Transformers 1986 movie Blu-ray

[BTBuck1]

Originally Posted by blu-rayfan101

we should all buy this movie because if it sold more than the newer one that would be sad. LOL

never happen (even if it were available here), but I think it would make a statement if a high # of these were imported.

[Coltboy]

Will it work in USA players?

[The ill Jedi]

I am all over this, I am a HUGE Transformers fan and the Cartoon movie RULES!!

Originally Posted by Coltboy

Will it work in USA players?

From reading through the thread all signs point to YES!!!

[BTBuck1]

OK, here is my mini review...I'll just cover PQ & Sound since you all have seen this and obviously <3 this movie like I do

Most reviews start off with the praise then the bad stuff, I'm gonna do things a lil different here, so here goes:

Video: 2 1/2 stars: Average
First off the Detail can go from Stunning to WTF? in 60 seconds.
There was obviously little to no cleaning up of this film before transfer.
Many scenes are filled with white scratches, nicks etc.
I saw a few area's where parts of the print looked weathered or faded as well. It wasn't always there I'd say about 30% of the time, hell most of the beginning I didn't notice it, it comes and goes and seems to spring up more in farther out shots rather than closeups. Now that we got that out of the way, on to the good stuff. When this movie looks good, it looks as good as you'd expect. The detail is superb with only two questionable spots, the two instances with softness were toward the very end, a shot of Unicron from far off while he was in robot form and one of the Junkticons all dancing holding hands, that was it. The rest of it looked great. Autobot city on Earth generally looked superb, especially the artistry of the mountains, etc.

Sorry guys, I'm gonna have to give this a 2 1/2, had the debris & scratches not been there, (or been cleaned up) and the couple of weathered spots cleaned up this would have been an easy 4. But I don't think we will ever get that wish, I think if you are a fan of the film, you just have to accept this is the best we'll have til a re master is done (If Ever).


AUDIO: 4 stars: GREAT!

I didn't even bother with anything but the DTS Track. It seems to be a lil low for a DTS track. On my Pioneer vsx1014tx I generally listen to DTS tracks around 14, and DD at 9. With this one, most of the time I listened to it around 10-12, occasionally going to 9.

The Audio is almost as wishy washy as the Video. Going from Dynamic and heart pounding to tiny and weak at times. But fortunately the weak moments in the sound field are few and far between. Most of the time, the Dialog is easy to hear and for an Animated film from 86' I'm shocked they got this much out of it. The Voice of Prime & Unicron are deep and exactly what you'd expect. Only a few explosions disappointed.

For the good stuff, and what pushed this up to a 4. The soundtrack!
Man, I really got into the 80's soundtrack. This was when I turned it down, it seems when the music comes in it gets Loud!!! Which is what ya want really.
The Transformers theme at the end is just awesome and I listened to it all the way through, and "You got the Touch" has never sounded better. This DTS track will not Disappoint!



All in all if you are a fan of the Film, this is a must have. If you can look past it's deficiencies and accept it for it's age and what the alternatives are (piss poor DVD transfers with a soft image and all the same problems + ringing and DVD artifacts) The you will be in Autobot heaven~!
Hope that helps you guys in making your decision!

[Creator]

Yeah there is definitely some scratches and dirt and some scenes are less clean than others but it is still way better than the crappy DVD version. The macroblocks are finally gone and that's a major plus. Also, the colors are less overblown on the Blu-Ray version, and the picture is brighter so everything looks better imho.

I saw those horizontal lines on the print... that is weird. It looks like the print was not correctly scanned and it made those horizontal lines. They are usually faint that you don't notice them at all but sometimes you do notice them.

The worse thing is the dirt scenes because the amount of dirt is ridiculous but it doesn't happen too often thank god.

As for the fact that some scenes are clear and others less clear, that seems to be a "master" problem. The clear versus less clear scenes match all the other versions of this movies that came out so far so I guess that's how the master has been preserved. THey would need to do a serious touch up to correct the dirt and those variations in the clarity of the scenes and I doubt somebody will pull out the cash for TFTM.

The sound is superb. The DTS 1.5Mbps destroys the other two soundtracks easily. I wasn't prepare for a boost in sound quality for this release so I was pleasantly surprised.

[conover619]

well i recieved my copy from the UK yesterday and i'm happy to report works great in my PS3. Picture looked good way better than the standard. The only thing is it looks like it was touched up or redone cuase Rodimus Prime is now a purplish, Thought it was my TV at first (37" 1080p Westy) but all color checked out. Sound is Great. Bottom line well worth the 37.00 Dollars US on Amazon UK

[russtcb]

I saw it listed on Amazon.uk

Anyone have any idea how I can find out if it'll play in my US BDPS300 and any thoughts on the video quality?

[ryoohki]

Originally Posted by russtcb

I saw it listed on Amazon.uk

Anyone have any idea how I can find out if it'll play in my US BDPS300 and any thoughts on the video quality?

Yes it's region free

The Quality is wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy better than any other version ever released. Altought the print will need a cleanup one day.

The DTS soundtrack is very nice also. The music benifit from it a little.

[Barulez2k7]

Cool. Maybe one day I will get that. Since Sony got that series, it will be on Blu-ray in the U.S. soon.

