Transformers: the Movie 30th Anniversary DVD

[Zobovor]

I noticed that Walmart had the new version of The Transformers: the Movie on the racks for ten bucks, so I bought it on a whim.

As some of you may know, this release is an all-new digital transfer from the original negative. There is a seven-minute featurette that talks about the restoration process, and one of the things they mentioned specifically was about how they considered it important to get Hot Rod's colors right. This delighted and thrilled me because the last Shout! Factory DVD release, the colors were kind of muddy, and Hot Rod's colors in particular really, really irked me. (In all fairness, the last release had a widescreen and fullscreen version, and only one of the versions was muddy. I can never remember which, though.)

The results of the new digital transfer is that you can actually see a lot more detail than you used to be able to. They specifically showed a before-and-after comparison of Megatron's transformation into Galvatron, and when he's glowing pink, the backlighting all just sort of blended together and parts of him were this big, pink blob. In the new version, you can actually see all the detail that went into drawing him because the glowing effect isn't so completely hypersaturated.

They also did a lost of remastering, cleaning up dirt and damage present on the negative by digitally cutting-and-pasting pieces from other frames. This is actually kind of amazing because this is exactly what I do something when I'm making screen shots for my web site. (For example, sometimes I want a screen shot of a character as he strikes a specific pose, but if there's another character in the scene, I might take a piece of the background from before he walked into the scene and paste that over top of him.) I had no idea that what I do is also what the professionals in the industry do!

There is also a Q&A session with Susan Blu, Flint Dille, Nelson Shin, and Tom Griffin and Joe Bacal from Sunbow, but it's a ten-year-old interview because they make references to having surpassed the movie's date of 2005 by a single year, and it being the 20th anniversary of the film's release.

So I haven't rewatched the movie in its entirety (I will probably do that with my son tomorrow), but I've just been jumping around and checking a few scenes. When Unicron eats Lithone at the beginning, you can actually see the lava flowing where the planet's surface has cracked. During Megatron's attack on the Autobot shuttle, you can see the images dancing on all the shuttle monitors. Same with the inside of Optimus Prime's cabin when we get a momentary glimpse of it during the Autobot City battle. There's a lot more detail visible in the center of the Autobot Matrix; it's not just a vague blue glow.

They didn't catch and remove every single piece of damage to the negative (I spotted one when Shrapnel swoops towards Hot Rod and Daniel outside Autobot City, and also when Galvatron is threatening Unicron with the Matrix) but they still did a really good restoration job. Definitely worth the ten dollars.


Zob (seriously, Hot Rod is not supposed to be mud brown)

[Zobovor]

On Friday, September 16, 2016 at 5:45:24 PM UTC-6, Zobovor wrote:

<snip>

I threw together a quick comparison of the three Shout! Factory versions of the movie on DVD:

http://www.zmfts.t15.org/tftm_dvd_comparisons.jpg

I just remembered why the muddy version bothers me so much. Given a choice, I usually prefer to watch the movie in fullscreen, since that's how it was actually animated, as if it were made for TV screens (the top and bottom were just cropped to create the "widescreen" version seen in theaters). As you can see, when it's formatted for widescreen, you actually lose some of the image (the top of Hot Rod's spoiler and the bottom of his fishing pole). It's a pretty huge trade-off, though, since the quality of the fullscreen version is so poor.

I understand the decision to format the movie for widescreen again (it's what most moviegoers expect a movie to look like) but it's kind of a shame that they went to all the trouble to do this beautiful new digital transfer and then chop off ten percent of the image content off the top and ten more off the bottom.


Zob (it's like the frustration with buying Star Wars on DVD over and over... I wonder if George Lucas owns Shout! Factory)

[Travoltron]

I'm pretty sure it was designed to be cropped off though. Most anime
were done that way at the time. I have no idea why. I listened to a
director's commentary track on an Urusei Yatsura movie and he called it
a "poor man's vista [scope]".

I haven't watched the fullscreen version in a long time, but I'm pretty
sure I remember seeing an unpainted portion at the bottom of the cels in
a couple of places. (I think Grimlock's battle with the Sharkticons was
one.)

[Manic]

On Friday, September 16, 2016 at 8:05:11 PM UTC-7, Zobovor wrote:
> I threw together a quick comparison of the three Shout! Factory versions of the movie on DVD:

Only the 2016 edition is a Shout! Factory release, the 2006 release was a Sony product. When Shout! got the Transformers license in 2009 it was only for the TV series as the movie rights were owned by Paramount, who owned the theatrical movie rights and, apparently, that lumped in the 1986 animated movie with the live action movies.

