Talk:The Transformers: The Movie

Another variation

Hmm, that's odd. The version of the DVD I have has the scrolling text, the "Optimus Prime will return" voiceover, AND the part where Spike lets an "oh shit" slip.

I saw a Variation on the HUB Network in 2012, that had an extra 2-5 minute voice over that said something like the following "4 million years ago the Autobots and Decepticons crashed landed on Earth, they awoke in the year 1984, and a war started, in the years that followed the Decepticons have defeated the Autobots, it is now 2005, and the Autobots are on the verge of extinction." then the movie started as normal with Unicron eating the planet, then the opening title, then the Narrator doing the "It is the year 2005 and ....."

aspect ratio

When the movie was released it was in 1.78.1 widescreen, But it was animated in 1.33.1 (4:3) I think widescreen was its original ratio in cinema. Which is correct? Asda (talk) 04:02, 3 October 2015 (EDT)

I don't know what you think you're saying. The movie was animated in fullscreen, then it was cut down from there to widescreen for cinemas. This is what the article says, this is what happened. - Chris McFeely (talk) 07:59, 3 October 2015 (EDT)

Shockwave

Did he die or what? I remember hearing that the original script EXPLICITLY says that he died when Unicron crushed the building he was in, but the actual finished movie is considerably more vague about this... -hx 13:53, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

According to the TFTM script:

ANGLE ON CYBERTRON

Unicron enters shot and grasps at Cybertron with a hideous claw...

ANGLE ON A TOWER ON CYBERTRON

Shockwave talks into a communications device, as alarms sound and troopers run everywhere.

SHOCKWAVE: Decepticons...we're under attack...Scramble -

Then his voice is cut off as...

SHOCKWAVE'S POV - OUT HIS WINDOW

Unicron's hand reaches towards the window, squeezes, and the walls crash in.

SPACE - UNICRON AND CYBERTRON

Unicron tears off the tower and crushes it as...

A FLEET OF DECEPTICON SHIPS

streak out of Cybertron and begin firing on the enormous planet.

Here, we see the true scale of Unicron. The fighters are the size of bees as they attack.

-- While Shockwave's character model sometimes appeared in the third season (once in grey, once in Constructicon Green), I'm not sure that a properly-colored Shockwave ever showed up post-movie - not that that would necessarily mean anything in light of Evil Zombie Brawn And Huffer from Carnage In C Minor. --Monzo 18:47, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

That's pretty much what I figured. Shockwave kindasorta dies, and doesn't show up properly ever again, so you could argue that he's dead. -hx 19:43, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

He doesn't even kindasorta die in the final cut of the movie. He just has that one shot then we never see him again. No tower-crushy, no nothing. So it can really be argued either way. M "I'd Hesitate To Make A Call Either WAy" Sipher

Could those season 3 episodes Five Faces of Darkness, Part 3 and Five Faces of Darkness, Part 4 animation errors be his clones?.

German Dub

Does anyone know who spoke all the roles in the german dubbing? i can't find that info anywhere on the net, and neither on the german dvd :(

You should not look for the cast of the dvd version because, first the dub is tital crap, second the voiceactors are unknown, there are no information which studio did the dub nor who directed the dub. You can find the dublist here: http://215072.homepagemodules.de/t511208f11776731-Transformers-Kampf-um-Cybertron.html

The?

Shouldn't this article be called "The Transformers: The Movie"? That is the film's full title, isn't it? --KilMichaelMcC 06:39, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Here's a question.

Do we really need the (1986) at the end of this? It's not like "Transformers: The Movie" redirects to a disambiguation page with this and the '07 movie, or that the '07 movie is titled something different. It just seems...redundant, don't you think? There's only 'one' TFTM, and this is it. That, and I highly doubt there's gonna be another "Transformers: The Movie" within the next five or even ten years--when this Wiki would, realistically, still be operating. So yeah. Shouldn't we can that?

Transformers: The Movie (Marvel comic) exists. As will "The Transformers: The Animated Movie (comic)" for the current adaptation when someone gets around to it. We do need to have a disambiguation system for them though. --ItsWalky 02:37, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the above, but am inclined to say this article still doesn't need a paranthetical in its title, it being far more prominant than the other Transformers: The Movies. Of course, the last time I moved an article that has disambiguation to the non-parenthetical location I got a bunch of people saying "WTF?" even though that's what Help:Disambiguation has said to do since I wrote it back at the dawn of time. (See "Talk:Constructicon".) --Steve-o 06:28, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Walky's point: Then I don't really see the relevance of the year. On top of that, all of those have different titles; there's no real conflict. It's kinda the same principle as Kremzeek and Kremzeek!. Just note that the reader may be looking for whatever at the top. Interrobang 09:46, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Worth Noting...somewhere

I found my old VHS version of the movie, and it refers to the Decepticons reformatted by Unicron as the "Unicrons." Just wanted to point that out. -- Hunter-113 18:00, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Though officially publishedd, the Aaustralian character bios are generally ignored because-- Bwuh?

Hasbro/Dreamworks recently put out some bios of the movie characters-- describing half the cast in terms of their cartoon versions, including events that did not occur in the movie. At some point you have to say "no, there's no point in trying to integrate that."

