Another Pass at Transformers the Movie

This week on Another Pass, Sam and Case are joined by Nic Woolfe to roll out and revisit Transformers: The Movie (1986)! We dig into the film’s bold tonal shift, unforgettable soundtrack, and the shocking moments that left an entire generation of kids staring at the screen in disbelief. Does this animated cult classic still have the touch… or does it dare to be stupid?

SUBSCRIBE: Apple Podcasts • Google Podcasts • Spotify • iHeartRADIO • Stitcher • RSS

Another Pass Full Episode Originally aired: March 13, 2026 

Music by Vin Macri and Matt Brogan

Podcast Edited by Sophia Ricciardi

Certain Point Of View is a podcast network brining you all sorts of nerdy goodness! From Star Wars role playing, to Disney day dreaming, to video game love, we've got the show for you! 

Learn more on our website: https://www.certainpov.com

Support us on Patreon! patreon.com/CertainPOVMedia 

Join us on Discord: https://discord.gg/wcHHer4

PODCAST SHOWS: ▶ Another Pass - https://www.certainpov.com/another-pass-podcast

Transcription

00:00
Nic
So I watched a Video by Chris McFeely, who's like a big Transformers fan, who went over the different drafts this movie went through. Apparently at one point, Blur was supposed to be a Jimmy Stewart type.

00:16
Case
A Jimmy Stewart type?

00:17
Nic
Yeah.

00:19
Case
Well, that just sounds like a terrible idea.

00:21
Nic
I don't have your Energon Ultra Magnus. It's in RC's house and Springer's house.

00:29
Case
That's just a wild situation.

00:31
Sam
That's insane.

00:38
Case
Welcome to certain Another Pass podcast with Case and Sam, where we take another look at movies that we find fascinating but flawed. Let's see how we could have fixed them. Hey, everyone, and welcome back to the Another Past podcast. I'm Case Aiken, and as always, I'm joined by my co host, Sam Alicea.

01:00
Sam
Hi.

01:01
Case
Hey, Sam. Would you say that this show is more than meets the eye?

01:06
Sam
Absolutely. I love it. I love this show. We are more than meets the eye. We're great. Just like the movie we're discussing.

01:14
Case
Yes, that's right. Because today we are talking about the 1986 Transformers movie. And to have that conversation, we are joined by Nick Wolfe.

01:22
Nic
Baweep grana weep ninny bong.

01:25
Case
Baweeb granah weep ninny bong.

01:28
Nic
Baweeb granah weep ninny bong.

01:33
Case
Thank you for leading with that. I actually was planning on saying that as my opening earlier, and then I forgot to do it when we actually started recording, so thank God someone remembered to say it. So, yeah, so today we're talking about the Transformers movie. Before we get into that conversation, Nick, you've been on the show before, but why don't you remind the listeners who you are and where people can find you?

01:53
Nic
Yeah, I can be found around the. I was going to call it the Another Pass Discord. No, the Certain Point of Me. No. Certain Point of View Media Discord. It's been a day.

02:08
Case
It has been a day. But hey, we're talking about Transformers now, so that's great.

02:13
Nic
Yeah, and I've been on the. I've talked about the Power Rangers 2017 movie, and I've talked about the Godzilla 2019 King of the Monsters Monsterverse movie.

02:24
Case
Yeah. So you have a habit of bringing movies. Yeah, they're fun times. But you have a habit of bringing movies that I like for this conversation.

02:32
Nic
I have a habit of picking movies that are very marketable and full of toy opportunities.

02:39
Case
For real. These are all extremely toyetic and none more so than the Transformers movie. Let's be honest here. There's a big reason this movie got made and that was to market new toys. And there's a big reason that things happen in this movie, and that was to stop marketing old toys. And that's just a thing that we're going to be chatting about when. When we talk about the Transformers movies. But I am curious because I grew up with this movie. I grew. I grew up with the Transformers series in general. I've got a lot of love for the Transformers franchise. And I'm curious where the rest of y' all fall in terms of that. For me, it was a show that was on in syndication all the time when I was a kid. I couldn't even tell you, like, where I first saw it.

