The Transformers – Seasons Three and Four [25th Anniversary Edition] DVD Review

The Transformers – Seasons Three and Four
[25th Anniversary Edition]
2010, Shout! Factory
Originally Aired: September 15, 1986 – November 11, 1987

Bonus Features

• “The Autobots, The Decepticons & The Fans” – A look at the loyal fans of The Transformers
• From the Files of Teletraan-2
• Rare PSAs
• Archival Hasbro Toy Commercials
• Art Gallery

Picking up a few months (years?) after the events of Transformers: The Movie, Seasons 3 & 4 continue down the dark sci-fi path that the film set forth. Up to this point, The Transformers was basically G.I. Joe with a cast of robots but the series now goes completely sci-fi and gets dark and weird. When this season started up, if you had missed out on the movie, your brain would have exploded… New characters, new setting, new attitude, new theme music!

Various planets and creatures are seen and the show doesn’t spend too much time on Earth. I should point out that it seems like most of the remaining/surviving Autobots from the first two seasons are stationed on Earth so it’s the cast from the animated movie that is still front and center.

Season 3 kicks off with the five-part “The Five Faces of Darkness”. You can count this as a sequel to Transformers: The Movie. After the events of the movie, the lifeless head of Unicron now orbits Cyberton, Decepticons are desperate for energon and leaderless, Cyclonus & Scourge go off in search of Galvatron (who returns as a mad man due to some of his circuitry being damaged) and the Quintessons are back as well and scheming to destroy all Transformers so they can reclaim control of Cyberton (turns out they created Cyberton AND the ancestors of the Transformers).

So now the rest of the series is a battle between the Autobots, the Decepticons and the Quintessons although the Decepticons and Quintessons often are uneasy allies and attempt to use each other. Then there’s Starscream who makes two appearances in Season 3. He is now a ghost who can take control of other Transformers’ bodies (none of that is explained) and he is scheming to get his old body back plus get revenge on Galvatron.

Starscream’s real shining moment is in “Ghost in the Machine” where he forces Scourge to help him bring Unicron’s head back online and attempts to join Unicron’s head to Cybertron in order to bring Unicron back to full power so that Unicron will give him his body back. This is one of the better episodes of the season and could’ve easily been flushed out to being another multi-part story. Unfortunately, it’s the last we see of Starscream as he’s blown out into space (he got his old body back) at the end of the episode and is never to be seen or heard from again for the rest of the series.

A few words about Galvatron: I don’t like him. I loved Megatron. Megatron was a villain but he had a sense of honor, common sense and leaderskills that Galvatron is severely lacking. Galvatron is nuts and temperamental and even though it’s explained why he is this way after the events of the movie, I still don’t like it. He’s always flying off the handle, shooting and punching his own Decepticons in the middle of battle just because things aren’t going the way he wants. Megatron would have never acted like that. Frank Welker voiced Megatron and voices Galvatron as well (though the role of Galvatron was originally played by Leonard Nemoy in the movie) but I don’t like the voice he’s using for him. I was hoping he’d use something closer to Megatron’s voice.

There’s an episode that devotes itself even more to Galvatron’s insanity. In “Webworld”, Cyclonus tricks Galvatron into going to a planet that treats beings for mental illness. It does not end well for that planet and Galvatron’s sanity is not restored.

As far as characters go, pretty much everyone in the movie is still heavily featured. For the Autobots there’s Rodimus Prime, Ultra Magnus, Kup, Arcee, Wheelie, Blurr, Wreck-Gar, Springer and the old guard are mostly represented by Perceptor, Blaster, the Aerialbots and Grimlock (the other Dinobots are rarely seen and Swoop is completely MIA for some reason). I was surprised by how much Perceptor and Blaster get used. Cosmos, Omega Supreme, Warpath and Jazz make cameos. Bumblebee is rarely seen and his only notable role is during “The Return of Optimus Prime” when he joins the Throttlebots and becomes Goldbug.