I think poorly-conceived DVD extras (or VHS extras as the case may be) since they really don't stand on their own but only reflect the producer's (often limited) understanding of the source material are one of those ignored-unless-useful things. (It's also why we don't cover the Dinobots seldom-seen combiner mode. *shudder*) -Derik 19:24, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

The Dinobots'... what? -Rotty 20:07, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I've heard of that combiner, my friend said it had no head. Anyways, I got that info off the synopsis from the back of the VHS Case. -- Hunter-113 20:52, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, this has nothing to do with "Australian character bios" Deirk. The "Unicrons" thing comes from the back of the Rhino VHS case. --KilMichaelMcC 21:59, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I believe it was an Australian video release which tried to use its weight to assert that yes, Skywarp is definitely Cyclonus. Or maybe Bombshell. I don't remember which. But whichever way, it was totally inappropriate. --Steve-o 02:50, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

No, seriously... Dinobots'... what?--MCRG 03:11, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't recall which country, or whether it was TF:TM or the cartoon, but some non-US DVD release included a comic book in which the Dinobots combined. --KilMichaelMcC 03:35, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Metrodome's Season 3 DVD's, wasn't it? -Derik 05:02, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

You got to be kidding. That's certainly worth a mention, er, somewhere. On the Dinobots page. Trivia tab. With a scan.--MCRG 06:32, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

But ti was the most vapid, stupidest, mis-concieved-idea-of-cool addition to the canon ever! -Derik 10:03, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Ugh, seriously. Kindly note that for all I did with Metrodome, I had nothing to do with that!! - Chris McFeely 10:06, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Did the story ever end? I thought it was a deliberate cliffhanger- which really reinforces how the entire concept was "wouldn't it be cool if?" and there was no story to tell. -Derik 10:15, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, it was a two-parter. Part 1 was in Season 2, Part 2, then part 2 was in Season 3/4. Basically, everyone runs like crap from "The Beast," and then Prime tricks it into falling off a cliff. Sigh. - Chris McFeely 10:19, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

the Dinobots seem to be doing a lot of that combining these days, must be a thing going around lol Tony Spike (talk) 06:53, 9 April 2018 (EDT)

Japanese name

What is it exactly? --FortMax 18:47, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Not "Matrix Forever". --Steve-o 19:04, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I am guessing some translation of "The Transformers: The Movie." --ItsWalky 19:29, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Transliteration, actually. トランスフォーマーザ・ムービー, which comes out to "Toransufōmā za Mūbī". Interrobang 19:36, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Widescreen

Derik: No, the screen is definitely cut off the top for the "widescreen." Look at the scene where you see through Perceptor's micro-scope at the approaching Decepticons. The bars at the top of his vision display the difference perfectly. You can count the bars to see the difference between them. Oddly enough, your picture certainly looks stretched... --70.190.251.10 03:49, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I've for some time wondered what aspect ratio this movie is best viewed in, and suspect that while intended as 4:3, given that widescreen presentations reveal at least a bit more edge, the film is ideally considered something between 4:3 and 1.85:1, say 1.66:1? I'll have to to rip my DVD and make a comparative study with my HD copy to see what's best, though there are some good comparisons on-line:[1], [2]. If they ever release it to Blu-ray in the US, I'd prefer they get this right once and for all. (But then why release it to Blu-ray in the States? It would of course not sell at all(?!)

1.77:1 aka 16:9 is fine. The animation while sometimes painting outside of this ratio, was animated with this ratio in mind. 99% of films that are shown on TV or in the Cinema in the 16:9 aspect ratio and weren't made in the last 10 years, were photographed in 4:3 but with the intention that they would have top and bottom of the picture cropped off. The cinematography takes this into account. The reason there is stuff outside the 16:9 border is so a 4:3 transfer would be "Acceptable" but it is not preferred. Siccoyote (talk) 16:51, 13 January 2016 (EST)

Caption Quotes

The pic of Megatron with a lightsaber has a Jedi quote instead of a New Hope quote. Do we care? JW 22:17, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

I care! --ItsWalky 23:09, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

"An elegant weapon, for a more civilized age". That's from A New Hope. Good enough? -- SFH 23:13, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

[sigh] Now the pic of the Junkions dancing has a Jedi quote instead of a New Hope quote . . . JW 13:39, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Poster Caption

Hm,, I'm thinking about changing the caption on the poster at the top to "If your favorite Transformers character isn't on this poster, it's best to start grieving now." The current caption is just a bit misleading, since none of the characters on the poster died (as they were all brand new toys (except for the ones who didn't get toys)). JW 01:31, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

That's not quite true. Unicron died. And so did Ultra Magnus, but he got better. -- Dark T Zeratul 01:40, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure how the suggested new caption is any less misleading. My favorite Transformers characters are Jazz and Bumblebee! Also, Hound. Probably Nightbeat. I think I'm okay. --ItsWalky 02:14, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Wanted: A caption for that poster pic that both A) points out that all the characters on the poster are brand new and never-been-seen-before (since I think that's an important bit of info), and also B) preserves the current caption's comment on how "all your favorite characters" die. Suggestions? JW 03:15, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

"Who the hell are those guys and where's Prime?" Or stick with the current, honestly. - Some Guy 22 March 2008

What about a caption pointing out that the only major characters on the poster are Galvatron and Unicron? It shows Ultra Magnus in the spotlight, and while he kicked some aft at the Battle of Autobot City, he was not the hero. The heroes were Optimus and Hot Rod/Rodimus Prime. Rodimus Prime, whom we could call, "Sir Not-Appearing-On-This-Poster." So the poster is a bit misleading, and as good pedants we should point that out somewhere. ZeldaTheSwordsman 12:01, 4 October 2009 (EDT)

Colon?

