Transformers: The Movie Roundtable

open damn it open oh and welcome to the epic

16th episode of the tfg1 podcast now normally

16 episodes it's good number but it's not epic

like you know obviously 15 episodes is an epic

number 20 is an epic number But within this episode,

you will hear several clips with me and my other

Transformers fan friends, as well as an interview

with Stan Bush, the master behind the music of

Transformers the movie. This is the Transformers

the movie 1986 roundtable. Please enjoy. and

welcome to the 16th episode of the TFG1 podcast,

recorded on May 8th, 2009. Oh, crap. I'll do

that later. Anyway. Shit. Oh, crap. That sucks.

It's the future! Yes, really. I am your host,

Michael Blanchard, and today I am joined by my

friends and sometime... sometimes co -host Steve

slash Megatron of PredaconEmpire .com and Mike

the Birdman Dodd from ThisWeekInGeek .net. Hi

guys, what's going on? I hate my life. Fucking

Twilight, I'm sorry. I just had to endure that

shitstorm again, but it's okay. I do it for you,

the fans. And today, we are recording a roundtable

episode for the TFG1 podcast discussing the 1986

animated movie. This movie should have won fucking

Oscar. Yeah. Yeah, just like the Dark Knight

show. That's beside the point. Communism. Fucking

communism. Yep. Well, I guess I'll start off

with the questions that I have. When was the

first time either one of you saw the movie? Steve,

do you want to go first, buddy? Sure. The first

time I saw the movie, I believe I rented it from

a video store, got it on VHS and everything.

I was probably like seven or eight when I first

seen it. Yeah, I was pretty much about... It

was a couple years after it was in theaters that...

That I saw it as well and through the same process

that I had seen it through by renting it. Yes,

okay. The first time I saw it, I was actually

with my best friend at the time, Quincy, and

I think his parents rented it for us. And I'll

never quite forget when I saw Prowl die. And

that's, I know, I think it was 1988 when I saw

this, maybe. But yeah, it was like, holy crap.

The eyes, they burn. I was pissed off when he

died. All right. Second question. Be honest.

Did you cry when Optimus Prime died? I was more

pissed off than I was anything. I'm like, you

can't fucking kill Optimus Prime, you douchebags.

I was angry. I was more upset when Prowl and

Ironhide died. What about you, Steve? I didn't

cry when Prime died. I was just mad that they

replaced him. I was, you know, like Mike said,

I was pretty pissed when they killed off all

the guys on the shuttle, even though I don't

see how two of them died when they got shot in

the fucking arm. I mean, Ironhide's obviously

dead. He got his head blown off, but... Yeah.

Ratchet went down like a bitch. Yes. That shot

of Megatron just standing there and then the

gun blasting, I actually haven't found an image

of it. It's on the PredaconEmpire .com forums

under my G1 screenshots, and that image is just

god -awful. Okay, let's see. If you could only

pick one character that you liked out of the

movie, who would it be and why? One character?

Really? No. Okay, Spader. That's right. Even

on the podcast, I take shots at Spader. I'm trying

to think. I guess one character, if I had to

pick anybody, I really was a huge fan of Blur.

Okay, Steve? I'd have to say other than Optimus

and Megatron, obviously. I'd have to choose probably...

Probably Hot Rod, just because he ended up turning

into the next Prime, and he was one of the originals,

or not one of the originals, but he was one that

became a somewhat favorite. Yeah, I would have

to agree with you there on the Hot Rod slash

Rodimus Prime thing. I've always liked that character

ever since I saw the movie, even though I hated

the fact they killed Optimus. After 25 years,

do you think the movie and the G1 series in general

holds up? I think on some level, simply because

it was a landmark in animation. The fact that

this was a toy line that actually had a somewhat

half -decent storyline behind it. It wasn't He

-Man and all this other crap. And I think the

reason it stands up today is the fact that it

actually does have on -screen character deaths

of animated characters. That was pretty brutal

when, like, Ironhide got his head blown clean

off his shoulders by Megatron. That's an image

that is iconic of the 1980s. And that's why it's

important even still to this very day. But at

the same time, when you still look at all the

animation flubs and all the stuff that was cut

out of the movie, I'm not quite so sure. Yeah.

What about you, Steve? I'd have to say that...

holds up in some regards. It still, in my opinion,

looks a hell of a lot better than animated or

any of the Unicron Trilogy bullshit that we got

recently. But... Let's not even go there. That's

another podcast altogether. That's another episode

altogether. Anyhow, I would have to say that

it's still good other than the fact that you

see specific flubs in the animation. You see

characters' eyes pop out when they freaking get

hit by Devastator. Oh, that's just funny. Yeah,

Sludge's Looney Tunes moment. Actually, when

I was watching the Death of Optimus Prime special

feature, On here, Nelson Shin has actually said

that scene where he's on the table and everybody's

around him. He wanted to show that it's almost

like a human dying. That's why he turns black

or gray or whatever color he turns. He wanted

it to be more emotional than just, oh, some robot

just got shot. Let's see. What was your favorite

scene in the movie? The Decepticon attack on

the shuttle, for sure. Oh, yeah, just the fact

it was so brutal. That and that music that kicks

up during that scene could not have been picked

any better. It's so 80s hair metal with, like,

destruction and all this other crap. It's amazing.

Yeah, Instruments of Destruction by NRG. And

we'll talk about the soundtrack a little bit

later on. What about you, Steve? My favorite

scene would have to be where they're in the Decepticon

shuttle astrotrain. Oh, the infighting. Yes,

and then Starscream sends Megatron floating happily

on his way, or angrily on his way, to Unicron

and begins his stride into the throne of the

Decepticons. See, if Starscream had been smart,

he just would have blown his fucking head off.

Because Starscream isn't that smart. See, that

would have established dominance among the other...

Decepticons, ooh, I threw him out an airlock,

look at me. But if he blew his head right off

in front of all of the other people, he would

have been like, yeah, I'm serious, I will kill

you. And that would have established him as the

Decepticon leader. Yeah, but Starscream never

was one to take action. He was always, you know,

basically, yeah, he was a gloater, and he was

basically, you know, all talk and, like I said,

no action. My favorite scene, it's kind of hard

to pick. I think I'm going to pick the Unicron

battle at the very end where the Dinobots are

flying up in space and go up behind Unicron and

Grimlock says, Me, Grimlock, kick butt. And then

it cuts into the inside where Galvatron and Hot

Rod are fighting and then the whole transformation

scene at the end. Let's see, next question. Life

-altering choice to be good or evil? would you

choose Optimus Prime for good or Unicron for

evil? Can you repeat that question again, Mike?

Sorry. Life -altering choice. To be good or evil,

would you pick Optimus Prime for good or Unicron

for evil? Well, Prime, because he's, like, badass.

Pretty much, I think, one of the greatest fictional

leaders of all time, actually. So, yeah, I'm

going with Prime. What about you, Steve? I'd

have to say crime as well. Yeah, I would too.

The only reason why I even came up with that

question was I was trying to balance out the

good and evil in the movie and seeing as how

Unicron is the most evil thing in the entire

movie, that's what I was going for was all good

or all evil. Just a couple of things that I had

written down for... today, last night, I've averaged

out Spike's age. He is roughly between 36 and

38 years old in this movie. Wow. Yay. Sorry.

I didn't think he'd be that old. Okay, well,

if you look at the G1 series before the movie,

if you look at season one and season two, he's

roughly, they don't roundabout say his age, but

there was an episode where the police stop him.

when he's in Bumblebee and Bumblebee's driving,

and says, where's your license, son, because

you're too young. So you think 15, 16, maybe

14, 15, 16. And if you go in their timeline from

1984 to 2005, if he's 15 or 16 in 1984, it's

a whole math thing, but I figured it out. It

averages to about 36 or 37 years old is how old

he is in the movie. And, of course, that would

kind of coincide with him having a kid and all

that stuff. As far as the timeline in the actual

cartoon and in the movie, what the fuck have

they been doing for the last 26 years, from 1984

to 2005? Just hanging out. I mean, yes, I know

there's the Scramble City thing that kind of

introduced some of the new characters, but that's

all it really did. It had no background before

we met them in the film. As far as the new characters

go. You see, Mike, you'll eventually find out

in the VH1 special behind the music Autobot edition.

So just wait. Yeah, that's going to happen. And

really, throughout the entire series before the

movie, the Decepticons had control of Cybertron

before the events of the movie. Maybe not full

control, but a majority of it. Because throughout

the entire series, I mean, it's pretty much Shockwave

on Cybertron. And that's pretty much it. As far

as the Prime -Megatron battle, did Optimus uppercut

Megatron when Megatron's flying up in the air

and coming down on him? It looked like it. He

basically pulled a friggin' dragon punch from,

like, Street Fighter. He shawrookened him. That's

what it looked like to me. Megatron begging for

mercy is just stupid. We all know he'll try to

make a play to win. Yeah, that was pretty dumb.

But... The gun is like less than five feet away

from his hand and Hot Rod jumps in and of course

jumps in the way and of course Prime being the

altruistic leader that he is is not going to

shoot his enemy when a fellow Autobot is in the...

in the way he should have pulled a speed shoot

the hostage yeah yes but yes but speed wasn't

out in 1986 so no one knew what that was at the

time this inspired that moment um let's see as

far as the music goes uh i mean i just got one

little thing here and then it's going to go back

to the actual movie stuff stan bush is god Well,

yeah, that's beside the point. I truly believe

the two outgoing themes as far as the movie,

Dare is Hot Rod's theme, and then obviously The

Touch is Optimus' theme. Yeah, I would agree

to that. Yeah. And then Kick -Ass. Yeah. I've

watched the Autobot Decepticon battle scene so

many times. I haven't actually counted them all,

but I've counted about 20 -plus Decepticons versus,

what, 10 Autobots and a little human boy. Yeah,

like that's going to work. See, I was very surprised

during that battle. We didn't see Huffer die,

which I know he's supposedly dead in the episode.

Kind of like Wheeljack. Yeah. What a pussy way

for Wheeljack to go out, too. I was going to

say, we did see Wheeljack. It was him and Windcharger

that Arcee was dragging. See, I was surprised

how really tore up they were. I mean, Windcharger

had, like, these huge gaping wounds in his chest.

And just, like, that was brutal, too, when I

saw this movie. Like, the character desk. And

I know they had stuff that was, like, scripted.

for, like, they were going to kill Smokescreen,

Red Alert, and Trailbreaker. Yeah, there was

a whole bunch of more violent stuff in the original

script, but they had to cut it down, or else

they would have gotten a higher rating than PG.

And we'll talk about the rating in a little bit.

Let's see. Is it just me, or does Devastator

look more menacing in this than the actual cartoon?

Yeah, he's definitely more friggin' scary. I

mean, you know, I just took an image last night,

and it's on the Predacon Empire forums now, of

where he's ripping the base open, and then you

see Megatron with the gun, and then, of course,

Prime comes in with the shuttle. And it just

looks like he is just super scary. Mm -hmm. Let's

see. The scene where Megatron... Now, this might

be very controversial. I don't know. The scene

where Megatron is deathly injured and Soundwave

doesn't have and doesn't leave him. Was that

gay -looking to anybody else besides me? I kind

of liked how it showed Soundwave's loyalty to

Megatron. Like, we're not leaving him. Right.

Although, when they had Frenzy run by with Megatron's

arm cannon, that was a little stupid. Yeah. And

then the... Oh, you know the only appearance

of Ravage in this movie? Do you know when it

is? When he's fighting that stupid Steeljaw,

I think his name is, during the... No, no. He's

going after your eject. Nope. Ravage was... Oh,

okay, there's two then. Okay. See, I didn't think

that... That's right, there's two. I thought

there was only one. The other one was the one

that I noticed. I forgot all about the cassettes

versus cassettes thing, which was kind of really

cool, even though it was in the background. When

they're doing the Decepticon infighting is when

I noticed that he comes out again. But that's

pretty much the only two times he's been in the

entire movie. The reformatting of Megatron into

Galvatron is, in my opinion, yeah, I know a lot

of people don't like Galvatron and wish Megatron

was still the leader or whatever else. Just the

reformatting, the way they showed that, that

was fucking awesome. It did look really, really,

really cool, and I guess it was sort of a byproduct

of the era when everything was all fancy and

computerized and they thought it was really high

-tech and shit. But it was quite cool -looking,

though. Yes, it was. Yes, it was. I kind of got

confused the first time I saw the movie because

after Galvatron disintegrates Starscream, to

me, after the whole body disintegrates and it

just shows the foot, it almost looks like Soundwave's

foot, but I know it's not. I know it was Starscream.

And at least the power struggle ends, thank God.

I'm so sick. This is one of my main complaints

about the first two seasons that I've already

reviewed, is I am so sick of the Megatron Starscream

power struggle. Tell you, man, they should have

just shot each other. See what happens. Yep,

pretty much. And then the oh shit controversy.

Was it in? Was it in? Was it in? Wasn't it in?

You know. Whatever else, there were like two

or three different versions that the oh shit

line from Spike was not in a couple of the VHS

versions. And they put it back in because that

was the whole, that and the open dammit open

was one of the reasons why they got PG. Because

of that, because they wanted to distinguish the

movie from other animation of that time, which

most of it was rated G. Well, that and brutally

killing most of the cast doesn't help it either.

Yeah, I'm going to have to agree on that one.

Yeah. Makes you wonder, though, if the Decepticons

had just grown balls and actually killed the

Autobots 20 years earlier, they could have ended

it a lot sooner and never even had to deal with

the reformatting by Unicorn. Because Megatron

had so many chances to kill Optimus. It's insane.

I mean, basically, Megatron was the fucking coyote

from the Roadrunner series. He had every opportunity

to kill Optimus, but yeah, Optimus just kept

getting away. Meat, meat, motherfucker. It's

so true. I mean, if you look at Transformers

through the lens of the Looney Tunes, this is

ridiculous. He's had so many chances. Bugs Bunny

is Optimus Prime. Oh, my God, that is hilarious.

Steve and I had already done this in a supplemental,

not a supplemental, but an episode of All Things

Transformers, the Hot Rod Springer RC Love Triangle.

Don't even get me started because it just pisses

me off. The scene in the battle where... where

I think it's Cyclonus or somebody is shooting

at Hot Rod, and then RC saves Daniel and he saves

RC, and they're all, like, really lovey -dovey,

and then all of a sudden later on in the movie

it's Springer that's by her side. So it's like,

pick one already. That fucking mechanical hussy.

Butthole bag. She's the only one left, though.

Yeah, that's true. So it's like a Transformers

gangbang. Gotcha. Oh, my God. No, you did not

just say that. I've got things so much worse.

Let me tell you the things they can do with a

blender. Oh, my God. Okay. Let's move on to the

soundtrack. When I first got the actual CD, the

original one that came out in 86. The tracks

it had on it was The Touch, Instruments of Destruction,

Death of Optimus Prime, Dare, Nothing's Gonna

Stand in Our Way, The Transformers Theme by Lion,

Escape by Vince DeCola, Hunger by Spectre General,

Autobot Decepticon Battle by Vince, and Dare

to be Stupid by Weird Al. Now, when I first found

this soundtrack, obviously it was probably about

ten years ago when I actually found a real copy

of it, I was kind of shocked and kind of... surprised

that a lot of the other instrumental stuff wasn't

in there, like the Moonbase 2 thing and the shuttle

launch scene and all that stuff. Then, of course,

the 20th anniversary rolls around, and we have

three unreleased tracks, which was the Unicron

Medley, which is Mike's favorite. Damn right.

Moonbase 2 shuttle launch, Megatron Must Be Stopped,

parts one and two, and then Vince did an alternate

version of the theme. I love this soundtrack.

It's one of the better ones to come out of the

80s. And Vince DeCola's synth -pop soundtrack

definitely suited the movie. I don't know so

much if it suited Rocky IV. But yeah, the Unicron

theme, I think, on some level, anybody born in

the 80s knows what this is. Because it's so...

Up in your face. And a lot of Vince's score was

just really, really, really well done. Oh, yeah.

Although, Dare to be Stupid, as much as I love

Weird Al, no. It's a Junkion theme. Come on,

man. It's ridiculous. But it didn't fit with

the soundtrack, technically speaking. Yeah, exactly.

When you go from hunger to dare to be stupid,

it doesn't work, man. I mean, it's like going

from death metal to Hannah Montana. Exactly.

Oh, my God. That's a wide -ranging scope there,

Mike. That's right. I'm not really going to defend

Dare to be Stupid because, yeah, I kind of agree.

And, of course, nobody really knew what the hell

he was saying when you watched it in the original

VHS because it kind of ran all together. Somebody

thought it was something else than what it actually

was. And the new soundtrack, like I said, adding

the additional instrumentals, I thought was really

awesome. It's actually funny. I have the... As

far as the Unicron medley goes, I have... It's

very Doomsday -ish, very ominous, like Doomsday,

like the world is going to end once this thing

gets to you. And like that... In the very beginning,

I actually ripped that... to a ringtone for my

iPhone, and that's what your ringtone is, Mike,

every time you call me, which is very few and

far between. I'm just going to call you more

often now. And then I've got, I forget where

I placed it. I'd have to listen to it again,

but I've got, I think it was in the middle of

the Megatron Must Be Stopped song is what Steve's

ringtone is. Because I'm Megatron. Yes, yes,

yes. You want to be Megatron. That'd be freaking

awesome. I'm fucking Unicron. You are my bitch.

Now make me a sandwich. Oh, damn. This is why

you keep me around. The entertainment value.

Exactly. Yes, the entertainment value. And erotic

toasters. Anyway, go on. No, we're not doing

erotic toasters, thank you very much. Let's see,

what else do you guys want to say about the movie?

I seriously think it deserves more notoriety

than what it has. I think on some level this

movie should be shown in film schools to depict

the evolution of animation. I really believe

that simply because of the dark tone it took.

I mean, when you look at the character death

scenes, like I said, they were unforgivingly

brutal. And I think as animation history buffs

need to acknowledge this as an important step

because look at what happened with friggin' G

.I. Joe like a year later. Oh, God, Duke's in

a coma. Movie goes on. Oh, wait, he's okay. Are

you fucking kidding me? Seriously, Duke should

have been fucking DOA. Well, they actually meant

to kill him, but because of the big outrage from

killing Prime, they had to go back on it and

figure out a loophole. Oh, yeah, he's fine. He's

just hurt. In the bonus feature about the death

of Optimus Prime, Flint Dilley, the story consultant

and one of the producers and writers, actually

said that there was a kid somewhere that locked

himself in his closet when he saw Optimus Prime

die and would not come out until he saw him alive

again. And then Flint goes on to say, he said,

yeah, little did you know we were going to bring

him back in the third season as a zombie. Yeah,

the zombie prime episode. Wow. Yep. And then

they kill him again in, like, the Headmasters.

No, they don't. Oh, well, okay, well, keep in

mind, I have never seen that. I've only seen

Up to Rebirth. Well, get fucking downloading,

Mike. Well, send me the fucking file, Mike. You

can't. You can get them on my site. Oh. See,

ha -ha. Well, some of them, because I'm a part

of another site, TFCOG, where they do fan dubs,

and I'm the voice of Headmaster Scourge on there.

See, Steve, you need to get me some kind of an

audition. I think I would make a awesome Insecticon.

I don't know why. Hello, I'm Cat Infanta. Oh,

God. Wow. That's funny. That's really, really

funny. Oh, man. Just speaking from the U .S.

stuff, I mean, they brought him back as a zombie,

and then they killed him again, and then they

bring him back finally, and Steve already pointed

out to me that the Rebirth thing was done in

fucking Canada. It wasn't done by the fucking

original people that animated the rest of the

show. That's why Rebirth is so bad. Freaking

Canadian animators. Fuck you. Yankee pricks,

anyway. I didn't say broadcasters, I said animators.

There's a difference. I draw stick figures. I'm

an animator. When I use a flip pad. Think of

that scene in Hot Fuzz. I've done that before.

Oh my god. Wow. I can't believe you went there.

