus Prime dies, Megatron nearly dies, other Autobots die (although I have no idea who most of them are), and some severely weird scenes including the sharktacons and Eric Idle voicing a robot while Dare to be Stupid plays - what???

This is very 80s, and... I can't honestly say it holds up well. There are some great moments (mainly involving Unicron), but there are many other moments that are not as good. And the soundtrack has about one song for every other minute. Still, this is the best Transformers movie that played in the cinema.

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