Why is there a colon in the page title? There's no colon in the movie title. --M Sipher 00:08, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Because "The Movie" is a subtitle. —Interrobang 13:20, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Blitzwing animation error

In the battle for Autobot City, when Prime drives up behind the Decepticons, Blitzwing turns his head and its color changes to purple for a split second. However, when he turns it back its tan again. Just thought we should add this under animation errors.-Proconix 20:37, 24 May 2008 (UTC)Proconix

more animation errors

Watched the Movie again today and this is what I found. In the scene where Blaster ejects his tapes, He first ejects what looks like Eject. He stays blue up until he gets to the edge of the screen. He then turns black like Rewind. Then Blaster ejects a another blue cassette, which after about a second, turns black. This one gets through half his transformation colored black, then turns blue for a split second then turns black again. And later when the cassettes are fighting each other, Eject runs in from the left and jumps over Perceptor. And then he runs in from the left again to shoot Ravage. Im gonna go ahead and add these.-Proconix 17:43, 25 May 2008 (UTC)Proconix

Scourge

Not to chat or anything, but does anyone know why Scourge pops his head up when he asks galvatron if he wants him to gut ultra magnus? Just thought that was wierd.-Proconix 22:33, 25 May 2008 (UTC)Proconix

It is Cyclonus who says that. Scourges only line is "Remember, we belong to him!" I am Wavage! Fear mweee!!! (talk) 04:56, 16 March 2015 (EDT)

Cyclonus

When the Decepticons get reformatted, both Skywarp, and what might be Bombshell, become Cyclonus. Unicron refers to them as 'Cyclonus and his Armada'. And when they all fly to the ship, Galvatron goes first, followed by Scourge, two Sweeps and two Cyclonus'. There a reason for this? Thyunda 13:12, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Does this answer your question? -Derik 13:18, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Intro quote

I'm admittedly in kind of an orgasmic endorphin rush over this, but I'd love to use a chunk of Orson Welles' description of his own role as an intro quote: "The Japanese have funded a full-length animated cartoon about the doings of these toys, which is all bad outer-space stuff. I play a planet. I menace somebody called Something-or-other. Then I'm destroyed. My plan to destroy Whoever-it-is is thwarted and I tear myself apart on the screen." If there's a better summary of TF:TM's plot, I've yet to hear it. - Jackpot 16:56, 17 July 2009 (EDT)

Seconded. --Jimsorenson 17:43, 17 July 2009 (EDT)

Cast list - woefully incomplete

Shouldn't we have a complete list of characters on here, rather than the headline billings alone? -- Repowers 23:38, 7 August 2009 (EDT)

Oh yea! How did that happen for so long? - Starfield 01:17, 8 August 2009 (EDT)

Japanese TFTM

Someone has uploaded the entire thing, in fifteen parts, to youtube.

TFTM In Japanese

If anyone who has time to kill or knows the language (preferably both!) wants to go through it to document any significant changes from the US version that we don't already have, that'd be great. I already noticed, watching the first part, that the Japanese version uses the "Star Wars" text-scroll of the UK version, though the narrator doesn't actually seem to be reading a translation of the text — I caught him voicing a reference to Unicron the text doesn't have. And, skipping ahead, Grimlock appears to refer to his "me Grimlock kick butt" moment as his "Kick Attack". Erm.

There's also something I'd sort of like confirmed... I've heard a rumor that the Japanese-dubbed Junkions, instead of talking in TV quotes, all have Chinese accents. But I have no idea if it's true.

Adding a screenshot with someone's function and name in kanji/kana from the movie would also be neat, I think. --Monzo 10:19, 11 August 2009 (EDT)

Immediately noticed they added speech to the Lithone part - in the original version, the Lithonians don't speak at all before the "Look, it's Unicron!" line. -Mazenoise 10:31, 11 August 2009 (EDT)

I have to wonder if a list of every slight dialogue alteration would really be a good idea. I've owned the thing on VHS for a while and, well, there are a LOT of dialogue changes. And I don't mean anything important, like some added in line revealing Unicron is actually Motormaster's grandfather or whatever. I mean itty bitty changes, like the aforementioned "Kick attack" from Grimlock, Megatron specifically ordering the Insecticons to breach Autobot City's defenses and so on. A list of every slight dialogue change would be...massive (especially since the dub added so much dialogue during scenes that were previously silent). We currently have a handful of examples in the "Japanese release" section of the article that I think suffice. --DrSpengler 11:17, 11 August 2009 (EDT)

Well, bear in mind that my suggestion was document any significant changes. Random yattering is one thing, yeah, but I was curious as to whether there were any major changes, such as characters talking when they didn't originally have any dialogue at all... like, the Lithones talking in the opening qualifies to me, because I think it may be the only time the Lithone scientist speaks in fiction. (Which in turn makes me wonder if he's given an official title in the Japanese credits for the film; it'd qualify him for an article.)