03:20
Case
It was just regularly available. And the. The VHS of the pilot were available at my local video store pre Blockbuster at that point. So I watched a lot of the G1, season one, Transformers in season two. And then this movie takes place between season two and season three. So I had a lot of interest in watching it. I distinctly remember when I saw this movie, it wasn't in theaters, but it was shortly after, like, right when I came home to home video. Or probably not right when I came home to home video. Cause this was 86, and I would have been 2. So I was like, probably like 4 or 5 is what I'm getting at here. And I remember being so excited to see this movie, and then it started and being extremely confused by quite a bit of it.

04:03
Case
For starters, the box art for this movie, which I believe was the poster for the movie, features Ultra Magnus. And I was like, oh, is that the movie version of Optimus Prime?

04:12
Nic
Mmm.

04:13
Case
And. And that was where my confusion began. And then it. Then we have the opening scene with Unicron, and it just goes from there. But Sam, as. As my co host on this one, what is your history with the Transformers franchise?

04:27
Sam
Oh, so I watched the Transformers a lot. Like, I watched all the Transformers. I loved all of them. I just. It was always, like, on in my house. I owned a lot of Transformers. I didn't see this movie in theaters, but I definitely did see it on VHS tape when it came home. I like, really? Any robots, to be honest with you. I was a robot kid. I think that most kids born in the 80s, there's a lot of robot stuff going on. I mean, Johnny Five, anything in Star Wars. So robots were definitely hip hop. And I. Teddy Rapskin, like, I liked robots. I liked animatronic things. I loved the Dinobots. Later on, when I was older, I liked Beast Wars. Like, this is. This is right up My wheelhouse. And I love this confusing film. I.

05:28
Sam
Yes, it's kind of like a music video with just lots of fights in it, but I don't care. And the soundtrack is rad. And I love this movie so much. I just love it so much, guys.

05:42
Case
Well, that's always a good position to be going into a conversation about how we could have fixed it. No, I'm with you. I have a deep love for this movie. Nick, how about you?

05:52
Nic
All right, so, interestingly enough, I was born too young for this movie. I grew up with Beast wars, and Beast wars is already such a very high bar when it comes to Transformers with, in terms of, like, character, storytelling, etc. Yeah.

06:10
Case
I'll note that I grew up on Transformers G1, but Beast wars is by far my favorite Transformers property.

06:15
Nic
Mm. Like, it got to the point where sometimes I would get a Transformer for my birthday, and it was like, why is this, like, a truck or something? Why is this a yellow truck? I don't know what to do with this. I tried getting into Transformers Armada. Armada couldn't do it. Even though I got, like, one of the. The one that was a helicopter. I don't know. And when the. When it came to movies, like, the first Michael Bay one was the one that came out, and I think it was that. That kind of made me more aware of the old G1 series. I remember what really made me curious was, like, this YouTube video of this song called, like, the Ballad of Optimus prime, which was. Basically stayed in my head to this very day.

07:05
Nic
Like, does it, like, go search on YouTube for, like, ballad of Optimus prime if it's still there? Like, there's a lot of stuff that's still. That's not there from 20 years ago. But, yeah, I believe it was the. Like, a few months ago, there was the channel. I want to say, Pointless Hub, who has done, like, a retrospective on all the Transformers movies, starting with the Bay movies and then going into Bumblebee and Rise of the Beast and then this movie and then Transformers 1. And what? And watching Transformers 1, not Transformers. Watching his video on both this movie and G1 as a whole, it just made me curious to actually sit down and finally watch the movie. Because I've seen a few of the episodes. I saw the pilot, the three episode pilot for Transformers. I saw the Return of Optimus Prime.

08:07
Nic
I just jumped straight to the end there. I was like, how does he come back? There's a bunch of that I know of but haven't seen. I know there's One episode where Merlin's involved. I know. There's one episode where the Decepticons teach kids how to make gunpowder. I know. There's one where Optimus prime gets torn apart and then gets rebuilt as a crocodile and becomes Croctimus Prime.