That's right. Wow. Oh, boy. Okay. I don't think

there's anything else. Any final thoughts? I

gotta say that definitely this movie, in a different

way, outside of being an animation thing, it

should be noted, this movie should also be recognized

for its soundtrack. Not just because I'm a huge

Stan Bush fan and all that crap. It's the fact

that this movie pretty much epitomized what a

1980s soundtrack was. And that's a good thing,

though, because it had pop and it had synth,

and then... ridiculous track insert here with

his dare to be stupid but you just look at the

way the scenes flow and in a sense the scenes

are timeless because of the music and yet the

scenes are dated because of the music and it's

an interesting paradox just because you look

at stan bush's the touch and that is optimus

prime and then with uh weapons of destruction

that is the death of the G1 Autobots. Those,

those music scenes invoke those images. And even

to those that aren't list, even to those people

that haven't seen the movie, you just know something

bad's going to happen. And yet with Optimus Prime,

you feel really inspired. In fact, there was

a video Stan Bush did a couple of months ago

with the U S military and the touch, which was

interesting to say the least. And, um, and it's

just, it's, it's. It is the feel -good 80s music,

or it is the get -you -pumped kind of music,

and I think that's why Transformers, the movie,

had probably one of the greatest soundtracks

of the 1980s and is underappreciated as a film.

Oh, yeah. I mean, one of the reasons why I asked

the question about do you think it holds up is

because I got into an argument on another forum

that I post on, and someone said that... 80s

nostalgia sucks and that transformers doesn't

hold up and it's just complete shit basically

and i went back and forth and back and forth

and finally i just had to ignore that person

because i just couldn't take what they were saying

anymore see mike that's why you tell them to

suck on your left make sure it's extra vinegary

too It's a good thing we added that explicit

rating, huh, Steve? Yeah, right. I mean, hell,

I don't care. I love cursing on podcasts, so

it doesn't really matter. It's those people that

are like, oh, 80s nostalgia is horrible. See,

if you didn't have the 1980s, you wouldn't have

the animation you have frigging today. This is

your history. This is your background. I mean,

I don't know. This guy probably likes Ben 10

or crap like that. No comment. I don't know.

This guy's a friggin' noob. Well, the other thing

is, he pretty much, anytime I made a comment

on anything I like, he's like, do you have any

idea what quality is? And I'm like, fuck you.

I'm like, well, you're on the internet, so clearly

you're the authority on this. You probably also

have a 12 -inch penis, are married to Britney

Spears, and drive a Ferrari. You fucking idiot.

The unfortunate thing is he gives Canadians a

bad name. He's from Canada. Oh, what's his name?

I will find him. No, no, no. I can't do that.

I will fucking end him. I can't do that. I don't

want to be thrown under. I'm not throwing anybody

under the bus unless it's somebody I really know

that well. Come on. Let me make him an honorary

award member of douchebag of the month. It would

be amazing. Maybe off the air. Not on the air.

Fucking A. Oh. This episode brought to you by

this douchebag. Making life hell since 1981.

Wow. I don't hate people. I just hate the fan

club. Anyway. Go ahead, Mike. Blarg, Yarp, fuck.

I am glad that they did do a 20th anniversary

edition. I wish that... The hell was that? Bob

Dole. Wish that there was more on it than there

is. We have, actually, do you have the 20th anniversary

edition, Mike? I totally do. In fact, I picked

it up used for like $10. I bought mine brand

new. I have a slight problem. You guys talk amongst

yourselves. I have to get up for a second, and

normally I wouldn't do this, but somebody's knocking

on my damn door. Hold on. It's that guy from

Canada. He's going to fuck you up. Look who's

getting up from the recording this time. Professionalism

out the fucking window. However, you know what?

I would have paid $50, if not more, for this

disc if they had animated the additional death

scenes. Yeah, that would have been awesome. If

there was a Criterion Collection Blu -ray for

this, I'm not kidding. I would easily pay $100

for this. Even if they included animation cells

or an art book or something, I really think this

movie... deserves a really epic Blu -ray treatment.

Oh, yeah. So, anyways, the reason why I asked

you if you had it, Mike, was because I was going

to run down the special features. Did you enjoy

the 16x9 theatrical widescreen version on the

first disc, or did you prefer the fullscreen

version that's on the second one? Well, I don't

know. It kind of depends. I mean, I saw it fullscreen

when I was a kid, mind you. Having a 42 -inch

plasma TV, it looks better in widescreen. Yeah.

But I'd have to go with the full screen version.

For some reason, when animation is in widescreen...

What's the frigging point? Because the animators

are animating what they have to. You're losing

16 % of the frame when you do it, whereas when

you film in traditional 35mm, you will lose that

when you get the widescreen version. With animation,

they draw what they draw. If it's not there,

it's not there. Yeah. One of the reasons why

I like this remastered version is because in

the death scene... where Hot Rod runs up to Optimus,

if you look on the very right -hand side of the

screen, in the original VHS version, it's all

black. There's nothing there, but in this cleaned

-up version, it shows that it's like a shadowy

thing, but there's still background there. See,

I thought originally that that was just a splotch

on the tape, but it wasn't. Well, now we know.

And knowing it's half the battle. Dramatic music.

Exactly. We should totally do a commentary or

a roundtable on G .I. Joe. I would love that.

Maybe we can do that as a supplemental on the

movie podcast when we start that in July. Fucking

A. I'm there, Mike. Yeah, I wasn't too thrilled

with the fan commentary on it. I did like the

director, producer, voice actor stuff commentary.

I didn't think the fan commentary was that bad.

I didn't think it was gone awful, but I just

wasn't. I don't know, I just wasn't that thrilled

with it. No. The fact that I wasn't on it wasn't

all that good. Yeah, none of us were on it, so

it sucks. Yeah, fuck them. Yeah, there you go.

See, and that's why if this movie comes out on

Blu -ray, if they take advantage of that Blu

-ray live shit, you can record your own commentary.

Yeah, that's true. But as I've said plenty of

times before, right now I have no money to go

Blu -ray, and number two, I won't go Blu -ray

until I get a PS3 or somebody gives me a PS3.

I have a Blu -ray player that I actually purchased

a couple months ago that lets you watch YouTube

and Netflix on it, too. That's pretty friggin'

slick, dude. Yeah, it is a nice one. You know

what, Mike? You should go beat the shit out of

that guy from Canada and sell his organs for

a PS3. Yeah. In this economy, you've got to think

smart. That's funny. That's funny. All right.

Well, I think we're going to end this. We really

didn't talk about Scramble City that much, but,

you know, I don't know. I watched it. I watched

it because it only has the commentary on the

DVD with it, and I wasn't a big fan of it. Yeah,

I wasn't super impressed either. Well, see, if

they were to actually re -release the Scramble

City in with the movie, if they did a Blu -ray

special edition, it would be awesome if they

could get the original G1 cast to come back and

voice their characters, those that are still

with us. And as far as that is, that would be

cool to see and have them actually finish the

episode. TF COG also has redubbed that and added

their own 3D and parts from the movie to finish

off that Scramble City and had us voice it as

well. You can also get it at PredaconEmpire .com,

but it's pretty epic. Yeah. A friend of mine,

actually, that's on Yahoo and on Skype, he has

more to do with the Knight Rider fandom than

anything else, asked me the other day, I didn't

know Peter Cullen still did voice work. Is he

still around? And I'm like, yeah. Obviously,

you didn't see the new movie. Yeah, the new movie

and then the upcoming movie, we're going to do

another roundtable on that, which I would want

you back on that from – you on that from – Mike.

Take two. Yeah, just come back for the live action

roundtables. Yes. Yes. So I think we're going

to end this unless you guys have anything else

to say. Let me see. I'm trying to think of something

epic. Nope. Stan Bush is gone. He's in Guitar

Hero. I can die now. Do you want to run down

all your... Oh, Mike, even though this doesn't

air until May 8th, do you have any maybe exclusives,

unknown kind of This Week in Geek info that you

could break on the TFG1 podcast? Well, Mike,

if everything works out right this year, I should

be attending E3 in Los Angeles this year with

some of my associates from This Week in Geek.

I should be at the Screw Attack Gaming Convention,

which is held in Dallas, Texas on the July 4th

weekend. In addition, I might be in Las Vegas

for EVO, which is a Street Fighter tournament

sort of thing. And I might be at the Tokyo Game

Show this year. We're still waiting to find out

what's going on with that. Otherwise, you want

to find me around the web, you can check out

thegameheroes .com. ThisWeekInGeek .net, and

1150 AM WIMA, where I am the video game contributor

on the Mike Miller Morning Show. And you can

find all three of us on Twitter. Mike's is at

BirdmanDodd, Steve's is SCP21, and mine is TFG1Podcast.

And only one of these sounds sexy. We know which

one, guys. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Shut up. All right.

I'm going to run through the outro. Well, that's

all for this episode of the TFG1 Podcast. Join

me next time when I'll be starting Season 3 with

the epic five -parter, Five Faces of Darkness.

Thank you. Woo! Wait. Do that again. Woo! Thank

you for joining us on the TFG1 Podcast. There

are four ways you can get in touch with me. me

or leave feedback for the podcast. The first

is that you can visit the PredaconEmpire .com

forums and get all your Transformers discussion

topics there. The second is that you can follow

me on Twitter. We've already gone through that.

The third is you can visit the Earth2 .net forums.

I have a thread over there for the podcast. And

the fourth is the email address, which is TFG1podcast

at gmail .com. For now, I am Michael Blanchard

with... Mike the Birdman Dodd saying live free

or die hard. And Steve slash Megatron of PredaconEmpire

.com. Saying in the immortal words of Optimus

Prime, transform and roll out. And thank you

for listening. Until next time. This is Michael

Blanchard with the TFG1 Podcast, and I'm about

to record a special clip for the Episode 16 Roundtable,

an interview with Stan Bush, coming up next.

All right. Hello, and welcome to the TFG1 Podcast

special clip. This is an interview with Stan

Bush, the master behind the music of the 1986

Transformers movie. I believe, but I cannot be

100 % positive, that this interview is Stan's

first official Transformers podcast guest appearance.

Hi Stan, how are you? Hey, how's it going? It's

going pretty good. You had said in your email

that you had just gotten back into town. Where

were you, if you don't mind me asking? Oh, I

went to Chicago for a few days, just to visit.

Oh, that's cool. A little vacation. Yeah, vacation's

always good. First off, I'd like to thank you

so much for doing this today. I didn't actually

think that you would even have time to do any

kind of interview with anybody at all. Well,

I've been kind of busy, but, no, I'm glad to

do it, glad to help out, and I think it's all

good. Thank you very much. First off, getting

into the questions I have for you, can you tell

my listeners where you grew up? Oh, I grew up

in Florida. Yeah, lived there my early years,

and I got involved with music there and so forth

and toured around the southeast a lot before

I came out west. Yeah, that kind of ties into

the second question. How did you get started

into the music business? Well, the early years,

doing a lot of nightclubs and so forth. When

I joined in my mid -20s, I joined a recording

group in Colorado, and then that group, that

band called Boulder, we got signed and then came

to L .A. So then I've been here ever since, making

records after that one album we did with that

band on Electro Records. And then I went solo

and did an album for CBS Records, Sony. And then

the second album was Scotty Brothers' Epic. After

that, I continued to make records and do tours

and things like that over the years. It's been

a good run. Yeah, it's been a long run. That's

pretty cool, though. I just recently found your

tribute to the troops with the touch, the tribute

video. Oh, yeah. How was it filming with the

troops? I mean, what was that experience like?

Because obviously I've never been over there.

I've never had any kind of experience like that.

What was that like for you? Well, I have to be

honest, we didn't actually film my segments in

Iraq. It looks like that I'm in Iraq, but that

was all sort of staged. We did in the desert

here in California with some actual Army guys

and ex -Army guys. we did a shoot out there in

the desert, and those guys were kind enough to

come and help out, and it came off looking like,

you know, cut together with actual combat footage

and so forth, that it sort of looks as though,

you know, that I really went to Iraq. Yeah, that

must have been a lot of fun, because as I was

watching the video, I noticed that... the original

or your i don't know if it's your original version

that was in the 86 soundtrack or if it was the

newer version of the touch but as it plays it

also goes back to where you all are you know

singing it and i thought that was really funny

how you all split that up yeah that was a lot

of fun we uh we had we had a great time singing

together and uh it was it was a really fun thing

I was listening to your 2007 This Week in Geek

interview with Mike Birdman Dodd and all those

guys. And I know about the Bloodsport and the

Kickboxer music. How was it working on a song

for a live -action film compared to an animated

film? Well, the songwriting part was the same.

I mean, the recording process and all that. where

the song gets used really doesn't affect me at

all in terms of what I do. But you don't get

to look at footage and say, maybe get ideas from

the footage and kind of tailor a song towards

that movie? No, that's generally some other person

puts places of the music wherever they think

it should go, that kind of thing. I didn't really

have any input in that. It is funny, though,

I have to mention that when we had originally

written The Touch, and submitted it for the Sylvester

Stallone movie, Cobra, and we were a little disappointed

that it wound up being used in a cartoon movie

about robots. Little did I know at the time that

it would become like a phenomenon. Yeah, I'm

going to get into the Transformers questions

a little bit later. Yeah, yeah. Also in that

interview, they mentioned your album Dial 818

-888 -8638. You all also mentioned that has some

sort of special meaning, and I'd like to let

you know that my podcast is explicit, so whatever

that meaning is, if it is explicit, you can go

ahead and say it. I want to know what it was

supposed to mean. Oh, it was just a fan line

that we had set up, and it was like a message

to the fans and so forth. For a few years, there

was a fan line set up, and that's all it was.

Oh, see, I thought it was something. I thought

Mike had said on your all's interview that if

you spelled out the numbers, it said some curse

word or something. Oh, interesting. I never noticed

that. Well, I could be listening to the interview

wrong. I'm not really sure. No, no, it could

be. If it is, it's just coincidence, though.

Yeah. Let's see. What else? Where is that question?

If there was one historical event that you could

have your music playing at, what would it be

and why? Oh, I think on my feet here. Wow. I

don't really know offhand. I mean, there have

been... I had a song in the Olympics, and that

was a big moment in 1996. I flew to Atlanta and

performed in the Olympic Village and so forth.

I'm trying to think. You know, winning the Emmy

was a big moment for me. I can't really say an

event, I guess, you know, in terms of world event

kind of thing. I mean, I think just generally

speaking, I'd like to try to help people and

maybe give people a little encouragement, you

know, to do better in life if they can, that

kind of thing. Oh, yeah, exactly. Yeah, when

I was looking, when I was doing research on you,

I found the little blurb where it says, in 97,

you won the Emmy for Till I Was Loved by You,

which was featured in Guiding Light. Yeah. Also,

Capture the Dream, which was in the Olympics.

Are those available anywhere? Because when I

was doing the research, I actually bought In

This Life off of iTunes, and I bought several

other songs. I think I bought... I can't even

think. I know I bought Never Surrender, and there

was another one, and I forget what it is. I think

it's Straight to the Top. Yeah, yeah, those were

on. Yeah, the album The Child Within, it's on

iTunes. Those songs are on that one. Okay. Yeah,

Capture the Dream and Till All Are One. I'm sorry,

Till I Was Loved by You. Yeah. Another Till.

Yeah. I got mixed up. That's cool. I heard that

you have a new album that is coming out. Can

you give us any exclusives from it? Yeah. We're

actually a couple of months away from finishing

it, but it's in the works, and it's coming out

great. So, like I say, we did a new version of

The Touch. It's totally different and totally

modern. Completely different song, basically.

And it's been submitted for the new Transformers

movie. Still waiting to hear, you know, what's

happening with that. But anyway, we're also doing

a music video for it today. It's the shoot, actually,

this evening. Oh, that's cool. So, yeah. So you'll

be seeing that on YouTube fairly soon. I'm not

sure when we're going to release the video. It

kind of depends on the circumstances surrounding

the movie. I don't want to... I have to think

this through, you know, and I don't want to put

it out prematurely if Paramount is actually going

to use the song, you know, kind of thing. Yeah.

I'm looking at your IMDb page, and it says, like,

on the little news desk thing before it gets

into what you've done in film, and I haven't

looked at the actual article because I just haven't

yet. It says... A little tagline says, Michael

Bay says you won't believe how Transformers 2

ends. Now, the only thing I can take to that

meaning, unless I click on the link, means that

at some point the touch will be in the movie.

I don't know. Me, personally, I am not really

interested in any of the movie news right now

because Michael Bay always does false stuff half

the time. Yeah. I have no clue what... what that

means or anything. Yeah, I will look at it later.

Yeah, yeah. How did you feel? No, it'd be great

if they did put it in there. Well, the thing

is, it's an anthem around the world for Transformers

fans, and to ignore that, I don't know, it just

seems like it's not entirely respectful of the

fans. You know, they did get the voice of Optimus

Prime. I know that was one of the other things

that... the fans really wanted, and that did

come to pass. Yeah. Anyway, but yeah, we'll keep

a good thought, and we'll see what happens. It's

still, like I say, this is crunch time for them.

I know the music is always the last thing, you

know, in a movie, so they're still sorting through

everything, deciding what they're going to do.

I know the first movie, it was very political.

I think all the actual Warner Brothers bands

like Linkin Park and Goo Goo Dolls and I don't

know who else. Yeah, there was a whole bunch

on that. I was actually going to ask you about

how you felt about that as far as, like you said,

The Touch is basically an anthem for Transformers

fans. And me personally being a fan, every time

I hear that song, doesn't matter what version

it is, immediately I think of Optimus Prime.

That's just what it is. That's just what it turned

into. So how did you feel by them not allowing

you into the movie, into the first movie? Well,

it was just, like I say, the song was going to

be in the movie right up until, I think, two

weeks before the release. And I never really

got the circumstances as to why it was pulled

out. It was going to be, I think it was one of

the scenes where Bumblebee, you know, in the

car and all that. Right. I don't really know

what the circumstances were. I never found out.

But I had re -recorded a version in 2007 that

was very similar to the original. Now, how is

the 2007 version going to differ from the new

version you're working on now? Well, like I say,

the new one is a totally different song. It's

a different melody and different... Like I say,

the lyrics are the only thing that's kind of

a thread that's... similar you know a bit um

but uh all i can say is it's it's really good

and it's very modern and cool and all that so

uh you know one of the things with the touch

uh the original touch was it was it's kind of

an 80s type of thing you know what i mean uh

it's different from what the kids are listening

to today and so that might you know that might

be a fact been a factor you know and so uh but

this new one could very could very well be considered,

I think, for an end title cut, like a feature

track. It depends on, like I say, it depends

on the politics of it. But the ball's in Paramount's

court right now, and we'll just see what happens.

I'm sure Michael Bay will be the ultimate decider

of things. Yeah, let's hope it gets in there.

That would be awesome. Yeah, thanks. I'm going

to do kind of like what... Mike and them did,

I'm going to go a little bit inside the actor's

studio on you. What is your favorite word? I

think moment. Moment. Yeah, I really love that

word. Because it's, you know, so much of the

time we're thinking about the future and the

past and all that, and just living in the moment

is like the key to being happy. Having a sense

of well -being. Right, right. What is your least

favorite word? Wow. I don't know. Am I putting

you on the spot? I just, it's hard to think.

Let's see. I mean, obviously stuff like hate

would be probably. Yeah. Yeah. What is your favorite

curse word? I guess I'm kind of an ass man. Switching

gears a little bit, I kind of want to get into

the whole Transformers thing. How did you get

involved with the 1986 movie? Well, it was set

up through the label. Scotty Brothers did...

made the arrangements for the song to be in the

movie, The Touch and Dare. That's cool. That

was just set up by the label. I actually, and

I pointed this out, this little interview that

we're doing here will be a part of my movie roundtable

for the 86 movie, and I pointed out in the roundtable

discussion that I truly believe, obviously, that

Touch is Optimus Prime's theme, and I also believe

that Dare is another character, Hot Rod's theme.

And if you watch the movie... with your songs

obviously in it, and you watch those scenes with

those characters, you can really see that, yeah,

that even though you didn't design them to be

character themes, that's what they are. Yeah,

yeah, it's kind of cool how that evolved that

way. It's like it just sort of came to be in

everybody's hearts and minds. It seems like that's

the way that it came out. Were you only supposed

to do, were you only... tapped to do two songs,

or did they sign you up for more than two? Well,

I had also sung a version of the Transformers

theme, but they wound up using the Lion version.

But there was a, on the Transformers DVD release,

or soundtrack, there was a soundtrack that was

re -released or whatever that had... a version

that I did of Transformers. Yeah, that was the

20th anniversary CD soundtrack that came out

with the DVD. Yeah. How did the movie affect

your career afterwards? I mean, just having your

music in the movie aside from being the touch,

the main song that you're basically known for.

Well, a lot of things kind of, you know, evolved

from that. For one thing, the song became popular

in Europe. I did a lot of touring in Germany

and so forth based mainly on that song. It was

kind of surprising to me that that happened,

but it just kind of did. So I did a lot of stuff

in Europe and England, and I went to Japan once.

