Okay, so you had to have seen this movie or know about the movie before reading this review or you will be lost. When I first saw Transformers the Movie I was six, I had rented it on VHS and barely remembered the series because I was like three. And I think I wasn't well versed in Season Three because I had no idea who all the new guys were, just the old ones. I was bummed that Optimus Prime died and felt it happened way to quickly but still thought it was a great movie. I loved the themes of transition, the scenes of Starscream betraying Megatron and being crowned king and then Galavatron wasting him was pure gold.
Quick overview of the movie: It is set in 2005, twenty years after the events of season two and Spike (the human) is now an adult and has a child Daniel. A giant planet-like transformer Unicron (which apparently may be bigger than the Deathstar according to the DVD commentary from fans) who eats planets while Megatron and Optimus had their final brawl ending in both of their deaths. The new team go out to save their friends from Unicron. Unicron wants the Matrix of Leadership (which Story Consltant/writer Flint Dille admits he should have copyrighted the 'Matrix') which Optimus gave Maximus but he doesn't seem to be the one to be the next leader. Unicron converts Megatron to Galavatron and is under his influence. They got Judd Nelson to play Hotrod, Orson Wells famously played Unicorn (there is much debate to if it was his last movie or not), Eric Idle as one of the Junk robots and it is one of the first movies to use celebrity voices.
The DVD set is awesome, it comes with a cool lenticular cover and two discs with different extras even though one is full screen and the other theatrical which I like. Because I like to have Extras spread out. The featurettes are eh... but I am glad Sue Blu (Arcee) is included but I am pissed they didn't mention she was the voice of Stromer on Jem, one of my favorites. It has a 'Autobot Matrix of Knowledge' that has pop-ups of trivia throughout the movie are a bit annoying in its repetitiveness and petty details. They have a fan commentary that is very very detailed and it is just cute. The DVD includes US and Japanese toy commercials, where I see the 'have the little toy in a desert' motif is still being used to this day for Japanese commercials and the American ones just make me wonder why the little boys' faces are blurred out. The Japanese produced an episode that bridged the second season to the movie--"Scramble City" and it is included in the DVD but because of the right disputes it has no audio albeit fan commentary. The episode leaves in a cliffhanger unresolved. The animated storyboards are just plain exquisite and the DVD overall can wet any fanboy or girl's appetite.
By the way, the 2007 Live-Action movie trailer is just a freaking tease.
DVD Fan Grade: A
Related Topic: Transformer Universe