> I just remembered why the muddy version bothers me so much. Given a choice, I usually prefer to watch the movie in fullscreen, since that's how it was actually animated, as if it were made for TV screens (the top and bottom were just cropped to create the "widescreen" version seen in theaters). As you can see, when it's formatted for widescreen, you actually lose some of the image (the top of Hot Rod's spoiler and the bottom of his fishing pole). It's a pretty huge trade-off, though, since the quality of the fullscreen version is so poor.

While it may have been animated with a 4:3 cel, it was intended for a 16:9 presentation and there are numerous other productions which were framed with an intent to exhibit in 16:9 but also filmed to protect for 4:3 television broadcasts. Harry Potter being a prime example.

Shout! has typically prioritized respecting the original format than catering to nostalgic preference, evidenced by retaining the slowed down act in "War Dawn" as that is how it was broadcast as well as including the original version of "Dark Awakening" instead of the version with Victor Caroli's voice over promoting "The Return of Optimus Prime." However, as is the case with G.I. Joe: the Movie, they have included both 16:9 and 4:3 versions of the movie on the Blu-ray release. I have not watched the 4:3 version to see if it was restored like the 16:9 version. It's quite evident from the commentary that the 16:9 version is the definitive version in the eyes of the director, which Shout! will always honour over a cropped (or, in this case, open matte) release formatted for television. Unlike G.I. Joe: the Movie, it appears the Transformers DVD omits the 4:3 version entirely. An odd choice unless they decided cramming both versions onto the disc along with the bonus content would reduce the quality for the movie itself.

[Zobovor]

On Saturday, September 17, 2016 at 1:00:07 AM UTC-6, Manic wrote:

> Only the 2016 edition is a Shout! Factory release, the 2006 release was a
> Sony product.

Hmm, I hadn't even bothered to look. I'd just assumed. My bad.

> it appears the Transformers DVD omits the 4:3 version entirely. An odd choice
> unless they decided cramming both versions onto the disc along with the bonus
> content would reduce the quality for the movie itself.

Well, it wouldn't have been that hard to just include two discs, like Sony did the first time. Shrug.


Zob (shrug again)

[Zobovor]

On Friday, September 16, 2016 at 9:54:10 PM UTC-6, Travoltron wrote:

> I haven't watched the fullscreen version in a long time, but I'm pretty
> sure I remember seeing an unpainted portion at the bottom of the cels in
> a couple of places. (I think Grimlock's battle with the Sharkticons was
> one.)

I rewatched the scene on my fullscreen DVD, but I couldn't find it. Let me know if you come across it again because I'd be interested in seeing it.

You can see instances of this sometimes in the actual Transformers television series, too. In animation from the 1980's, there was a TV cut-off point which the animators expected would never be visible. It varied from manufacturer to manufacturer so they couldn't predict it with 100% accuracy, but it was generally about two inches off each edge of the animation cel. There was also a "TV-safe titling" field for on-screen titles that was even more extreme.

(My dad had an old television set years ago, and whenenver I plugged my 8-bit Nintendo in to play, the TV always cut off the scoreboard and extra lives off the top of the screen for Super Mario Bros. Drove me nuts.)

Of course, with the advent of cartoons on DVD, and flatscreen televisions that don't exhibit the curvature and distortion of glass CRT television screens, we're seeing nearly the entire animated work in a way that we never did before. (Watching the Transformers DVD's on my computer, I've spotted generic background characters on the very far edge of the screen that I never noticed before when watching on a TV set.)


Zob (and thus Starcraft was born!)

[Manic]

I agree. Even though their G.I. Joe: the Movie release was only a single disc for their DVD release, which was actually intended to be 4:5 only until fan outcry convinced them to add the 16:9 version, they had crammed both versions plus the bonus features onto a single disc.

I think I read something way back that barring box sets of TV seasons, stores do not wish to buy multi-DVD packages, which would explain why the DVD versions of these type of releases contain only a single disc and why the G.I. Joe movie had the two crammed onto a single disc instead of adding a second disc. With the G.I. Joe movie, the 4:3 version was released only on a DVD disc even in the Blu-ray release. Maybe for its 30th anniversary Shout! will release the 4:3 version in HD.

[Iaclonus Warp]

On Friday, September 16, 2016 at 7:45:24 PM UTC-4, Zobovor wrote:
>
> This delighted and thrilled me because the last Shout! Factory DVD release, the colors were kind of muddy, and Hot Rod's colors in particular really, really irked me. (In all fairness, the last release had a widescreen and fullscreen version, and only one of the versions was muddy. I can never remember which, though.)

The Blu Ray edition of this new release does indeed include a second "Full Frame" disc, just like the 2006 Sony BMG release. I've only watched the widescreen disc, but I'm eager to check the second disc now to see if they actually restored the extra content on the top and bottom of the frame...