Then, of course, there were other things that

came from it, too. The touch was in the movie

Boogie Nights, so that was another thing that

resulted from it. And then recently on an episode

of Chuck on NBC, this was in October, where they

have to save the world and there's some video

game champion and his theme with the touch. I

don't know if you saw that. No, I didn't, but

I've seen the news items about it. Yeah, it was

very cool. In the original version of The Touch,

what was the musical inspiration behind it? Like,

what sound were you going for? I mean, did the

way the 80s music scene sounded, did that have

an effect on it, or was it something that you

just said, hey, I'm going to use this, this,

and this, and that's what it was? Yeah, I don't

recall there being a lot of thought put into

it. It was more just from the heart, you know,

from the gut. The vocals are very uplifting,

and the lyrics, of course, are. The whole thing

about going for it. That's the theme, and it

started with that song, but that's kind of a

theme I sort of latched on to. I've gotten some

really cool fan mail over the years about that,

about the touch and dare, how those songs have

been a positive influence in some kid's life

or whatever. It's incredible to hear a story

like that, but maybe you did some good in the

world, you know? Oh, yeah. I mean, me personally,

actually when I was doing the prep to talk to

you today, I actually listened to Darren and

I noticed that from the 2 .25 mark until the

2 .51 mark is probably, the 2 minute 51 mark

is probably my favorite part only because it's...

just instrumental and you can feel, of course

me, I can see the action that's going on in the,

in the movie, but just listening to the CD, I

can actually feel that, that uplifting type of

type of, um, uh, feeling that you're going for.

And I just, I actually, honestly, sometimes I

like dare more than the touch. Oh yeah. Yeah,

no, it's very cool. I like it too. Thank you.

As far as the new one, I know you're not going

to talk too much about it, but do you think that

the fans of your previous work will still enjoy

the new version of the Touch? Well, yeah, I think

they will, and a lot of it's because of the nostalgia

of knowing the song and the lyrics and so forth,

and they're going to like, wow, this is cool.

And it's got a little bit of a Linkin Park vibe

maybe, and there's the melodies. You know, very

different for the chorus. It's very unique and

high and very cool. It's kind of keyboard. It's

also got the detuned guitar, you know, where

they tune the guitar low. And it's a very fat,

cool sound that guitarists use now these days,

some of the heavy stuff, you know. That's really

cool. Someone had written in to me because I

had asked them. to ask, you know, hey, I'm interviewing

Stan Bush. Is there anything that you, the fans,

want to ask him? And one of the questions was,

what do you think of the fans? Are they still

tied to the Generation 1 cartoon and the movie,

or are they ready for the new batch of Stan Bush

Transformers goodness? Well, I don't know. The

answer is kind of both, I think. A lot of the

people that were growing up during the first

one, it brings back memories and so forth. I

know that most everybody is really excited about

the new movie and so forth and the new stuff

that's coming out. Going back to In This Life,

like I said, I just bought it probably half an

hour before I called you. I listened to the Till

All Are One, and I had seen the concert footage

that's on your website, StanBush .com, and that

is just an awesome song. Oh, thank you. I don't

suppose you have just the instrumental version

of that somewhere that maybe we could have to

play along with this clip? I may actually have

an instrumental version. I'll have to look. I'm

not sure. Usually when we do a... an album or

a recording or whatever, usually we do a track

with the vocals gone. It's what they call a TV

mix. So I'll look for that. I don't know for

sure if I have that or not. Oh, cool. How do

you feel about BotCon? Oh, I'm excited. I'm performing

at BotCon, as you know, the end of May. And this

one coming up is here in California, in Pasadena.

And the concert will be at Paramount Studios

on the... New York City live, you know, the set

outside at the evening, and the weather will

be great. So it's very exciting. I'm going to

be performing with Vince Ticola as well. He's

going to be doing part of the show will be him,

and part of it will be me, and part of it will

be both of us together. And it's going to be

awesome. Dang, I wish I could go. Oh, man. I

know. It'd be cool. Where do you live? I'm in

Louisville, Kentucky. Oh, Kentucky. Okay. Yeah.

Actually, it's funny. This is a little side note.

After I listened to All Are One off the In This

Life album, I don't know if you pay any attention

to the previous BotCons, but last year there

was a theme that they did called Shattered Glass,

where everything was reversed. Like, the Decepticons

were good, the Autobots were evil, and I have

the BotCon Optimus Prime figure from that, and

on his little cab he has a hood that says, Till

All Are Gone. And as soon as I heard your song,

I'm like, wouldn't it be cool if Stan turned...

till all are one around and made, not really

make it negative, but have it titled till all

are gone and have like a story type of song going

like in that same direction. That, that would

have been really cool. Oh yeah. Yeah. That's

neat. Yeah. I like twists like that, you know?

Yeah. Yeah, I wish BotCon was doing the Shattered

Glass universe again this year, but unfortunately

they're not. Do you or have you ever watched

any of the Transformers cartoons, whether that

be the one in the 80s or whether it be Beast

Wars or any of the newer ones? Just snippets

here and there. Like I know there was a Beast

Wars or one of the cartoons actually played to

touch years ago. and I heard about it, but I

didn't see that episode. But yeah, just snippets

here and there. Yeah. If you had the chance,

would you ever voice a character if offered,

like for a Transformers cartoon? Well, sure,

yeah. I did a little bit of voiceover work out

here, but I'm mainly a singer, so I have to...

You stick with your strengths. Exactly, exactly,

yeah. Oh, man. Yeah, actually, I don't know if

you know, I don't know how much of Transformers

stuff, news and stuff you pay attention to. They

are Shout Factory. Hasbro has tapped them to

re -release the Generation 1 cartoon on DVD.

They're going to be releasing Season 1, the 25th

anniversary DVD set, on the 16th of June, a week

before the movie comes out. And then later in

the summer, they're going to be doing a complete

series of the Generation 1 cartoons. So maybe

if you wanted to, you could go pick it up and,

you know, you could watch the old cartoons if

you wanted to. Oh, yeah. That sounds cool. Yeah.

I think that's all I have for you. Okay. Well,

I should mention that people can find out information

about what's going on with me. at stanbush .com.

That's cool. While you're talking about being

able to reach you, how do you feel about social

media, like MySpace and Facebook and Twitter

and all that stuff? I have a MySpace, but I haven't

gotten involved in the other stuff. I just don't

have time. People send me things. to try to get

on Facebook or whatever the other ones are, and

I just don't have time to do that. I barely have

time to do what I'm doing now. Yeah, you know

the story. Yeah, yeah. All right. Well, I'd like

to thank Stan Bush for taking the time out to

record with me today in this special clip for

the movie roundtable episode of the TFG1 podcast.

My pleasure. Enjoyed it. Yep. Hang on the line,

Stan. Talk to you in a little bit. This is the

second roundtable clip that you are going to

hear on episode 16 of the TFG1 podcast. I am

your host, Mike Blanchard, with Michael Wilson.

Hello, Michael. Well, hi there. Hello. Yes, I

wasn't sure if I was going to be doing more than

one clip. In the previous audio clip, we had

myself, Steve slash Megatron of PredaconEmpire

.com, and Mike the Mandat of This Week in Geek

discussing the 86 film. And I actually wasn't

sure if I was going to be able to get Stan Bush

as an interview, which I did, which was totally

awesome. And I had to really, really control

myself from geeking out because it's Stan Bush.

And obviously, how many people actually get to...

Stan Bush, we love you! Obviously, how many people

get to stalk... Wow, that almost sounded creepy.

You're going to stalk the man. No, talk. How

many people actually get to talk to Stan Bush?

So that will be before this clip. And yeah, we're

going to be talking about the 1986 Transformers

The Movie. So let's just get right into it. When

was the first time you saw the movie? You know,

honestly, I did not see it at the theaters. And

I didn't see it when it came out immediately.

I was probably about 15. maybe when I actually

saw it. So that would have been 1988, roughly.

Yeah, that's about the same time I saw it. It

was either 87 or 88. I didn't see it in theaters

either. Actually, I didn't even know about it

until I think my mom saw it in some video store

or something. Yeah, so that was about the same

for me. All right, the second little question

here is, now it says, Be honest, did you cry

when Optimus Prime died? No. And it's probably

not due to the fact that I wasn't emotional about

it, but it's more to the fact that I don't cry.

I have dry eyes. I just don't physically cry.

And occasionally the tear ducts will kick in,

but it's at the most inopportune moments, like

when I'm trying to fall asleep or things like

that. Yeah. But normally, on most occasions,

no, I don't cry. I've probably cried maybe twice.

out of raw emotion in the last 20 years. Yeah,

well, seeing as how our age difference is a little

bit, you know, obviously you're a little bit

older than I am. I was about 8, 7 or 8 when I

actually saw it. And the only, the time that

I cried on it was when I first saw the last shot.

And by the last shot, I mean, you know that shot

that they always show in the trailers? of where

Megatron shoots him and we see Prime falling

back and his leg falls, you know, his leg goes

up and then he's down. Yeah. That's, I was like,

my mouth hung open. He's dead. My eyes started

watering up. I'm like, what? No. Oh, my God.

Hell no. No, they did not do that. And this was

after Megatron, you know, basically put a fusion

cannon to a bronze head. And we know he's going

to kill people. dead. Well, actually, he shot

Brawn in the shoulder. He shot Ironhide in the

head. Shoulder in the head? Well, no. Brawn was

not shot in the head. He was shot in the shoulder.

Brawn is holding onto Megatron's foot and he

looks up at Megatron and Megatron says That's

Ironhide. That's Ironhide? That's Ironhide. When

the Decepticons first break into the ship. Braun

is the first one we see. He says Megatron. He

gets up. The next thing we see is Ratchet and

Braun and either it's Blue Streak or Prowl. I

forget which one. Whatever. Mr. Burning Eyes

there. Megatron transforms into his little pistol

mode and Starscream has to hold him. And Starscream

shoots Braun in the shoulder at the very end

of the scene where Megatron walks up. Ironhide

comes in from the left side of the screen, holds

onto Megatron's legs, and he says, no, and Megatron's

like, such nonsense or something, and he shoots

Ironhide in the head. Trust me. You know, I will

go along with your opinion there. No, it's not

an opinion, it's a fact. Well, if you'd have

watched the movie before we recorded this, it

would have been fresh in your mind. Yeah, two

nights ago. Mr. Transporter Wine Person. Oh,

please. What I thought was interesting was the

way it was storyboarded originally when it was

written, not animated this way, but written this

way, that Megatron came on board and shot them

all so badly that they fell into two or three

pieces. Yeah, the original script melted entirely.

Yep. When they first wrote the script, it was

supposed to be way more violent than what it

actually ended up being. And I think that either

it was the censors or the network or Hasbro or

somebody coming down on them saying, hey, look,

you guys need to kind of PG it up a little bit

here. We want the PG rating. We don't want it

that bad. This is long before PG -13. Oh, yes.

If they would have gotten pushed to an R rating,

that would have been it. Yeah, your seven, eight

-year -old self probably would have been crying

a river if Braun had been melted in the slag

as opposed to just shot in the shoulder. Oh,

yes. And we will talk about the rating of the

movie a little bit later because that comes into

play with a few choice voice lines. There's a

couple of interesting things going on in the

movie. Yes, yes. We'll discuss that. Prevent

the G rating. Yeah, pretty much so. If you could

pick only one character that you liked out of

the entire movie, who would it be and why? I

really liked Rodimus. I'm the same way. I said

that in the first clip. A lot of people are like,

I don't like Rodimus. He's just too punky. It's

like, oh, I'm happy -go -lucky. He's just traveling

through life. And some people don't like that

about the fact that he ends up as the leader.

And some people say, oh, no, I'd really much

rather have seen Ultra Magnus become the leader.

And basically Ultra Magnus proved several times

in the movie that he wasn't ready to be a leader.

He just made bad decision after bad decision.

And it just didn't work out for him in the end.

Mr. I can't deal with that now. I can't deal

with that now. That's right. You can't deal with

that. You can't let your shuttle not get blown

all to hell. You can't keep your limbs on your

own body. I mean, well, that wasn't actually

in the movie, but yeah, that was originally written

that way where they were all going to, where

the sweeps swooped in and pulled him off in four

different directions. Yep. That would have hurt.

That was like totally Faces of Death. Oh, yeah.

I mean, I love Optimus and Megatron as the leaders,

but now looking back on it, and I've always liked

the Rodimus character. I've always liked Hot

Rod slash Rodimus, whatever the hell you want

to call him. I've always liked that character.

I always liked him in the movie when I was younger,

and I like him now. But the way I look at it

is that Optimus and Megatron... They're the number

one overall best, but if I had to pick one character

out of the movie, number one, because I liked

how he looked, was Hot Rod, and obviously Rodimus

later on. His character, he has the most character

growth out of anybody in the entire movie. I

think so, but what I don't like, well, I like

Hot Rod, and to a certain extent, what little

bit you see of Rodimus Prime, and I did like

him there. Later on in the cartoon... Rodimus

Prime basically spends a lot of time on the underground

saying, I'm not as good as Optimus. I suck. And

everyone goes, oh, no, you're not. You're fine.

And, you know, that bothers me about him. Because

Optimus Prime would never, I mean, you know,

heavy is the head that wears the crown. But Optimus

Prime never sat around moping. It's like Rodimus'

emo prime. Yeah, I know. Yeah, and you and I

will probably get into a very – I am definitely

– there is one episode coming up that you'll

be on. I don't think it's – it's either 18 or

19. It's about the – it's a dream episode where

they're stuck in Daniel's dream, and I have a

lot of bad, bad, bad, foul language to say about

that episode when it comes to Rodimus. But as

far as the movie goes – He was my favorite. After

25 years, do you think that the movie and the

G1 series overall holds up? That's an excellent

question because, let's put it this way, as a

contrast agent, take a look at a movie that came

out at relatively the same time, like Bill and

Ted's Excellent Adventure. If you watch that,

you think, wow, this movie is really dated. this

is a really old movie. Whereas with Transformers,

aside from the slightly 80s soundtrack, well,

very 80s soundtrack, the animation still holds

up. It's a very well animated movie. It compares

very well with a lot of the stuff that came out

in the early 90s and late 90s even. The more

recent, let's say, anime that's come out, it's

mostly computer -generated, and even some of

that doesn't look quite as nice. Yeah, I find

myself, when I want to watch Transformers the

movie or the Transformers the movie or whatever

the hell multi -subtitles that they've given

the thing over the years, when I watch it, I

either watch it with the creator commentary,

even though the creator commentary kind of sucks

a little bit. I watch it either with that or

by itself. I have watched the fan commentary

on the 20th anniversary DVD, but... I'm the type

of person that if somebody points something out,

I will always notice it. Like the fact of all

of the dead robots return in the battle scene

as far as just randomly flying by. Occasionally,

yeah. Like the coronation scene where somehow

or another, Thundercracker and Skywarp show up

and standing in the crowd. Yep, yep. I mean,

I will always notice that stuff. They're back!

Don't think I ever really noticed it before I

listened to that commentary. I don't think I

ever noticed it in the movie until after I listened

to that. Well, I think unless you've watched

the whole movie five times and freeze -framed

it just frame by frame by frame, would you actually

notice it? Yeah. Oh, yeah. What was your favorite

scene in the movie? Oh, you know, my favorite

scene, and again, this is a Rodimus scene, it's...

when Rodimus is wrestling with Galvatron, he

gets hold of the Matrix, and he kind of stands

up, and Optimus Prime, long dead, says, you know,

arise, Rodimus Prime. And he goes, Optimus. Yeah.

And he stands up and he kind of grows and he

begins. And then the touch kicks in again. Oh,

yeah. And it's like, ah, you know, I mean, right

there, that's an emotional scene for me. I dig

that. Oh, yeah. My favorite was that actually

the whole scene when he first, when Hot Rod first

falls down into that area of Unicron and, you

know, they start that whole battle scene and

they keep, they keep scene cutting between the

inside, between the two of them fighting and

the outside where, uh, all the other Autobots

and Decepticons are fighting Unicron who is,

you know, standing in, how the hell can you stand

in space? But he's standing in space attacking

Cybertron. Um, one of my other favorite parts

of that scene is, and it, Yeah, it's just funny

as hell. Me, Grimlock, kick butt. And then they

all go in, they all do their little attacks,

and Unicron reaches around and he grabs his ass.

But I mean, the scale of that, you kind of see

a hand reach around like he's trying to grab

the Dinobots. But I mean, if they pulled back

a little bit, they'd have this big -ass robot

scratching his ass, which would be hilarious.

They didn't go for the easy poop joke. I know,

I know. Which is a shame, you know. Well, I give

him that. I mean, granted, they could have gone

for the easy ass grab joke and, you know, insured

themselves the PG rating. Oh, yeah. Well, the

other part of that scene is after Unicron grabs

his ass and Grimlock flies out, he goes, me,

Grimlock, need new strategy. I like Grimlock.

I don't like so much that they turned him into

a big dumb German shepherd. After that fact,

I mean, you know, he was kind of a me -grimlock

badass when they introduced him. And then they

kind of turned him into the comic relief. And

really, he's just literally like a big, dumb

German shepherd. He's just, hi, hi, hi, how's

it going? Throw me a ball, throw me a ball. Yeah,

you and I will definitely get into that in the

next episode because... Episode 17 is the epic

five -parter, Five Faces of Darkness, and he

even sounds like a whiny dog when Rodimus gets

hit by the... Anyway, we'll get into that. Well,

even in the movie, Wheelie hits him in the nose

with a slingshot, and he's like, oh, why you

hit me in my nose? It's like, me, Grimlock's

badass, would have eaten that fucker, and that

would have been it. You know what I mean? I mean,

we don't need a guide to the giant building at

the end of this road. We know where the giant

building is. Well, in Grimlock's defense, he

did go all badass on the Sharktacons. He did.

There was a certain comedic element still to

it. But Slag looks down and says, excuse me.

Well, yeah, but that's slag, though. I mean,

like, when they first get into that scene, when

they first burst in on the scene and they're

all coming down after Grimlock gets in there,

you know, he's going after the Sharktacons, and

how the hell is that a camera in his mouth? I

have no idea. They show his teeth, you know,

menacing inside of his teeth. There's a lot of

carnage. Yeah, like you're sitting on his...

Like somebody sat a camera right on his friggin'

tongue, and you can see his jaws opening, and

then it cuts to the outside of him where it shows

the same thing at a different angle. So, I mean,

you know, Grimlock did have his moments. Yeah.

Actually, yeah, I thought it was a good scene.

I think that, you know, Cuff and Rodimus could

have handled themselves. They were doing pretty

well, honestly. Yeah. Maybe they didn't need

the backup. He certainly didn't eat Wheelie there.

He could have been eaten. Yeah. Wheelie hater

in the house! Oh, trust me, I am too. I cannot

stand that fucking character. Wheelie hater in

his house. Fucking Wheelie. So that was your

favorite scene? Well, the whole battle scene.

I'm wondering, are there people out there who

say, my favorite scene was when Optimus died?

And he turned gray. Now, I did like the battle

scene between the two of them, up to the part

where Astro Train escapes with the rest of the

Decepticons. But no, the death scene is not my

favorite. Absolutely not. My second favorite

scene might be the one where Prime and the Dinobots

come. Prime lands the shuttle, and they have

a scene of him. This is an iconic scene. He's

coming off the shuttle. I believe Hound is still

coming down the ramp. He's standing by the hydradam,

and he says, Megatron must be stopped, no matter

the cost. Boom. That's an iconic scene. I would

love to have a freeze -frame cell of that on

my wall. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, and that entire

scene, when I talk about the Megatron -Optimus

battle scene, I'm talking about from that point,

after the shuttle lands, until... You know, as

they're trained, you know, gets the rest of the

Decepticons and then they retreat. Yeah, yeah.

Well, no, I mean, that's an epic battle. Oh,

yeah. And sadly, that's the last time you're

going to see such an epic battle. I mean, even

the Unicron battle isn't quite as awesome as,

you know, what took place there. Nope, nope,

nope. I think we're going to wing it because

I just have a whole bunch of other notes. I did

some math before I did the first recording with

the other guys. And I've averaged out Spike's

age to be between 36 and 38 years old. Within

the time frame of the cartoons. Like, obviously,

season one of Generation One started in 1984.

And that's the actual time frame that they say

once that they've woken up. It's 1984. He's at

least 16, 17, and 84. Yeah, he's like 15, 16,

and 84 because he couldn't drive. And then now

the movie is set in 2005, so you take, obviously,

you do that math. I averaged out to be, but he's

37. And that kind of, it didn't weird me out.

It kind of shocked me because he almost looks

and acts like. like he's in his 20s, but then

again, he does have a kid. But I don't know.