08:35
Case
I don't remember that one. But, yeah, I distinctly remember the gunpowder one because I still have the recipe memorized from that episode.

08:42
Nic
Oh. Ooh, yikes.

08:47
Case
Mostly because they relied on bird poop to get the potassium nitrate needed for it. And I always just remember Starscream being covered with bird shit.

08:58
Nic
But, yeah, knowing the story of this movie going in. Oh, how could I forget Lindsay Ellis's video on Transformers the movie and business before that. Watch the animated one where it's like she gets. She's just horrified by all the sudden death that's happening. Like, with Unicron and megatron killing the G1 cast. And it's like, that was too easy. And she's like. I'll say. And it's like, death count. Billion, billion, one, billion, two. Such a great video. But, yeah, going into this movie, knowing the story is like, it's interesting. Like, I'm obviously more invested in the first third than the rest of it, but it's still fun. It's still got great music, like Sam said. Yeah, Yeah. I like Weird Al. So there.

09:53
Case
Yeah.

09:53
Nic
Well.

09:54
Case
And you. You mentioning the first third versus the rest. I was thinking about that on. I was doing a small rewatch before. Before we started recording, and I got through the first act, and I was thinking about how that functions pretty well as a standalone, like, episode of Transformers. It's a brutal, like, season finale level of Transformers, but it does function pretty well in terms of just being like, this is the stuff, you know about the Transformers TV show. And just. Just more of it on screen.

10:23
Sam
Yeah.

10:24
Case
Particularly the violence. Way more the violence on screen.

10:28
Sam
I just want to.

10:28
Case
And then. Then it kind of pivots from there.

10:30
Sam
I was going to say I want to address the body count of the 80s, because this is not something that only happens in trans. You know, it's just died a lot in cartoons in the 80s and early 90s. It's kind of wasn't as sanitized. So I just wanted to defend Transformers on killing off half the cast. It's something that happened often. Kids learn to be sad in safe environments often or not. So safe environments. Never ending story land before. Traumatized his children.

11:10
Nic
I want to say there's like, at least one story of a kid locking himself in his room because it was Just traumatized by Optimus prime dying.

11:19
Case
I mean, it was a big deal.

11:20
Sam
It.

11:20
Case
It stayed with me for a long time. It's honestly the Bay movies that have sort of like, calcified my, like, interest in Transformers as a general property and has made it difficult for me to be quite as invested in all the additional parts of the franchise. But, but yeah, when Optimus prime dies initially in this movie, that's a big deal. And it's. It's sad. Like he. He goes out with a blaze of glory and then gets to have like a heartfelt goodbye to his friends and, you know, gives up the. What, What? I mean, in the conversation about this movie, we're gonna have to like, ignore like all the later stuff because it's not like the Spark with the Matrix in it. It's the. Just the mat and all those kind of things.

12:03
Case
We don't have to deal with the whole, oh, Starscream's Spark doesn't die kind of component because that's just a later retcon. But yeah, that first third, you have all the characters you love and most of them die. But it's such a wonderful, high production quality version of these characters in a lot of spots that's really nice to see. And then. And then we get a very different movie after that.

12:30
Sam
It does kind of feel tacked on, even though I love it.

12:36
Case
It's just that the pacing is weird. And part of that is. And let's talk about this. The reason why there's so much death in this is that this movie was designed to bring out a brand new line of Transformer toys and specifically to bring out new Transformer toys that had a very different aesthetic to the pre existing ones. And the pre existing ones had no longer or were no longer being sold. So it was a scenario of trying to roll out like this whole new roster for people to buy while at the same time cleaning house of all the. All the detritus that people had already purchased.

13:10
Nic
You thought you could sneak by that rollout by me, but you couldn't.

13:15
Case
You got that?

13:16
Nic
Yep. Very perceptive, if you will.

