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FILM REAL | The Transformers: You've Got The Touch · The Recess Bell

0:00
Speaker 1: This production is brought to you by the Recess Bell
0:07
Speaker 1: Hello everyone, I am a robot. I am an autobot.
0:10
Speaker 2: My name is.
0:13
Speaker 1: Just kidding.
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Speaker 3: I'm not a robot. I almost almost got you. This
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Speaker 3: is the film Real right here on the Recess Bell Network,
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Speaker 3: and we're continuing our discussion on the Transformers, which was
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Speaker 3: one of the quintessential nineteen eighties cartoons. Now I talked
0:30
Speaker 3: about my love and appreciation for the brand. I talked
0:33
Speaker 3: about the toys. But now we're going to get into
0:35
Speaker 3: the story of that television show leading into the nineteen
0:39
Speaker 3: eighty six feature film. So let's start with the cartoon
0:42
Speaker 3: show from nineteen eighty four. So the basic plot is
0:45
Speaker 3: the Autobots and the Decepticons have been feuding for millions
0:49
Speaker 3: of years. Which one do you think are the bad guys,
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Speaker 3: the Autobots or the decepticonds.
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Speaker 1: Yes, you answered it correctly.
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Speaker 3: So these guys they live on the torn planet of Cybertron,
1:01
Speaker 3: and they somehow have the ability to transform from Cybertronian
1:05
Speaker 3: vehicle to a robot mode. Now throughout their battles, they
1:09
Speaker 3: eventually get on a spaceship, the Arc, and they.
1:13
Speaker 1: Both crash land on Earth four million.
1:17
Speaker 3: Years ago and they're out of commission, they get knocked out,
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Speaker 3: and eventually they are reactivated due to a volcano eruption.
1:25
Speaker 3: So this all takes place in nineteen eighty four when
1:28
Speaker 3: the series is on the air. So they get you know,
1:30
Speaker 3: reactivated in nineteen eighty four, and they start taking on
1:33
Speaker 3: alternate modes of not Cybertronian vehicles, but they want to
1:36
Speaker 3: blend in and they want to be robots in the skies,
1:39
Speaker 3: so they take on the forms of Earth vehicles and
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Speaker 3: Earth accessories. So, like I mentioned earlier in part one,
1:45
Speaker 3: you know, sound Wave becomes a cassette player, Megatron becomes
1:48
Speaker 3: a gun optimist, Prime a truck, and so on and
1:51
Speaker 3: so forth.
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Speaker 1: So they're both.
1:54
Speaker 3: Reactivated, and they're both on Earth now and they're trying
1:57
Speaker 3: to get back to Cybertron, but they're also trying to
1:59
Speaker 3: fight Enerjohn. That is the whole basic premise of that
2:04
Speaker 3: show is their planet is low on energy Energon, and
2:09
Speaker 3: I guess it's sort of allegory for oil. You know,
2:13
Speaker 3: especially at this time seventies and eighties, a lot of
2:16
Speaker 3: wars happening throughout the world due to oil, still to
2:19
Speaker 3: this day still happening. And that's Basically the premise of
2:23
Speaker 3: the series is, you know, the autobotism of the septicons.
2:26
Speaker 3: They need to find that energy on they need that oil.
2:29
Speaker 4: Huh or you say, some old bitch you cooking.
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Speaker 3: And throughout the series we're introduced to such a wide
2:42
Speaker 3: variety of characters, all with different personalities, especially that first season.
2:47
Speaker 3: That's the way a lot of cartoons worked back in
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Speaker 3: the day. They would have the initial season, which would
2:51
Speaker 3: be anywhere from five episodes to thirteen episodes, and then
2:55
Speaker 3: if the series got picked up, then they would start
2:58
Speaker 3: producing episode in episode. Usual if you look at these
3:01
Speaker 3: eighties cartoons, first season thirteen episodes or so. Second season
3:05
Speaker 3: is like fifty episodes because now they're in syndication, so
3:08
Speaker 3: they're just pumping out a new episode every single day.