How old do you think Daniel is then? Daniel has

to be between 8 and 10, I would say. Yeah, somewhere

in there. Yeah, somewhere in there. And they

never showed Carly. No, they did not show. Are

you sure Carly's the mother? We don't know. Yes,

I'm positive because that episode I mentioned

earlier that we're going to be reviewing, I think

it's episode 18 or 19, actually shows her. Yeah,

because it shows the three of them as a family.

Oh, okay. Yeah, so even though she wasn't in

the movie. She was retconned in after the fact.

Yeah, really. Yeah. Maybe Spike was the first

pregnant male, and then they just retconned her

in to be, you know, oh, I'm the surrogate mother.

Did you see the, I forget which episode it was

in, but Derek Wyatt threw in Spike and Carly

with a baby in one of the Transformer animated

episodes. Oh, really? I forget which one it was,

but... There was a battle, and there was Spike

and Carly, and Ratchet says, well, get in, or

something along those lines, and they were supposed

to go to the hospital. Maybe she was pregnant.

I think that's what it was. She was pregnant,

and they had to take her to, and it was clearly

Spike and Carly. Yeah, I remember that. And the

ride was horrible, and I thought they were both

going to die, and then there'd be no Daniel.

Yeah, I remember that. Now that you mention it,

I don't remember which episode it is. I don't

remember the episode. I actually don't remember

it all that clearly because I thought there was

a baby involved because she's only pregnant.

But the homage was there. Yes, yes. Another question

I have. along the same lines of being within

the timeline of the original series and the movie,

where the hell have they been? Where the hell

have the Autobots been for the last 26 years?

I mean, come on. You go from bot at the end of

season two to being on a moon base and having

the Decepticons have full control over Cybertron,

which really, the Decepticons had full control

over Cybertron in the first two seasons. Yeah,

because Shockwave was always there. Well, maybe

it took them 26 years to take the moon base.

I mean, you've got to think, they've been fighting

for 9 million years. 26 years is like a drop

in the bucket. You know, it's like, that's barely

nothing. They could take a nap for 26 years and

not notice. But maybe that's what they did. Half

of them were sleeping. But at some point, they

took the moon base. Excuse me. And Megatron didn't

seem to care because he had Laserbeak to fly

back and forth from their base to the moon base

and kind of listen in with. It's like, sure,

you can have all the moon bases you want because

I'm going to be sitting there with my tape deck

listening to you. Yep, yep, yep, yep. Yeah, I...

It wasn't exactly a strategic advantage. No.

The one thing that really pissed me off about

the Prime -Megatron battle... Megatron never.

begs for mercy. I know it was just a ploy to

obviously stall, but it's just stupid. We all

know he's going to make a play to win. Regardless,

even if dumbass Hot Rod didn't interfere. With

Prime, though, he wants to see the good in everyone,

even if it's an impossibility. It's like you

and I both know it would be impossible for MegaTron

to say, oh, I'm so sorry, and maybe you can find

it in your heart to forgive me? You know, that

would never happen. But Prime's like, oh, Shox,

sure, I suppose I'll forgive you. You know, I

really don't see any need to kill you here, despite

the fact that you're the most evil fucker in

the universe. Maybe we can work this out, and

you can just do life in prison. How about that?

In the meantime, Megatron makes his way to the

gun and shoots him a couple times. I'm really

surprised at how powerful this little purple

peashooter is. You'd think he was being hit by

a fusion cannon the way he fell over. Yeah, that

was kind of ridiculous. And there's just weapons

lying all over the floor. Wherever you happen

to land, there's a rocket launcher next to you.

Razor blade, yep. Yeah, exactly. He's got this

shiv he chases him with. What's that doing on

the floor? Yeah. Yeah, I think it would have

been better if maybe he had dropped his fusion

cannon and then noticed it lying there and reached

down and picked it up. I can see that doing a

grievous amount of damage to Prime, but I mean,

he's got this little peashooter that he hits

him with a couple times. Yeah. It just didn't

seem like it was all that impressive. Yeah, and

again, it's not like these fucking things have

pockets. Where the hell did he have a gun? An

extra gun. It was on the ground. It was like

an outcropping and it was just sitting there

on the ground. He looks down and, holy shit,

there's a gun there. He's got like the BFG just

sitting there on the ground underneath this outcropping

where conveniently Prime can't see it. So he

says, he looks up and says, oh. Have mercy as

he's crawling toward the gun that Prime can't

see. Yeah. See, the only way I could kind of

justify that is they are in the middle of a giant

battlefield. Yeah. And, you know, people getting

shot and everything else. They would drop their

weapon. But, yeah, it doesn't make any sense

either. Well, no, I mean, that easily could have

been like one of the Constructicons guns or something.

Could have been. But I don't think a Constructicons

peashooter is going to be able to drop prime

like that. But then again, they did do a whole

bunch of damage to each other before that point.

Because if you look at that shot of Megatron

when he first stands up, his face is all torn

up and everything else. So, I mean, you know,

it could be argued that... that this battle has

been going on for like 10 minutes and they've

kind of destroyed the fuck out of each other

other than just giving one last final shot. Yeah,

but I mean, you know, Megatron's been fighting

all night and Prime just kind of shows up fresh

and he's like, hey, I'm ready to go. Oh, that's

true. So, I mean, they really shouldn't... I

don't know. Prime shouldn't have gone down quite

that easily. I mean, if he had the fusion cannon,

yeah, I could see that. Oh, yeah. How badass

would it have been if he had just picked up the

fusion cannon, slung it under his arm, and started

blasting him with it as opposed to having him

mount it? You know, that would have been awesome.

But, no, it didn't play out that way. But, you

know, when you're 8, 9, 10 years old, you're

not really seeing it that way. No. And I think

that's, you know. 20 years later when you're

looking at it with an adult eye going, wait a

minute. Yeah, really, wait a minute. That's not

right. What the hell are they doing? And we're

the same people that are complaining, you know,

when Hasbro creates a toy line for, you know,

five to eight -year -olds. It's like, wait a

minute. These are all kiddie toys. I don't want

to play with these. I don't have a problem with

some of the lines, but I have a problem with

the fact of transforming some of the lines. You

know, like reference. TFA Blur and Elite Guard

Bumblebee, bastards. Oh. He's just fiving up

level three conversion my ass. No, I think those

are good toys, and it's a good series. It's when

you go back to like Armada, where Armada, the

figures themselves were made for, specifically

for, you know, five to ten year old boys with

that in mind. Or five, whatever the age demographic

is. You know, they were made for small children

to play with. and they just don't look all that

good. The homages are there, but they're not

fantastic. Whereas if you look at the new Transformers

animated, it's all very well thought out with

an adult collector in mind as well. Oh, yeah,

and we can discuss that later. But, yeah, I would

never. I watched maybe two episodes of Armada,

and I'm not going to support this. why the hell

would I support the toys? Even though I'm not

the completionist you are, but, you know, it's

like, screw that. Yeah. As far as the themes

go, obviously the touch is Optimus' theme. Every

time I hear that song, I think of Optimus Prime.

And you can go ahead. Really? Yes. You can go

ahead. I kind of think of that as... Rodimus'

theme. The Touch? No. Yeah. Well, I mean, well,

see, I differ. I can consider it both as far

as Optimus and Rodimus, but as far as, like,

the Hot Rod characters theme, it would be Dare,

which was the song that played. Oh, that played

when they were going up to Lookout Mountain.

Yeah. Okay. I'll buy that. That's an awesome

song, too. Do you have any frustrations you would

like to get out about The Touch? I know you mentioned

something to me the other day. Right before the

interview that preceded this little clip here,

you had said... Why would you call me on that?

Because... Because, you know, Stan's going to

listen to this. I highly doubt it. You know how

you... What's the term? An ear bug? An ear worm?

I think it's ear worm. Yeah. You know, from the

Adams books. But you get something stuck in your

head and it won't go away. Oh, yeah. You know,

I oftentimes get the touch stuck in my head.

And it's like, well, I'll get either the touch

or dare again, you know. And it's – sometimes

it annoys me. And it's like, damn it, Stan Bush,

I'm just going to kick you square in the nuts

because this is your damn song. It's tormenting

me. I actually told Stan, I said, you know, I

– I went... Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no, no. No,

no, no. No, I didn't tell him that. No, no, no,

no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no, no. I told him

when I was doing research for the interview,

I told him, you know, I went back and I listened

to a lot of his songs because I had to buy his

2007 album. Oh, crap, I can't remember what it

is now. In This Life, and it has a new version

of the touch on it, and it has Till All Are One

on it. Well, I told them, I went back and I listened

to Dare, and there is one part in Dare, I think

it's from the 2 minute 25 mark to the 2 minute

51 mark, that it is just the instrumental. It's

no lyrics. It's just music. And I told him, I

said, I love that. That is my favorite part of

that song because I can visualize the scenes

in the movie where that song happened. Yeah.

No, I didn't tell him about your, no. I didn't

do that. You scared me. No, no, no. It's like,

by the way. No, no, no, no, no. It's like, you

know, I think, honestly, he's a talented guy.

And, you know, you've got to have respect for

him. The fact that he made these songs, a set

of music, that, you know, granted, it's very

80s, it's very dated at this point, but people

still have it in their heads and it won't go

away. Sometimes that's not a bad thing, though.

No, that's what I'm saying. It's not a bad thing.

It's an amazing thing. It's incredible. There

aren't too many songs that you can go back to

1986 and go, oh, yeah. I still think about that

song. Occasionally when you're in the shower,

the song jumps in your head. How many songs from

1986 are going to jump in your head? Unfortunately,

I have to admit this. You were eight. Danger

Zone has popped into my head a few times. Oh,

really? That was in the 90s, though, wasn't it?

Danger Zone? Hello, Top Gun, 1986. Yes. Oh, seriously?

Oh, okay. Well, you know, I'm not real big on

my Tom Cruise trivia. I just like it because

it's a movie. I mean, yeah, Tom Cruise was in

it, and it was a great movie, but I just like

it because it was part of Top Gun. Getting back

on topic here. Okay. Circling back around. Digress.

Yes, really. We really have to do a big digress.

A note I made on here was after the little theme.

The differentiating themes. Cassettes versus

cassettes equals awesome. That was just funny

as hell in that scene when Megatron has Soundwave

send the cassettes up to destroy Blaster and

Professor. Perceptor. Perceptor, yeah. That was

just really cool. I thought that they should

have done more with that. That scene was far

too short. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think it

would have been cool to actually see a couple

of them square off. Oh, yeah. You know, the good

versus evil cassettes. And, yeah, I really think

that they could have played up to a little bit

more potential. But at the same time, it's just

amazing they even made it in. Oh, yeah. Well,

it's amazing they even got a brand new character

introduced in that scene, Ratbat. We had not

seen Ratbat before. Hmm. With the gold radars.

Next note I have is 20 plus Decepticons versus

10 Autobots and a little boy. Give me a fucking

break. If you look at the battle scene, if you

look at when it first starts... You have Megatron,

Starscream, Soundwave, the rest of the Seekers,

including the Coneheads. You've got the Constructicons,

who have not merged to Devastator yet. You have

Astrotrain, Blitzwing. I mean, there's tons that

I could name off that I see. And the Insecticons.

And the fucking Insecticons, whatever. And then

you have... I'm really surprised the Insecticons

didn't form... A small army of clones. Storm,

yeah. No, I think that was done in Season 2 enough.

They did that in the two episodes of Season 2

that they had. They really wanted to annihilate

the Autobots. Yeah, really. The skies darken

with insecticides. Oh, I know it. And then you

look at the Autobot side. You've got Springer,

Arcee, Magnus, Blur, Perceptor. And I'm not counting

the fallen ones. You got Cup and Hot Rod on the

outside. So that's like five or six or seven.

And you got fucking Daniel. What the hell is

Daniel going to do? I keep... He's there for

more. I keep looking at the fucking scene where

they're moving the rocket launcher and him, you

know, pushing up against it. I'm like, yeah,

okay, kid. You're just straining your back muscles.

You're not even... He was there to give RC something

to fawn over. The entire movie. I could go really

dirty with that joke, but I'm not even going

to go there. No. That would be tantamount to

incest. I mean, she was just very material. Oh,

yeah. Yeah, if you listen to the commentary with

the creators, Sue Blue's on there and pretty

much doesn't say much other than... oh, look,

there's R .C. again. I'm R .C., and look how

maternal she's being toward Daniel. Three or

four times. It's like, yeah, Sue, that's right.

That's all she did, because she's a girl! And

nowadays, with the fiction, R .C. has become

a little bit more of a badass. But back then,

it was, she's the girl Autobot. And it's kind

of fun. It kind of plays back, though. It kind

of comes full circle, though, when you get to

Rebirth, because, you know, Dan tries to save

her, and he gets injured to the point where he's

paralyzed. And then, you know, the whole thing

of the Headmasters happens, and she requests

to have him, or else he's going to have to basically

lay on a... on an operating table for the rest

of his life with machines hooked up to him unless

they can find something more portable. So it

kind of comes around full circle where they're

almost... So then he becomes a head. He should

have stopped while he was a head. Because, you

know, he was a head of his time. Yeah, bad joke

right there. Bad joke. Actually, that would have

been awesome. Yes. I actually took, when I was

doing the original research for the movie, I

took a screenshot with my iPhone when I was watching

it. I had paused it on the scene where Devastator

is splitting open one of the walls right before

Prime comes down to the ship. Is it just me,

or does Devastator look more menacing in the

movie than he did in the cartoon? You know, I

think there were only a couple cartoons where

Devastator didn't have... a counterpart combiner

on the Autobot team. So I think in the movie,

there is no counterpart to Devastator. So of

course he's going to look massively badass, because

he is. There's nothing that can stand in his

way. They just don't have anything. And it would

have been neat to have some... I mean, more combiners

on either side. Yeah. You know, they could have

had, you know, it would have been really neat

if they could have had the Aerialbots there or

the Defensor, perhaps. Yeah, I think. But they

just weren't. Yeah, they just weren't. Yeah,

they just weren't created. They weren't fully

animated yet for that. Right. The scene, and,

okay, I'm going to preface this next very controversial

statement with, yes, I know Soundwave is completely

loyal. as far as a loyal soldier to Megatron,

but the scene where Megatron is deathly injured

and Soundwave doesn't leave him, ugh, was that

gay -looking? Because it's like, it's like, it's

like... Are we talking, like, Brokeback gay,

or are we talking just like, dude, that's gay?

Because you're going to have to clarify here.

I don't think there was, like, a love interest

at all between Megatron and Soundwave. Well,

no. Okay, look. Let me kind of act out the scene.

After Starscream kicks him, Megatron, like, reaches

out his hand. He's like, Soundwave, don't leave

me. Whatever you want, mighty Megatron. Or whatever

the hell he says. I don't know. When I was watching

it. The initial time when I first did the research

for the first clip of this episode of the podcast,

it just came off to me like, oh my god. Soundwave

says, I wish I could quit you. Carries Megatron

back. Yeah, the very next scene of that is fucking

Rumble carrying the fucking fusion cannon. Carrying

the huge phallic symbol behind them. I've got

your... Mr. Happy. I've got your big gun in my

hand, Megatron. Just carrying it along. I'll

catch up. Don't follow too closely. My ass is

completely exposed. One of the scenes that absolutely

amazed me, even when I first saw it as a kid,

I was wide -eyed and mouth hanging all open,

was the reformatting of Megatron into Galvatron.

That was fucking awesome how they did that. Yeah,

very well done. I like the wireframe, the glowing

blue -purple wireframe that shows all of his

circuits and everything inside. I think that's

the only thing that really, I don't want to say

redeemed, but it really made Galvatron cool.

in my eyes, is that he was Megatron at one point.

Well, Galvatron was ten times as ruthless as

Megatron because Galvatron, at least in the movie

anyway, he was much smarter than his previous

form because he basically cannon -blast Starscream

to death, which Megatron should have done at

the end of the second season. Yeah, he just had

no reason to keep Starscream around. I think

the difference between Megatron and Galvatron

is Megatron is scheming. He's forward thinking.

He's looking at things not as how they are, but

how he would like them to be in the future. And

how can I manipulate my environment, manipulate

space around me so that... I can be where I want

to be in the future. Whereas Galvatron doesn't

think about the future. He thinks of the now

and what can I do right this second to make myself

happy. Oh, yeah. And that's not really a good

leader. No, and that actually comes back into

play later on in Season 3 when Galvatron goes

nuts. I believe it's the episode... He needed

to go nuts just so they could explain why he

was such a sucky dude. I'm trying to think. Crap,

I can't. Mad Men's Paradise was the episode that

he went nuts in. I don't know why I noticed this,

but Ravage only has two scenes in the entire

movie. And at first, when I first did the first

clip with Mike and Steve, I didn't even remember

the first scene with all the cassettes and stuff.

The one that I remember the most is the one in

Astrotrain when the Decepticons are going all

crazy on each other. Yeah. He's ejected there.

Let's see. Galvatron disintegrates Starscream.

Oh, one of my things that I always thought, because

when I first saw that scene as a kid, I didn't

realize it was, I don't know, I wasn't paying

attention or something, I didn't realize it was

Starscream. Because after he disintegrates him

and you kind of see his foot, it almost looks

like Soundwave's foot from the toy. From the

Soundwave G1 toy. To me, anyway, that's what

it looked like. Well, I don't know. Actually,

I pretty much knew it was Starscream. Starscream's

dead. What I noticed was that Starscream turned

gray. He shot Starscream, he turned gray, and

then he disintegrated as the crown fell through.

It was almost as if Starscream had turned into

a pillar of ash. And the crown fell through him.

And then Galvatron then stomps on the crown.

But did you notice, though, those were the only

two characters in the movie that died and turned

gray. Optimus Prime died and turned gray. Starscream

died and turned gray. All the other Autobots

that died in the battle at Fortress Maximus or

at Autobot City, whatever you want to call it,

they didn't turn gray. Ultra Magnus, when he

was killed, He didn't turn gray. He was a big

pile of parts that weren't gray, and they still

managed to put him back together. It was like

the Princess Bride, and the junkie named Miracle

Max comes over and says, he's only mostly dead.

He's not all the way dead. We can bring him back

to life. Whereas if he's all the way dead, then

there's no miracle, and they turn gray and they

die. Yeah. If that makes any sense. Yeah, it

does. I guess we can get to the rating issue

and the oh shit controversy. Oh, shit. Actually,

I was waiting for him to say, we're fucked now.

Oh, now we got an R rating. Oh, you said F word.

I think that would have been an R rating. The

oh, shit controversy basically is, yes, they

intended to put it in the movie, but some of

the home video distributors back in the 80s said,

oh, this is supposed to be for kids. We can't

have that in a couple releases. leases it's not

in in a couple it is in and now with the new

uh well it's two years old now but with the 20th

anniversary edition you know it's it's it's left

in and that's how it should be left into you

know it's not saying like you know just saying

shit shit shit shit shit it is It is. Yeah, yeah.

It's for emphasis, like emotion. That's what

they said in the little thing about the TF Q

&A that they did on the DVD. And they also say

that it was in there to get the PG rating to

distinguish the movie from other G -rated animation

at the time. Right. This is not the Care Bears.

Yes, this is not the fucking Care Bears. This

is not the Care Bears. bears, this is a serious

anime. And the other one that was in there was

Open Dammit Open from Magnus. So, I mean, they

were not afraid to put words in that... You know

what? Yeah, after the shit, I had completely

forgotten about Dammit. That's right. Light our

fucking darkest hour, you piece of shit! Is that

worth it? Yeah. I had forgotten about that, yeah.

But I think that at the time, violence wasn't

considered when rating a movie because there

was a lot of violence in this movie. I mean,

early on in the movie, you've got parental death.

You don't want to say parental death, but yeah,

seriously, he was like a father figure to a lot

of children. He was a hero, and they killed off

Optimus Prime. They killed off at least three

or four characters prior to that. I mean, dead.

Prior characters that you probably cared a lot

about. Well, hell, the movie starts out... And

it's still a G rating? You don't see Care Bears

shooting each other in the head. No, I know.