The Witwicky family (Spike, Carly and their son Daniel) are still around and there’s a new human Autobot ally: Capt. Marissa Fairborn of the Earth Defense Command. A few new Autobots have been brought in: the city-bot Metroplex (the biggest Autobot of them all… he’s the Autobots’ base on Earth), Sandstorm, Sky Lynx, the Throttlebots and the Technobots being the most prominent.

On the Decepticon side, the main characters are Galvatron, Cyclonus, Scourge and the Sweeps. Soundwave, the Constructicons, the Stunticons and Astrotrain play various minor roles and the rest of the old guard are basically background characters. New Decepticons include Octane, the Predacons, Runabout, Runamuck and the Terrorcons. Both the Predacons and Terrorcons appear in the series with no explanation. I always liked the origin episodes for the combiners so I was disappointed to see them thrown out there with zero back story.

Then there’s the Quintessons and their Sharkticons and all of these guys are basically interchangeable and were seen in the movie.

Despite some good episodes such as the five-parter, “Dark Awakening” (Optimus Prime returns from the dead), “The Return of Optimus Prime” (Opitmus Prime returns from the dead for real) and the episodes featuring Starscream’s ghost there are some truly horrid episodes. “Carnage in C-Minor” may be the worst TF episode EVER and “The Dweller in the Depths” (written by Paul Dini!) & “Nightmare Planet” are garbage too although my online research says “Dweller” is a fan favorite. There are also LOTS of animation mistakes throughout the these episodes.

1987′s “Season 4″ is just three episodes. Hasbro was ready to cease production on the cartoon but as a gesture to the fans we get “The Rebirth” three-parter to give the series a conclusion. I’m fairly certain Hasbro’s motives weren’t entirely altruistic though because in addition to starring Optimus Prime and some major Season 3 characters these episodes are FULL of recent additions to the Transformers toy line such as the Targetmasters, Headmasters, Punch-Counterpunch, the Horrorcons, the Decepticon/Autobot Clones, Scorponok and Fortress Maximus. It’s unfortunate that the transfer on these final three episodes is not very good. The  color is washed out and the animation isn’t all that great either but animation wasn’t Season 3′s strong-suit either.

Technically, there is a Season 5 that aired in 1988 but it was a “best of” season that features a stop-motion Optimus Prime in Powermaster form re-telling Autobot adventures to some kid.

Despite some terrible episodes, truth be told, this set is pretty good. It’s just that the series has a totally different vibe from Seasons 1 & 2 and it’s a bit off-putting at first. I really don’t have a problem with the new characters but it would have been nice to have seen other surviving Autobots from the earlier seasons interact with the new regime and Rodimus is no Optimus. I think Season 3 was really hurt by the fact that Optimus Prime was absent from it.

Still, I had fun watching these two seasons and the set is definitely worth picking up for G1 fans if only to see the original Transformers saga come to a close (in the U.S. anyway but we’ll get to into that at a later date).

Highlights: “The Five Faces of Darkness” Parts 1-5, “Dark Awakening”, “Starscream’s Ghost”, “Fight or Flee”, “Webworld”, “Ghost in the Machine”, “The Ultimate Weapon”, “Grimlock’s New Brain”, “The Return of Optimus Prime” Parts 1 & 2, “The Rebirth” Parts 1-3

Buy the DVD set at Amazon.com

Masters of the Universe (The Live Action Motion Picture) DVD Review

Masters of the Universe
2009, Warner Home Video
Original Release: 1987, Cannon Films

Special Features
Feature-Length Commentary by Director Gary Goddard
Theatrical Trailer

Do you remember walking through the movie theater in 1987 and seeing this…

?

I do! YES! A live-action version of Masters of the Universe! But wait… That’s gotta be He-Man but why does he look like he belongs in a Mad Max movie? Why is he holding an assault rifle ?! Why is the gun more prominent than the Power Sword ?!

Yes, I remember seeing that poster and instantly feeling a mix of joy and doom. I was extremely happy that a live-action He-Man movie was coming but just by the teaser poster alone I already was not liking how they were going to be portraying the world of Eternia. Oh yeah… Eternia. Didn’t really feature as much in the movie as we He-Man fans would’ve wanted, did it?