13:19
Case
Oh, man. You know, Perceptor was always one of my favorites. I'm always a sucker for like the nerdy character in a cartoon. And this was my introduction to Perceptor because he's not a big character in the first two. Like he's in season two, but he's not a huge character in the earlier stuff. But I loved him trying to remember.

13:37
Nic
Who voices him because the guy who voices Perceptor also voices someone in the first Metal Gear Solid game. I just forget who.

13:46
Case
Paul eating. No, Perceptor was a lot of fun. This was a good rollout for a lot of. And there I go again. A lot of characters who had appeared previously in the show, but I hadn't actually registered because they're not big parts of season one. And, you know, there's just so many Transformers. Like, the cast is gigantic, but, like, Perceptor. And I was about to say Boomer, but that's not the name. What's the sound wave equivalent?

14:11
Nic
Blaster.

14:12
Case
Blaster, yes. Both of those, like, popped out to me. Blaster. Because Soundwave is so goddamn cool.

14:19
Sam
Yeah.

14:19
Case
That having an Autobot version of that, it was just, like, awesome to me. Because Soundwave, like, between the weird voice and the. The no mouth face design and the fact that he can pop out cassettes that turn into robots that are human size was always just, like, such an awesome thing. And the fact that they finally had a hero version of that, I was.

14:39
Sam
Like, yes, finally a good guy. I love the Dinobots too. Especially Grimlock. He's got lots of attitude in this film.

14:50
Nic
Mm. Mm. Love us a robot dinosaur. Yeah.

14:56
Case
It's such a combination of all the things we love. Robots and dinosaurs. The Dinobots are great.

15:01
Nic
Yeah. Like, the. The name of the show escapes me, but I swear in, like, the 2000s, on either Fox Kids or the Fox Box or what have you, there was some show that was like Transformers, but everyone on every side was a Dinobot. They're all robotic dinosaurs that could turn into. That had robot forms. I'm blanking on the name, but I swear it exists.

15:31
Case
And it's proper Transformers. Or it's just something like Transformers.

15:34
Nic
It is not proper Transformers, but.

15:36
Case
Okay, so dinosaurs turning into robots. Okay.

15:38
Nic
Robot dinosaurs turning into robots.

15:41
Case
Okay. Interesting. Not sure. Well, yeah, well, we'll move on for now, but if it comes to us, we'll. We'll shout it out.

15:50
Nic
And Paul eating is Colonel Roy Campbell in Metal Gear Solid.

15:55
Case
Nice.

15:57
Nic
Yeah.

15:57
Case
There we go. Close that loop.

15:59
Nic
Yeah. No thread left un sewn.

16:04
Case
Yeah. So let's talk about the new characters in this, because the old characters all die within 30 minutes of the movie, except for the Dinobots.

16:12
Nic
And Perceptor.

16:13
Case
And Perceptor. It's true. Like, there's many that survive, but they just aren't major parts of the story. After that point, the Dinobots, like, remain, like, huge portions of the story. Like, they're with the new Cast for the remainder of the movie after. After that. So that's what I meant by that. But yeah, let's pull the band aid off of Hot Rod. So Hot Rod, voiced by Judd Nelson, is. He's a character. He's the classic hero's journey character in this, which from a just a take a step back writing standpoint, I'm like, this is fine. Objectively. Transformers that have, like, childlike Personas are not new. Bumblebee was like that in the original show, or at least had like a relationship with a human child. And so it was. You know, there's that camaraderie kind of element to it.

17:05
Case
So Hot Rod as a character there, you know, fine in that regard. He's a bit of a fuck up. Like, he's the reason Optimus prime dies. And then he has a bunch of just like, I believe we can do it kind of moments throughout the whole movie that is supposed to indicate, like, his eventual rise to leadership.

17:23
Nic
Oh, he's also the guy who notices, hey, there are Decepticons on that Autobot ship and starts blasting.

17:29
Sam
He.

17:29
Nic
He nails Starscream from like, yards and yards away.