Well, the whole movie starts out not even with

Transformers. It starts out with some fucking

large fucking planet coming to a smaller fucking

planet and gobbling it up. So, I mean, right

off the bat, they're setting up the fact that

this movie is going to have a lot of death in

it. Yeah. Mass destruction. But that doesn't

buy you a PG rating over a G. You know, I don't

know what does, but I mean, just to put the icing

on the cake, they threw the shit in there. Oh,

shit. Oh, shit, we're fucked now. That would

have been hilarious. Someone should go do a fan

dub. Oh, fuck me, running backwards up and down

the motherfucking street. Fuck! Fuck! And Blur

running back and forth saying, John Machina Jr.

He runs around in circles. That would have been

hilarious. Anyway, but yeah, that would have

given the intro. I forget which All Things Transformers

episode it was, but Steve and I were trying to

come up with a topic to discuss for one episode.

and we had just been discussing, we had just

done a topic the previous episode, this was a

while ago, this was a few months ago, that we

had discussed the differences between the two

leaders, between the two Autobot and Decepticon

leaders, which is Optimus and Megatron and Rodimus

and Galvatron, between those two sets. And then

for the next week's topic, I was thinking about

something, Finally figured it out. It was the

Hot Rod Springer RC Love Triangle. And the only

going to talk about it, because I already really

discussed it in the other episode. I was like,

don't get me started. Because it just pisses

me off. Because throughout the whole movie, it

shows the two of them. It shows Hot Rod and R

.C. that they're supposed to be the couple or

love interest or whatever. And Daniel's supposed

to be kind of like their surrogate son or whatever.

And then this dumbass Springer comes in. And,

yeah. I don't think I really caught it. So I

always thought that RC was supposed to be Springer's

girlfriend. Uh, whereas, you know, hot rod to

me kind of seemed like, uh, Springer and RC's

surrogates. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. The only

reason why I see Springer or not Springer, um,

hot rod and RC together. The only reason why

I saw that in the movie was because, because

they pushed a tank together. They had a tender

moment while aiming a giant rocket launcher toward

Devastator? No, because they both... Did they

hold hands a little bit while she was about to

die, falling out of the shuttle? No. I'm not

really sure where the whole love thing comes

into play. No, I know, but the whole... As far

as that goes, but the only reason why I viewed

them as being a couple thing is because they

both have the same power. He has, I guess you

could call it x -ray vision and so does she,

and they show that off at two different scenes

in the beginning of the movie where he's looking

into the Autobot ship and he sees Starscream.

He starts firing, and then Springer's like, oh,

well, they can take care of themselves. We've

got to transform Autobot City, and she pulls

a red visor down over her eyes or she hits a

button or says something, and it shows x -ray

vision type of deal. I thought it was just like

binoculars. I don't know, whatever. I thought,

you know, I kind of assumed they all had that

because they're robots. Fucking Springer. Goddamn

helicopter. Springer and his fucking sword. I

hate him. Oh, yeah. Hate him with a passion.

I guess... I like Springer. I mean, I like the

toy. I like... I didn't so much like the character

so much. But, you know, then again, I didn't

like many of the characters. I think I liked

Hot Rod. And, yeah, that was fun. I don't think

I had a lot of love for any of the new characters.

It's like the whole point of the movie was to

kill off all the old characters and bring in

new characters you would never have seen before.

Well, that's what they said in the special features.

Flint Dilley specifically says, oh, well, we

were told that, you know, the 84 line's going

out and the 85 line's coming in, so we have to...

you know, we have to kill them off. Yeah, but

I mean, they didn't have to kill them off. They

just killed them off. But yeah, so they kill

everybody. And at this point, everybody that

I loved and really had a vested interest in was

dead. And, you know, they brought back Jazz.

He was one of my favorite characters. That was

cool. They brought back Jazz, Bumblebee, Cliffjumper.

I think that was it. I think that, yeah, it's

pretty much the only ones that ran out alive.

But, oh, Bumblebee. I said Bumblebee. Okay. Well,

yeah, so, yeah, of those, the only ones that

live are, you know, a few of them. But they kill

off all these beloved characters, and then they

just assume. that you're going to love these

new characters just as much. And the fact is,

I really didn't. I liked the Junkions, I liked

Hot Rod, and I think that about covered it. And

to be honest, to a certain extent, I really didn't

enjoy the third season as much as I did the first

and second seasons, because they were just full

of characters that I wasn't. As invested in.

And we'll get into this once we start talking

about the third season. Because actually, I think

the only... I don't know. I don't know. We'll

get into that. But as far as the characters,

the new characters in the movie, yeah, I kind

of agree. I didn't really like Blur at first.

I don't know why. And then, I mean, I liked him,

but after a while... The more I saw the Micro

Machines commercials, the more I liked him. The

more I got to know John Machida, the more I liked

Blur. But Blur on his own... My problem with

Blur actually happens when they teamed him and

Wheelie up for most of Season 3. And that was

just god -awful. And it wasn't... You're guilty

by association. Exactly. It wasn't Blur's fault.

It was fucking Wheelie's fault. That's right.

Upsmart little fucking... Anyway. We're going

to start talking about the music now before I

start going into another tangent and we have

to record this all over again. Let's talk about

the music. Wait a minute. We've got to get Stan

Bush on the line here. No, no. We don't have

to... That already happened. I miss it. I'm sorry.

There is a lot. I think every song fit this movie

perfectly. You got, obviously, Unicron's theme

in the beginning. You've got Lion's version of

the Transformers theme. And then, you know, right

after that, you have some of the original. I

don't know if it's original or original, but

you have what sounds like some of the original

cartoon show music. and then you go into the

scene where they break into the ship and instruments

of destruction by NRG starts. And that just,

each song, to me anyway, just defined each scene,

whatever song it might have been playing. And

then in the previous clip with the other guys,

I had went down the differences between the two

soundtracks. The original 86 soundtrack had 10

songs. The touch, Instruments of Destruction,

Death of Optimus Prime, Dare, Nothing's Gonna

Stand in Our Way, the theme by Lion. That's a

night. What were you going to say? Nothing's

gonna stand in my way. That's a nightmare. It's

the airworm. That was actually done by Spectre

General, so you really... Yeah, you can't blame

that one on Stan. It's not like the touch. You

got Escape, which is an instrumental. Hunger,

which was done by Spectre General, which was

in, I think it was in the scene where Grimlock

and them break in and start beating the Sharktacons

up. The Autobot Decepticon battle, and then...

Why the hell... Why the hell is Dare to be Stupid

in this movie? Because I never knew when I first

saw it. When I first saw it as a kid and when

I first saw it as I grew up, as I would watch

it more, I never knew what the hell the name

of the song was until I actually looked at the

original soundtrack that I have. I mean, obviously

I've had that for a few years now, but... Like

when I was 15, 16 years old, I found something

somewhere that had a list of what the songs were.

And I'm like, you're going to be stupid. What

the hell song is that in the movie? Yeah, I was

like, what the hell? And then I listened to it

and I'm like, oh, it's the Junkie on Steam. Okay.

And the only difference between the original

song set that I just listed and the 20th anniversary

disc that came out was they added four tracks,

Unicron Medley, which was Vince DeCola. Unicron

Medley, Moonbase 2 Shuttle Launch were both Vince,

and Megatron Must Be Stopped was Vince, and then

the alternate version of the theme, which was

done by Stan Bush. The Megatron Must Be Stopped,

I think that was something else that Vince did.

I think it was, you know, Our Darkest Hour or

Their Darkest. I remember there was something

else. There was some hidden track that was on

one of his albums that it was called In Their

Darkest Hour or something, and he reformatted

that or changed the name or did something to

it to be the theme where Megatron Must Be Stopped.

I'm like the worst fan ever because I don't actually

own the soundtrack and have not listened to it.

As soon as we're done with this, your ass is

going to iTunes, you are going to look it up,

and you are going to fucking buy it on iTunes.

I'm sorry, worst fan ever. Completionist my ass.

My bad. Well, you know, I just don't listen to

a lot of music. Well, you should. My musical

taste revolves somewhere between Gwar and Alice

Cooper. The soundtrack here just never really

fit into that category. But one thing that I

would say about the soundtrack, digressing a

bit, it could have been something completely

different if you'd gone the way that George Lucas

had gone, where you have the John Williams score

with the full instrumentals. And they kind of

went the exact opposite and did... did a rock

soundtrack instead. I mean, granted, if John

Williams had never been introduced on Star Wars,

Star Wars would have been a disco, right? But,

you know, you fast forward about five, six years

and you end up with a completely different situation

where, you know, the predominant sound of the

area there was... You know, the Stan Bush and

that Roxanne. Yeah, I mean, I think, me personally,

I think it blended well between Stan's stuff

and Spectre General and instruments such as NRG

and Lion and Vince's instrumentals. I think it

all blended in well. Actually, I thought that

piece that I was talking about, the instrumental

in Dare. I actually thought that was a separate

instrumental track. I didn't realize it was part

of the same song until much later. But I think

it all kind of blended well, regardless of whether

it was an 80s rock soundtrack. As far as fitting

it to the movie. Well, I think... I think that...

What the hell are you laughing at? I don't know.

I got the dare stuck in my head again, so it's

making me giggle. But I think that Tom... Come

on. Come on, man. Talk. This is a podcast. We

can't have dead air, damn it. I know. Dead air

is bad. You've got to go back and edit that out.

I'm sorry. Why do you think I started talking?

I know. I lost my train of thought there. So

what it comes down to is it could have been a

lot different. It could have been a lot different.

It could have been, well, I mean, if they had

gone, I mean, there were a lot of Star Wars homages.

Oh, yeah. And, I mean, if they had gone full

-on soundtrack Star Wars homage, it could have

been, you know, the Imperial March instead of

the Touch. As opposed to Unicron's theme, you

could have ended up with something more like

the Imperial March. No, thank you. Well, you

know, it could have been something very similar.

Glad it wasn't, but yeah. All right, well, I

think we're going to close this out, and I don't

know if there will be another clip or not. The

only thing I'm going to say is, as far as a closing

thing for this one, is that Michael will be back

for episode 17, where we will be reviewing the

five faces of darkness. Heck yeah. You can follow

us on Twitter. Mine is TFG1Podcast, which actually

will be changing here in a couple of months.

That's a whole other story. And Michael's is

Pecan Court. Michael, it's P -E -A. Wait, no.

You say it. I don't know how to spell it. It's

P -E -C -A -N -C -T. Michael, M -I -C -H -A -E

-L. And as I explained before, it's because I

used to live off of that. So we're going to end

this clip before one of us starts going on some

sort of ramble, drunken rage or something else

about... This huge tangent. It has nothing to

do with Transformers. That's right. Bring me

the head of Stan Bush. Hey, wait a minute, damn

it. Don't be saying crap like that. What the

hell? The TFG on podcast accepts no knowledge

or responsibility for anything that Michael Wilson

says on this podcast. Thanks, everybody. Good

night. That's right. He can't be trusted. We'll

see you later. This is yet another clip of the

Transformers movie roundtable. I should have

actually done this all together, but didn't have

all the people in place at the time. And joining

me is Kevin Thompson, who is my new co -host

on ToonCast. Hello, Kevin. How's it going? It's

going. It's one of those lazy Sunday afternoons

where... Hey, nothing better. Especially by me,

since it's raining non -stop right now. It's

raining where you are. It's nice and sunny here.

Of course, it's probably like... 85 degrees out.

Gotcha. Yeah. So we are here to discuss more

Transformers, the movie stuff with Roundtable,

and I just am sorry to say to the listeners that

pretty much all of my voices on this episode

of the TFG1 podcast, it will basically be me

saying the same thing over and over and over

again because that's all the notes that I have.

So we're going to start out. Let's see. When

was the first time you saw the movie? I actually

saw it at a birthday party in the theater the

year it came out. Oh, really? I got fortunate

enough to see it in the theater. Lucky bastard.

Yeah, none of us, none of the people that I've

interviewed, or not interviewed, but discussed

it with so far, none of us have seen it. in theaters

when we were kids. Most of us saw it like one

to two years afterwards on VHS rental. Yeah,

I pretty much remember only seeing about three

movies from my childhood in the theater, one

of them being Transformers, one being He -Man

live action, and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

So those are the only three that I remember actually

seeing in the theater. What was it like as far

as the theater experience for you? What was the

movie like on the big screen? It was crazy, especially

given the age that I was. It didn't matter what

movie it was in the theater. It was going to

be kind of awestruck seeing a movie in the theater.

But it was mainly all boys my age and moms and

dads. And I just remember it being very shock

and awe. There was either scenes where everybody

was very much into it and excited, and then obviously

at the beginning of the movie with... all the

character deaths. There's a lot of silence in

the theater, a lot of shock. Yeah, I can imagine

that that would have been like that, especially

with one death, which we will be talking about

here in a second. Speaking of which, now be honest,

did you cry when Prime died? I honestly didn't,

but I can tell you I was... Absolutely speechless.

I remember being in the theater looking around

at the people I was in the theater with, a couple

of my friends, and we're just looking at each

other like, what the heck just happened? Completely

speechless. Even to the point where it just kind

of carried out throughout the whole film. I think

that first time I watched it in the theater,

there was probably major parts of the movie that

I have no recollection of because I was still

going over my mind what the heck just happened.

Even to the point where leaving the theater...

Still looking at my friends and stuff like that,

we're still speechless. Like, is he going to

be in the cartoon again? Me and my group didn't

necessarily cry, but there was definitely a lot

of shock and speechlessness going on there. I

remember when I was eight years old, it wasn't

so much the death scene itself that made me cry.

It was... the last shot, and by that I mean the

scene that was shown in every trailer for that

movie when Megatron blasts Prime and he falls

back and his leg goes up. You know what I'm talking

about? That scene, every time I saw that, I just

balled up. You know, it's like, what the hell

are you doing, you idiots? Don't kill our hero,

for Christ's sake. Right. I think the scene that

got my eyes almost watering to the point where

I could have cried was when he was laying on

the table and he actually turned the gray color,

and that was it. I mean, I did well up a little

bit almost there, not to the point where I was

actually crying, but it was darn close. Yeah,

yeah. Do you have the 20th anniversary DVD? I

do have the 20th anniversary as well as the old

VHS version as well. Yeah. Flint Dilley says

on the 20th anniversary that on the special features

on that that, you know, they didn't know they

were killing an icon. Like, you know, they thought

it was just, oh, well, that's the 84 line. We

need to bring in the 85 line, you know, the next

year's line because basically it is a toy commercial.

I mean, really. Even though there are storylines

behind the cartoon. Yeah, it basically is a toy

commercial. Yeah, and then the way they explain

that as far as, you know, emptying out the one

toy line and going with the other, I think they

had, you know, some good ideas there, and I think

if they, you know, even the killing of Prime

definitely had the shock factor. I just wish

they wouldn't have killed off everybody because

it made it very hard to follow into the next

season. I think if they would have left at least

a couple of those main characters, maybe season

three and so on would have lasted a little bit

longer. Well, at the end, Bumblebee, Jazz, and

Cliffjumper were the three that got captured

by Unicron with Spike and Daniel that came out.

But you very rarely saw, and I'll get into this

once I start the Season 3 coverage in June, you

very rarely saw Bumblebee or... jazz in in season

three i think there's like one or two episodes

i can i can i know there's one episode where

blur has to be sent on a mission and jazz is

is doing some race that blur wants to be in and

um but that's pretty much it Yeah, I remember

leaving the theater. Part of the shock of leaving

the theater wasn't just, obviously, that primed

out. It didn't matter who your favorite character

was. They weren't in it anymore. And it was just

like, what are we going to watch now? And I think

that was one of the things. I have very little

memory, actually, of. post -movie seasons. I

think that was one of the things that kind of

made me shift away for a little while from Transformers

into that next wave of things, Teenage Mutant

Ninja Turtles or whatever else was coming out

about that time. Yeah, yeah. If you could only

pick one character that you liked out of the

movie, who would it be and why? Well, this is

going to make me sound like a hypocrite because

I just said it. I don't like the fact that how

the Season 1 and Season 2 characters were killed

off, but actually my favorite character from

the movie, ironically, is Ultra Magnus, one of

the new ones. So even though I obviously had

a fine spot for all those old characters, it

was pretty much the only new character that I

took a liking to right away was Ultra Magnus.

I didn't like Rodimus at first. I didn't like

Buller and Cup and a bunch of those other guys.

I think Springer and Ultra Magnus. that's where

about the only two characters i really took to

right away see i have a seething hatred for springer

and i'll get into that later i'll get into that

a little bit later but uh yeah that yeah um for

me as i've said before um my favorite overall

if i only had to pick it'd be hot rod and rodimus

because i think he has the most character um

um most character uh depth and um He grows a

lot throughout the movie, so, I mean, he is,

you know. Yeah, that's definitely true. Definitely

true. I think I liked Rodimus more in the movie

than I did in the seasons that came afterwards.

Yeah, season three. I think what it was is I

probably liked Hot Rod better than I liked Rodimus.

Yeah. I think Rodimus had, you know, big shoes

to fill, and it was almost impossible a job to

do. Oh, yeah, that's pretty much probably seven

or... Eight or nine cartoons out of season three,

he's complaining about that. Oh, I can't live

up to you, Optimus. Going back to the Flint Dilly

thing, he also said some kid locked himself in

his room and wasn't going to come out, and Flint

says in the thing, it's a good thing the kid

didn't know that in season three we were going

to bring Prime back as a zombie and then kill

him off again. Even more traumatic. Yeah, really.

I did think it was interesting of the impact

that that had. I did have, though, them killing

off Prime. I mean, obviously, everybody who's

listening to this probably knows about the whole

correlation between that and the G .I. Joe movie

and the switch in that. Oh, dude's dead. Oh,

wait, no, he's not. He's in a coma. Which is

weird because I don't have any recollection of

the G .I. Joe movie. I know I must have watched

it when I was a kid, but I honestly couldn't

tell you about two things about it except for

that change that they did. I have no idea. I

probably watched one episode of G .I. Joe my

entire life. It's not that I don't like it, and

I've said this before. It's not that I don't

like it. It's not that I don't have respect for

what it did for itself, but I just never got

into it. I wasn't a G .I. Joe kid. Right. It's

just because I didn't kill off Duke. Have you

seen Season 3 and Rebirth? I mean, have you seen

the rest of the cartoon from the 80s? I have,

but I honestly have not seen... seen it in a

little while okay well i've seen it originally

and i've seen it once after that and right now

i'm just waiting until this summer to watch it

another time yeah well the reason i ask is the

next question i've got is after 25 years do you

think that the movie and the g1 series holds

up um i've had a lot of arguments about this

with uh with other transformers fans you know

on different websites and forums and stuff like

that, but honestly, with all the different cartoons

that I've watched now as somewhat of an adult

here, I actually think the Transformers cartoon

does hold up. I mean, yeah, there's animation

mistakes, yeah, there's, you know, plot stuff

that doesn't really work out, or, you know, different

things that are contradicting each other, but

as far as just being able to sit down and watch

it and enjoy it, I still can. I mean, just this

last summer, I've sat down with two or three

friends, and we watched probably five or six

of the episodes from season one or season two,

and we enjoyed it. every one of them and it wasn't

like some of the other cartoons where you you

watch like 10 minutes you're like i can't take

any more of this so i think it does hold up Even

though the season four, which basically was just

Rebirth, as far as the U .S. stuff goes, I don't

get into all the Japanese headmasters. No, I

haven't either. I don't get into all that crap,

but as far as Rebirth goes, the only reason why

it sucks as far as animation goes is because

it was done in fucking Canada. And we all know

from South Park that everything is Canada's fault.

That's right. Well, and I think you've got to

take into account, too, even the animation errors

in the regular episodes. Oh, yeah. The time schedule

they were on and the fact that half of the stuff's

being done in the United States and half of it's

being done across seas and stuff like that. I

mean, you can't really fault them too much for

it. And the fact that we're still talking about

this 25 years later, I think that speaks for

itself as far as how does it hold up. Oh, yeah.

Nobody's talking about GoBots these days. So

obviously there's a difference there. It's like

Battle of the GoBots. What the hell is that?

I believe they had their own movie too, and I

don't see any 25th anniversary or 20th anniversary

of that being released. So Transformers holds

up. I know people will argue with me on that,

but that's my opinion. What was your favorite

scene in the movie? As morbid as this sounds...

The death scene? Yeah, the death scene in the

beginning. I mean, there's nothing that stands

out more than... I mean, as bad as it is, I was

the type of kid that watched cartoons always

wanting Wile E. Coyote to be killed eventually.

