The Transformers (Original US Series)

[Taco]

Warning: There may be some spoilers, and I don't feel like marking them, so read at your own risk.

Transformers, the original show, was a big part of my older brothers' youth, along with Robotech, although I don't really remember ever seeing either show when they were still on TV; I think they both went off the air when I was 3. There was the re-airing of the series by Fox during like the early nineties ("Generation 2"). However, my fondest memory of the show was probably it's movie, with Judd Nelson as Hot Rod, some guy as Cup, and Eric Idle as the junk-bot Wreck-gar. "Bah-weep-grah-nah-weep-ninnie-bong?" They were the most notable characters to me when I was young. I also noted when Optimus Prime died; that was sad. Later, I've also noted that Leonard Nemoy was Galvatron (what Megatron became) and Orsen Welles played Unicron (his last roll in a movie ever. He also hated it, evidently. Silly old people.) I think I also liked Ultra Magnus and such, but Hot Rod and Cup are two of my favorite characters ever; Hot Rod especially.

I was just searching through wikipedia pages tonight, looking up random titles of movies, when I decided to look up this movie. "The Transformers: The Movie" is one of my favorite movies, probably. I kid you not. It was something to look forward to during my early childhood, when it would either come on TV, or we'd rent it from Hollywood or whatever.

There was a stretch of about 7 years or so that I didn't see the movie, and the last time I'd seen it was when I was really young, so I'd recreated scenes and events from the movie in my head. All I had to go off of was an audio tape my brother recorded of 20 minutes of the movie, near the beginning, for whatever reason. I think he was trying to tape "Dare" and "The Touch," but he also got a bunch of other stuff on there, including lines from Blaster and Blurr that I thought were cool "No way, two can play!" "We got decepticons decepticons decepticons!" (and then something about "we shoot 'em off the wall then we'd shoot 'em in the air and if we shoot 'em in the air then that leaves us nowhere, that's where!" Never really fully understood that line...)

I remember once we were going to rent the movie, but we got some weird video with still frames being voiced over by accident. That was pretty lame. This also brings to mind that Hanna Barbera rip-off of Transformers, The Go-bots, which somehow aired longer than the original Transformers run (or came after it; I just remember wanting to watch Transformers, and having to settle for that lame show instead).

Anyhoo, then we rented again finally, and my brother dubbed it (uh-oh; copywrite infringements...) Then, he got the VHS for me for my birthday. Then like last year, my other brother got the DVD version for me for Christmas, and I got to hear the fabled "Oh, shit! What do we do now?" line by Spike. That brother had also gotten me the soundtrack for my birthday years earlier; that was my very first CD.

As much as I love the movie, there were some plot holes; like what happened to Blaster when Galvatron and his men came to attack the Autobots while they were still on Earth? He was there just moments earlier to receive the transmission from Jazz and... Cliffjumper? about Moon Base 1 being eaten by Unicron, and I think also for Bumble Bee and Spike's transmission (or did they send a message?) The Wikipedia article speculates on some other characters' fates, but not his. He was cool, too, and especially in the comic, where he had an entire issue dedicated to him saving his friend on Cybertron (my brother had like the first 20-some issues of the original comics. Then he gave them away to one of his friends, for some reason... jerk.)

Anyhoo... that movie is awesome. I don't remember much of the series, though, except the first few episodes, and then the episodes where the dinobots are introduced, and another few episodes with the dinobots involved. I remember that the Decepticon's base was moved from the ocean to the moon, or something, right? And the original landing site of the Autobot's ship was in Oregon (yay for my home state!)

Anyone else read the comic books much? The Autobots kept on losing/dying in the comics. I didn't like that very much. Optimus Prime would die, and there would be some chance for him to come back, and Megatron would stop it. There was also some crazy chick who collected Transformer's faces, or something, and put them on her wall (I guess because they killed her father, or something....) Yeah, the comic was really dark. Shockwave also killed Megatron in the comic book to become the leader (I think his name was Shockwave; the guy with like a megaphone for a face, or something.)

Anyhoo, this has been out for a while, but I just found it tonight, and it made me happy, so I'm leaving a link for it: "The Touch" Music Video.

Wuv, Yer Mom