That is probably my one biggest gripe about the movie — how can you have the very first Masters of the Universe movie and then not set the entire film on Eternia? Granted, the movie is a goofy cheesy ’80s movie no matter what but taking the majority of the film to Earth in the year of 1987  extremely dates the film and isn’t what people wanted to see. Maybe something like that could’ve been done for a sequel but for the initial MOTU film? Nah. Keep it on Eternia.

Given that Cannon Films was usually very budget conscious, my theory is that they built the bare minimum set pieces that they could for Eternia (basically Gwildor’s hut and Skeletor’s throne room) and then filmed on location in Los Angeles because it was cheaper to do that than having to build even more set pieces. So that’s why we ended up with the story of He-Man & Co. ending up on Earth. To be fair though, I think this movie was probably had one of Cannon’s biggest budgets. Wikipedia states $22 million but in the director commentary Gary Goddard states they had a $17 million budget at a time when most movies had $6-8 million budgets.

 As you can see from of the artwork, they were really going for a Star Wars vibe right down to getting Drew Struzan to do the artwork. Great artwork though and it does a great job of making the movie look amazing. Even Skeletor’s soldiers (something he didn’t have in the cartoon) look like Storm Troopers except their armor is black and their helmets appear to be that of Imperial Gunners.

Anyway, Eternia issues aside, it would’ve been nice to also see a bit more character depth. I guess the writers & producers just assumed anyone coming to see this movie already knew the backstory so we get thrown right into the middle of the action. That’s commendable on some levels because I know many fans of geek culture groan over “origin” movies but it still would have been really nice to see a live-action transformation of Prince Adam to He-Man. There is no mention of Prince Adam at all in this movie.

Even the Power Sword receives very little recognition in the film. He-Man seems to prefer using laser blasters. He holds it up one time towards the end of the film to yell “I HAVE THE POWER” but it’s too little too late and the moment is glossed over. The He-Man/Skeletor sword fight is pretty brief and lame compared to what Luke Skywalker & Darth Vader had done. In the movie’s defense, director Gary Goddard does that that due to time restrictions the final battle was not staged the way he wanted it and some portions of the throne room set went unused.

Another weird quirk is the absence of the typical MOTU villains. Sure, we have Skeletor, Evil-Lyn and Beastman but what about Tri-Klops, Merman or Trap-Jaw? The movie introduces some new villains: Blade (who almost seems like a stand-in for Tri-Klops), Saurod (a reptilian creature that reminds me of the Goombas from the Super Mario movie) and Karg (who reminds me of the late Ronnie James Dio). None of those three characters were ever on the TV show, which was canceled by this time anyway, but Blade & Saurod were given action figures.

On the Heroic Warriors side, I think they did pretty well: He-Man, Man-At-Arms, Teela and a captive Sorceress. They could’ve expanded upon that if there was a sequel and added Mekaneck, Stratos, Man-E-Faces, Ram Man, Buzz-Off and/or Orko. Speaking of Orko, even as a kid, I  always assumed Gwildor was meant to be his replacement in the movie. Upon listening to Goddard’s commentary, he confirms that by saying it would’ve been too financially & technically difficult to put Orko in the movie. So, they replaced a magician that always screws up and is played for humor with an inventor that always screws up and is played for humor.

Ultimately, the film was not a critical or financial success. Released in August 1987 (and I remember seeing it in Fort Walton Beach, Florida on opening weekend while visiting my grandparents), it made only $17 million total. Had it been released a year or two earlier (remember, the show had been canceled in 1985 and the toy line had been losing steam as well since it had no show to help promote it) and had it stayed more faithful to the fantasy-based cartoon/toy line rather than going in a sci-fi direction (that was inspired by Jack Kirby’s “Fourth World” comics from DC Comics) it probably would’ve done better.

Even though the movie kinda broke even or maybe even lost a few million for Cannon, a sequel was written and planned. Unfortunately, Cannon ran into financial troubles in 1989 and could no longer afford the MOTU license. The sequel’s script would later go on to be re-worked into Cyborg starring Jean-Claude Van Damme and when that movie was played on television it was sometimes retitled Masters of the Universe 2: Cyborg.