Or always wanting that person that's always being

chased to finally get it. And watching cartoons

in the 80s and all the... parent groups that

were out there, you were never going to see that

in a cartoon. So actually getting to see in a

cartoon somebody that actually died was something

that I had actually been waiting for, as bad

as that sounds. And I just wish it wouldn't have

been all my favorite characters. That scene was

definitely up there as one of my favorites. Yeah,

I think that scene, it's not my favorite. I like

it, but it's not my overall favorite. But that

scene, it really, it kind of threw people for

a loop because they didn't say anything in Season

2 or previously about the Matrix at all. It was

just there. And then they created the timeline

behind it afterwards going into Season 3. My

scene was the end battle with... Hot Rod and

Galvatron when they're inside Unicron. That is

just so awesome. I can see that, too. I don't

know. It's hard to pick a scene from the beginning.

I mean, you had the death scene on the shuttle.

But I think just that whole, whatever, how long

it was, that whole half hour or, you know, 40

minutes that has the death scene followed by

the, you know, eventually the battle in Autobot

City. I mean, there's just so much going on there,

and there's so many characters to spot and to

find and to follow. I mean, you had, you know,

like all the cassettes fighting in the tower

there. You had Devastator, you know, you got

the blaster sound wave thing. You got, you know,

there's just so many things going on there, finding,

you know. identifying which Autobot is laying

lifeless on the floor at one point or this and

that, and then Optimus Prime coming in with the

theme song there. Oh, yeah. That 30 or 40 minutes

is quite possibly my favorite 30 or 40 minutes

in 25 years of Transformers. Yeah, we'll get

to the music here in a few minutes. I've just

written some basic notes. Taking an account of

the... the age of the show to the movie, from

84 to 2005, Spike is roughly between 36 and 38

years old in the movie. Yeah. And that's because

if you take the fact that he was 15, 16 in the

show when it first aired in 2005, yeah, he's,

I actually didn't think he would be that old.

Let's see. I gotta admit, though, going into

the theater and seeing Spike and the human characters

that were in the theater, that was one thing,

as a young person, I was so confused about because

I was trying to, in my mind... I was putting

Spike as the dad from the original cartoon, and

it took me a while to figure out, wait a second,

this is in the future, and that's the 15 -year

-old from the cartoon. That was one of the things

I struggled with right away in the theater. I'm

like, wait, which person is that? Which characters

are they talking about? You know, it's funny.

I just finished up my season two coverage on

the podcast here, and they never make any mention

of what the hell happened to Sparkplug. They

never say nothing about it. He just disappeared.

He jumped into a black hole or something, and

nothing else is ever said because they age Spike

to the point where he's an adult now, and then

they bring in Daniel, which is his son. Let's

see what else. Go ahead. With that time frame,

I mean, with all the absolute crap that has come

out in the Unicron Trilogy and all these different

Transformers series, I won't get on that too

much. Why is someone not taking that time period

and making a series out of it? I don't know.

If there was ever an opening for just an epic,

epic Transformers series that would not only

get the new fans, but get all these old nostalgic,

old Transformers fans in. quite a few decades

there that could have a lot of good stories.

Yes, I am not wasting my money on Energon or

Cybertron or Armada. Good, good. No, no, no,

no. I've been tempted a few times, but no. Actually,

I just found, as much as I hate to admit it,

I found Animated's Transform and Rollout disc.

Brand new, in -sealed package, free shipping,

$6 on eBay. Nice. I just bought that earlier.

Well, animated will be my next step. I mean,

I've watched G1, Beast Wars, Beast Machines,

and I've suffered through one or two episodes

of each of the other ones before I threw them

out. But animated will definitely be the next

one that I watch. Give animated a chance. Give

it a very slim chance at first. Wait until you

get to, like, the end of Season 2. before you

start making judgments, because Season 3 is just

awesome. It's just been so great in Season 3.

Megatron begging for mercy is stupid. We all

know that he will make a play to win. I mean,

that just doesn't... I mean, I know it's the

80s, and I know they probably... weren't sure

what the hell they were doing, but that's just

not in his character. Yeah, that's what I was

just going to say. It seems so out of his character

after watching the first two seasons for him

to be doing that. You're like, what is going

on right now? I don't understand this. Going

on to the music a little bit, Dare and The Touch.

The Touch, every time I hear The Touch by Stan

Bush, I think of Optimus Prime. That is his theme.

And as far as Dare goes, in the early scene where

Hot Rod's going to... Down the mountain. Yeah,

down the mountain. I mean, that is Hot Rod's

theme. It just is. That's just the way it is.

The cassettes versus cassettes was really cool.

It was kind of funny. Yeah, that was awesome.

That was awesome to see, especially not the normal

cassettes that you had seen necessarily throughout

the first two seasons, and it was good to see

some of those guys, especially the new ones.

Yeah, well, actually, the only new one that they

introduced from Soundwave was Rat Bat. And then

they introduced all the ones from Blaster, Eject,

Rewind, Ramhorn, and Steeljaw. And then they

carried over into Season 3. See, and that was

an easier transition for me than some of the

other new characters they threw in there because

we'd already seen cassettes and other different

versions that made sense. But yeah, that scene

with those guys fouling each other was quite

good. I didn't actually count the beginning of

the battle scene, but... 20 plus Decepticons

versus 10 Autobots and a little boy. That always

got me because it was just standard in the cartoon

for there to be tons of Decepticons and not enough

Autobots. But in the beginning, in Season 1,

you had way more Autobots than Decepticons. And

right from the beginning, if you even look at

the toy catalog from the first year, Decepticons,

you have Soundwave, Megatron, and the Seekers.

basically, and Autobots you have, Prime, you

have the little ones like Cliffjumper and Bumblebee,

you have all the Carbots, Mirage, Wheeljack,

etc., and for a long time there was always more

Autobots, which was kind of stamped in my mind,

and then you have that scene where there's more

Decepticons. It almost seemed like it was a flipping

of the script there from what we were introduced

with originally in the cartoon. I can just count

on... on my hand of the ones I noticed. Obviously,

the Insecticons, Megatron, Starscream, Soundwave,

Thrust, Durge, Ramjet, Thundercracker, Skywarp,

Devastator. I mean, there's just tons of them.

Yeah, and it was just so odd. And obviously,

you know, the... Not all the Autobots were there.

There was Autobots other places, but it was just

like the first time that I can remember. I mean,

obviously it probably happened in the cartoon,

but the first significant time where I'm remembering

seeing more Decepticons on screen than Autobots.

See, I think the problem is, the problem was

half of the original Autobots were still on Cybertron.

You had Optimus, Ironhide, Jazz, Cliffjumper,

Bumblebee, Spike, and everybody else was on the...

Well, on the moon bases, not on Cybertron, but

they were on the moon bases. And then all the

Earth Autobots are all the new characters. I'm

like, ugh. It kind of gets to a point where I

was always kind of disturbed with the movie.

Not necessarily disturbed, I guess that's the

wrong word, but with the characters that... you

know, some of them were written into the movie

originally and got cut, or some of them were

on storyboards that got deleted, etc., but those

characters that we just never got to see, what,

you know, we never got to see them again after

season two, they just kind of disappeared off

the face of the earth, and it would have been,

you know, nice to see them somewhere in that

movie, so at least we had a little, uh... closure

on those characters. I don't know if you've gone

over to Predacon Empire yet, but on one of my

blog posts over there, I think it's my G1 screenshots,

I actually posted a screenshot of where Devastator

is tearing open the wall of the base. Is it just

me, or does he look more menacing in the movie

than he did in the cartoon? Oh, yeah, he looks

very menacing, especially in that battle for

Autobot City. Of course, until the point where

he gets into Astrotrain somehow and decides to

try to combine inside of Astrotrain. Yeah, that

makes no sense. That wasn't so menacing, but

yeah, when he's tearing through stuff on Autobot

City and some of the scenes that they did, I've

scoured the Internet and found some pretty good

pages with the deleted storyboards, and even

in some of those scenes, he looks menacing and

much more menacing than he was portrayed in the

cartoon. Yeah, I think one of my other favorite,

Like, you know, best thing to watch, especially

animation, was the reformatting of Megatron into

Galvatron. Just seeing that, just seeing the

way that they showed his insides. Oh, yeah. And

then they followed that up with the most confusing

reformatting scene after that. I mean, they had

this... completely kick ass Megatron into Galvatron

and then they had to leave the next scene to

be debated by Transformers fans for the next

couple decades about who was reformatted into

who after that. See, I always thought it was

the Insecticons and Thundercracker. I remember

seeing Thundercracker. I don't remember who turned

into who, but since I have been re -watching

it, I haven't watched it before we did this recording,

but I did watch it a couple of nights ago, and

I don't get the whole point of Cyclonus and his

armada. What the hell? His armada. Yeah. I don't

know. I guess the best argument I've heard, I

don't know if I necessarily buy into it, but

the best one I've heard is the whole Insecticon

cloning ability and turning it into this armada

of different sweeps that I guess somewhat explains

part of it. But it just seems like they switched

one character in that reformatting scene that

they should have just had. and Skywarp, if I

remember, as the main two, and the Insecticon

should have been the rest of the sweeps, and

they just made a switch that confused the heck

out of most people. Yes, and then, of course,

there's always the oh shit controversy. Well,

I believe it is, I don't know if it's on the

20th anniversary DVD that they talk about that

in the special features, or if it's on another

interview that I've heard. No, it's on the DVD.

It's on the DVD where they talk about trying

to get that movie just to be able to be shown

past whatever time it was that you couldn't.

What was it, 6 o 'clock or 7 o 'clock? Well,

no, what it was was they wanted to distinguish

the movie from other G -rated animation films

at the time. And the only way to do that was

to put in some... Because back then they didn't

have PG -13. They had G, PG, and R. And obviously

you can't put 16 different fucks in there, or

else it's going to be NC -17 or Triple X. I can't

remember if it was Flint Dilley or somebody else

that I had heard, though, that said something

about we put it in there to bump our rating up

so that we could show it past the afternoon times.

Yeah, it was probably something like that. But

I remember it as far as, I'd have to go back

and watch it, but I remember them talking about

it as far as distinguishing the rating. And then,

of course, when the VHS came out, it's like,

oh, it's in there. No, it's not. Oh, it's in

there. No, it's not. Which version do you have?

Yes, which version do you have? And then the

other thing, they didn't really talk about it

was, I mean, yeah, oh shit was a big controversy,

but they didn't talk about Magnus. Open, damn

it, open. Right, right. No one ever mentioned

that, I don't think. No. I forget which episode

of all things Transformers it was, but I had

come up with a ranting discussion topic on one

of the episodes. The Hot Rod Springer RC Love

Triangle. Don't even get me started because this

is where my seething hatred for Springer comes

in because the way I look at it is Hot Rod and

RCR, the way they portray them in the movie together,

they're supposed to be a couple. And then you

have Springer on the outside just being a little

jackass trying to... get under a skid plate.

But, you know, I don't know. It's just whatever.

See, I always thought it would be better if they

would have left that as Springer and Arcee as

a couple and let Hot Red be the leader, kind

of the bad boy of the group. But, yeah, the triangle

disturbs me. Yes, very much so. Going back into

the music a little bit, did you ever have the

original CD soundtrack? I did not, unfortunately,

have that soundtrack. I didn't when it first

came out, but I found it somewhere and I bought

it like brand new. Yeah. Did you get the 20th

anniversary soundtrack when it came out? No,

I've been slacking on the soundtrack. Gotten

everything else involved with Transformers. I've

never had the soundtrack whatsoever. You should

go to iTunes right now and buy it. It's a good

idea. The only difference is, I'm just going

to run down the 20th anniversary original soundtrack

list. The only difference is there's four extra

songs on the 20th anniversary. You've got The

Touch, Instruments of Destruction, Death of Optimus

Prime, Dare, Nothing's Going to Stand in Our

Way, The Transformers Theme by Lion, Escape,

Hunger, Escape is Vince DeCola. Hunger is Spectre

General. Autobot Decepticon Battle, which is

Vince. Dare to be Stupid, which is Weird Al.

And then the four bonus tracks, they're all by

Vince, except for the Transformers alternate

theme. That's by Stan Bush. There's Unicron Medley,

which is the intro to the movie. the Moonbase

2 scene where the shuttle's going to launch,

and then Megatron Must Be Stopped, which is the

stuff that I think plays during that battle after

the touch is over. And I really enjoyed having,

I actually have them both, but I really enjoy

the 20th anniversary better because of those

extra tracks. Why the fuck is there a Weird Al

song in a Transformers movie? That's a good question.

But honestly, going into the soundtrack and looking

at back in the 80s, who was picked to be on this,

it just seems like the most weird compilation

of people to put on a soundtrack and to have

songs in the movie, but it all worked. I mean,

it all worked. I mean, the touch and dare and,

I mean, just... Songs that are just sticking

in your head forever as far as a Transformer

fan. You just always hear that kind of going

in the background when you're doing stuff. Oh,

yeah. Well, they said in the Transformers Q &A

on the 20th anniversary DVD, they said that they

were going for a rock soundtrack. They wanted

to distinguish it from every other thing that

animation was doing, including the music. And

I agree. I mean, I don't think I can listen to

Escape or, obviously, the Autobot Decepticon.

battle i don't think i could listen to that those

those notes without thinking about what happened

in the movie Right. And I think they did a good

job of distinguishing themselves from all the

other types of cartoon movies that were put out

there. I mean, whether it be the music, the death

scenes, you know, all the different stuff they

put into this. This is why this is such a cult,

you know, favorite and why it stood up compared

to, you know, all the other, like we've mentioned.

We've mentioned that there, you know, the G .I.

Joe movie. There was a Go -Bots movie. I know

there was. I just never watched it. And, you

know, there was all these other cartoon movies.

None of them have lasted as long as this, and

it's not just because Transformers as a series

has been so popular. It's because of the lengths

that they took to distinguish themselves as not

just this kiddie cartoon movie. Yeah, I mean,

that's... Yeah, I can agree with that. I mean,

it's not just... And that's even without some

of the scenes that they cut out. Yeah. You asked

me what my favorite scene was, and I would venture

to say that if they had left that Ultra Magnus

scene in where he gets quartered, that might

have been my favorite scene, even though he was

one of my favorite characters, just because that's

just, wow. Yeah. I mean, there was a lot of stuff

that was cut out. Right. I believe it's still

Flynn Dill that talks about that in one of his

interviews about some of the other death scenes

that they had that they cut out. He didn't even

go into which characters and stuff like that,

but he says if you would have seen some of that

stuff, you would have been blown away. Yeah,

originally the movie, if you listen to the fan

commentary on the DVD, the fans say that the

original script was ten times as violent as what...

What we got. Supposedly, I believe in the scene

where Megatron is killing everybody on the ship

in the beginning, supposedly he grabs, I think

it's Bronn's head, and just rips it right off

or something. And obviously, yeah, you need to

tone that down for kids. And then I believe there

was supposed to be, too, like a gauntlet scene

type thing in Autobot City where there was a...

a barrage of people going through, and that's

supposedly where a bunch more of the season one

characters that got killed, like we later see

with the Wheeljack. Yeah, well, until somebody

pointed it out to me, I had to actually go back

and pause that scene where Arcee is dragging,

because I didn't know who it was at first. I

didn't really notice it, and then I paused it

on that scene where it shows it's Windcharger

and Wheeljack. It was like, wow. Yeah, and I

believe at one point one of them was supposed

to be smokescreen, but it had got switched by

somebody last minute. But, yeah, there's that

scene. There's the scene that's always debated

about the, what was that, on Unicron or where

they have the Transformers going across the career.

Yeah, at the end, yeah. Dropping into the pit

there, whatever you want to call it. The acid,

yeah. Yeah, about some of the characters that

might or might not have been shown there. Oh,

yeah. I mean, there's so many debates that you

could do. You basically have to break that down

frame by frame to find out. Oh, yeah. And I have

done that, but it's still hard. It's still very

hard. But I think that's another thing that makes

the movie so cool is these debates that you can

keep going and you can actually go back. That's

why I like one of the best features about that

20th anniversary DVD is going back and doing

some of the Easter eggs that you can stop and

watch certain things like the storyboard or whatever

you want to call it for, Ultra Magnus' Corridorine,

a couple other things. Yep. Well, I think that's

pretty much it, unless you have any other thoughts.

I can't think of any at the moment. I mean, just

an awesome trip down memory lane all the way

from back in the theater to looking back at the

20th anniversary edition. It's been a good trip.

Yeah, I think I've said this on the other clips,

that it's kind of sad that the 25th anniversary

is just this year. And I believe it's, I think

it's August 8th or 9th of 2014 will be the 30th

anniversary. So you know that they're going to

come out with a 30th anniversary line. I'll be

looking forward to it. Yeah, exactly. alright

well we're going to end this clip I don't know

if this will be the last clip on the round table

not sure I'm actually trying to line up a few

other fans hopefully I can get them in this week

because I have to get it to the editor by I think

Friday so yeah so we're going to end this clip

and we'll see you next time bye Hello and welcome

to the TFG1 Podcast, Epic Episode 16, the Transformers

Movie Roundtable. This will be most definitely

the last clip, and joining me is Pia of YouTube.

Hello. Hey, how you doing? I'm doing pretty good.

Why don't you give the listeners a little bit

of background on yourself? Well, I've been collecting

since the toys started coming out. I remember

getting my first Bumblebee at Sears back in 1984,

maybe even 1983, like that Christmas beforehand,

but I'm not positive. But I've been collecting

since they came out, and now I do reviews on

YouTube. I'm pretty active over on TFW2005. That's

about it. I like Transformers. Yeah, everybody

should like Transformers. So, actually, did I

pull that script up? Yes, I did. So basically,

I'm not thinking straight today. It's Sunday.

It happens. Exactly. Basically, I had written

down a bunch of questions to ask my original

people that I was going to be co -hosting with,

and we're just going to run through those, and

then after that we'll just wing it. Okay. Because

I have got several different notes that I've

taken since watching the movie. The first question

is, when was the first time that you saw the

movie? I saw the movie, we were living on base

in Alabama. My dad was in the Air Force, and

we saw it on the base theater. It took me to

the base theater and we went and saw it there.

It was this little building next to the shopette.

But it was really cool. I remember going and

seeing it. It was late. I got to stay up late

and finished around 10 o 'clock and came home

and told my parents, told my mom all about it.

My dad had seen it with me. Yeah, that's cool.

I'm not one of the ones that got to see it in

theaters. I saw it like one to two years later

on VHS. Yeah, I wore a VHS tape from the local

video store out. Yeah. Anytime I had a sleepover,

we rented that tape. Now, be honest, did you

cry when Prime died? Oh, I totally bawled. I

was like nine, I think. Yeah, I totally bawled.

I was like eight or nine. Actually, I didn't

cry really where people think you would cry,

which is during the death scene. I started bawling

as soon as I saw that last shot and his foot

goes up in the air and he falls down. Right before

he does the whole, you know, before he swings

at Megatron thing. Yeah. If you could only pick

one character that you liked out of the movie,

who would it be and why? Out of the movie? Yes.

One character. Oh, man, that's a tough one because

there were some good characters in the movie.

I liked Hot Rod. Hold on, now I'm replaying the

whole movie in my head. It would have to be Hot

Rod or Cup, and I think I'd probably... Actually,

you know what? I think it would have to be Cup.

Because Hot Rod was cool, but I love that scene

where the Decepticons are attacking, and Cup

transforms into a car mode and rushes Blitzwing,

and then transforms and does that flip around

as canon and yanks it up. I think that's still

one of my favorite all -time Transformers action

scenes. And to see, they kind of homage that

in the movie with Jazz jumping up on... Yeah,

I like that scene. Actually, Hot Rod slash Rodimus

is my favorite character out of the movie, just

because he has the most character depth. He has

the most character growth in the entire thing.

Well, that was kind of the point, though. That

movie was really just setting him up to become

the new leader, so they kind of had to develop

him. Yeah, that's true. Let's see. After 25 years,

do you think that the movie and the G1 series

overall holds up? I think the movie itself holds

up fairly well, just because, like I said, they

went with a kind of cohesive storyline in it

for two hours. The cartoon, I think, still holds

up a little bit, certainly under nostalgia, but

I don't know if you try to put that on the air

today how successful it would be. It was just

kind of... I can't think of exactly how I want

to explain it. The movie I think would definitely

still hold up nowadays. The cartoon I think they'd

have to rework a little bit if they wanted it

to stay on the air as long as the original did

at least. Certainly they'd have to improve the

animation quality to compete with today's. Yes,

well they are restoring it with this new 25th

anniversary Matrix of Leadership. collector's

set edition DVD set coming out. So at least they're

going to remaster it. At least they're going

to probably color correct the original. That

way maybe there won't be so many animation flubs.