I do feel that bringing up the scrolling text is noteworthy, since we note it up in the other countries' entries. --Monzo 12:25, 11 August 2009 (EDT)

Voice credits

I filled in the voice credits in the "featured characters" chart from the film credits. I think some of them, like Gears and Brawn have voice credits, but no actual lines. There may also be some characters that have uncredited speaking roles (I don't know for sure). Just an FYI if anyone wants to adjust the chart. - Starfield 10:59, 18 August 2009 (EDT)

I think the inaccurate cast listing is simply a case of whoever animated the credits confusing characters. Gears has a VA but doesn't speak, however, Scavenger (also voiced by Don Messick) clearly speaks on Junkion when he's attacking Danielle with Scrapper. Gears briefly appears in the movie on Moon Base 1, but has no speaking lines. I also wonder if this is why Prowl is credited (Bell also voiced Swopp who speaks on Quintessa), however, I believe Prowl had some lines in the original script that may have been recorded but not animated.

Jettison some weight

Why is this listed as confusing? Aside from the (common) misuse of weight for mass I see nothing weird here. The more mass there was on board Astrotrain, the more fuel that would be needed to push him to Cybertron. Therefor, dumping extra mass makes sense. Khajidha 16:47, 17 September 2009 (EDT)

I agree. Astrotrain was just using common speech. People don't often say things like "jettison some mass". If Astrotrain says he needs to lighten up, it stands to reason it is because he is still accelerating and too much weight would make it more difficult to accelerate. He is still accelerating because when they threw the bodies overboard, they quickly fell back. If they had already reached top speed, they would just float along side Astrotrain. - Starfield 23:23, 17 September 2009 (EDT)

Plus, how close is Cybertron to Earth? If the Decepts didn't want to settle down for a multi-year trip, Astrotrain must have been going FTL, at which point all bets about moving without burning fuel are off. - SanityOrMadness 23:26, 17 September 2009 (EDT)

But maneuvering to land later would be made at sublight, normal inertial conditions. Less mass would be useful then. Basically, less mass is always better for movement. Khajidha 04:23, 18 September 2009 (EDT)

How much fuel does it take to get from Cybertron to Earth, I wonder. The whole battle of Autobot city seems to take place over one night, and Optimus' shuttle makes it from Cybertron to Earth in that time, implying that both it and the hijacked Autobot shuttle were going faster than light speed. The whole reason the hijacked shuttle was going to Earth in the first place was to pick up more energy, ergo it must take much less than one shipload of energy to get a shuttle at FTL speeds from Cybertron to Earth and back. They either have really efficient FTL drives, or really efficient energy storage. Or both.

Of course we've seen that one energon cube is enough to get a full-sized Transformer drunk off his can, so perhaps it's the latter. --abates 05:00, 18 September 2009 (EDT)

There were several scenes in "Apollo 13" where the stranded astronauts in the capsule and their Houston support crew had to do all those calculations about the amount of weight (or mass, whatever) they could have in the capsule versus the amount of fuel they could burn in order to get home alive. Common sense understanding actually wins in this case, I think. Also, all bets are off as to how far Cybertron is from Earth in TFTM, considering "The Ultimate Doom". --Thylacine 2000 07:59, 18 September 2009 (EDT)

In Apollo 13, they did mass calculations to: 1) be able to escape Moon's gravity, 2) project a course to slingshot around the moon, 3) make any necessary course corrections. All of those are aspects of acceleration. In a constant velocity situation, jettisoning mass does not make you go any faster, as momentum is divided proportionally with mass. -Noviere 11:16, 18 September 2009 (EDT)

It wasn't a constant velocity situation. If it were, when Starscream dropped Megatron out the door, Megatron would just float alongside. They were accelerating and more mass means more force needed to accelerate. - Starfield 11:21, 18 September 2009 (EDT)

Which was already accounted for in the page, which essentially says "here are some speculations, but we don't really know what the hell was going on here". Nothing wrong with that. I'm just rebutting Thylacine's statement above. -Noviere 11:28, 18 September 2009 (EDT)

You added that they were going faster than light as a fact, but do we know that? I've never thought Transformers or even their dedicated starships could go FTL, hence the need for a space bridge. Cybertron moves around. Where was it in the Movie? - Starfield 11:58, 18 September 2009 (EDT)

Well, of COURSE they're going faster than light. Otherwise Quintessa and Junkion and Cybertron would all be in Earth's solar system. Just because you have FTL ships doesn't mean that instantaneous transportation isn't useful. I mean, we had horses, but cars are better even they they both provide transportation over land.--Jimsorenson 12:23, 18 September 2009 (EDT)

For some reason I never thought about that before. It never looks like they are doing anything special to break the light barrier. I'm thinking scale is just as loose in the astronomical sense as it is in the Transformer sense. ;) So what happens if you throw a Transformer out the door of a ship traveling faster than light? Apparently nothing much. - Starfield 12:58, 18 September 2009 (EDT)

I thought Astrotrain was saying that because he was helping Starscream take over the Decepticons, he was the one that was putting the crown on Starscream's head -- Marc Chase