I think Masters of the Universe is a fun cheesy ’80s fantasy/adventure. It almost seems forgotten but I think it’s a real cult classic. Dolph Lundgren was a great voice (visually at least) for He-Man and Courtney Cox is cute as a button in her first movie role and plays her part well.

With plans for a new MOTU on the way, I’m sure a small spotlight will get thrown back on this movie in the next few years. I think the movie has been released on DVD twice. Once in 2001 through Warner Home Video but it was in a snap case. I made sure to order the 2009 edition because it features the standard DVD keep case which I prefer over the snap case that Warner Bros. well hell-bent on using for a number of years. Both editions have the same special features. My particular copy was made for distribution in U.S. & Canada so that’s why you see the film’s title in French on the cover.

I’m truly surprised they even bothered giving the movie a director’s commentary. You’d think something like would would’ve been made bare bones and then thrown into the $5 bin at Walmart. I usually never listen to commentaries but for this movie, I felt like trying it and enjoyed it.

Either DVD edition can be found for $6-8 and it’s well worth picking up for all He-Man fans. Sure, it’s not the MOTU we wanted to see but it’s a lot better than New Adventures of He-Man that’s for sure!

Buy the movie!

Caught In the Draft & Give Me A Sailor… Bob Hope Double Feature DVD Review!

Caught In The Draft / Give Me A Sailor
2002, Universal Studios Home Video

This double feature DVD was “lost” in my collection for about a year or so. I felt like I owned it but I didn’t even have it checked off in my “Bob Hope DVD” Word document! Luckily, I found it a few weeks ago while sorting through the DVDs in my closet. I had rented this collection from Netflix before but I don’t think I ever watched the movies once I owned them. I had seen Caught in the Draft a few times courtesy of AMC (Remember when American Movie Classics used to show classic movies… in B&W no less?) but I had viewed Give Me A Sailor just the one time when renting it.

Caught In The Draft
1941, Paramount Pictures

This is a typically funny Hope movie from the 1940s. Other than Hope, this is a great cast: Lynne Overman (who previously was in The Big Broadcast of 1938 with Hope) & Eddie Bracken (who would later be in Star Spangled Rhythm) are great as Hope’s friends and flunkies and Dorothy Lamour brings her usual mix of class & sex appeal to the screen. She’s super-adorable in this one and I love the scene where she’s down at the Army recruiter’s office and they do a close-up of her winking.

In this one, Bob plays a big Hollywood actor that is trying to dodge the draft by getting married to Dorothy’s character Tony (whose father is a colonel), whom he recently met on set while filming a war movie. Problem is, she figures out his true motives, gets mad and then when Hope tries to win her back and impress her by setting up a fake enlistment, it turns out he signs on for real!

Comedy ensues as Hope gets his buddies to sign up too and as they try to make it through basic training, Bob tries to win the love of Tony while also also trying to impress her father.

One of Bob’s better movies that doesn’t feature Bing (not even a cameo this time!).

Give Me A Sailor
1938, Paramount Pictures

Not really a Bob movie at all this is more a vehicle for Martha Raye though Hope does co-star with her. It’s based on a play called Linger Longer Betty and has Letty (Raye) longing for Jim’s (Hope) brother Walter and Jim longing for his brother’s girlfriend Nancy (a hot Betty Grable). They try to break them up and eventually succeed. Letty gets engaged to Walter and Jim dates Nancy but then Letty & Jim discover what they really want is each other. Reading that back, they don’t really sound like likable characters and neither really suffers any consequences for breaking up Walter & Nancy but oh well. It worked for the time. I don’t think you could pull something like this off in a movie today without the characters coming across as huge jerks.

Not a great movie but worth watching once or twice to see Bob acting instead of constantly spitting out one-liners. Martha Raye is pretty cute in an odd way.

Overall:

A worthy DVD to add to the collection of any Bob Hope fan!