> The results of the new digital transfer is that you can actually see a lot more detail than you used to be able to. They specifically showed a before-and-after comparison of Megatron's transformation into Galvatron, and when he's glowing pink, the backlighting all just sort of blended together and parts of him were this big, pink blob. In the new version, you can actually see all the detail that went into drawing him because the glowing effect isn't so completely hypersaturated.

I *love* how the Blu Ray looks... feels like a much more nuanced colour palette than previous versions... I remember watching the 2000 Kid Rhino DVD and being straight-up disgusted by how Hot Rod and the Constructicons, in particular, were sporting these candy-coloured dayglo magentas and lime-greens. Really felt like the theatrical release and even the VHS versions had more shaded, deep colouring... it's amazingly satisfying and vindicating to see precisely that type of look that I was missing, rendered in such mesmerizing detail.

Some of the backgrounds just look so tantalizingly crisp and ornate now... the Planet of Junk... the crumbling viscera of Lithone... the twisting canyons of Quintessa... after nine years of watching Blu Rays, I finally feel like their existence is actually justified!

> There is also a Q&A session with Susan Blu, Flint Dille, Nelson Shin, and Tom Griffin and Joe Bacal from Sunbow, but it's a ten-year-old interview because they make references to having surpassed the movie's date of 2005 by a single year, and it being the 20th anniversary of the film's release.

Yeah, the extras kinda pissed me off. Aside from the "'Til All Are One" featurette, the restoration documentary and the interview with Mr. Ramondelli, literally *everything* else is just lifted straight from the 2006 Sony BMG release. And they only lifted about half of what the 20th anniversary package had to offer! They couldn't get a new commentary track done? I mean yeah, the Dille/Blu/Shin track is a classic... but I already bought it a decade ago! Would have been great to get a track with Mr. Berger, Mr. Ross and Mr. Gilvezan riffing off of their characters...

I get the feeling that lavish extra features have kinda gone out of fashion (it's strange how spartan the menu is, compared to the sprawling multi-page affair of the 2006 release), but it's still disappointing to see more than half of the content turn out to just be recycled material...

> They didn't catch and remove every single piece of damage to the negative (I spotted one when Shrapnel swoops towards Hot Rod and Daniel outside Autobot City, and also when Galvatron is threatening Unicron with the Matrix) but they still did a really good restoration job.

There *are* a few fleeting moments on the Widescreen Blu Ray that have some possibly restoration-related glitches. The first shot of the Hot Rod/Daniel fishing scene has about half a second of a weird double vision effect-- as if one layer of the image was a millimeter offset from the lower layer. I think that happened at one other point, but I can't remember when. Otherwise, I'm pretty dang pleased with the result...

J (am I nuts, or does Vince DiCola refer to Stan Bush as "Scott" a couple times when he's talking about "Dare" during the new featurette...?)

[Manic]

On Sunday, September 18, 2016 at 8:11:25 PM UTC-7, Iaclonus Warp wrote:
> J (am I nuts, or does Vince DiCola refer to Stan Bush as "Scott" a couple times when he's talking about "Dare" during the new featurette...?)

I'm pretty sure he was referring to Scott Shelly, who wrote the lyrics for "Dare" as Dicola mentioned having sung the melody "na na" style before sending it to him.

[Iaclonus Warp]

Oh! Okay, that makes sense... yeah, I just always assumed that Mr. Bush was the one filling in the lyrics. Shame on me that my first assumption was that Mr. DiCola would have slipped up with his most famous collaborator's name... and that no one editing the featurette would have caught that... :-/

J

[Iaclonus Warp]

On Friday, September 16, 2016 at 11:05:11 PM UTC-4, Zobovor wrote:
>
> I threw together a quick comparison of the three Shout! Factory versions of the movie on DVD:
>
> http://www.zmfts.t15.org/tftm_dvd_comparisons.jpg
>
> I just remembered why the muddy version bothers me so much. Given a choice, I usually prefer to watch the movie in fullscreen, since that's how it was actually animated, as if it were made for TV screens (the top and bottom were just cropped to create the "widescreen" version seen in theaters). As you can see, when it's formatted for widescreen, you actually lose some of the image (the top of Hot Rod's spoiler and the bottom of his fishing pole). It's a pretty huge trade-off, though, since the quality of the fullscreen version is so poor.

I watched the new "Full Frame" Blu Ray last night, and it does indeed match the aspect ratio and extra content that can be seen in the first entry of your comparison, but with the same restored image quality that is evident in the new Widescreen Blu Ray-- so its the best of both worlds. Thanks for pointing out the extra content on the top and bottom-- not sure I would have bothered to watch the Full Frame otherwise, so you've done me a great service!