3:12
Speaker 3: I really do like the first season of the show
3:14
Speaker 3: more so than any other season. It's a smaller group
3:17
Speaker 3: of characters because by season two they have to introduce
3:20
Speaker 3: more toys. Again, this is a toy commercial disguised as
3:24
Speaker 3: a cartoon show, but it's more than that.
3:26
Speaker 1: It is more than meets the eye.
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Speaker 3: I think it is still a great show that does
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Speaker 3: hold up in certain aspects. Some of the episodes fall
3:33
Speaker 3: a bit flat, as I mentioned, but some of them
3:35
Speaker 3: are really well organized, well thought out, well acted. All
3:40
Speaker 3: the shows are really well acted. Voice acting has always
3:43
Speaker 3: fascinated me. I feel like I am a voice actor
3:46
Speaker 3: in a sense. You know, I do a lot of
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Speaker 3: voiceover work for my job, and I love listening to
3:52
Speaker 3: these nineteen eighties television shows because it was so much
3:57
Speaker 3: more raw back then. When I was talking to Flint Dilly,
4:00
Speaker 3: who is the writer on this show, he talked about
4:02
Speaker 3: how the voice actors would all be.
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Speaker 1: In the same room recording.
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Speaker 3: Their session, and it felt so much more organic that way,
4:09
Speaker 3: because it was you know, if you look at a
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Speaker 3: modern cartoon, they are recording it separate recording booths, and
4:16
Speaker 3: yet it sounds good, but it's not that same energy.
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Speaker 3: If you have people around you all recording their lines
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Speaker 3: at the same time, you'll be able to interact and
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Speaker 3: maybe you can improvise the line here or there. And
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Speaker 3: these are some of the most iconic voice actors of
4:30
Speaker 3: all time on the show.
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Speaker 1: I mean, we're talking legends. I'm in the radio business.
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Speaker 3: There's really not too many people in the radio business
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Speaker 3: more famous than Casey Kasum, and he does the voice
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Speaker 3: of several Transformers.
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Speaker 4: Just your friendly neighborhood descent to con Records.
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Speaker 3: Peter Cullin has cemented himself as one of the great
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Speaker 3: hero actors with his portrayal of Optimist Prime.
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Speaker 2: Now follow me and we'll give Megatron a taste of
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Speaker 2: his own medicine.
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Speaker 3: Frank Well Poker is the goat. I think he's the
5:02
Speaker 3: greatest voice actor since mel Blank. He does Megatron, he
5:06
Speaker 3: does sound Wave, he does countless Transformers and countless other
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Speaker 3: you know, iconic animated characters. It's it's a hodgepodge of
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Speaker 3: younger actors, older established voice actors, and it all works
5:26
Speaker 3: and blends together to form this unique hodgepodge of characters.
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Speaker 3: That's what that show is. All the characters on this
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Speaker 3: show have different personalities. You know, you have wheel Jack
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Speaker 3: who's the scientist. You have prol who's the strategist, Grimlock,
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Speaker 3: who's this brute dinobot. You know, as I mentioned, Peter Cullen,
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Speaker 3: the heroic, stoic Optimist Prime, Megatron the evil leader of
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Speaker 3: the Decepticons, and then a character like Starscream I think
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Speaker 3: is probably the most interesting character I know. Flint Dilly said,
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Speaker 3: he's you know, was the face for people to write for.
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Speaker 3: He's Megatron's second in command, but he's always trying to
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Speaker 3: one up Megatron and take.
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Speaker 1: Over that leadership role.
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Speaker 3: Such a fascinating trope that I know they've done in
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Speaker 3: quite a bunch of television shows throughout the years. But
6:15
Speaker 3: when I think of that trope, I always think of
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Speaker 3: Starscream and Megatron, and the voice acting by Chris Ladda
6:21
Speaker 3: as Starscream is so damn good.
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Speaker 4: Theatobox would have lost ms ago A five been calling
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Speaker 4: the shots.