17:35
Case
That's true. I'm not saying he's not effective. I'm just saying that as a character, well, he screws up a bit, but then he's very much like a. I'm just desperately trying to avoid using the phrase Mary sue. But he kind of is. He becomes the leader because he believed the most but didn't really show off too much before that point of him becoming a good leader. There's the spot where he talks to or where he brings out the Bobby Crown Minibaum line and successfully, like, placates the junkers.

18:08
Nic
Yeah, it's the Junkions.

18:12
Case
Yeah.

18:12
Nic
Once they get out of the Quintesson territory.

18:15
Case
So that's like a start for him kind of. But, like, it's just. He's not Optimus Prime. And then when he becomes a Prime character in this, he becomes a camper van.

18:28
Nic
Yeah, because he's a dad now.

18:30
Sam
That's my dad's drive.

18:32
Nic
Duh. Yeah. You gotta get proper storage because you're a dad and you gotta pack all your things. You're making one trip.

18:40
Case
And this is an area where the movie falters because it's set in the 2000s. But is. Or is it the 2000 or.

18:46
Nic
It is the year 2005.

18:48
Case
2005. There we go. But it was set or. But it was made in the 80s. And so their perception of, like, what the what? The 2000s was going to look like. And admittedly, part of that is that they have Transformers tech to. To keep them moving. But the coolest new vehicles of the day just don't look at all like what the actual vehicles of 2005 would be. Because if, you know, if Hot Rod was actually getting upgraded to what a dad car would be in 2005, it'd be like a Ford F150.

19:15
Nic
Although I will say, since this movie came out in 86, it had hoverboards before Back to the Future. Daniel's got a nice hoverboard in the opening part.

19:26
Case
Oh, yeah. And it makes sense how it works. There's a. I. I was watching how he actually, like, turns it on and everything. I'm like, oh, yeah. That they actually thought about, like, the mechanics of that. But you mentioned Daniel, so we might as well talk about him, even though he's not a Transformer. So this is Spike Part 2. Because of the time jump, they needed to have a character who was Spike effectively. And so it's Spike's son. And they just shift the generation there by one.

19:52
Nic
You know, he's a different character because he's got a big D on his outfit.

19:58
Case
I loved the suit. He gets in this. As a kid, I was obsessed. The Exo suit's so cool, especially once he figures out that he can use it to transform. I wanted that so bad as a kid. I don't have that much to say about Daniel. He's like. He's a kid character in an 80s TV show adaptation movie. Like, he's fine. He's the one who actually spots the hole in the. The ship, by the way. And then Hot Rod just, like, looks and confirms it.

20:26
Sam
Yeah. He's just another tool to kind of be, you know, a vehicle for the viewer. He's not really. He's okay. He's just a kid. He's around.

20:38
Case
Yeah. I mean, it's arguable that you don't need that sort of viewpoint character anymore because he's not getting that much information from everyone else. Like, they don't write him as if.

20:47
Sam
Yeah.

20:47
Case
Everything is being explained to this character. Because also, most of the things they deal with after the first act aren't things that they've ever dealt with before. So it's not like anyone isn't like Hot Rods as much the viewpoint character, Cups as much the viewpoint character. You know, it's just that. That's just how it is.

21:03
Sam
I feel like there's some exec there that was like, you gotta have a Kid? Where's your kid?

21:08
Case
Oh, absolutely. Just saying that, like Spike served a purpose in the original show of being the person that they are introducing the world of the Transformers to. And I'm not saying that they did that like the most, you know, in the most well written form of all time. I'm just saying that was part of the role and they don't do that at all in this movie. Yeah, I mentioned cup, so why don't we talk about Cup? I fucking hate Cup.

21:32
Nic
Oh, really?

21:33
Case
Yeah, I. From a standpoint of this being a Transformers movie, from. From the standpoint of this is just a movie and if it was written in a vacuum, I would be like, yeah, cup is perfectly fine. It's just so frustrating that cup is a character who they introduce, who is one of the new Transformers with the new design to him, the much more like rounded kind of shape to him and everything, when they could have just used literally anyone from the original cast.

