THE TRANSFORMERS CULT: My Review of the 20th Anniversary Special Edition DVD
In the past couple of years it seems as though all of the animated feature films to come out of America are indistinguishable from one another.
Recently, however, THE TRANSFORMERS MOVIE 20th ANNIVERSARY EDITION was released on DVD and I was reminded of what it was like to go to an animated movie and actually be surprised, shocked, entertained and exillherated by it.
When the movie first came out 1986, I was sixteen years old and had basically grown out of collecting toys (since then, of course, I've grown back into it all over again), but I still loved cartoons.
While most kids my age would spend their after-school time playing sports or hanging out at the mall, I would indulge in my guilty pleasure of rushing to my TV for the block of VOLTRON, THUNDERCATS and TRANSFORMERS shows.
Nowadays, science fiction fans have a million different ways to get their daily 'fix' from television... but when I was in high school, the only real sci-fi available was in the form of TV cartoons. Consequently, I had found myself deeply invested in the TRANSFORMERS mythos and followed it religiously.
Back then, Disney was the only company with any real focus on animated features, and - for the most part - their stories were skewed very young and followed the same basic types of storylines... in other words, cartoon movies were in a similar slump that they're in now... lots of 'sameness'. THE TRANSFORMERS MOVIE, however, was incredibly complex and groundbreaking for its time.
The plot was obvious of course... it chronicled the war between two factions of robotic life from the planet Cybertron - the noble Autobots and the evil Decepticons... however, in the movie, a new danger - a monsterous, roaming robotic planet that devours everything in its path - threatens to destroy Cybertron. In their efforts to save their world, Autobots and Decepticons alike are forced to face some harsh realities, go through painful changes and make new alliances.
Oftentimes when animators discuss the greatest animated films of all time, TRANSFORMERS is overlooked for its obvious and - yes - blatant tie-in to the toys... but to me, its commercialization is just another sign of its brilliant execution: Sunbow and Marvel productions were given the task of wiping out the first generation of TRANSFORMERS characters to make way for a whole new toy line... it would have been very easy for them to simply hack out a cheap simpleminded tale with little or no regard to the characters or story arc... but they didn't. They injected real emotion and conflict into the plot and used the idea of going from one toy line to another as a way of making a statement about sacrifice, loss, maturity, growth, friendship and unity.
The original cast from the television series stayed true to their characters and - in a shocking twist for an American animated feature - died fighting for their cause. Optimus Prime - the leader of the brave Autobots - maintained his staunch, John Wayne-like heroism up until his death at the hands of Megatron - the malevolent Decepticon tyrant. Seeing the two of them fight to the end was precicely what we fans of the TV show had waited for, but we never could have dreamed that the bad guy would actually win the fight! We were used to movies showing us that good always triumphed over evil - but this movie showed us that oftentimes in life, the villain wins. Despite the existence of an all-powerful corporate agenda, the filmmakers worked within those boundaries and created an epic science fiction masterpiece that has endured the test of time.
Japanese anime features rarely made it to American theaters, so even though I was aware of anime, I had never seen anything with an anime style on a big movie screen before. For many Americans, the TRANSFORMERS movie was their first exposure to a feature with an anime-sensibility.
In its original release, the TRANSFORMERS movie didn't make a lot of money... but it has enjoyed a 'cult status' and gained popularity more and more with every passing year since then.
One of the many reasons I've always enjoyed it was because it never 'dumbed down' to the audience: the characters spoke like adults... the relationships between them were often complex and riddled with sub-plots... they carried and used dangerous-looking weaponry... they acted like soldiers and used military jargon. Nowadays, all American cartoon characters speak like a nine-year old surfer kid with a nonstop barrage of "whoah" and "dude"... they never get mad at one another or display any real personality... The weapons carried in cartoons these days look like gummi bears... once an action show has been filtered through the American "political-correctness machine" it becomes so sanitized that it lacks any real drama or excitement. So, for me, the TRANSFORMERS movie represents the last real hurrah for animated action shows in the U.S. Oh, sure, every now and then you get something exceptional like 'Batman' or 'Justice League', but even those shows struggle with the increasingly stringent rules for broadcast standards.
The DVD itself includes multiple commentary tracks - one of which includes producer/director Nelson Shin - as well as interviews, trivia, commercials (U.S. and Japanese) for the movies and toy lines, some quick deleted scenes and test footage. I watched everything on the two-disc set which, ultimately, meant watching the movie from beginning to end five times in a row, and each time I enjoyed it and appreciated it more.
In summer of 2007, a live-action big-budget adaptation of the Transformers will hit screens courtesy of Steven Speilberg... based on everything I know about it (which is almost nothing) I have no idea whether it's going to be any good or not.
But if you've grown weary of the seemingly endless parade of films that feature big groups of CGI animated prancing animals, I highly recommend you join myself and the rest of the loyal cultists who revere THE TRANSFORMERS MOVIE. It's a lot of fun, and you're not even required to shave your head.