Yeah. Well, that'll be the third version of the

entire series I've owned. It'll be... I actually

stupidly went on eBay when I still had a good

influx of income coming in and I bought all the

Rhino sets for over $300. But... I had all the

Rhino sets. I bought them as they came out and

got them really cheap. And then I sold them when

I got that Chinese box set where they're all

in one box. Oh, no, I hate that. I have it too.

I thought it was a pretty decent release. I just

like having them all in one package. It just

took up less space on my DVD shelf. Yeah. But

I am looking forward to this 25th anniversary

release that they're talking about doing because

it sounds like it's going to be better than both

of those in every way. Oh, yeah. My only complaint

about that is they're not going to be releasing

any of Rhino Extras on the new set, which I think

they should at least get. Since they're not going

to do that, they should at least get new interviews

with, like, Flint Dilley and Buzz Dixon and David

Wise, who has had an interview on the Season

4 disc. Yeah. I don't know. Let's see. What was

your favorite scene in the movie? We kind of

covered that a little bit. Yeah, well, that was

one of my favorite scenes. I liked the underwater

scene on Quintesson. Oh, Quintesson. Where, yeah,

when Hot Rod and... Hot Rod's saving cut from

the Sharktacons, or the fish. I just thought

the animation in that was really, really good.

Yeah, it... It looked like they were underwater.

Yeah, it's very hard to animate water in general,

and it's very hard to animate underwater, so

they did pretty... pull it off pretty good. My

favorite scene would have to be the Hot Rod Rodimus

Galvatron battle. Yeah, that was a good one too.

Yeah, my... The other part about that scene I

like is Grimlock and the Dinobots. Me Grimlock!

And then Unicron grabs his ass and Grimlock flies

away and goes, Me Grimlock need new strategy.

Yeah, that was a good bit too. Yeah, the whole

final battle was pretty intense. Yeah. I think

Shockwave was only shown twice in the entire

film. Yeah, Shockwave kind of got the short end

of the stick there, and I think he definitely

deserved more screen time. Yep. There's just

some notes that I put together when I first watched

the movie to do this whole roundtable thing.

I averaged out the timeline of the series and

the movie, and in the movie, Spike is around

between 36 and 38 years old. He has to be. Yeah,

if you assume that he was around 16 when they

landed. Yeah. Which is... He'd have to be about...

And the movie took place, I think, 21 years later.

Yeah, 2005 to 84. Yeah, something like that.

Yeah. Yeah, so he'd have to be like 37, 38. Going

back to the whole timeline between the movie

and the series, what the hell have they been

doing for the last 26 years? I mean, okay, the

series ended in 87, and then... just going through

the actual timeline of the series to the movie.

What the... Well, even when the series ended,

I think they were supposed to be in, like, 2005,

2006, because, you know, Galvatron was in that

last season. Oh, yeah, that's... Okay, well...

So it had to have taken place after the movie.

So basically between season two and the movie.

Yeah, that's what I was going to say. Basically,

that timeline, that's what I meant. Well, just

based on what we see in the movie, clearly they

established, aside from just living out of the

Ark, they established a city there on Earth.

um which means they probably worked together

like i mean they probably made some sort of deal

with with humans you know like clearly they were

no longer living in secret you know like i know

they talked about it at the end of um of um you

know more than meets the eye there was a whole

and all the humans donated fuel and then you

know that ended up not happening because of the

the series went on but um so clearly they established

some sort of peaceful coexistence um on Earth,

maybe even some sort of deal where the Decepticons

got Cybertron in exchange for leaving Earth alone,

because when the movie starts, the Decepticons

are all on Cybertron. Yeah, they have full control.

Earth seems to be at peace, and the Autobots

just kind of have a couple of secret bases on

the moons. Yeah, see, that's what I was wondering

about. That's another note I had. How is it that

the Decepticons have full control of Cybertron

before the events of the movie? I mean, they

have full control before the events of the movie.

I mean, in the series, in Seasons 1 and 2, they're

pretty much the only ones on Cybertron until

we, I think, we find out about the female Autobots,

but I think that was Season 3 that that happened.

Well, wasn't Alpha Trion still there? I mean,

weren't there still pockets of resistance, of

Autobot resistance on Cybertron? Yeah, there

were, but that's what I'm saying. It seems like

in the movie that... the only people that are

on Cybertron now are Decepticons. So what happened

to all those other Autobots? I have no idea.

In the Prime -Megatron battle, did Prime uppercut

Megatron when he flew up in the air? When who

flew up in the air? When Megatron flew up? When

Megatron flies up in the air and tries to come

down on Prime, it looks like Prime uppercuts

him and he falls back away. but I can't be sure.

Huh. I'm not entirely sure. Oh, I didn't think

he... He punched him. He did something. I'm trying

to remember that scene. Yeah, he did something.

I know he did the two -handed backhand, but that

was after he'd fallen. Yeah, I have to say prime

uppercut of that. Yeah, I'd have to say so, too.

Megatron begging for mercy is a stupid plot point.

We all know he's going to make a play to win.

I mean... Yeah, he's probably just, you know,

obviously he was just goading Prime on, and then,

as much as I like Hot Rod, dumbass Hot Rod has

to interfere. I think that was not so much a,

he thought he was actually going to get it. I

mean, clearly the audience knew he was a bad

guy, but Megatron was smart enough to know that

Optimus was somebody who would not... just kill

somebody in cold blood and by pleading for mercy

he was kind of appealing to what he sees as a

weakness in Optimus and that he knew Optimus

would hesitate if he started showing, even if

it was insincere, even knowing that Optimus would

at least be willing to take that chance on a

peaceful resolution than just flat out killing

Megatron. I think is what happened there. Yeah,

that's true. Going into those early scenes when

the music first starts up and stuff, I truly

believe that obviously the touch is Optimus'

theme. Every time I hear that song, I think of

Optimus Prime. But also, in another regard, Dare

is Hot Rod's theme. It has to be. Yeah, I'll

agree with that. Yeah, because every time he's

shown, that song plays. Yeah. There's that, and

even when you see the touch playing as Rodimus

gets the Matrix there at the end, you still hear

Optimus talking. It's like Optimus is talking

to him through the Matrix, and that's why the

touch is playing there. Did you know that you

have the 20th anniversary DVD, right? Oh, yeah.

I think I've got two copies. Well, not of the

20th anniversary, but I've got several copies

of the movie on DVD as well. Have you looked

at the trailers on that at all for the movie?

I have. It's been a while. Yeah, it's been a

while. I haven't looked at it recently. I looked

at it when I was doing this whole write -up,

and I noticed something. The only two people

that they advertise for music in the movie is

Stan Bush, obviously, and Weird Al. They say

nothing about Vince DeCola at all. In the trailer,

the main two that they advertise is Stan and

Weird Al. Cassettes versus cassettes equals awesome.

That was just so funny. They should have done

that more. Oh, they totally should have done

that more. I love that whole scene. One, just

cassettes versus Perceptor was funny. But, yeah,

but having all of them run around and fight together,

like, I would love to see more of that, where

they have, like, the Autobots fighting, you know,

the Autobots and Decepticons are fighting, like,

this massive scale, and then on this much smaller

scale, having, like, Ravage and Frenzy and Eject

and all of them kind of tussling, like, completely

inconsequentially down around their feet. Yeah,

exactly. I'm having a hard... I didn't go through

and count them all, but I'm having a hard time...

deciding on what is fair in this movie. 20 plus

Decepticons versus 10 Autobots and a little boy.

Give me a break. Well, but I mean, that's just

kind of the Autobots are always supposed to be

the underdogs. I mean, they end up winning, so...

Is it just me, or does Devastator look more menacing

in the movie? Because I took a screenshot with

my iPhone when he's ripping apart the base right

before Prime and the Dinobots arrive. And he

just looks a hell of a lot more evil in the movie

than he ever did in season one or season two.

I think they just gave him more facial expression.

In the movie, he actually looked like he was

enjoying tearing the stuff apart because they

animated him that way. And in the cartoon, they

were, I don't know whether for budget reasons

or whatever, but he was always just kind of the

dumb, I'm going to smash this. So they didn't

give him any emotion. When they've got him just

tearing into this building. I think it was just

an animation choice. But yeah, he does look more

medicine in the movie. The reformatting of Megatron

into Galvatron is fucking awesome. It just is.

I mean, just to see how they animated that was

just so cool. Yeah, I would have liked it if

they'd gotten a little bit more in detail than

just kind of the swirling when he actually changed

forms. But the way that he got hit with that

purple light and then kind of split apart and

you saw all the diodes and electronics underneath,

I thought was really neat. Ravage only has two

scenes in the entire movie. He has the battle

with Perceptor and Blaster and he comes out in

Astro Train when the Decepticons are fighting

amongst each other. I don't know why I noticed

that. Maybe because I noticed in the first two

seasons, they use Ravage a lot more than they

did after the movie and the subsequent seasons.

I don't know. After Galvatron, and I've always

thought this, after Galvatron disintegrates Starscream

to nothing, the left part of his foot almost

looks like the toy foot of Soundwave, of G1 Soundwave.

It just kind of looks like that to me, even though

I know it's not. I don't know. It always looked

like that to me. Oh, yeah. You know what? I never

really paid attention to that. For some odd reason,

I always do. I don't know why. Next time I watch

that, I'm going to keep an eye out for it. Let's

see. At least the power struggle finally ends.

Well, kind of. You know, the whole ghost thing

in Season 3. But other than that, the raiding

and the oh shit controversy. Yeah, that didn't

bother me so much. I'd say something like that.

Oh, yeah, and that's what they said on the 20th

anniversary DVD. They said that, number one,

with the tone and the language of the movie,

they wanted to distinguish it from other animated

films at the time, and obviously back then we

only had G. pg or r we didn't have pg -13 yeah

and then some some copies of the previous like

the vhs version of the movie some copies have

it some don't and then obviously yeah i remember

i remember i used to wonder if it was actually

there because i got i remember hearing in the

theater And then the VHS copy we used to always

rent didn't have it. And I'm like, was I just

imagining that? Because this was before the internet,

really. So I couldn't confirm that with anybody.

I had a couple of friends who were like, I think

I remember hearing it, but none of us were...

We just kind of convinced ourselves that maybe

we were just making that up. So it was nice later

on when they re -released it and just talking

to people on the boards that it ended up being...

It ended up actually being there because for

a while there I thought I was going crazy. Actually,

for a while I thought I was going crazy because

somebody told me that there was a completely

separate version of the movie where Hot Rod gets

the Matrix straight off, not Magnus. And I was

like, what are you talking about? There's no

way. Yeah, I've never heard anything about that.

On an earlier episode of All Things Transformers,

I think it was like episode 14 or 15, I forget.

We're going to record episode 22 tomorrow. The

Hot Rod Springer RC Love Triangle. Just don't

even get me started. Don't even get me started.

I never really cared much about that. Well, it

just, okay. In the movie, they make it look like

Hot Rod. and RC are supposed to be the quote

-unquote robotic parents of Daniel. Obviously,

Spike is off with Bumblebee, you know, running

around the galaxy. We don't know where Carly

is at this point. You know, and it just makes

it seem like that, and then all of a sudden,

dumbass green bastard Springer comes in and ruins

everything. I don't know, whatever. What did

you think of the music, and did you ever own

the original or the new soundtrack? I owned both,

yeah. Well, what do you mean by new soundtrack?

Like from the recent live -action movie? No,

the 20th anniversary DVD original soundtrack

when they added the four new songs. Oh, I actually

haven't managed to catch that one yet. I did

it on the original soundtrack. I actually had

it on LP. I actually had it on vinyl when it

came out. And then I had it on cassette tape.

And then I bought a CD, I guess about five or

six years ago. Actually, it was longer than that.

It was in college. But I actually got a copy

of the CD. Yeah, I have a copy of the original,

and I have the 20th anniversary from iTunes.

The only difference is, like I said, they added

four songs. They added the Unicron medley from

the beginning of the movie. They added the Moonbase

2 slash shuttle launch music. They added Megatron

Must Be Stopped Parts 1 and 2, which I think

was a different... I think Vince DiCola did something

else called, not Till All Are One, but In Their

Darkest Hour, and he reformatted that into Megatron

Must Be Stopped Parts 1 and 2. And then there's

an alternate version of the actual movie theme

by Stan Bush. So that's really the only difference.

Everything else is pretty much... the same. Um,

how the hell is Weird Al Yankovic in a Transformers

movie? I mean... Eh, that's just soundtrack choice.

I mean, that's like saying, like, how the hell

is, um, is, um, Linkin Park in a Transformers

movie? Yeah, that's true, too. Oh, I mean, it's,

it's actually funny. I mean, yeah, Dare to Be

Stupid is almost like the Junkie on Steam from

the movie, but it just, hell, at first, I didn't

even know what he was saying when I first saw

it as a kid. I'm like, What the heck is that

song? Because I never heard of Weird Al when

I was younger. Oh, I had. I knew who Weird Al

was very much when I saw the movie. That's pretty

much all the notes I have. Do you have any other

thoughts on the movie? I really liked it. I know

it's kind of a cliche thing, but that was one

of the big movies. Partly because, like I said,

my dad was in the Air Force. That was one of

the rare times when me and him actually did something

together at the time. I don't mean that in any

way to sound like my dad neglected me or anything.

I had a fairly decent relationship with my dad.

He was always busy with work. I just remember

it was one of the few times, especially when

we were living in Alabama, because he was also

going to Air War College there at Maxwell Air

Force Base. He was always busy. I just remember

going to see it with him. So it has a lot of

good childhood memories. And like I said, I think

it still more or less stands up today. I still

watch it every now and then. I pull it out and

just pop it in. Yep. Yeah, like you said, as

far as wearing out the rental, I did that with

Transformers and the Secret of the Sword VHS,

the He -Man She -Ra movie. I was renting that

all the time. Yeah, I remember my sister liked

Shearer. I remember we watched that one quite

a few times. Alright, would you like to pimp

out your YouTube channel? Like, you got any new

videos coming up, or what do you have currently?

Oh, jeez, I've got a lot of videos coming up.

I got a friend of mine on one of the other Transformer

boards. I was cleaning out his collection, so

I got all those alternators you see on my channel

coming soon. I got them for, I think, $10 or

$15 each. So I've got all those Alternators coming.

I've got the Red Build team coming, which is

one of my favorite sets from the Robots in Disguise

line. And Ravage and Jetfire are going to be

here soon, too. I've got Ravage just shipped

out today, and Jetfire should be shipping out

next week. I'm not a fan of the movie line. Oh,

no, oh, no, no. I'm just saying in general. That's

big stuff coming up. I'm just not a fan of the

movie line. I was going to ask you something

else. What the hell was it? I can't think now.

Oh, crap. I don't know. I can't think. So I think

we're going to finally close out this epic 16th

episode. Next up, coming June 5th, you will hear

myself and Pecan Court Michael talk about the

Five Faces of Darkness five -parter that starts

out season... Three. I almost said season one.

Season three. Yeah, I need to watch that again.

I've been meaning to for a long time. Thank you

for joining us on the TFG1 Podcast. There are

four ways to get in touch with me or leave feedback

for the podcast. The first is you can visit the

PredaconEmpire .com forums. Yes, you should do

this, people, and get all your Transformer discussion

topics there. The second is you can follow both

of us on Twitter. Mine is TFG1Podcast, and yours

is... P -A -U -G -H. The third is you can visit

the earth2 .net forums. I have a thread over

there for the podcast under the banter section.

And the fourth is the email address, which is

tfg1podcast at gmail .com. I also do have a thread

for the podcast over at TFW. I update it fairly

frequently. Right now, like I said, we'll be

on hiatus during May because my other co -host

and the guy that edits this stuff together, he's

getting married, so he won't have any time to

do anything. For now, I am Michael Blanchard,

saying in the immortal words of Optimus Prime,

transform and roll out, and thank you for listening.

Until next time. First, Prime. Then, Ultra Magnus.

And now, you. It's a pity you Autobots die so

easily, or I might have a sense of satisfaction

now. You got the time! This is the end of the

road, Galvatron. Hello and welcome to the TFG1

podcast. This is another clip with another co

-host of mine, Optimus Scourge from TFW. Hello.

Hey. How's it going? Doing alright, doing alright.

We are here to discuss Transformers the movie,

the animated movie. Let's see, going into my

questions, just to go ahead and get this kicked

off. When was the first time that you saw the

movie? Believe it or not, I actually was, in

1986, I was 10 years old. I saw this in a movie

theater. And, you know, the whole line from Spike,

what we didn't know about was, oh, my God, you

know. Yeah. That was pretty dramatic at the time

for the 80s, you got to think. Things were a

little different back then. But I'll be honest,

you know, watching that movie in the theater

was all great and everything. And I watched Prime

die and I actually, you know, had tears in my

eyes and stuff. But, you know. It eventually

gets to the point where the Junkions fix Magnus,

and I'm like, okay, well, they fixed Magnus,

so I'm just sitting around basically the rest

of the movie waiting for them to fix Prime because

they just fixed Magnus, and why aren't they fixing

Prime? And then it was over, and, you know, it's

kind of a love -hate thing. Obviously, from childhood,

it kind of killed Transformers for me, and, you

know, they were getting on in the years. The

Headmasters came out, and I had a few of those,

but... I was getting older into comic books and

then girls and music, stuff like that. So I kind

of faded away for a little while. Then when Car

Robots R .I .D. came out, I hooked up with Tony

Sight and Trans Fandom 2005 boards and been back

into collecting ever since and have come to love

the movie. I understand certain parts of why

they did it for toy sales and stuff like that.

But I'd definitely say I'm a fan of the movie.

I don't say you're not a true fan if you like

it or don't like it, but, I mean, I definitely

respect it for what it is. A lot of my thing

about the movie, too, is that a lot of it was

written during season one and two. So, like,

the questions, why isn't Superion in here helping

kick, you know, Devastator's butt? And, you know,

just a lot of mistakes and stuff like that. Yeah,

but you kind of have to look over the mistakes,

though. You do, because it was a separate thing

produced separately. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you

had the main voices as the main voices, but it

was Hollywood. Even if it was G1, it was still

Hollywood for its time. Spike saying, you know,

S -H -I -T right there is like, what? You know,

you weren't expecting that from Transformers.

They're supposed to be good and wholesome. Dude,

don't worry about cursing. My podcast is explicit,

so it doesn't matter. This is not a kid -friendly

show. Well, I have two kids myself, so I like

to be kid -friendly when I'm on. That's fine.

Actually, the Optimus Prime dying was my second

question. Be honest. Did you cry when Optimus

Prime died? But we already covered that. Well,

yeah. I'll answer it again. It brought tears

to my eyes because, like I said, I was 10 years

old, and I think... If as a fan I saw Prime dying

now, I'd probably feel very moved, not quite

the same as I was then. But, you know, the whole

thing where Spike's there saying, Prime, you

can't die. And then you see him just go black

and Spike's crying. You just feel all this emotion

as a little kid kind of bringing me back, giving

me a little, you know, chills right now actually

just talking about it. But, yes, it was very

moving for me. And, you know, obviously not in

a great way, but it was a very moving scene.

I mean, the way that was done, the music that

was playing, everything like that. You know,

the little thing going flatlining and him handing

it over to Magnus and stuff. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Definitely affected all of us, I would say. Yeah.

Actually, in the clip after this one, the last

clip of this episode will be the one with me

and P .L., and I actually said to him that...

Someone told me once, after the movie was released,

because I didn't see it until after it came out

on video, and I rented the hell out of that video

cassette. Oh yeah, so did I. When I got back

into Transformers, I did the same thing. I probably

ruined the only copy that the video store up

the street from me had at the time. But I said

to him, somebody told me that there was an alternate

version of it, of the movie, that had been released

with... The unedited one? No. Well, I don't know

if it's an unedited one or not, but he... No,

there is... One that was edited. I'm not sure

what version it was or whatever. Oh, no, no.

Right, right. Yeah, that one was for, like, TV.

Where they took the old shit out. Right, yeah.

Yeah. No, what I'm talking about is someone told

me that there was a completely different version

of it where Hot Rod got the Matrix before Magnus

did. There's scenes in there that, like, when

you see that happen to Magnus, he actually gets

torn apart. It was only because it was deemed

too violent and they would have gotten an R rating.

There was no PG -13. It was either PG or R back

in the time. And there is a scene cut from the

movie right there. And you'll hear the scream

if you listen to the audio when Magnus bites

it, basically, when Galvatron kills him. He actually

is ripping him in half and just destroying him.