22:00
Sam
Yeah, but then how would they make a new toy?

22:05
Case
No, I get it. No, I get it. I get it. I get it. Like he's, you know it. Again, from a writing standpoint, he's fine and the performance is fine and like every. Everything about him is fine. But like how cool would it have been if that was Bumblebee?

22:22
Sam
Yeah.

22:23
Case
Or literally any other Transformer, like, who's telling the war stories and so forth because they've been through all this.

22:30
Sam
Yeah, I could see.

22:31
Case
I don't know. Like I said, it's just a. It's just a weird detail with the character. I'm just trying to think, what's the next character for us to pivot to? Why don't we go with Blur?

22:38
Nic
Let's talk about Blur.

22:39
Case
Oh, yeah, we can do Blur. Blur is another one where I was listening to how they wrote him and like they have him repeat stuff a lot just to make him sound like he's talking really fast, which is. Sure, it's an effect. He gets a co starring credit at the opening credits, which I find amazing. Like, he's just not that big a character relative to some of the others. Like Arcee doesn't get a co star credit.

23:01
Sam
Well, RC didn't have to deal with the Dinobots. This is like a key moment of the movie for me.

23:09
Case
But I like a speedster. I'm always a fan of that. And yeah, it's.

23:14
Nic
So I watched a Video by Chris McFeely, who's like a big Transformers fan, who went over the different drafts this movie went through. Apparently at one point Blur was supposed to be a Jimmy Stewart type.

23:30
Case
A Jimmy Stewart type?

23:31
Nic
Yeah.

23:33
Case
Well, that just sounds like a terrible idea.

23:35
Nic
I don't have your Energon Ultra Magnus. It's in RC's house and Springer's house.

23:43
Case
That's just a wild situation.

23:45
Sam
That's insane.

23:48
Case
That is so weird. But yeah, no, I mean, Blur's fine. Like we don't need to go through every single character on this list. It's just sort of like, who are some of the interesting ones that are added on? I mean, Blur is certainly like this newer style robot that they are rolling out for the show. And by way of the movie, like, he's got very like smooth lines to him when he's transformed and when. And he's winning in his robot form. It's much more rounded than the boxy, blocky kind of classic Transformers that were used to. Ultra Magnus. So Ultra Mag. I like the idea of a fake out Chosen one. I dig that detail. Overall, he's not very effective as a leader. That said, he never claims that he's effective as a leader.

24:33
Case
He in fact says that he's not a good leader, then is like forced to be the leader at that point.

24:38
Sam
Yeah, yeah.

24:39
Nic
If you want to talk about characters we're not super fond of.

24:44
Case
Yeah. Oh, go on, tell me why.

24:46
Nic
He's basically just a less effective recolor of Optimus. Basically.

24:51
Case
Yeah.

24:52
Nic
I get he has his fans, but for this movie is just like, I can go into it later.

25:00
Case
Yeah. A character who definitely has his fans is Megatron who gets transformed into Galvatron in this movie. We were talking off mic before it started. I was wondering why. Why the is Leonard Nimoy in this movie? And like, I get it's a budget thing. Like they had the money. Why not stunt cast a character? But like it's Frank Welker as Megatron, then it's Leonard Nimoy, who I can barely tell as a kid, I had no idea there was a voice change. And then in the TV show it just goes back to being Frank Welker.

25:26
Sam
Yeah, that is. Yeah. I don't think there's much of an explanation for that because I think maybe they thought it would be different, but it doesn't really sound that much different.

25:40
Nic
I imagine if this movie were. I imagine if this movie were a hit, then they would have shelled out money to keep Leonard Nimoy on full time as Galvatron, but it wasn't. So they just went back to Frank Welker.

25:52
Case
That's a fair point.

25:53
Sam
Yeah, makes sense.

25:54
Case
Yeah. We do have to remember that this movie did bomb. All right, why don't we do the last big character to talk about, and it's the big character for us to talk about, and that's Unicron. Orson Welles, last role. Jesus Christ.

