The Transformers: The Movie
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Short description
The Transformers: The Movie is an animated science fiction adventure set in the year 2005, continuing the war between the Autobots and the Decepticons. The Decepticons have taken control of Cybertron, while the Autobots maintain bases on the planet's moons and on Earth. A new threat appears in Unicron, a mechanical world that consumes planets, and its advance draws both sides into a conflict that will decide the future of their homeworld and of the Matrix of Leadership.
Nelson Shin directed the film, the first of the two features in his directing credits, followed years later by Frog Kingdom. Ron Friedman wrote the screenplay, and Joe Bacal and Tom Griffin produced. The voice cast includes Judd Nelson as Hot Rod, Peter Cullen as Optimus Prime, Frank Welker as Megatron and other roles, Leonard Nimoy as Galvatron, Orson Welles as Unicron and Casey Kasem as Cliffjumper. The production, a collaboration between American and Japanese studios, had a budget of 6 million dollars and earned about 10 million worldwide.
Audience responses are moderately positive: on IMDb it holds 7.2 out of 10 from more than 41,000 votes, and on TMDB 7.1 out of 10 from several hundred votes. The film critics' rating stands at 5.5 out of 10 from 26 reviews, lower than the audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- Some pre-movie characters appear in episodes: Hauler, Hound, Sunstreaker, and Snarl.
- This was Scatman Crothers’ last film.
- Two identical robots with Cyclonus's face were created for "the Movie": one from Bombshell's body and the other from Skywarp's. Many fans later extensively debated this, trying to determine which Cyclonus was "real" and which was one of his "duplicates" under his command, just like the Swipes under Scourge. However, only one duplicate was created during the scene, and it did not appear again in either "the movie" or the cartoon series. Most believe that the “second Cyclonus” was simply an animation error. Nevertheless, this led fans to publish fan fiction about a character named Armada.
- Despite "the Movie" having a PG rating, most of the series' characters met their demise in it: Optimus Prime, Megatron, Ironhide, Ratchet, Brawn, Wildjack, Windcharger, Starscream, Skywarp, Thundercracker, Shrapnel, Kickback, and Bombshell. In the third season, we learn that Hauler also perished.
- This is Orson Welles' last film.
- The sound of the GalvanTron hand laser cannon firing is a modified sound of the Megatron nuclear cannon firing.
- Both Nelson Shin (director) and Flint Dille (story consultant) confirmed the fact that Orson Welles had significant difficulties during the voice recording process for Unicron (the recording took place shortly before the actor's death). The issue was that the recording contained heavy sighs and sobs. Shin deemed the entire Welles recording unusable for the film, but decided to fix the situation by running the recording through a synthesizer. This gave Welles' voice a more ominous tone, after which he used the updated recording in the film.
- Scenes of Red Alert and Shockwave's deaths were included in the script but were never animated. The first's death was to occur during the assault on Autobot City, where he was to be mortally wounded in the back. Shockwave's death scene was intended to be closer to the end, during his declaration of a planet-wide alert, during Unicron's attack. Unicron's hand was to destroy Shockwave's citadel. In the finished film, after Shockwave announces the planet-wide alert, Unicron's strike covers most of the planet's surface, and Shockwave does not appear again after that.
- Out of the first 18 Autobots who participated in the first episode of the cartoon series ("More than Meets the Eye"), 15 appear in the movie. Mirage, Trailbreaker, and Sideswipe do not appear in "the Movie", despite scenes with their participation on Earth being present in the script.
- Characters from the second season, such as the Stunticons and the Aerialbots, did not appear in “the Movie” because they had not yet been created by the time its script was being written: the script for “the Movie” was written between 1984 and 1985, while production of season 2 only began in early 1985.
- "Transformers the Movie" served as a "bridge" between the second and third seasons of the cartoon. Several key characters from the first two seasons of the cartoon were either killed or "transformed" here (for example, the creation of Galvatron from Megatron's body).
- When Grimlock says to Kup: “Tell Grimlock about the Petro-rabbits again,” this is a reference to John Steinbeck’s film “Of Mice and Men” (1939), where Lennie constantly told George: “Tell me about the rabbits.”
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