It's weird how my brain doesn't quite want to accept that the Full Frame is actually the more complete picture, even though I can objectively identify a few added details in certain scenes (the Unicron transformation scene has a number of extra doo-dads that get cut off in the Widescreen, and I feel like I'm seeing more gauges and greeblies on Optimus Prime's dashboard when we get the driver's-eye view of him ramming Blitzwing... but most of the time you're just getting a bit more sky, starscape or ground). Something about seeing the black bars on the left and right side of the screen makes it feel claustrophic to me... bit like the old-timey sections of "The Grand Budapest Hotel"... <shrugs>... perhaps I'll eventually get used to it...

The Full Frame Blu Ray just has exactly the same features as the Widescreen Blu Ray... again. Having the same exact data show up duplicated in the overall package just seems like an asinine waste of storage space to me (the 2006 Sony BMG discs, of course, each had unique sets of features). What's the point? Were they planning on selling the Full Frame disc separately at some point?

So I've been freeze-framing a bit to see if the improved clarity allows me to pick up on any details I wasn't able to decipher before. Nothing really revelatory, though I think I see Sideswipe hanging above Unicron's acid vats now. I remember your discovery of Beachcomber back when the Rhino DVD (?) was released- and he's very clearly Beachcomber at this point- but I can't recall if there was any mention of the fact that the guy directly in front of Beachcomber seems to be a pretty spot-on match for 'Swipe's colour scheme (though his body is a tad too squat). Strikes me as odd that Sideswipe would presumably have been on Moonbase One, given the discarded storyboards that include him in a fight in Autobot City, taking down Devastator with Red Alert and Tracks...

J (plus the vestigial fanfic writer in the back of my brain is now kicking itself for ignorantly killing off Sideswipe in a story set nine years before the events of the movie... but how was I to know? Flatscreen TVs didn't even exist when I wrote that!)

[Zobovor]

On Tuesday, September 20, 2016 at 4:58:55 PM UTC-6, Iaclonus Warp wrote:

> Thanks for pointing out the extra content on the top and bottom-- not sure I
> would have bothered to watch the Full Frame otherwise, so you've done me a
> great service!

May I ask where you got your copy of the Blu-Ray version?



Zob (not Walmart, apparently...)

[Travoltron]

On 9/20/2016 6:26 PM, Zobovor wrote:
> May I ask where you got your copy of the Blu-Ray version?

I got my "Steelbook Edition" on Amazon.

[Iaclonus Warp]

Same here-- though I couldn't find a listing for the Steelbook edition when I pre-ordered (in mid-July, IIRC), so I just got the non-steel-packaged Blu Ray. I'm a *little* remorseful about not tracking down a Steelbook, but I hear that it boasts no actual difference, in terms of the discs themselves. Still a bit tempted to try to buy one to keep sealed as a display piece, but the chintzy special features has soured me on that idea a bit... plus displaying a sealed Blu Ray box feels pretty silly... even for me...

I didn't even know it would have two separate Blu Ray discs when I ordered it. The package itself makes virtually no mention of the fact that there are two discs. The only tip-off that I can find is the fine print chart at the bottom of the back of the box, which lists two distinct aspect ratios...

J (I guess clearly advertising multiple aspect ratio has gone out of fashion, along with sprawling ornate menus with varied and extensive special features...?)

[Manic]

On Tuesday, September 20, 2016 at 6:26:42 PM UTC-7, Zobovor wrote:
> May I ask where you got your copy of the Blu-Ray version?

I got mine through Amazon. I pretty much have to do most of my Blu-ray/DVD shopping online as it is getting increasingly difficult to find stuff in store, with home video sections rapidly diminishing. You can really only be "guaranteed" to find something in store if it is from a large studio or if it's Star Wars.

On Wednesday, September 21, 2016 at 8:37:00 PM UTC-7, Iaclonus Warp wrote:
> I didn't even know it would have two separate Blu Ray discs when I ordered it. The package itself makes virtually no mention of the fact that there are two discs. The only tip-off that I can find is the fine print chart at the bottom of the back of the box, which lists two distinct aspect ratios...

It says "2 Disc Set" right below the Blu-ray logo on the spine. However, even though it has nothing to do with the packaging itself, an easy way to learn the contents of a package is to look up its listing on blu-ray.com as it will tell you if it is a single disc or a multi-disc set, including a description of what type of discs are included.

In terms of the steelbook, I think it really comes down to if you really love the Ramondelli artwork. I find the characters to be so off model that they aren't an accurate representation of what you'll get in the movie, such that the first thing I did when I got my Blu-ray was switch the cover to the UK/Japan poster art. It's too bad Shout! used the Ramondelli art on the regular Blu-ray and DVD releases, instead of having just reversible art with the North American poster on one side and the UK/Japan poster on the other.