The Transformers: The Movie (1986) 20th Anniversary DVD (1 Viewer)

[Johnny Jr.]

I have seen the Prime's at bestbuy as well.

 

[Antony James]

A few more, this time including "Reconstructed" which I managed to find. (Again, not capped to represent PQ, just for colour and aspect ratio comparison.)

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And one last one just to prove that they weren't always animating with fullscreen in mind:
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[Inspector Hammer!]

Well, I love the OAR and the color timing on the Sony, so that's where my preferance lies in your examples.

Thanks for posting them, your a wealth of info, dude!

 

[AaronMan]

why are the two sony (FS and WS) so different? Aside from the framing, shouldn't they be the same( colors, etc.)?

 

[mike kaminski]

The new Sony WS and FS are taken from two completely different prints, explaining the different colours. Personally, i find that the majority of the time the Rhino release had richer and more dynamic colours that brought out the shading and yielded a more compelling and three-dimensional image. The Sony edition looks dissapointingly flat by comparison. The best part about the Sony edition is that the colours are very vibrant but not oversaturated--Transformers always had a duller look, and the G1 season dvds by Rhino were way too over-saturated, but the Sony dvd is at least vibrant yet still restrained. However, i still maintain that, although the picture is almost assuredly truer to the actual original print than the Rhino release, it is still overbright and off in certain colour aspects. This is backed up by the fact that the release wasn't simply a scan of the original 35mm widescreen negative--they "remastered" it and re-colour-timed it. Although these probably gave an overall better image than just a straight transfer of the print, it also altered it in some unnatural ways--in their attempts to get all the detail from the shadow areas, the overall image is at least 10% too bright to my eye, and in some shots much more. This is partially what has led to some of the unnaturall colouring--Hot Rod is not quite red, but he was never pink as he is in most shots on the disk. This is explained by the unnatural brightening--what happens to shades of red when they are brightened? They become pink. Hence, more proof that the disk is--although not in a majorly detrimental way--too bright. Unfortunately, i would say that aesthetically the darker Rhino release is far, far more pleasing--for instance Prime's death scene in that release had dramatic contrast and a dimmer and more shadowy look, with more shadows and rich shading, while in the new Sony release it is much, much flatter, relatively bright and overall evenly lit because all the shadow detail has now been lit up.

The plus side is that the print is spectacular in its condition--virtuall no specs or scratches, and a perfect exposure level throughout, with a rock-solidly stable picture. Most impressive. Which is all the more infuriating given my final point...

Its worth noting that the disk has the worst authoring i have ever seen for such a major release. The first thing i watched was the toy commerical clips, which are taken from a VHS tape, so i didn't immediately notice the compression--then i saw it but reasoned that a VHS toy commercial extra would be encoded at a pretty low bitrate. But as soon as the feature started i was horrified to discover that every video clip on the set, including both versions of the film, are a mess of DVD authoring. They have been horribly compressed, with pixelation and compression artifacts everywhere. These show up even in still shots and close-ups, where they should be completely absent--action scenes are more problematic, and highly detailed shots with thousands of small details moving across the screen--notably the junk planet scenes and the Unicron attacks--are a complete mess in some shots. On a smaller CRT monitor they won't show up very much, so you will probably get by, but to anyone who has a decent display you will be in for a major dissapointment. This is the level of shoddy workmanship that recalls are issued for. Very dissapointing.

I am overjoyed at the extras on this set though. Commentaries galore and some pretty decent extras--i thought i knew a lot about this film but i discovered so much new information! This is obviously not a badly-made set--lots of care went into it. They produced incredible extras, spent lots of money on finding an original print and remastering and re-colouring it, made really good menus and easter eggs and cool packaging--but then the last stage, the authoring, somebody fucked up royally and almost ruined this thing. All that hard work pretty much went down the drain. The video is watchable but very dissapointing. I am hoping that either a recall, or a future HD release made from the same source master is soon released.

 

[Johnny Jr.]

I guess it is worth to keep the rhino release after all.....hmmmmm... and I was debating if I should give it to a friend lol

 

[RobertM.Fleming]

A heads up for anyone seeking the 20th Anniversary Prime Figure. The electronic talking base they included with the figure IS NOT Peter Cullen's voice as Optimus Prime. Its actually pretty jarring to hear how bad the voice they got to say lines from the film is. For some reason audio files from the movie were not available for hasbro to use, and peter cullen was unavailable to re-record lines.

Yeah I dont get it either, especially since there are advertisements for the DVD all over the packaging. But it does have the transformer sound as one of the audio selections, so that kinda makes up for it...but not really.

The figure however...kicks major ass. well worth the price if you can swing it.

 

[Chad E]

I saw them at Cinema 1. I'm guessing they were probably American imports?

Of course, I had already bought a non-lenticular one at Best Buy, so I didn't buy it. IIRC, the Cinema 1 price was within a couple cents of the Best Buy price, which doesn't happen that often!

 

[Jonathan Peterson]

Yes, you should keep it. I was all set to trade mine in until I saw that this one looks much worse.

 

[Chad E]

Sorry to reply to myself, but I just thought I'd mention that I saw the lenticular covers in Future Shop this week. I don't recall them being there last week.

 

[Johnny Jr.]

GREAT! lol....I just opened the one I bought from costco...oh well for $13.99 I can live without the cover

 

[Matt^Brown]

Guys I just wanted to say these DVDs must be selling like crazy. I went to my local BB and CC on Saturday and they were both sold out. I honestly couldn't believe it.

 

[Dome Vongvises]

I don't know if I'm doing some weird goof or something, but I tried watching the widescreen version on 4:3 mode, and then comparing it to the fullscreen version in 4:3. Why do they look the same?

I bring this up because my friend has a 4:3 television. He compared the widescreen and the fullscreen version, and they look identical.

 

[Stephen J*]

Am I forgetting something? Why is one of the 20th anniversary Prime figure's weapons a transformed Megatron P-38 with scope, stock, and silencer?

 

[nolesrule]

Because Optimus Prime fired him in gun form in one of the episodes. I couldn't tell you which one though.

 

[Greg_C_T]

I never really understood the point of Megatron allowing himself to be fired as a gun by another Transformer (be it Prime, or Starscream) when he had that big-a&@ cannon on his right arm. I guess they had to work his "transformed" mode into the series somehow...

 

[Jeff Jacobson]

The Megatron gun that comes with Prime also attaches to the bottom of Masterpiece Starscream in jet mode. A Masterpiece Megatron figure is planned for release in Japan soon. Since he (once again) turns into a Walther P-38, it is unlikely this figure will be released in America.

 

[AaronMan]

Here's a link showing the prototype Megatron and explaining why USA can't have a cool toy because of our raging gun problem.

http://www.bigbadtoystore.com/bbts/p...il&picture=out

 

[Stephen J*]

Gee, I thought I had seen everthing in this series! I do remember Megatron being fired by Starscream in the movie, but I can't for the life of me remember ever seeing him transform otherwise.

 

[Rolando]

You are f*cking kidding me!

It is illegal to sell or own Megatron the exact same way that he was sold here 20 years ago? Because he transforms into a gun?

You are frigging kidding me right? Please tell me it's a joke.

Listen, I don't think any of the horrible things that have happened with guns in the hands of anybody is dismasable. Agreed it's fricking horrible and a tragedy.

But this my friends... this is how censorship starts and grows into a loss of more and more freedoms.