Cast Layout

The cast lay out has the Insecticons and Seekers listed next to their Unicronian counterpart. This is a major problem considering it lists Skywarp as Cyclonus and Bombshell as the Armada. Now, ignoring the fact that in all honesty the Skywarp is Cyclonus argument is based solely on people preferring it that way, surely the ambiguity should be recognised, and they should be listed as separate characters, but add in a note or something (especially since it gives him a VA when he didn't have any confirmed lines). Also, I think listing the Heralds next to their formers is very iffy when either the originals didn't speak in the movie or the new forms didn't speak. Now, I'd just go ahead and change it but I want to know what the official stance is here, cause it seems like an injection of fanon into a fairly major article. User:Eire 13.49 Jan 13 2010

An anon user did that. He also went through a lot of trouble to put their order of appearance number in there, even though it is set to "nonumbering=true". Both changes could be reverted. Sorry anon guy. - Starfield 10:08, 13 January 2010 (EST)

Snarl

On the "four Dinobots" paragraph, it specifically mentions Swoop as the absent Dinobot whenever Snarl appears. However, Swoop is clearly the far-left Dinobot standing in the Quintesson ship window scene (the screen cap is actually on the page next to this paragraph). Are we sure it isn't Sludge thats missing, or maybe Sludge one time and Swoop another time?

At the scene in Autobot City where Snarl appears, the other Dinobots present are the original trio, Grimlock, Slag, and Sludge. When Snarl next appears, Swoop is present, and you are correct, it seems to be Sludge who isn't in that shot (however, he is in the one immediately following). I believe it should be rewritten to something akin to "When he does appear, another Dinobot is missing. Hmm." Either way, it's somewhat interesting that all the Dinobots are never on screen at the same time. --NCZ 17:05, 10 April 2010 (EDT)

Big find! Jim Sorenson has made the original Ron Friedman script available

At http://boltax.blogspot.com

I started this thread for discussion at tfw2005 as well: http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/transformers-news-rumors/347571-early-ron-friedman-draft-tftm-available-download.html

There is a LOT of material that could enrich this article, particularly in the "Notes" section. Not to mention Friedman's own article, since we now have a better idea of what he contributed.

It's well worth a read. Certainly wasn't suitable to be the finished film, due to extreme length, some super-clunky dialogue, and the fact that the plot just kind of falls apart toward the end.

The imagery is really something though, a lot of ideas that never made it into any future Transformers project. The battle scenes are also noticeably more graphic. Probably the biggest (and oddest) change is no Matrix, and the concept substituted is the "Life Spark" of Optimus himself. The Life Sparks of other Decepticons and Megatron also play a role (you can likely guess how). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 97.77.78.14 (talk • contribs){{#if:| {{{2}}}|}}.

We are aware. --Detour 01:37, 11 December 2010 (EST)

It does beg the question of how the wiki is going to handle some of this information - especially some of the stuff about earlier designs or concepts for characters (all the stuff about the Junkions VERY specifically being a B-movie biker gang, down to Wreck-Gar having a "furry vest" and one of the Junkions having a "Nazi" helmet and etc. for instance). Is it rolled into the Movie page? Is it rolled into the individual character articles? both? Neither?! -hx 08:48, 13 December 2010 (EST)

Some stuff can definitely go into character articles, but I'd also suggest going the whole hog and creating a page for the draft itself, like we did for the Toy Fair catalogue, as a sub-page of the movie article, and talk about all the differences there. - Chris McFeely 09:24, 13 December 2010 (EST)

That'd make the best sense, yeah. Especially if the other early draft script eventually sees the light of day (there were two, right? The one Jim posted and the one that went for two grand?) -hx 09:37, 13 December 2010 (EST)

I believe there was even a third on top of that. - Chris McFeely 09:52, 13 December 2010 (EST)

Yeah, there was a "final draft." I imagine it's probably close to what Monzo posted below. -hx 10:43, 13 December 2010 (EST)

There's this version, which has never really been written up here aside from a few tidbits. Whatever draft iteration it is, it's closest to the version used for the Marvel adaption, since a few scenes from it appear there. --Monzo 10:14, 13 December 2010 (EST)

By all appearances, I've always believed that was the "shooting script", as they say, the script that the actors actually worked from during recording, and that any changes to it happened subsequent to that. I may be completely wrong, of course. - Chris McFeely 10:20, 13 December 2010 (EST)

Does anyone have a copy of this? I can’t access it at all.--Kitsune1 (talk) 23:38, 16 May 2020 (EDT)

Who gets tossed into space?

This article could use a list of precisely which six characters are tosssed out of Astrotrain. It's Megatron, Thundercracker, Skywarp, Bombshell, Shrapnel, and Kickback, yah? JW 17:07, 28 February 2011 (EST)

As far as I can tell, yeah. I always wondered who was saying "Brothers, don't," though. - Jackpot 17:15, 28 February 2011 (EST)

the Seekers (Thundercracker or Skywarp) to Starscream and if they are in the movie Thrust, Dirge, Ramjet, since they are "brothers" of sorts.

Doctor Who reference?

According to Wikipedia's article on Jon Pertwee's Third Doctor, TF:TM uses the "revers the polarity" line. Looking back at the movie, Kup's line "Oh, yeah, we inverted polarities" presented itself to me as that reference. Now Wikipedia, as I understand it, is stupid when it comes to articles about Transformers that were not influenced by TFWiki. Is this a valid "Real-World Reference" (I've seen other pages here that say "This might be a reference to...") or just a coincidence that some presumptuous Whovian-Transfan decided to put on Wikipedia just because they wouldn't remove it?
- ¡Usa El Queso! 12:59 AM, 15 April 2011 A.D.