Buy ‘Caught in the Draft/Give Me A Sailor’ at Amazon.com

Transformers: The Movie [20th Anniversary Special Edition] DVD Review

Transformers: The Movie [20th Anniversary Special Edition]
(2006, Sony & BMG Music Home Entertainment)

Like every kid back in the ’80s, I was really hyped for this movie when it came out. It was released theatrically on August 8, 1986 but I’m not sure if I actually saw it in the theater. What I do remember is being very excited to make the trip to the local Curtis Mathes and renting it when it had just been released on VHS in 1987. They had the poster up for a few weeks promoting its arrival to video and that poster had been teasing me that whole time (just as it was meant to). It’s funny though because looking back, the movie’s trailer doesn’t spotlight the Autobots we had come to know and love at all. It’s all about the new guys and whoever is voicing them.

Despite the fuzzy nostalgia factor for this movie, I do have some complaints about it and I guess they are pretty much the same complaints that everyone else has.

First, all of those Autobot deaths. Honestly, it would’ve gone over better if more Decepticons had died so we could’ve had more of a balance. The Autobots were completely massacred in the opening moments of the film. They looked so helpless and the only Decepticon that ended up dying was Starscream and that was at the hands of Megatron! Pretty much all of the Autobots from Season 1 were destroyed. Of course, the whole point of the animated Transformers was to sell the toys and they had new toys coming out so this is why they killed off so many of the older Autobots. It just seems so disrespectful though to finish this guys off so quick. Wheeljack only got a brief cameo, he was never even seen alive in the movie! And of course, the killing of Optimus Prime was a big mistake that backfired for Hasbro. It was such a mistake that the planned death of Duke in G.I. Joe: The Movie was changed. I don’t even really have a problem with the new Autbots introduced here, I just didn’t like how they handled getting rid of the previous Autobots.

So the second complaint would be the soundtrack. The songs themselves aren’t that bad. It’s cheesy ’80s rock & pop, which I love, but a lot of it just seems so inappropriate with its placement during the movie. I really love Lion’s version of the Transformer theme though and it was cool to hear Spectre General/Kick Axe’s original version of “Hunger” (which was later covered by King Kobra… a band that’s guilty pleasure of mine).

Transformers: The Movie
(1986, De Laurentiis Entertainment Group)

As for the actual plot, there isn’t much of one. It’s nonstop action and is set in 2005, twenty years after Season 2. The Decepticons attack the Autobots, meanwhile a giant robot called Unicron is making his way across the universe eating planets (Galactus, is that you?). The only thing that can destroy Unicron is the Autobot’s Matrix of Leadership (Ultimate Nullifier, is that you?). So, after saving Megatron’s metal butt after being left for dead by Starcream, who briefly assumes control of the Decepticons, Unicron upgrades Megatron into Galvatron and upgrades a few other damaged Decepticons such as Thundercracker, Bombshell & Skywarp and sends them to destroy the Matrix (currently being held by Ultra Magnus who was appointed Autobot leader by a dying Optimus Prime). After that, the movie mostly stars the new Autobots (Hot Rod, Ultra Magnus, Kup, Arcee, Springer, Blurr, Wheelie) along with minor roles being filled by Dan Witwicky (Spike’s son), the Dinobots, Percepter and Blaster.

Does it feel like Transformers? Not really. Too much old was (coldly) thrown away in favor of too much new. It’s hard to relate when most of the characters that we’ve come to know as Transformers just aren’t there. The soundtrack is a fish out of water and there’s some language that you wouldn’t hear on the cartoon series. I like the fact that they finally took the Transformers off of earth for the most part though. I’ve always thought it was silly to see the Autobots & Decepticons continuously battling each other on earth. It was good to see the Autobots interact with other planets and creatures.

Overall, it’s a fun goofy movie but a tad depressing due to the treatment of the characters that the franchise built its name on (just like G.I. Joe: The Movie).

I will say this, for this particular edition, the bonus features are great. This is a two-disc collection complete with widescreen & full screen formats, audio commentary, photo gallery, theatrical trailer, TV spots, trivia, alternate footage, storyboards, toy commercials, easter eggs, the Japan-exclusive “Scramble City” episode (with audio commentary only) and a few new featurettes. The bonus features alone will keep you occupied for some time. I really wish the G.I. Joe animated movie DVD had gotten this type of treatment. There was a cool lenticular card insert that alternated DVD cover art featuring Optimus Prime with a version featuring Rodimus Prime and other characters but I lost it.