6:28
Speaker 1: My time will come Megatron.
6:31
Speaker 3: So the show's on for two seasons, and in the
6:34
Speaker 3: middle of season two, people start seeing commercials for Transformers.
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Speaker 4: The movie Hold On Tight, the most incredible rock and
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Speaker 4: roll adventder ever is here to the shop to come
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Speaker 4: Starry with Judd Nelson as hot Rod, Leonard Nimoy as Galvatrock,
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Speaker 4: and orsonwell Hart transports. The movie coming to a theater
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Speaker 4: near you this August.
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Speaker 3: I couldn't imagine. I just couldn't imagine watching this cartoon
7:14
Speaker 3: and then finding out there making a feature length film.
7:17
Speaker 3: And they've got some big names attached to this movie.
7:19
Speaker 3: We're talking big stars in the history of Hollywood are
7:23
Speaker 3: attached to Transformers the movie orson freaking Wells. You know
7:28
Speaker 3: the guy who directed, writ written, wrote in, writt wrote, written, written, written, Uh,
7:34
Speaker 3: Citizen Kane. He plays Unicron in this movie. Leonard Nimoy,
7:38
Speaker 3: you know, mister Spock plays Galvatron and the Transformers of
7:42
Speaker 3: the movie. Judd Nelson, Hot Off the Breakfast Club, plays
7:46
Speaker 3: the young hot Rod.
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Speaker 1: So you got some big names. Robert Stack, Eric Idol, these.
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Speaker 3: Are big names, big names in Hollywood attached to this
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Speaker 3: feature length film, and this movie pulled no punches.
8:00
Speaker 1: So for the movie, they jumped forward.
8:02
Speaker 3: The movie took place in two thousand and five and
8:05
Speaker 3: it was released in nineteen eighty six, so we're jumping
8:09
Speaker 3: a bit forward. We don't know what happened from nineteen
8:11
Speaker 3: eighty five to two thousand and five, and I think
8:14
Speaker 3: if they did make another Transformer show set in that
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Speaker 3: same universe, I would love to see what actually happened
8:20
Speaker 3: from eighty five to two thousand and five. I really
8:23
Speaker 3: hope they make something like that eventually. You know, never
8:25
Speaker 3: say never. They've been making a lot of these shows
8:28
Speaker 3: have been coming back. You know, the X Men show
8:30
Speaker 3: just came back. X Men ninety seven was fan freakantastic.
8:33
Speaker 3: I know me and my buddy Corey talked about that
8:35
Speaker 3: a few months ago. Check it out in the archives.
8:37
Speaker 3: It's there somewhere. So this movie, it pulled no punches.
8:41
Speaker 3: Like I said it, it was much more mature than
8:47
Speaker 3: the series, which was a mature show for its time.
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Speaker 1: It wasn't super kid friendly.
8:52
Speaker 3: You know, it was about war essentially, but this movie
8:56
Speaker 3: was way more extreme. It started off with pretty much
9:00
Speaker 3: killing off the entire first season of characters. I don't
9:03
Speaker 3: think any kid went into that movie thinking something like
9:07
Speaker 3: that was going to happen. I did see that the
9:13
Speaker 3: initial teaser trailers did tease the death potentially of Optimism Megatron,
9:19
Speaker 3: because it does say they'll fight in their final battle.
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Speaker 3: But I did not expect them, or rather, I don't
9:25
Speaker 3: think the fans, the kids expected all these characters to die.
9:31
Speaker 3: And that must have been, you know, crazy to be
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Speaker 3: a seven eight year old kid. You grew up with
9:36
Speaker 3: these characters, you have all their toys, and then all
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Speaker 3: these guys die off in the first five ten minutes
9:41
Speaker 3: of the movie, and you're introduced to a whole slew
9:44
Speaker 3: of new toys, I mean characters, and these characters I love.
9:49
Speaker 3: I love this movie. I've mentioned it before. This is
9:52
Speaker 3: my favorite movie of all time. Transformers nineteen eighty six
9:55
Speaker 3: is my favorite film of all time. It's the most
9:57
Speaker 3: nostalgic movie for me, more so than anything, not just movies.
