{"id":1745,"date":"2011-01-21T09:22:47","date_gmt":"2011-01-21T14:22:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.greatsociety.org\/?p=1745"},"modified":"2018-10-30T15:55:09","modified_gmt":"2018-10-30T19:55:09","slug":"cult-culture-archive-transformers-the-movie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/?p=1745","title":{"rendered":"Cult Culture Archive: Transformers: The Movie"},"content":{"rendered":"

From the archives (2006): A review of the original 1986 Transformers<\/em> movie.
\n<\/p>\n

And the best movie of my generation?\u00a0 The film that affected us the most, shaped our perception of the world, and caused us all to look deep inside and reevaluate our lives?\u00a0 The movie that made us the men and women we are today?<\/p>\n

I take you to 1986, and into the AMC 3 to sit down beside me and watch\u2026 Transformers: The Movie<\/em>.\u00a0 That\u2019s right.\u00a0 This is the movie responsible for all the good and bad things that my generation has done since that date, and will continue to do until we pass the flag to those who inherit our world.<\/p>\n

Imagine my consternation when I discovered that this movie is reviled by many.\u00a0 It ranks 40% on www.rottentomatoes.com<\/a>.\u00a0 One review shocked me the most:<\/p>\n

\u201cBasically, The Transformers: The Movie<\/em> features rancid animation techniques, a story that will bore anyone over age 10, and a few overpaid celebrities essaying the lead voices.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bore anyone over the age of ten?\u00a0 I think not.\u00a0 In the first 90 seconds, we witness the destruction of an entire planet, and not in the pull away and blow it up style that most movies would do.\u00a0 No, the planet is, literally, devoured by Orson Welles.\u00a0 It\u2019s sucked up into the eager maw of Unicron, the character he voices, and torn to pieces.\u00a0 We watch as robot women and children (who we first see playing and laughing and chatting happily with each other) are whipped up into Unicron\u2019s gaping mouth, screaming in terror as they\u2019re chomp-chomp-chomped by grinders and then thrown into digestive juices.\u00a0 We see their faces, we hear their voices, as they die.\u00a0 I\u2019m still disturbed by that opening scene.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I would never show this film to someone under 10 years old.\u00a0 Especially if, like me, you had watched and fucking loved two and a half years of the after school cartoon starring endearing, heroic characters who are all, within the first 15 minutes of the film, brutally murdered.\u00a0 When this movie came out, children were led out of the theater, in tears, before the second act.\u00a0 People sobbed uncontrollably, parents demanded their money back, my mom was horrified and shaken when the single most heroic figure in cartoon history \u2013 Optimus Prime \u2013 was defeated by one of the worst enemies above even Cobra Commander.\u00a0 And not just losing a battle and tumbling off a cliff or something.\u00a0 No, he’s shot, fucking kicked and mocked, and, then, shattered, dies slowly on an operating table.<\/p>\n

But the death of Prime hardly registered because, right before, in an almost casual manner, most of the generation one Transformers were killed in an ambush.\u00a0 Some of the favorite characters from the cartoon, and treasured toys, were taken out within the space of a few seconds of screen time.\u00a0 And need I mention the coup de grace shot?\u00a0 A critically wounded Ironhide grabs Megatron\u2019s leg.\u00a0 Megatron turns slowly, sneers down at him:\u00a0 \u201cSuch heroic nonsense,\u201d then, with his big fuck-off arm cannon, he obliterates Ironhide.\u00a0 The screen fills with the smoke and body-parts from the blast.\u00a0 End scene.\u00a0 Audience sits in cold, breathless silence.<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t stop there.\u00a0 Later in the film, the graphic death of everyone\u2019s favorite rabble-rouser, Starscream (who, during the brutal, corpse-strewn, night-long opening battle, was forced to shoot off his foot to get out of a tight spot), is just icing on the relentlessly violent cake.\u00a0 Twenty years later, and Transformers: The Movie<\/em> remains one of the cruelest films I\u2019ve seen, if only because the destruction of the generation one characters was so unforgiving that the hollowness left in my soul is still raw and painful.\u00a0 I went home and hugged the toys to my chest and stared into middle space for a few hours.<\/p>\n

And then there’s the soundtrack.\u00a0 From 80\u2019s pop to heavy metal to dreamland synthesizer to Weird Al Yankovic\u2019s unforgettable \u201cDare to be Stupid.\u201d\u00a0 To child minds already ripped to pieces by the death and destruction of loved ones, the seemingly random and wholly offensive soundtrack is an assault that many only barely survived.\u00a0 To this day, I catch myself humming songs from the movie.\u00a0 You\u2019ve got the touch!\u00a0 You\u2019ve got the pooower!<\/p>\n