I know there’s a Blu-ray copy of this movie but all I have found is a All Regions disc and it’s running for about $60 on Amazon. I’m sure the bonus features are all the same but I would say it’s best to stick with this 2006 DVD release until a more legitimate Blu-ray version pops up. Although, this copy isn’t getting any cheaper. It’s out of print and even used copies are going for about $25 these days.

Buy the DVD at Amazon.com

The Transformers – Season Two, Volume Two [25th Anniversary Edition] DVD Review

The Transformers – Season Two, Volume Two [25th Anniversary Edition]
(2009, Shout! Factory) Originally Aired: November 6, 1985 –  January 9, 1986

Special Features:
“The Combiner: Forming The Transformers Animated Series”
Rare PSAs
Archival Hasbro Toy Commericals
Concept Art

Ah… So HERE we have the special features. Looks like Shout Factory was saving them for the second volume of Season 2. Which I think is weird. Not that I’m a special features guy anyway but if it was up to me, I would’ve split whatever features they had between the two volumes.

So I’m starting to like the TF cartoon a lot more than I did when I was a kid. I still prefer G.I. Joe but it’s pretty hard to deny how cool it is to see giant robots knocking each other on their butts!

The second half of Season 2 is very strong. We get a lot more Transformers introduced, more sub-teams: Stunticons, Aerialbots, Combaticons and Protectobots. I really love these episodes, it’s always fun seeing a bunch of new Transformers join the team and it’s also fun to see what they can combine into.

On the Decepticon side, the Stunticons combine to form Menasor. Not really a fun of these guys. The Stunticons are stunt cars that Megatron used Vector Sigma (the computer that created Cyberton) to give life to. Tough cars, they love to speed around and crash into stuff but individually and combined as Menasor, they look generic. The other new Decepticon combiner is Bruticus who is composed of the Combaticons. The Combaticons and Bruticus all look pretty cool. Combaticons are earthly military vehicles that were given life by Starscream through the use of 5 Decepticon personality components that had been imprisoned on Cybertron.

For the Autobots, there is Superion, which is the combined form of the Aerialbots. The Aerialbots were originally used as transport shuttles on Cybertron and were also given life by Vector Sigma, with the help of Alpha Trion, in order to combat the Stunticons. Finally, there is the Protectobots and their gestalt known as Defensor. No origin story here, they just showed up in one of the last episodes and the seasons and seem to primarily spend their time in the city protecting humans rather than hanging out at Autobot HQ waiting for the Decepticons to strike.

There’s some good character/origin episodes in this set. We learn about more Omega Supreme and his relationship with the Constructicons, how Optimus Prime became Optimus Prime and as mentioned above we get to see more hows and whys of the combiners joining the ranks.

Granted, there are some pretty stupid episodes but that’s the be expected. “The Girl Who Loved Powerglide” is awful and shows Powerglide and some human girl falling in love (!!!). “Hoist Goes Hollywood” is another bad one and it features the Autobots becoming actors and they end up battling the Decepticons on set. I didn’t really care much for “Prime Target” either which has a human game-hunter going after Optimus Prime in order to mount his head on his wall.

Out of all 21 episodes included in this set, there’s only one I vaguely remembered from my childhood — “Auto-Bop” and that’s just for the dance club scenes alone. Ah, nostalgia!

Very good set that concludes a very good season. Looking forward to picking up that Season 3 & 4 DVD collection but there’s a movie I have to talk about first…

Highlights: ”The Secret of Omega Supreme”, “The Search for Alpha Trion”, “Triple Takeover”, “The Key to Vector Sigma” Parts 1 & 2, “Cosmic Rust”, “Starscream’s Brigade”, “The Revenge of Bruticus”

Buy ‘Transformers: Season Two, Vol. 2 (25th Anniversary Edition)’ at Amazon.com