10:01
Speaker 3: It's the most nostalgic thing for me ever. I've seen
10:04
Speaker 3: it more than I've seen any other movie. And then
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Speaker 3: some the rock and soundtrack of nineteen eighties heavy metal
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Speaker 3: mixed with a far more advanced animation with I mentioned
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Speaker 3: that's still that great voice cast from the TV show.
10:18
Speaker 3: But now you're getting Hollywood actors in there, and I
10:21
Speaker 3: have my issues with getting Hollywood actors in movies. Was
10:25
Speaker 3: it necessary to really get Judd Nelson in this movie? No,
10:28
Speaker 3: but he did a good job byill did great jobs.
10:30
Speaker 3: But you knew, a you weren't going to get them
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Speaker 3: back for the television show, because you're not going to
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Speaker 3: get the star of the Breakfast Club to voice hot
10:36
Speaker 3: Rod or Rodamus Prime spoiler alert in a television show.
10:40
Speaker 3: But you're gonna get them from the movie. So yeah,
10:43
Speaker 3: you know, we got to talk about it. Optimist Prime
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Speaker 3: gets killed, Optimus Prime goes out in a blaze of
10:48
Speaker 3: glory in this amazing battle between him and Megatron. They
10:52
Speaker 3: both fight to the death and it's pretty much a draw.
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Speaker 3: They both die. Optimist Prime passes the matrix of leadership
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Speaker 3: to Ultra Magnus.
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Speaker 2: Ultron Magnus, it is to you, old friend, I shall
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Speaker 2: pass the matrix of leedership as it was passed to me.
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Speaker 2: But Priam I am. I am just a soldier I
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Speaker 2: have I'm not worthy.
11:19
Speaker 3: And Megatron he gets transformed into a new character, Galvatron.
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Speaker 1: Badass design, badass character.
11:27
Speaker 3: I love these futuristic designs because, like I mentioned, the
11:30
Speaker 3: movie took place in two thousand and five and was
11:33
Speaker 3: released in eighty six, so they tried to figure out
11:36
Speaker 3: what cars would be like in two thousand.
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Speaker 1: And five and they're way off. But I love it.
11:40
Speaker 3: It's it's an awesome design for characters like hot Rod
11:43
Speaker 3: and Springer and Blur and Ultra Magnus, all these new
11:46
Speaker 3: characters that were introduced to I really dig their designs.
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Speaker 1: And in this movie, there's a bigger threat, bigger than
11:54
Speaker 1: you know.
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Speaker 3: Megatron Galvatron Alder the Septicons Combined is a character named
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Speaker 3: Unicron and Cranics.
12:01
Speaker 2: Side Planet was destroyed by Unicorn.
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Speaker 4: Unicron, who's Unicron.
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Speaker 2: A planet fifty hours everything in its path.
12:11
Speaker 4: So that's the Monster's way.
12:13
Speaker 3: And he's voiced by as I mentioned, Orson Welds, and
12:16
Speaker 3: he is the Eater of worlds. Essentially, he's the Death
12:19
Speaker 3: Star meets Galactus and he's just eating up planets. Why
12:24
Speaker 3: I don't really know. And there's one thing that could
12:29
Speaker 3: stop him, and that's the Matrix of leadership, something that
12:32
Speaker 3: we're never introduced to in the TV show.
12:35
Speaker 1: This movie is so quick.
12:36
Speaker 3: You're introducing all these characters, you're introducing the concept of
12:39
Speaker 3: the matrix of leadership, you're introducing Unicron.
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Speaker 1: So what is the matrix of leadership?
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Speaker 3: Essentially, it's this ball of energy that optimist Crime stores
12:47
Speaker 3: in his chest and if you open the Matrix of leadership,
12:51
Speaker 3: it could light their darkest hour. Whatever the hell that means.
12:54
Speaker 3: You don't really know. You're five years old, six years old.