26:07
Sam
Still sounded amazing.

26:09
Case
Apparently, that's what a lot of cleanup because they. They supposedly could not use his original audio until they did, like, tons of post processing.

26:18
Nic
Ooh, okay, interesting.

26:22
Case
Which I can only imagine. I mean, have you. Have you guys ever seen that comm. Like that wine commercial? Like, the outtakes that he did, like, towards the end of his life where he was just like, so wasted and like, they ultimately, like, had a voiceover and just, like, a shot of him, like, raising the glass.

26:36
Nic
Yeah, I've seen clips of that. I've also seen the critic parody it.

26:40
Case
Yeah,

26:42
Sam
Yeah, yeah.

26:43
Case
Talk about a troubled soul. Also, talk about. Orson Welles does not get and credit in this one. He's just one of the. The people in the list. At the beginning of the movie,

26:53
Nic
He's listed under Blur. Is that right?

26:57
Case
Blur gets in Blur. Like, literally, it's. It's like Leonard Nimoy. It's like. I think it's cup, and then. Then it's Unicron, and then Blur gets an also starring credit. So it's just like, oh, damn. Like, Orson Welles didn't even have the pull to. To have, like, and featuring or, you know, whatever. Whatever, like, movie tagline that they use to, you know, to indicate a high profile star.

27:26
Sam
Right, but Unicron, who.

27:28
Case
Let's be honest here, is Galactus. Yeah, I mean, it's a devourer of.

27:33
Sam
Worlds and destroy your worlds.

27:35
Case
Yeah. And his transformed form looks a lot like Galactus. Like, and this is a Marvel production, so it's not like they're not aware of that similarity.

27:45
Sam
Yeah, they definitely lean in, like. Yeah, just lean into it.

27:49
Case
Yeah. Now, the logistics of how a. I was about to say planet size, but then I'm like, wait, I'm trying to actually think about the scale of Unicron. It's bigger than most planets that he eats. He's certainly larger than that first world that. That the. He eats. At the beginning of the movie when he. When he goes after Cybertron and he transforms, then. Then he's quite a bit smaller, but then the head is a moon size. So, you know, this. It's the whole Transformers scale thing is.

28:16
Nic
Like, then at the end, the Autobots, like, scale to his pupil, right?

28:21
Case
Yeah, it doesn't make any sense. Like, he should be, like, they should be way smaller than that. But that's Transformers. Like, the scale of. Of a Transformer, especially between their different forms, has never really been, like, a hard rule. I mean, consider the fact that Perceptor is a microscope and is, like, a pretty big robot.

28:37
Sam
Yeah.

28:37
Nic
And Megatron's a gun.

28:39
Case
Megatron is a gun. Yeah. That's why I was cool with Galvatron as a form, because it was like, oh, it's a big tripod cannon. Like, that is less of an aggressive size change for the character.

28:51
Nic
You could.

28:51
Case
You could buy it more. I do prefer the G2 tank. Megatron.

28:56
Sam
Yeah. That's really cool.

28:59
Case
Yeah. Because that allows it. For it to still feel like Megatron, but at the same time be, like, not just head scratching in terms of how the logistics of the transformation works.

29:08
Nic
I actually had that version of Megatron. The tank.

29:10
Case
Yeah, the G2.

29:11
Nic
Yeah.

29:13
Case
With, like, the purple camo. It's like brown with, like, purple camo patches.

29:16
Nic
It's like green, black, and purple.

29:18
Case
Okay. Yeah, that makes more sense. Yeah. I could, like, picture it in my head.

29:22
Nic
Classic Marvel villain colors. Yeah.

29:25
Case
Anyway, Sam, you mentioned the SoundTrack, and you're 100% correct. This. The soundtrack on this movie is just nothing but bangers.

