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[VIDEO] Blu-ray Wish List: Animated Transformers: The Movie (1986)

By brenden ⋅ June 26, 2009 ⋅  Email This Post ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment

Why the hell don’t we have this movie on Blu-ray yet?! Urrrr…

All right. Let me explain. Transformers: the Movie, the animated giant-robot extravaganza that shaped my youth, came out in 1986. You know the film. The one with that song that goes, “YOU GOT THE TOUCH. YOU GOT THE POWER!” Yeah. That one. In the last number of years, the film has arrived in the home video market on DVD, in a variety of versions. Some full screen, attempting to show the full animated frame but looking way too loose, compositionally. Some widescreen, attempting to replicate the matted cinematic presentation (where movie theatres chop off the top and bottom of the picture - really, it happens ALL the time!) but looking way too tightly composed. Each version suffered additional problems in colour fidelity and compression. It seems that no studio, no release is able to get Transformers: the Movie quite right.

And then came Metrodome. This UK studio has tried again and again to release the perfect version of Transformers to home video. And to be fair, they’ve come the closest in their 2006 Blu-ray release of the film. So there. We actually DO have it on Blu-ray. Just not in North America. And nowhere near perfect yet.

Metrodome’s release of Transformers: the Movie is possibly as sharp and detailed as a transfer could be with the old film elements. However, the Blu-ray disc’s colour timing and audio mix are in desperate need of improvement. As you watch the film, colours shift all over the place, sometimes drastically changing from shot to shot within a scene. This may also be a fault of the original elements. But in the hands of a studio with a slightly bigger budget, it’s possible that we could see a more balanced representation of Transformers: the Movie. The audio mix, on the other hand, may be beyond help. It’s always been terrible. But perhaps an HD, uncompressed audio track would rescue a little sonic fidelity from the otherwise thin source.

Sony holds the rights to release Transformers: the Movie in North America. God only knows why they haven’t bothered bothered to release a Blu-ray version yet, milking the hype driven by the two live action films. I can only hope that they’ve got the film in a lab somewhere, with hordes of technicians labouring over it day and night, to build the perfect Blu-ray release - impeccably framed, perfectly colour timed with booming uncompressed audio and a bevy of extras.

Sadly, at this point, I think there’s as much chance of Sony giving us Transformers: the Movie on Blu-ray as there is of Megan Fox turning up in my bed.

NOTE: The UK Metrodome release of Transformers: The Movie is ALL REGION. It will play on any Blu-ray player in any part of the world. So, even though it’s not perfect and not on store shelves in North America, if you can’t wait to own it on Blu-ray, it’s yours for the purchasing! I’ve included two links below: The first is for the US Amazon.com where you can pick up a version of the UK disc at a premium. The second is Amazon.co.uk where you can get Transformers: The Movie for very little but with an slight import cost.

Tags: Animation, Anime, Sony, Transformers, Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen, Transformers The Movie, U.K.