12:57
Speaker 3: You're in the theater and you're just going, what the
12:59
Speaker 3: hell just happened? And why did all my heroes just die?
13:02
Speaker 3: But it's badass because you have this eighties rock and soundtrack,
13:05
Speaker 3: and the animation, as I mentioned, is top tier, especially
13:08
Speaker 3: for its time.
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Speaker 1: So eventually Ultra Magnus gets killed off.
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Speaker 3: He does get brought back, but he loses the matrix
13:16
Speaker 3: of leadership that was passed to him from Optimist Prime.
13:20
Speaker 3: Galvatron takes it, and eventually hot Rod played by Judd Nelson,
13:24
Speaker 3: takes that matrix of leadership back.
13:26
Speaker 1: He opens it.
13:27
Speaker 3: Up, lights their darkest hour and destroys Unicron.
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Speaker 4: Drive Optimist.
13:38
Speaker 3: People that have not seen this movie are listening to
13:40
Speaker 3: me speak right now and have no effing idea what
13:44
Speaker 3: the hell I'm talking about. That's fine, you're not gonna
13:47
Speaker 3: understand it without seeing it. It is a bit complicated,
13:51
Speaker 3: but I like that the show wasn't dumbing it down.
13:54
Speaker 3: The movie wasn't dumbing it down. It was talking to
13:56
Speaker 3: the kids as as you know, effecting them, respecting their intelligence,
14:01
Speaker 3: and they weren't gonna, you know, spoon.
14:03
Speaker 1: Feed you the plot.
14:05
Speaker 3: If you got it, you got it, And maybe you
14:06
Speaker 3: have to see it a few times to understand it.
14:08
Speaker 3: I know, me explaining the plot of an eighty seven
14:11
Speaker 3: minute movie and four minutes. Again, if you haven't seen
14:14
Speaker 3: this movie, one you're probably still not listening to this podcast.
14:17
Speaker 3: And two, if you are listening to it, you know,
14:21
Speaker 3: making an incentive to actually watch this movie I'm telling you,
14:23
Speaker 3: if you get in an altered state of mind and
14:26
Speaker 3: watch Transformers of the movie from nineteen eighty six, which
14:29
Speaker 3: is available for free on YouTube, you're gonna have a blast.
14:33
Speaker 3: The colors, the animation, the transformations, the voice acting, the music.
14:37
Speaker 3: It's freaking trippy as hell, man and it's just a
14:40
Speaker 3: fun time. It's a fun, quick movie. But there are
14:43
Speaker 3: layers to it, so the movie is not really a success.
14:47
Speaker 3: But it leads to season three of the series, which
14:50
Speaker 3: is an interesting season for this series because now you
14:54
Speaker 3: have a new leader, hot Rod, who opened that matrix
14:57
Speaker 3: of leadership, transformed into Rodhamus Prime, and season three really
15:01
Speaker 3: talks about guilt. It talks about being a leader when
15:04
Speaker 3: you really don't want to be a leader, and maybe
15:08
Speaker 3: not living up to the expectations of the previous regime.
15:11
Speaker 3: I think that character of Rodham's Prime, hot Rod, is
15:14
Speaker 3: a very complicated character.
15:16
Speaker 1: And it's great the show grew with this audience.
15:20
Speaker 3: They knew that the people that were watching the show
15:22
Speaker 3: maybe started when they were six seven years old. Now
15:24
Speaker 3: they're nine, ten years old, so they're getting more adult
15:27
Speaker 3: themed episodes and that season three is a lot darker,
15:31
Speaker 3: not just you know, on the pages, but also through
15:35
Speaker 3: the artwork. It's set in space, and it has more
15:37
Speaker 3: of a darker.
15:38
Speaker 1: Feel to it.