My personal favorite is the update to the theme song.\u00a0 From the grating TV version, we move into the 80\u2019s metal version by \u201cLion,\u201d a Whitesnake clone never heard from again\u2026thankfully.\u00a0 The theme song, on the soundtrack (and during the end credits), takes a bizarre turn after two minutes with screaming guitar solos, inexplicable lyrics, and an epileptic on the synth.\u00a0 We all know \u201cmore than meets the eye\u201d and \u201crobots in disguise\u201d and what have you, but then they go on to screech the following verses:<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s judgment day and now we’ve made our stand
\nAnd now the powers of darkness
\nHave been driven from our land<\/p>\n

The Battle’s over but the war has just begun
\nAnd this way it will remain till the day when all are one\u201d<\/p>\n

And:<\/p>\n

\u201cStrong enough to break the bravest heart
\nSo we have to pull together
\nWe can’t stay worlds apart\u201d<\/p>\n

And several others.\u00a0 It leaves you sitting there trying to wake up from this strange dream.<\/p>\n

The coke-addled theme song is followed by the big opening number: \u201cDare\u201d by Stan Bush (who did most of the music).\u00a0 One of his albums was titled \u201cDial 818 888 8638,\u201d which was his fan hotline.\u00a0 Ain\u2019t that a hoot?\u00a0 Kinda makes you want to, you know, shoot this man.\u00a0 The Ozzie Osborne-inspired \u201cInstruments of Self Destruction\u201d plays over the stunningly violent battle scene where everyone who isn\u2019t going to die (that\u2019s the second round of terrible deaths, by the way) still gets a brutal thrashing.\u00a0 Stan Bush returns with the heroic finale number \u201cThe Touch,\u201d which is the tooth-achingly poppy theme song for our little hero.<\/p>\n

What really numbs the audience is a scene that can only have come from a deeply demented mind.\u00a0 On the planet of junk, running for their lives, the last remnants of the Autobots encounter Wreck-Gar, voiced by Eric Idle, and his squad of junk-bots who speak only in catch-phrases from popular commercials yet somehow manage to hold a conversation.\u00a0 It frightens me that we\u2019re so steeped in television that a character can speak like that and make perfect sense.\u00a0 When the battle commences, we get Weird Al Yankovic\u2019s \u201cDare to be Stupid.\u201d\u00a0 And, yes, you can come to my house and drink with me and, no matter the situation, I will eventually run around the living room singing this song.<\/p>\n

In fact, it\u2019s set on a loop as I write this.<\/p>\n

But enough about violence and fringe music from the 80\u2019s.\u00a0 What\u2019s Transformers: The Movie<\/em> really about?\u00a0 Once I recovered from the shock and absolute despair, what really got deep into my 12 year old mind as I sat there in the theater?\u00a0 Sex.\u00a0 Yeah, that\u2019s right.<\/p>\n

Arcee.\u00a0 My girl.\u00a0 Blue eyes, slim waist, long legs, hips, tits, power!\u00a0 She was the pink Transformer voiced by Susan Blu, who\u2019s been doing cartoon voices, along with the occasional bit parts in TV shows, since the 1960\u2019s.\u00a0 Her biggest live action role was as Amanda Shepard in Friday the 13th<\/sup> Part VII<\/em>, which is one of more gruesome entries in the franchise.\u00a0 Lacking the typical comedy of the Friday the 13th<\/sup> series, the seventh part is just a stalking exercise in body counting.\u00a0 She gets a spear in the back and, as a corpse, is used unsuccessfully as a shield.\u00a0 Oh!\u00a0 Arcee!<\/p>\n

Now, don\u2019t sniff your nose at me because I\u2019m sexually attracted to a Transformer.\u00a0 When Unicron\u2019s eating worlds, we see child robots and couples.\u00a0 So we know that the Transformers procreate just like we do.\u00a0 And that means Arcee is fair game.<\/p>\n

In the end, Transformers: The Movie<\/em> sprung from a simple idea: It was rebooting the franchise, wiping out characters that weren\u2019t selling well, and clumsily introducing a whole bunch of new characters.\u00a0 So who the hell decided that, hey, we\u2019ll retire the old line by going fucking insane and killing the characters in the worst ways possible?\u00a0 What focus group thought that was a good idea?\u00a0 The movie is the greatest example of how disconnected the entertainment industry has become.\u00a0 They forged into it thinking that, if the toys weren\u2019t selling well, then the fans must not care about the characters.<\/p>\n

