Tag: transformers the movie

Direct Beams Comms #35

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Movies

Transformers: The Movie

TransformersIn 1986 Transformers: The Movie made something like $5.8 million at the box office, and about $3 of that came from me.

Honestly, I have no idea how or why I decided to go see Transformers: The Movie at the theater. Back in 1986 I was into Transformers but I was just at the age where I was starting to cycle out of toys and TV cartoons for other things. I suspect that my friend Jon, who saw it with me, was the driving influence on us going since my family didn’t see a lot of movies in the theater and it wasn’t like I had a lot of money of my own to spend seeing films.

Transformers: The Movie is an odd film. It’s based on the 1980s cartoon series of the same name where no character ever died and things always stayed the same between episodes even though there were lots of battles between the good Autobots and bad Decepticons. But in Transformers: The Movie movie LOTS of characters died, even arguably the most famous characters of all Optimus Prime.

Or at least that’s what I’ve been told. Just before Optimus’ big death scene there’s a huge battle and I had to go to the bathroom. And I held it until the fighting had ended and the Autobots went to attend to a wounded Optimus. Since it was a weekday afternoon we had the place to ourselves and then I ran out of the theater to the bathroom, went as fast as I could then ran back to my seat and back to the movie. Jon leaned over and said, “You totally missed it, Optimus just died!” While I believed him, I really didn’t. Surly they wouldn’t kill off the most popular Transformer character of all time?!

Looking back now I can see what happened. In 1986 the toy series had been around for a few years and Hasbro was looking for a way to add some new Transformers characters to the line. So some characters had to die in the movie to make room for new ones on toy shelves.

Transformers the Movie
Transformers the Movie

What’s interesting, though, is that while there were big changes in the movie and new characters were added, I don’t remember that the cartoon series changed all that much the next fall. What ended the spring of 1986 continued that autumn and ignored the movie entirely. Though when I was reading up on the movie I did forget that it takes place in the far off futuristic distant year of 2005, so maybe that explains the story discrepancies?

While I do have fond memories of Transformers: The Movie those memories are mostly around seeing the film in the theater rather than the actual content of Transformers: The Movie itself. I still enjoy seeing clips from the movie, think the soundtrack is excellent throwback brilliance and love the poster, but I can’t remember the last time I actually sat down to watch Transformers: The Movie?

Of course nowadays if you say, “Transformers: The Movie” to almost anyone they’d assume you’re talking about the line of dreadful Michael Bay produced films that began back in 2007 with yet another one due in 2017. If the 1986 movie is bad, it’s bad because it’s too earnest in a 1980s kind’a way. If the recent film series is bad, and trust me, they are, it’s because it’s a movie series about talking robots that transform into things like cars and jets that takes itself waaaaaaay to seriously.

Which means that since there’s a slew of new, abet crappy live-action films out there now there’s less opportunity for Transformers: The Movie to air anywhere on TV. Why would kids today want to watch a crummy cartoon when they can watch a stupid live action cartoon instead?

In closing, Transformers = sort’a cool, Michael Bay = uncool. 😉

Dunkirk teaser trailer

Books

Out this week is the book Aliens: The Set Photography that looks to be 144 pages of behind the scenes pics from this movie classic.

The Reading & Watch List

This week in pop-culture history

  • 1960: David Duchovny, Fox Mulder of The X-Files is born
  • 1968: Gillian Anderson, Dana Scully of The X-Files is born
  • 1986: The Transformers: The Movie opens in theaters
  • 1989: The Abyss opens in theaters

After the fact: A youth spend seeing movies on cable

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Now that I think about it, I didn’t see a whole lot of movies in the theater growing up. To be sure, some years we’d see a few, but some years none at all. But it’s not like we missed seeing anything we wanted to see, we’d just have to wait a while to see it on “tape,” which in my peer group was pretty common.

Big Trouble in Little China
Big Trouble in Little China

In 1986 there were some truly great movies released like Aliens, Platoon and Stand By Me. And some alright ones that none-the-less were very popular like Top Gun and ”Crocodile” Dundee and some that would become cult-classics like Big Trouble in Little China, One Crazy Summer and Maximum Overdrive. But the only movies that I actually saw in the theater that year were Transformers the Movie and Flight of the Navigator.

That’s right — when I could’ve been seeing things like Aliens or Stand by Me in the theater, two films that I still watch every year, instead me and a friend rode our bikes to go see the big-screen version of a TV cartoon and one I went with my brother and his punk friends to see for a birthday.

Most movies I saw growing up were either rented on VHS or on cable, HBO at our house. Which means that to me a lot of movies have release dates a year after they actually came out.

Aliens
Aliens

To me, Aliens came out the summer of ’87 when myself, a cousin and my brother stayed up late, watched it on HBO and scared each other silly camping out in the living room afterward. And the same goes for Top Gun too — except there the next day we chased each other around on our bikes engaged in aerial dogfights.

With new movies when I was growing up unless the theater was in bike-riding distance, where we lived there was a little two-screen theater nearby in a strip mall, and unless that theater actually screened the movie we wanted to see, which for a little two-screen theater in a strip mall was doubtful, we would be out of luck since getting a ride to more distant cineplex was doubtful. No parent wants to drop a kid off across town, then go home for a few hours before returning back to pick them up. And if the movie was rated “R” that was another matter entirely.

We never had those problems seeing movies on cable or VHS. VHS renting was much easier for the parents. The parent takes you to the rental store where you pick out whatever you want to see. And unless the box art for the movie was too titillating or gruesome it usually wasn’t a problem. Then all the parents have to do is haul the kids home with said tape — which is much easier than a trip to the theater.

Transformers the Movie
Transformers the Movie

If the movie was on cable it wasn’t an issue for us to see whatsoever. We’d watch what we wanted in our parent’s bedroom when they in the living room and then trade places when the parents were ready for bed.

It seems odd to think about it now when movies are released on home media just a few months after the start of their theatrical run, but in the ‘80s movies would first be released in the theater then six months later would turn up for rental on VHS, then a few months after that for purchase on VHS then a year after the theatrical release would turn up on cable. THEN maybe a year after that release on network TV. Which could sometimes be a big deal since the network TV versions of movies that came out then could be multi-night affairs where additional scenes might be added to the movies that weren’t included in the theatrical or VHS versions. And this was years before “director’s cuts” of movies.

I remember my dad telling me when he grew up that some of his fondest memories were of spending Saturday afternoons “at the movies” watching a procession cartoons, serials and films. But to me some of my fondest memories were of me and my friends taking trips to the rental store or spending all day Saturday afternoon waiting for 8 o’clock for HBO’s movie premiere of the week.