[WickyWoo]

Cool. Maybe one day I will get that. Since Sony got that series, it will be on Blu-ray in the U.S. soon.

Sony Wonder has been disbanded, and the series is analog tape only, the film is likely long gone, and there is very little chance it would be released on Blu-ray even if it wasn't. No matter what, expect any further DVD reissue to be backburnered until Transformers 2,and the GI Joe seriesreissue to be tied with whatever that complete disaster of a script ends up mutating into in a few years

[jd213]

All of the cartoon series episodes were remastered from film by Rhino for their OOP DVD box sets. However, many episodes in Season 1 had tons of mistakes that were fixed for broadcast (disregarding the fact that many mistakes did make it to the original broadcast), indicating that the animation in the film Rhino used for Season 1 was before it was sent back to Toei Doga for fixing mistakes. Some Season 2 and maybe Season 3 episodes had unfixed mistakes that weren't in the broadcast but they were few and far between.

The DVDs have other problems such as compression due to 7 episodes being crammed onto a DL disk and stupid non-Transformers library sound effects added to both the 5.1 and 2.0 track of many episodes. But the film masters themselves look to be in pretty good condition, for DVDs anyways. I don't know how good they would look in HD, but it would be hard to not improve on Rhino's release.

Regarding Sony Wonder, they did indeed close down but SPE sort of reintegrated them by starting a new children's label. They still have some of the old Sony Wonder licenses but The Transformers cartoon is not one of them apparently. I talked to a Hasbro marketing rep at BotCon 2007 back in June and he said they were still working out the rights for the old cartoon, not sure if anything has changed since then.

[Riverside666]

I have a copy I'll try to post some screenshots of it later on.

[russtcb]

Originally Posted by ryoohki

Yes it's region free

The Quality is wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy better than any other version ever released. Altought the print will need a cleanup one day.

The DTS soundtrack is very nice also. The music benifit from it a little.

Wow.... thanks for the info. Seeing as it's region free, I may go ahead and order it today!

[hijeff1]

Originally Posted by russtcb

Wow.... thanks for the info. Seeing as it's region free, I may go ahead and order it today!

Trust me, if you love transformers you won't be disappointed at all. Thats where I got mine, Amazon UK.

[phelps]

try getting it from sendit.com. It was fast and it cost about thirty bucks shipped. It was a little cheaper than amazon.uk.

I got mine before Christmas and it looks and sounds great.

[russtcb]

Originally Posted by phelps

try getting it from sendit.com. It was fast and it cost about thirty bucks shipped. It was a little cheaper than amazon.uk.

I got mine before Christmas and it looks and sounds great.

How fast did yours come? Amazon.uk was $31 (US, shipped) but it said 6-10 days.

[makaveli21]

Originally Posted by hijeff1

Trust me, if you love transformers you won't be disappointed at all. Thats where I got mine, Amazon UK.

while we are on the subject does anyone know any other blu-rays that are available through Amazon UK that aren't available in the States (besides the Paramount movies that were listed over the last few days there)?

[blu reality]

Whenever I get a chance I try to tell people to buy this import over Bayformers.

The image quality is probably as good as it'll ever be sadly. It's not going to blow anyone away but it is a nice improvement over the 2 disc DVD.

There is no FS version, so it's cropped to fit 16:9 (it was done in 4:3 and cropped for 16:9 theatre release). I don't mind as I prefer the 16:9 version as that is what my 6 year old eyes saw in the movie theatre.

The story, however, is still awesome. Still my favorite movie of all time. Its a shame a bunch of little kids cried because they couldn't handle death. Wah wah wah characters died. That is what made it epic!

[WickyWoo]

All of the cartoon series episodes were remastered from film by Rhino for their OOP DVD box sets. However, many episodes in Season 1 had tons of mistakes that were fixed for broadcast (disregarding the fact that many mistakes did make it to the original broadcast), indicating that the animation in the film Rhino used for Season 1 was before it was sent back to Toei Doga for fixing mistakes. Some Season 2 and maybe Season 3 episodes had unfixed mistakes that weren't in the broadcast but they were few and far between.

Yes, they still used analog tapes for that restoration though, it was all tape based, not film.

They did the same thing with Transformers: THe Movie

At one point I was going to lend them my Japanese LD to restore the "shit" line

There is no FS version, so it's cropped to fit 16:9 (it was done in 4:3 and cropped for 16:9 theatre release). I don't mind as I prefer the 16:9 version as that is what my 6 year old eyes saw in the movie theatre.

1.66:1 actually, standard ratio for Japanese and European cinema.

The story, however, is still awesome. Still my favorite movie of all time. Its a shame a bunch of little kids cried because they couldn't handle death. Wah wah wah characters died. That is what made it epic!

Don't forget how they wussied out on GI Joe the movie, that after Duke got a poisonous snake through the heart, he was only comatose

My favorite part of my GI Joe the movie disc is the 30 "knowing is half the battle"s

[blu reality]

Originally Posted by WickyWoo

Don't forget how they wussied out on GI Joe the movie, that after Duke got a poisonous snake through the heart, he was only comatose

My favorite part of my GI Joe the movie disc is the 30 "knowing is half the battle"s

It isn't Cobra-La?

I haven't seen that movie IN YEARS. I wouldn't mind owning it on Blu just for the sure comedy Cobra-La!