You'll hear one of those, like, kind of Wilhelm.

screams in the background. If you could only

pick one character that you liked out of the

movie, who would it be and why? I would say R

.C. because my wife's board's name is R .C. However,

R .C. wasn't really my favorite character. I'd

have to say between Prime and Welker, the dialogue

was great. Those are two legendary men. Welker

doesn't ever go to any shows. I've been to many

bot cons and shows, and I'm lucky enough to have

met Peter Cullen on several occasions and actually

talked to him and stuff like that. I've never

met Mr. Welker, so I'd have to go with Peter

Cullen, the upper hand, especially where a scene

when he finally does get off a Megatron, you

know, he... transforms and he's got to be stopped

no matter the cost. That's the moving moment

for me. And then he just flips up in the air

and starts wasting them and they're really dying.

You're like, yes, Optimus is going to kick everyone's

ass and everything's going to be okay. Yep. You

know, and then Hot Rod gets involved. Well, now,

okay. And I've said this, and people will know

that I've said this. I don't hate him for it,

if that's what you mean. Well, no. Well, people

will know after, because obviously there's clips

before this one, but Hot Rod actually is, Hot

Rod slash Rodimus is my favorite character out

of the movie because he has the most character

depth. He has the most growth throughout the

movie, and of course that's the whole point of

the movie. That is the whole point. You know,

that is the whole point of the movie. He has

to step up and become the leader once Optimus

dies. So, I mean, I love Optimus Prime as much

as I do, but as far as the movie and looking

at it from an objective point of view and not

just go all fanboy, Rodimus would be my favorite

out of the movie. Oh, especially the way he wrapped

it up. Yeah, definitely. I would agree with that.

After 25 years, do you think the movie and the

G1 series in general holds up? Well, personally,

the G1 series was designed to be a cartoon to

sell toys. So while I am somewhat of that opinion

and I agree with that statement, when I was a

kid and I was 10 years old and it's all I knew,

it was very real, very moving stories, and it

was the talents of the Peter Cullen, the Frank

Welker, all those guys that Wally Burr directed

in those sessions. I think it was a lot of their

voice acting talents that they really put into

the characters, and same thing with people who

voice other famous characters. character lovable

and you can relate to that character and the

way they all did what I really liked is how they

all had their own personalities and stuff like

that but you know yeah There's just so many you

can't really take away from one. I never really

did, you know, going back to Rodimus, I never

really did get those people, oh, I hate Hot Rod.

He's the reason why Prime died. I mean, whoever

it was going to be, Cliffjumper, if he was still

alive at that time, whoever it was going to be,

someone was going to do something stupid. Just

like, you know, we've heard the rumor for anime,

someone's going to do something stupid and Hot

Rod's going to bite it. Or Prime's going to bite

it. You know what I mean? You eventually have

to do it and see the reaction. And to be honest,

you have... after they brought him back in the

series, it was too late. I had a Power Master

Prime. I still have my Power Master Prime, but

I was kind of like, okay, well, you should have

done that two, three years ago or whatever. I

think it was 87 when they actually brought him

back or whatever. But, yeah, most kids I was

around kind of fell out of love because of that.

Yeah. You know, growing up and watching the series

again on the Rhino DVDs, I enjoyed it. I enjoyed

it with Rodimus and, you know, the occasional

cameo of Ghost Prime or Dark Awakening. There's

some good episodes there. Yeah, Dark Awakening

is actually coming up. I believe that's in episode

18 or 19. I forget. Yeah, it's a really good

episode. What was your favorite scene in the

movie? I know you already talked about the death

scene, but I mean... Well, that wouldn't be my

favorite. I'd have to say if you count it down

to one. I'd have to say the part where Prime

transforms in the air and just starts wasting

Decepticons because that's the part for me where

you think, you know, he did. He turned the tide,

basically, like they said. But for me, that's

the defining moment. Even though he may have

lost his life in doing so and become badly damaged,

I mean, he just, like, ramjet right in the gold

chrome plate. That was awesome. You know what

I mean? Just smash, because I didn't like his

character either. I love the toy, obviously,

but that was the best for me. I find a lot of

people agree with that statement. I know that,

but it just is. It doesn't get much better than

that when you've got Optimus transforming and

flipping through the year. It was one of the

sequences in the movie that was better animated.

Obviously, they wanted it, this is our money

shot. We want this to look good. I have to say,

without a doubt, that's it for me. I think for

me, I pretty much like the entire movie but if

I had to choose one scene it would be the end

battle between Rodimus and Galvatron yeah that

would have been my second pick only because there

are two different parts to that scene there's

the part where they're battling and then there's

the part outside where Unicron is standing on

Cybertron and And, of course, you know, the Dinobots

are there, and they're flying through space,

and Grimlock's like, me, Grimlock, kick butt.

And then Unicron reaches around, grabs his ass,

and Grimlock flies away and goes, me, Grimlock,

need new strategy. But within that Rodimus Galvatron

battle, I think that's another part of the great

animation. Once Hot Rod... At the very end when

they're all in the shot, kind of like the poster

to All Are One, is that what you're talking about?

No, no, I'm talking about before Rodimus gets

back with the other Autobots, right at the end

where they're... He's just defeated Unicron.

No, where he's just defeated Galvatron and he's

got the Matrix away from him, the whole transformation

from Hot Rod to Rodimus. Oh, yeah. Okay, I missed.

As you say in that transformation part, yes,

that was unbelievable. That was some good animation

right there. Yeah, that's what I was trying to

get at. That's good you pointed that out. That's

another great example of how some of it's kind

of like your standard animation kind of filler,

if you will, and some of it's really well done

and thought out and drawn nicely. Some of the

other stuff you might think they're doubling

up on frames just to be, you know. Well, they

show it from like six different angles. I mean,

they have it first of him with it over his head,

and then Galvatron's like, no, and he shoots

at him. And then, you know, eventually once he

defeats Galvatron, yeah, I mean, that to me,

other than the Optimus fight in the beginning,

that to me is the second money shot of that movie.

I actually did some math on Spike, because actually

you kept mentioning Spike in the death scene.

That's actually Daniel, not Spike. Oh, you're

right, it is Daniel. Well, that's the G1 boy

saying it's Spike. Oh, I know, I'm the same way.

Because when I was, I'll tell you, I'll go back

to the time when I was 10, when I was watching

that, I had a hard time grasping the concept

that Spike was an adult and Daniel was his son.

I didn't really get that the first time I saw

it. I was kind of, I mean, I heard the words,

but you know how a kid is, you're kind of blown

away by something like this. Your favorite thing

is in a movie now and it's a cartoon. It's like

the biggest thing for you if you're young like

that. Yeah. But I actually did the math. If you

take Spike's age from Generation 1, Season 1

and 2, where he is like 15, 16 years old. Then

you put it to 2005. 2005, he's between 36 and

38 years old now. Perfect age man to have a young

boy, yep. That's ironic. Yeah, really. Well,

not really. Actually, it should fall into continuity,

but rarely that kind of stuff does, so it just

kind of surprised me. It's kind of like one of

those little, oh, I never knew that. It's a good

point you got there. Going on about the music

a little bit, I mean, we all know that the touch

is Optimus Prime's theme. That's just what it

is. I mean, as much as that song gets stuck in

people's heads or whatever, you know, for how

catchy it is or whatever, every time I hear it,

I think of Optimus Prime. And on the flip side,

Dare is Hot Rod's theme. Because if you look

at all the scenes with Hot Rod, that's what the

song that's playing. Let's see. Cassettes versus

cassettes equals awesome. That was just hilarious.

I wish they had more of that. Yes. That would

have been so freaking cool. No way. Two can play?

Exactly. I know it. That's good stuff. I know

it. Some illogical stuff, and I know this is

always illogical, but 20 plus Decepticons versus

10 Autobots and a little boy. Give me a break.

I mean, like Daniel trying to push up against

the... Well, see, the Autobots were on Earth,

and some of them were left back on Cybertron,

if you remember Blaster. Oh, right, yeah. Blaster

actually called those Autobots to Earth, so they

were already outnumbered anyway. Yeah, right.

The Decepticons had a full invasion of Earth

before the Autobots knew it. By the time they

were transforming, whether Metroplex or Autobot

City, whatever you want to take it as, while

they were busy doing that... What was I going

to say? While they were busy doing that... I

lost my train of thought. I'm going to have to

edit that. That's all right. There's no problem.

Jog me back in. Basically what you're trying

to say is while they're – Oh, yeah, they were

there before them. So the Autobots were trying

to play catch up from the beginning. Exactly.

That's what I was trying to say. But, I mean,

one of the things that – I mean, as much as I

– and I said this in like the first couple of

episodes of the podcast when I was reviewing

season one. I love the fact how they had Spike

when he was a kid doing his little journal thing

because it showed you – that this is a kid's

kind of cartoon, and it would be freaking awesome

for a 10 -year -old like one of us back then,

you know, sitting on a rock next to a volcano

that's filled with giant freaking robots. That

would just be cool. Yeah, and we're from Cybertron.

Check this out. That's right. Here I am. But

the thing that pissed me off about the movie

was, you know, Daniel is younger than Spike was.

He's probably 7 or 8, and he's trying to push

up against this rocket launcher. trying to get

them to help get it into place. I think they

just wanted to show that even kids have power,

too. That's true. I think that was merely just

from the animator's point of view. You want the

kids to feel strong, and then they're going to

want this movie more. If they see it, they're

going to want to buy it or whatever, get their

parents to get it, get the toys. because you

see spikes just as good as a Transformer, and

you want that kid to feel like he's part of the

Autobots. Because if he feels like he's part

of the Autobots, he might ask his parents to

buy some more Decepticons for him to bash their

skulls in. I know that's what I did. I was never

allowed to have Megatron or Shockwave, though.

I was never allowed to have toys that looked

like guns. Kind of like new U .S. safety laws.

My mom had those in place when I was a young

kid. Is it just me or does Devastator look more

menacing in the movie than he did in the actual

TV series? Well, what I think was cool about

that is they had a lot of time to animate that.

Do you remember the time when Sludge is going

at him and he just pushes him and it looks like

a cartoon belly flop type thing? It's a Looney

Tunes moment, yeah. And it made its way in there,

and I thought that was very cool. It's just kind

of a joking nod to the fan who catches it. Because

as a kid, I never saw that. You just thought

Devastator was doing that anyway. I never noticed

it until I was an adult and watched it later.

Right. The scene that I'm talking about specifically,

is right before Prime and the Dinobots get there,

and Devastator is ripping open the base, and

you see his face. Oh, and Springer's going on

him. Right. Yeah, he looked a lot better. Obviously,

he was probably drawn by a different artist.

Probably. But, yeah, the take on Devastator and

the animation on him, like you were saying, there

are some points in the movie where the animation

is really top -notch, and that's one of them.

You know, they wanted that to be a memorable

scene. Oh, yeah. It's just too bad that they

didn't know that we had Superior, well, not we,

but the Autobots had Superior on and stuff like

that. That would have been cool, but I understand

why it's not there and get to a point in production

where it's okay, it's too late to add anything

in. Oh, yeah. The thing with Devastator and the

Dinobots, you know that Slag is the only one

that got a good shot in on Devastator? Yeah.

Which is kind of sad. It was funny how there

was only three Dinobots there. You know, I've

seen people frame by frame the movie and do productions

on it. I'm not one of those people who can do

that. There are some guys that really know their

stuff on, like, every frame of the movie. And

you'll see, like, Snarl and Robot Mode when they're

in the shuttle taking off and stuff. There's

just some stuff that doesn't make sense. But

you never really see all the five Dinobots together.

No, you see the four. You see Slag, Sludge, Grimlock.

swoop come out of the shuttle in that beginning

scene, and then you see Snarl when they're landing

later on on Junkion. The reformatting of Megatron

into Galvatron, just seeing that animatic is

awesome. That was very cool. The way that they

did that, the way that they showed inside the

body of the robot, it was almost like a human

x -ray. That was actually cool for me because

I'm still at the time when I'm a kid now. That

part of it was cool because here I am thinking,

okay, good. They're changing him. Now he's just

like a laser cannon thing. I can get the toy.

I can have another Decepticon leader. So my friend

did have the gun Megatron. I did get to play

with it. But part of my childhood was I didn't

get to have really the bad guys. My mom wanted

me to do more. I guess you would say Christian

thing. I'm not going to get into politics or

anything like that. But if you know what I mean,

a lot of that was how it was back then. So just

leave it at that. You know, the world was much

more. on PC as it is today. Yes, yes. Going back

to what you were talking about earlier with the

oh shit controversy, how it's in and it's not

in, we kind of already discussed it, that they

wanted to distinguish their movie from other

animation movies at the time, and they didn't

want to get a G rating. So that's why the oh

shit and the damn and some of the other stuff

Right, and another thing about G rated movies

is back then, I believe they only played in matinees,

and I remember my mom and dad talking about it.

And my dad's probably like, oh, they probably

gave it that rating just because they have laser

guns and they're fighting. There's probably,

they call that violence. He's probably, you know,

he was actually right. Yeah. On an earlier episode

of All Things Transformers, Steve and I had had

a discussion topic about the Hot Rod RC Springer

love triangle, and I don't even want to get started

on that because I would just go into a rant.

Well, there's all different ways I could go with

that, being with my wife's name. Well, no, I

know. Aside from that, how do I feel about the

actual story, how it was portrayed in the movie?

Here she is. She's kind of the new girl in town.

You know, you don't really know much about her.

And if you go on to watch later on into the headmasters

and the victory series of G1 that Japan did,

she was very kind of like, and this is totally

different from the U .S. continuity. I want to

make that clear. I got this from a panel at TFCon

from Proto Man, actually. And that is that in

the Japanese continuity, when they had RC and

headmasters and all that, you know, the guys,

Jinrai would be prime and all those guys would

go out to fight. And, oh, RC, you're going to

stay here and take care of... you know, Daniel,

I mean, her and Daniel kind of watched the base.

So that's kind of a whole nother subject when

you get into the subculture of the Japanese and

stuff like that, which I respect and everything,

but it's very different. So knowing her like

story like that, you know, it's different, but,

uh, I always kind of saw R .C. as Hot Rod would

get her because she, I don't know what, I can't

put my finger on it, but I think Hot Rod would

be the guy to get her and Springer would be the

old guy that would be all pissed off about it.

Well, the way I look at it is that, okay, starting

from the beginning of the movie when him and

Daniel are fishing, which... Transformers did

all kinds of human -type... Well, they were appearing

to kids, yeah. Well, right, but they did all

kinds of human -type stuff that really made no

sense. If you want a full rant from me about

this, listen to the episode that has the girl

who loved Power Glide. Power Glide... I did listen

to that. Power Glide on the Mario go -round.

Your favorite episode, I noticed. No, not at

all. Your favorite in the last column is what

I meant. Yeah, exactly, all the way down in the...

Depths of Hell. Yeah, but, you know, that was

basically probably to get maybe a couple of girls

to buy some, too, because they're at that point

when that episode airs. I want to say that was

closer to the end of Season 2. Am I right? Or

middle of Season 2? Yeah, it was closer around

to the end of Season 2. But the thing is, and,

you know, we're kind of getting off track, but,

I mean, the thing is about it, it doesn't portray

girls' and boys' relationships well. because

Powerglide pushes her down several times. She

yells at him. Oh, the original G1 episode? Oh,

we're not? Okay. Yeah. No, but anyway. We're

getting a little off track. Okay, that's fine.

The whole Hot Rod RC thing, ever since that first

episode, when he and Daniel are driving to Lookout

Mountain, and he gets there, and Daniel's looking

through the little viewfinder, we see him have

a special power. He has, like, X -ray vision

type of deal, or, you know, build. Who, Hot Rod?

Yes. Yeah, he does. That's why his alternator

version has a visor. Right, I understand that.

And if you look at the later scene when Magnus

tells Springer and R .C. to transform Autobot

City, she has the exact same thing. So I thought

they were similar in that, and obviously the

fact that they're both hanging out with Daniel,

that they're kind of like the robotic parents

of him while Spike is away. And here you have

fucking Springer coming in trying to wreck the

family. Oh, that's good. That's just the way

I look at it, and that's why I really don't like

Springer at all. Really? Yeah, I think we're

going to move on to the music. The music for

this movie, I know they were going for a rock

soundtrack, which is kind of cool, but each song

hit each scene very well. Do you have either

one of the soundtracks, the original or the...

I do, the Vince DeCole and stuff like that. Yeah,

which one do you have? All of them. You have

the original and the 20th anniversary? I don't

have the newer 25th anniversary one, I don't

think, unless my wife gave it to me, but my wife

is like a connoisseur. Hello? Uh -oh. Oh, okay.

Okay. Can you hear me? So, um... Basically, the

only differences between them is the new one

has four additional tracks that weren't on the

original. Unicron, Medley, Moonbase 2, Shuttle

Launch, Megatron Must Be Stopped, Parts 1 and

2, and the same version of the theme of the movie.

I believe the Megatron Must Be Stopped, Parts

1 and 2, used to be Vince's In Their Darkest

Hour. I think he reformatted that to become Megatron

Must Be Stopped, Parts 1 and 2. And then the

rest of it, obviously, Dare to be Stupid and

Autobot Decepticon Battle and all that stuff.

How is a Weird Al song in a Transformers movie?

In animated, yeah. Yeah, and then to see that

come around. No, no, no, you better not do that.

And the junkie on was the music. And now he's

going to BotCon, and this is the first BotCon

in years that I'm not being able to go to unless

I pretty much sell everything, which I'm considering.

But, you know, people walk into my house and

see my room, and it's not to, like, brag or anything,

but I got everything in glass cases and, you

know, stuff like that. Oh, yeah. It's definitely

something I've really put a passion into, and

I've been to plenty of other ones. I know it'll

come back to drivable distance next year. If

not, there's TFCon, but, you know, I would have

loved to have met Weird Al. I'm sure he'll be

around somewhere sometime that I can, you know,

get a chance. Speaking of Stan Bush, I did get

the chance to hang out with Stan Bush at BotCon

2007 for the, you know, Not the anniversary,

but the movie coming out. They had the Hasbro

tour that year. Probably going to go down as

one of the best BotCons ever as far as attendance

-wise. Just everything was huge. And he had the

party Friday night, and we're all going in there,

okay, what's this party? And then, like, Stan

Bush just rocked the house. And then, you know,

then there was a cover band after that just playing

stuff, and he kind of hung out with us fans and,

you know, followed us to the bar afterwards and

stuff. I mean, he probably doesn't remember me

directly, but just him hanging out with the fans,

I mean, that's how you know someone's cool with

the fandom and they appreciate them. Like, a

guy like Stan Bush doesn't have to do anything.

He can go home and do whatever he wants, but

he chose to come out. and hang out with us Transformer

geeks for a little while, and just that in and

of itself is cool. So if he hears this, I want

to say thank you for that. It was a very good

time we all had at that concert. Too bad I am

not able to go this year. Yes, I... Yeah, yes,

I will be emailing this MP3 when we eventually

get the entire thing edited together. I will

be sending it to Stan, so he will hear it. But

Stan has got to be, out of all the people that

I know that are in Transformers, obviously I've

never been to conventions, but he has been the

most accessible Transformers -type person, celebrity,

whatever you want to call him. because, I mean,

I scored an interview with him. I mean, it's

like, oh, my God, how the hell do I do this without

going all fanboying? I know I had to do it professionally,

and, of course, I started with his, you know,

where he grew up and all that other stuff and

everything else, and, you know, people hear it

on the... I also think to his point of view,

perhaps, he is doing something for the fans that

he doesn't really have to do. Maybe he doesn't

even realize it, which in my opinion would make

it even more cool if he's just doing it to be

a cool guy and showing people that they appreciate

what he's done, even if he didn't get as far

with it as he wanted to or whatever. I'm not

sure what the deal was with that. The fact that

he's still going on and still making music and

stuff like that is really cool. And that he keeps

in touch with the fans. Because that's what it's

all about for me. Keep in touch. So I think we're

going to end this clip. The next clip you will

hear will be me and Pia talking about the exact

same thing. My buddy Pia. Hey, Ben. Sorry I wasn't

able to do this with you yesterday. It wasn't

yesterday. It was almost a week ago. But anyway.

You're going to edit that all out. Go ahead.

So we'll see you in the next clip, folks. Bye.

Later. The Transformers will return after these

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Then be sure to visit PredaconEmpire .com, your

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be sure to check out our podcast, All Things

Transformers and the TFG1 podcast. I'm Steve

slash Megatron inviting you to come join the

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