Hacker Cinema
The Transformers: The Movie
1986 · Film · 85 min
Directed by Nelson Shin
AnimationScience FictionActionAdventureFamily
The Autobots must stop a colossal planet-consuming robot who goes after the Autobot Matrix of Leadership. At the same time, they must defend themselves against an all-out attack from the Decepticons.
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10 comments on Hacker News
The Transformers: The Movie soundtrack got me through this morning's workout. Highly recommended.
Absolutely my feeling as well.
I bought the Bluray off of Ebay recently and watched with my wife. English is not her first language and she was concerned but I told her it was a very rare case where the spectacle is worth the watch. After one watch, we both agreed.
The gorgeous visuals (a proper use of blue/orange heavy contrast), the amazing soundtrack — and a mostly inoffensive, enjoyable story.
(My controversial opinion is that it's my favourite synthwave musical since 1986's Transformers The Movie, but I can see how that sounds insane)
Having just re watched Gremlins with teenage children (for their first time), there is definitely something about that era of movies.
Dodgy animatronics were first scoffed at, and then forgotten pretty quickly as everyone just got into the pure enjoyment of that movie.
This is a nigh on 40 year old film, with a lot of target references, yet it still hits the mark..
That said, rewatched transformers too, purely for the joy of the initial transformation (childhood toys coming to life..), and thoroughly enjoyed it (though it's already feeling a bit dated).
There have always been ads targeted at children - in the 70s and 80s they were shows like Super friends, Transformers, and GI Joe. The entire point of the Transformers movie in the 80s was to kill off all of the Autobots to introduce a new line of toys.
I'm convinced the 80s was the best decade.
Mullets were OK
Mid-rift bearing shirts for MALES were OK (even in Net Fabric)
Computers were cool
Phreaking was 1337
Captain Crunch
Movies were fantastic (minus the pedos who were tormenting the great kid actors of the day)
Transformers
Space Lego
NES
etc...
reminder that the one true transformers movie, the one from 1986, is coming back to theaters 9/27.
https://www.fathomevents.com/events/the-transformers-1986-movie-event
Thanks for posting this - some great memories and great links here. I'll jump on the bandwagon since I don't see any MUSHes mentioned here yet.
MUSH was MUD-based, but built around roleplaying (planned and improvised) and community-driven building. PennMUSH also had a great underlying program language that was (in retrospect, quite amazingly) flexible and powerful. Many MUSHes had very advanced combat, economy, and other systems. I developed a love of programming thanks to the PennMUSH codebase.
My personal favorite was (still is) TF2k5 (Transformers: 2005) - oddly enough, a MUSH based on the 1986 Transformers movie. :) Last I checked it was still going.
I bookmarked an old feature Kieron Gillen did on RPS about MUSHes (and TF2k5)[0] a long time ago - still a very dead-on description in my opinion.
[0] https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2009/07/08/gaming-made-me-3-kieron-gillengthily-played
I was amazed to recently have found out that he played the voice of Galvatron in the original Transformers movie (which was amazingly not-sucky compared to the series).
He has a long list of roles as a voice actor.
Do tell what the movie is.
I like the original transformers movie, great dialogue and outstanding jap. animation.
I don't recall characters being killed off in the Transformers cartoon show. A good chunk of the classic characters were killed off in the first ten minutes of the theatrical movie though. After watching several characters get killed in the span of thirty seconds, keep in mind we had never really seen this before, they then top it off with killing one of the most beloved characters in the series.
I was a kid at the time. I was shocked. I cried. About a fictional cartoon robot. I didn't feel that way again until that jerk Whedon killed Wash.
The result was that since the reaction to all this was rather severe, kids were devastated, that they actually changed the storyline in the GI Joe animated movie they were producing at the time. Duke was supposed to be killed in that movie but changed it so that he actually survived instead. Of course, they show that he survived by just adding in a background voice at the end of the movie saying that Duke was going to be okay! If you watch the scene where he is injured, with the idea he wasn't supposed to survive, you can tell by the way the scene was animated that he clearly dies right then and there.
On a side note, most of the time none of the GI Joes would be killed in the comic book, just faceless Cobra soldiers. But I remember one comic where a few of the Cobra soldiers commit mass murder by shooting up several of the Joes that were being held prisoner in a pit. As usual, older characters to be replaced by newer ones to freshen up the toy line I suppose.