I have a really, REALLY hard time buying the notion that Doctor Who invented that little bit of common sci-fi technobabble, and an even harder time buying the notion that this dim similarity is a direct reference. --M Sipher 01:22, 15 April 2011 (EDT)

I think wikipedia got it mixed up with "The Rebirth", where Doctor Who fan David Wise got the line in. Geewunling 01:45, 15 April 2011 (EDT)

I figured Wikipedia was wrong (I'll fix the page there). Just thought I'd bring it up! Also, just to fill you in, M Sipher, Doctor Who is definitely the origin of at least the popular use of "reverse the polarity of the nuetron flow", if not the original use as technobabble. Terrance Dicks wrote it in an episode script in WAAAAY back in the early '70s.

- ¡Usa El Queso! ~~3:25 AM~~ An ungodly hour of the night, 15 April 2011 A.D.

I'd have expected them to use wording closer to the original if they were referencing Who! --abates 04:17, 15 April 2011 (EDT)

Fairly sure that phrase has been used on Star Trek a few times, usually through the main deflector dish, its not mutually exclusive to The Doctor .....or Kup for that matterTony Spike (talk) 06:56, 9 April 2018 (EDT)

Image category?

I propose putting all screenshots from The Transformers: The Movie into their own image category because of the film's significance. Also, we have a bunch of toyline-specific image categories, and expanding that practice to fictional works only makes sense to me. --Monzo 16:06, 5 May 2011 (EDT)

Maybe we could divide the original series by season (and movie). "Category: Generation 1 Season 1 screen captures", "Category: Generation 1 Season 2 screen captures", "Category: Generation 1 Movie screen captures", "Category: Generation 1 Season 3 screen captures" and "Category: Generation 1 Season 4 screen captures". The same thing could be done for Beast Wars, Animated and (eventually) Prime. UT shows were only 1 season each, so they wouldn't need it. --Khajidha 16:24, 5 May 2011 (EDT)

I support doing it for the movie. Not sure about by season... --abates 18:07, 5 May 2011 (EDT)

I second Abates' thoughts. --NCZ 18:12, 5 May 2011 (EDT)

I wouldn't be opposed to dividing screencaps up by season, since they're kind of a bear to navigate right now. Or, heck, going even further and dividing everything by season and then by episode, though with how long some episode titles can be, especially Japanese ones, I'm not sure how feasible that would be. Though, it would allow Armada/Energon/Cybertron screencaps to be broken up more easily...--Monzo 21:59, 5 May 2011 (EDT)

I would kinda like there to be categories by episode, so then we could do like artist pages and have a link to the category somewhere on the episode page, but it would create a massive number of categories... --abates 23:28, 5 May 2011 (EDT)

Buildings in Unicron's mouth: an error?

The flickering images of post apocalyptic buildings in Unicron's mouth is certainly neat, but is it really an "animation error"? I'd think including blinking images of ruined cities would have been done on purpose since Unicron destroys planets and all that. Citing something that elaborate as an "error" doesn't seem right. --DrSpengler 10:59, 13 July 2011 (EDT)

No, I don't think it is an animation error. It is a deliberate special effect. It sounds like it isn't even noticeable at normal speed. - Starfield 11:20, 13 July 2011 (EDT)

It's fairly noticeable, you have to just look at it. It's not as prominent on the Rhino release, but the Sony DVD really makes it stand out. --Capnpwned118766 23:25, 6 March 2012 (EST)

If I made add, those buildings are from the movie Hokuto No Ken (Fist of the North Star), also a Toei movie from 1986.......... so......... Protoman 23:49, 5 July 2013 (EDT)

After G.I. Joe the Movie?

Okay here is something I just can't figure out. It has been stated in several sources that both Transformers: The Movie, and G.I. Joe: The Movie were in production at the same time, and in fact G.I. Joe was meant to be released first. However, Transformers' 1986 season took place after the movie while G.I. Joe's 1986 season predates the movie. Unless Transformers was going to postpone their season by a whole year, there is no way G.I Joe's film could predate Transformers or even be shown in the same year. It would have to wait an entire year to premiere. That is unless their entire plot was rewritten from the ground up. Does anyone have any information on this?Riddlerj 23:36, 5 May 2013 (EDT)

they changed the GI Joe movie's ending so that Duke lives at the end, that would also force them to change the TV Show to add him to episodes (since he was one of the leaders, he would be in most if not all episodes) that might have forced a wait of an entire year to premiere GI Joe Chasemarc1701 (talk) 03:31, 12 July 2014 (EDT)

Starscream crown redesign

Something that I think is often missed is that when Starscream is in his corination gear, it's not just the crown, shoulder pads and cape. He's also got a much bigger chest and enlarged forearms. I'm guessing it's deliberate, but those modifications are never mentioned when that form is (in, say, his Masterpiece toy). I'm aware that we don't want this page drowning in trivia, but is that worth noting? LiamK 18:18, 5 November 2013 (EST)

Those two things just seem to be stylized elements of the animation in that particular scene. Check out Ramjet when he and Astrotrain are standing behind Starscream just as he does his cape-flourish - he's got the big pecs and swollen forearms too. - Chris McFeely 18:42, 5 November 2013 (EST)

Metroplex

Should Metroplex be added to the cast last? The consensus on his relation to Autobot City here is kinda murky Riddlerj (talk) 12:48, 21 November 2013 (EST)

Star Wars captions?