Released as a big summer cartoon movie, the shelves would then be glutted with all the new toys that children the world over would be screaming for.\u00a0 A good fall and winter for Hasbro!\u00a0 Or\u2026not.<\/p>\n

What they met was controversy so far reaching that it spelled the end of two major toy franchises.\u00a0 It ruined the GI Joe<\/em> movie, being made by the same folks, and, pretty much, cooled the heels of the Transformers<\/em> franchise.\u00a0 The cartoon series ended a year later, after a clumsy post-movie era that saw feeble attempts to raise all the characters from the dead and try to clamor back to the pre-movie glitz.\u00a0 Spin-off series (mostly repackaged from the Japanese TV series) managed to keep breakoff fans, but the ga-ga wildness of the franchise had collapsed.\u00a0 The GI \u00a0Joe<\/em> movie marked the end of that series, and was quickly rewritten to remove the violence.\u00a0 The failure of Transformers<\/em>, both critically and in the box office, meant that the GI Joe<\/em> movie lost its theatrical status and ended up on TV on a Saturday afternoon, sanitized and left for dead.<\/p>\n

Now, GI Joe<\/em> was always weak and mindless, but Transformers<\/em> was cool.\u00a0\u00a0 They\u2019d built a nice little world there.\u00a0 Both series barely reflected what the comics were doing, sadly, but Transformers<\/em> had more depth as a cartoon series.\u00a0 The characters were likable, the story was a bit more darker — no matter the rules where good always had to defeat bad, the fact was that the Autobots were refugees from a war lost thousands of years ago and, pretty much, fighting a hopeless battle.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why the movie is so confounding.\u00a0 There\u2019s almost pure hatred on the part of the creators.\u00a0 A resentment for the kids who loved these characters.\u00a0 But, fine, because all things considered, the movie is amazing.\u00a0 The Autobots have finally made headway.\u00a0 They\u2019ve got a beachhead after all these years of fighting and are preparing for a D-Day style invasion to kick the Decepticons asses and it all goes wrong.\u00a0 Megatron ambushes them, crushes them, and the handful of survivors, split into two groups, flee into the stars.\u00a0 Along the way, they discover their creators, and battle as best they can to survive.\u00a0 On top of all that, a great, ancient enemy to all of their kind has returned.\u00a0 Leaderless, the Autobots fumble to destroy this archenemy and save the day.\u00a0 They throw themselves without hope against the mighty, satanic power of Unicron and fight for their very existence.\u00a0 We\u2019re finally shown some of the back-story that had been built up in the comics for years:\u00a0 Robot worlds, unrelated to the Transformers and their homeworld of Cybertron, and some secrets of the Autobot leadership.<\/p>\n

But, beyond all that \u2013 Leonard Nimoy!\u00a0 Orson Welles and Scatman Crothers in their last films (both would die within weeks of completing the movie).\u00a0 Robert Stack, Eric Idle\u2026\u00a0 The weight of their voices make the movie something seriously worth considering.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an insane fantasy that came out of corporate minds so twisted on God knows what that it can\u2019t help but be good.\u00a0 It\u2019s nostalgia, it\u2019s drunken sing-along cartoon trash, it\u2019s strangely absorbing, it\u2019s a war movie, a questing movie, a snapshot of my generation.\u00a0 It\u2019s who we are.\u00a0 The ultimate theatrical release and greatest betrayal of years of anticipated Christmas presents, glowing plastic and cardboard on the shelf at Toys R Us, long lines eagerly awaiting Optimus Prime on the silver screen, and tiny little hearts broken as Prime chokes on his last breath.<\/p>\n

Goodnight America.\u00a0 The moneymen shot themselves in the foot in a desperate attempt to make even more money out of what was, really, just a flash in the pan.\u00a0 And, yet, in 2007\u2026another movie.\u00a0 So, will this one rape us as hard as the last?\u00a0 More importantly, will it remain with us as long as the last?\u00a0 Will it have as strong an impression?\u00a0 Will I remember every scene?\u00a0 20 years after the 2007 movie, will I still feel both repulsed and enthralled?<\/p>\n

Nacho\u2019s lonely Saturday night rum rating:\u00a0 Four stars, of course.\u00a0 Violence, death, struggle, renewal.\u00a0 Did they, somehow, perhaps unintentionally, create a grand Buddhist journey?<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the archives (2006): A review of the original 1986 Transformers movie.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[137,125,403,112],"class_list":["post-1745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cult-culture","tag-archives","tag-childhood","tag-cult-culture","tag-nostalgia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1745"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1745\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1776,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1745\/revisions\/1776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}