15:40
Speaker 3: Still, I think that first season of the show is
15:43
Speaker 3: when the show is at its best. It's lighthearted, serious
15:46
Speaker 3: at the same time. And if I am going to
15:49
Speaker 3: watch any Transformers, it's usually you know, the first ten
15:53
Speaker 3: fifteen episodes or so. But all the seasons have their highlights,
15:57
Speaker 3: they have their low lights. Some of the animation. You know,
15:59
Speaker 3: they send the shows to be animated overseas to different studios,
16:05
Speaker 3: so sometimes you get a good studio that can animate
16:08
Speaker 3: it and it looks really good, it looks almost as
16:10
Speaker 3: good as the movie. Then other times there's so many
16:13
Speaker 3: animation errors. It just doesn't flow it look good, and
16:17
Speaker 3: that's what happens. That's what happened with those those eighties
16:20
Speaker 3: cartoons unfortunately. But yeah, this show was super successful. It
16:25
Speaker 3: ended after technically four seasons. The fourth season was just
16:30
Speaker 3: a few episodes, and they kept on selling toys, and
16:33
Speaker 3: eventually that died down because of the success of other
16:36
Speaker 3: programs like The Ninja Turtles, the Ghostbusters, Batman, Power Rangers.
16:40
Speaker 3: Every toy line has a shelf life, but Transformers has
16:44
Speaker 3: stayed relevant because it reinvented itself. In the nineties, there
16:48
Speaker 3: was a show called Beastdwarfs and it took that same
16:51
Speaker 3: concept of good guy bad guy. Now they're not autobots
16:54
Speaker 3: and decepticons, they're predacons and maximals, and instead of turning
16:58
Speaker 3: into vehicles, they turned into animals. And this was the
17:02
Speaker 3: first and maybe the second actually fully computer generated television
17:08
Speaker 3: show of its time. It was groundbreaking, and actually, believe
17:11
Speaker 3: it or not, this show is far more consistent than
17:15
Speaker 3: that original show.
17:15
Speaker 1: It's not more nostalgic.
17:17
Speaker 3: For me, I'll always go back to the original Generation
17:19
Speaker 3: one show, but the Beastwars cartoon show is probably a
17:23
Speaker 3: better written show. It's more consistent. They have an overarching
17:27
Speaker 3: storyline from each season, and it's not trying to sell
17:32
Speaker 3: as much toys.
17:32
Speaker 1: There is a smaller group of characters.
17:35
Speaker 3: What they do though to sell toys, because again it
17:38
Speaker 3: is about selling toys. Actually, now that they think about it,
17:41
Speaker 3: they don't kill off the characters or introduce so many
17:45
Speaker 3: more characters, but they change their modes. So optimist, primal,
17:49
Speaker 3: he's called he turns into a gorilla, he'll turn into
17:52
Speaker 3: a different mode, he'll be trans metal, Optimist, prime and
17:54
Speaker 3: he has like three different versions, so you could sell,
17:57
Speaker 3: you know, different toys of Optimist p time. You couldn't
18:00
Speaker 3: do that in the eighties because there's Optimus Prime as
18:02
Speaker 3: a truck.
18:03
Speaker 2: That was it.
18:04
Speaker 3: Once Beast Wars ended, the brand never ended because he
18:07
Speaker 3: went from Beast Machines, the Robot in the Skies, Armada
18:10
Speaker 3: and or John different programs of Transformers set in different universes,
18:14
Speaker 3: continuing the brand to this day. And in two thousand
18:19
Speaker 3: and seven, the brand would take its boldest leaf yet
18:24
Speaker 3: it would have a feature length live action movie directed
18:29
Speaker 3: by Michael Bay. And we're gonna get into why I
18:34
Speaker 3: think these movies are absolutely horrendous, and we'll get into
18:39
Speaker 3: the newest film in the series, Transformers one, which I
18:44
Speaker 3: think was a very well made movie. But we'll get
18:48
Speaker 3: the full review of Transformers one and my hatred for
18:51
Speaker 3: the Michael Bay Transformers movie in Part three, the final
18:55
Speaker 3: part of this Transformer's retrospective. Thank you all for listening.
19:01
Speaker 1: I'm allad Am allad Am alad