Should we replace this with a quote from Star Wars? Maybe one of these lines from when R2-D2 and C-3PO launch their escape pod:

- Imperial gunner: "Hold your fire. There's no life forms."
- C-3PO: "That's funny--the damage doesn't look as bad from out here."

--Rhymus (talk) 19:44, 18 January 2015 (EST)

character list

On many articles, TFWiki lists characters sorted first by faction, then by order of appearance (with numbers indicating order of appearance regardless of faction). Is there a reason TFTM's article does not follow that pattern? Is there some other organizational method in use? Not alphabetical by character or by voice actor, clearly.

i'm fairly certain these earlier discussions are not relevant to this matter, but just in case:

Talk:The_Transformers:_The_Movie#Cast_list_-_woefully_incomplete
Talk:The_Transformers:_The_Movie#Voice_credits
Talk:The_Transformers:_The_Movie#Cast_Layout

--Rhymus (talk) 01:07, 19 February 2015 (EST)

Replacing screencaps

Since the Shout Factory release of TF:TM has a Full Frame edition, hopefully one would replace those widescreen screencaps into their original full frames. FigureGunplaFan (talk) 22:33, 23 August 2016 (EDT)

Old Script page?

Did we ever reach a conclusion about making a page for the Friedman script? Did it get made? If so, where is it? If not, how would such a page be categorized and organized? Sorry, I just have a lot of questions. About this. -TheLiegeDecado (talk) 15:42, 14 June 2017 (EDT)

Grapple

"*Also curiously absent are the 1985 Autobot cars and Mini-Vehicles, such as Inferno, Smokescreen, Cosmos, Warpath, etc. It would seem that these characters were available at the time of the movie:

- Grapple is seen very briefly during the battle for Autobot City."

Not sure that Grapple is really supporting evidence here, given the whole Hauler situation. --Khajidha (talk) 08:16, 15 February 2018 (EST)

Cybertron's Moons

Hey guys, first contribution here and thought i would share some of my minor knowledge in the hopes the entry might get a possible explaination note added to it (Similar to the note that says Magnus second matrix placement was just an Adjustment)

I wouldnt class a third visible moon as a mistake, not from a pure technical standpoint at least (it probably is from a lore standpoint) but depending on a number of factors (and i apologise for turning all Perceptor here) such as orbital height, radius, apogee ect its totally possible to find moons that have not been observed yet whilst taking pictures of others

For example (and its loose ..since the planet is pretty large in comparison and the two are technically captured asteroids) Mars two moons Phobos and Deimos are rarely photographed together because they are so small and have different orbital planes

Similarly their are 4 large Julian (Jupiter) moons (Io, Europa, Calisto, Ganymede) and its rare to get them all in one shot during a flyby

Its possible the third moon is behind Cybertron most of the time or is out of shot because its orbit takes it far out,and also quite possible that it is boring, the other two moons have bases on them making them scenes in the movie,it may exist but simply not have been mentioned, after all plenty of planet shots exist in the carton that show the planet having no moons at all, moons being added for the film

Now correct me if im wrong but im sure i once heared the third moon was an unused plot point in a story (movie,comic or otherwise) once upon a time

But even if this isnt true i think an addendum should be added saying that the moon could just be out of shot most of the time ....or something along those lines

Anyways ..keep up the good work

Tony Spike (talk) 06:49, 9 April 2018 (EDT)

Edit, just read the next section where this gets addressed so my bad Tony Spike (talk) 07:04, 9 April 2018 (EDT)

Ultra Magnus

Back around 2015, I purchased a Korean bootleg of the film off eBay under the assumption it was the authentic one. It can be switched between Korean and English, the English versions audio is normal. The Korean audio has the music tracks awkwardly looping halfway through the song. Until this weekend, I didn’t pick up on the whole “being shot apart by the sweeps bit”, but my copy had magnus ripped apart by single laser beams. The animation was the same as the finished product, but purple laser beam thingies wrapped around his shoulders, hips, head, and elbows if I remember correctly . Sadly, the disk got lost when I moved about 6 months ago. Has anyone else found a copy like this? YourBestPal (talk) 17:57, 23 December 2018 (EST)

If it's a bootleg, it's out of our scope, especially if you don't have a copy anymore to verify any of this. -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 20:04, 23 December 2018 (EST)

Animation errors, my cut

I removed the line "Arcee's arm moves to behind Daniel being lifting off." as it doesn't make any sense. If the point can be clarified it can be readded. --Khajidha (talk) 15:39, 2 September 2019 (EDT)

featured article

what is holding this back from being featured? I’d like to fix it. Kitsune1 (talk) 23:29, 16 May 2020 (EDT)

The Original Script

QUOTE

The very first draft of the classic “The Transformers: The Movie” was recently revealed at TFNation, presented by Jim Sorenson and Chris McFeely for all the attendants.

This was the first script written for the movie, outlined in late summer 1984 and finished by February 1985. A copy was for Flint Dille in 2020 and the information was used for the TFNation panel.

For those who missed out on the convention panel, Chris McFeely has retold the story across three twitter threads:

https://twitter.com/chrismcfeely/status/1561079478771748865

https://twitter.com/chrismcfeely/status/1561389957473763337

https://twitter.com/chrismcfeely/status/1561414938203246592

Unquote

Should we make an article for this, cause i know unproduced scripts are a thing in this website.--Projectus (talk) 08:59, 23 August 2022 (EDT)

The script is available for all to read now [3], so perhaps worth considering an article? Greebtron (talk) 22:03, 22 August 2023 (EDT)

Yeah, now that it's available in full, someone should definitely do a full write-up. -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 22:16, 22 August 2023 (EDT)

I have an in-depth outline[4] that I wrote up back in January 2021, got the story down to 16k words. If someone wants to crunch that down further for a wiki article, then by all meansGreebtron (talk) 22:23, 22 August 2023 (EDT)

I find the script fascinating for all the characters and concepts that didn't make it into the final product or mutated in interesting ways. I want as much of that info as possible to be incorporated into the wiki, but I'm not sure how far to go with it, given its apocryphal nature. For instance, there's good precedent for enhancing articles about canon subjects in their Notes; the backstory for the Hall of Heroes, for one, is something I love the wiki for having. But there are characters in the original script who have no apparent connection to anything that became canon, like the humans General Blaze & Colonel Rusty Steel and the Autobots Rails & Chemico. Do they merit their own articles? Are there existing examples of that? The only one I can think of is the Anibots, but they were canonized by AVP. There are articles for unproduced toy characters, so would script-draft characters be the same sort of thing? - Jackpot (talk) 01:17, 14 September 2023 (EDT)

My thinking is it probably makes sense to make a separate article for this rather than try to fit it into this one, and put the Apocrypha template at the top. As far as characters that only exist in this script, my gut says no, they shouldn't get their own pages, but other editors may feel otherwise. -- Dark T Zeratul (talk) 04:03, 14 September 2023 (EDT)

I agree with the apocrypha template and think we should handle it like Transformers Animated season 4. List the unrealized concepts there; don't create 20 micro-pages of one sentence each that can never gain more detail. --Thylacine 2000 (talk) 07:05, 14 September 2023 (EDT)

Hmm. What about a... I don't know what the terminology we use for this is, but a "sub-page" for this page like Megatron (G1)/toys? So it would be, say, "The Transformers: The Movie/early concepts" that covers material from all the draft scripts? It would get the Apocrypha template as suggested, and important characters and such could have their own subsections. (And of course if any get canonized later, those can be broken out. Like, where we would otherwise have had an "Anibots" section, we would now have a link to Anibot.) How does that sound? - Jackpot (talk) 16:09, 15 September 2023 (EDT)

Not sure where this reluctance to give pages to the unused concepts is coming from, it’s something we’ve literally done for years well before Vector Prime canonized any of them. Escargon (talk) 16:56, 15 September 2023 (EDT)

That had been my thought too, but I had trouble finding examples that felt close enough to this. I thought maybe Category: Things that don't exist would bear fruit, but the closest I found in that were the unproduced-toy characters I alluded to. Anibot actually was exactly this originally, but since canonization happened in the meantime, I'm not sure how much it really counts as precedent anymore. (Which, for what it's worth, is evidence against Thylacine's claim that such articles "can never gain more detail." I'd say creating an article increases the changes of more material being created.) - Jackpot (talk) 18:50, 15 September 2023 (EDT)

We also have Mayumi and Shinichi (Masterforce). Escargon (talk) 20:00, 15 September 2023 (EDT)

I think making pages for unrealized concepts is fine and harmless. We make it clear enough that they're not official canon (yet). Saix (talk) 20:03, 15 September 2023 (EDT)

How many concepts or characters would honestly need a page though, that couldn't be covered by the Notes sections in existing pages? A lot of them, barring some name changes, were carried over almost verbatim into the second script and beyond.Greebtron (talk) 20:15, 15 September 2023 (EDT)

The four I mentioned above (Gen. Blaze, Rusty, Rails, and Chemico) are the most solid cases I can think of. On the opposite end, Tanker wouldn't qualify because he's clearly just Kup with a different name and alt-mode. Ellen and Mentlar seem more ambiguous to me, since they occupy roles that would be taken by other characters (Daniel's mom and The Brainy Autobot, respectively), but it's harder to say they're just early versions of Carly and Perceptor like Tanker/Kup. The "fire snow" weapon might merit a page. There could be more, but those are what I can think of right now. - Jackpot (talk) 21:38, 15 September 2023 (EDT)

I think just for the sake of completeness we should give Tanker his own page. Like, yes, he's proto-Kup, but he's got his own name and doesn't do the same things; might as well throw him in as well. --Riptide (talk) 22:58, 15 September 2023 (EDT)

Thank you Escargon! Yes, that's almost exactly the precedent I was looking for. I say "almost" because those are similar to unproduced-toy characters, in that the articles are grounded on visual products (art or toy designs) with little or no fiction. Whereas script-draft characters would be grounded in apocryphal fiction and nothing else. But that's probably a distinction without a difference, and I'd be happy to just consider your examples to be the template for this and call it good if other people agree. - Jackpot (talk) 21:53, 15 September 2023 (EDT)

I've been working on a draft for the script if anyone wants to take a look at it. https://tfwiki.net/wiki/User:WillR113/Sandbox WillR113 (talk) 21:50, 15 September 2023 (EDT)