29:33
Sam
Such a good soundtrack. It's such a good soundtrack. And honestly, like, when I was doing the rewatch, I had forgotten that the Weird Al song was even involved, you know? So, like, the minute I heard, it was like, wait, that's weird. That is Weird Al. Oh, my God, that's Weird Al. Like, I stopped it, rewound, recorded a clip for a friend of mine, sent it to her, so wondering. And then, like, I was messaging my husband who was not home while I was watching the film, and I was just like, did, you know, weird out? And he's like, of course I did. I own the CD of this soundtrack. I was like, of course you do. Of course you do. So, yeah, no, it's. It's a great soundtrack.

30:19
Sam
Like, honestly, like, yeah, the beginning of it is just kind of a lot of fighting over some really rad music. It's basically. Yeah, there's a lot of good songs on this Satrac.

30:34
Case
Yeah. Some that they have to put in scenes that, like, don't make sense for, like, big, like, hair metal.

30:40
Sam
Yeah.

30:40
Case
Anthems. Like the. Like, when Dare comes on the first time, when it's just like, Hot Rod and Danny, like, going up the mountain. It's like, that's a. That's a big Song for like, not a huge scene.

30:51
Sam
It's building up the anticipation. It's what it is, Case.

30:55
Nic
Sure.

30:55
Case
I'm just saying that like they have so many bangers that they have to squeeze the bangers into spots that don't even make sense for bangers.

31:01
Sam
Yeah.

31:02
Case
And of course we can't talk about the soundtrack without noting you got the touc and the weird little bit of trivia, which is that song was then used in Boogie Nights.

31:09
Nic
Yeah.

31:10
Case
That's where more people are familiar with it.

31:12
Nic
Mark Wahlberg trying to sing it out.

31:15
Case
Yep. And my understanding is it's because Paul Thomas Anderson was just a fan of this movie and like enjoyed the song.

31:24
Nic
All right, so I knew that dare and you'd got the touch were a thing probably because of the Lindsay Ellison video. But I. I think the first time I became aware of just how good those songs are when set to action scenes. Is the Dragon Ball Z abridged Bardock, Father of Goku special.

31:42
Case
Yeah. Where they use it. Yeah.

31:46
Nic
It's like it starts with dare and ends with you've got the touch. It's like, yes.

31:51
Case
Dragon Ball Z abridged. Wonderful stuff. It probably can't watch those ones on YouTube without some sort of sound issue. But back in the day when that first came out on Blip man, there.

32:00
Nic
Was like no rules, just like that. I age 10 years.

32:05
Case
Yes. So one thing I love about this movie is the animation. Like it's. It's a little inconsistent because it's 80s animation. Like there's like spots where it's just like clearly less money was put into it. But there are some spots where there is serious hand drawn animation going on. Like the introductory shot of Unicron when he flies past the camera and you just get like all this deep detail of like this, like the mechanical parts of this like giant world thing. Wonderful detail. And then sometimes it doesn't make any sense. Like when Autobot City transforms and. And it's like there's a lot of hand drawn stuff going on. But like the. No, no one took a step back and was like, how does the city actually work? It was just like everything is just transforming all at once.

32:48
Sam
Yeah.

32:49
Case
But visually very cool in that regard and remains that way through the majority of the movie. Like we get some cool, really good looking set pieces. I mean, obviously there's like the final fight of Optimus prime is like such a. A well animated kind of sequence. And just throughout like the transformation of Galvatron I think is like just mind blowing considering that Was hand drawn.

33:13
Sam
Yeah. There's some really beautiful things in this. In some sloppy things.

33:19
Nic
Yeah. Speaking of Galvatron, I know we talked earlier about like design wise, like I'm not a big fan of the reformatted Decepticons because outside of Galvatron, they all kind of just blur together. For me, Galvatron at has the. The crown and the arm cannon. He keeps the Megatron arm cannon. The other ones is just like. These are just five different purple guys.

33:44
Case
Yeah.

33:45
Nic
I.

33:45
Case
So my. The reason why I'm less bothered by it is because already the Decepticons had a lot of like pallet swaps of each other anyway. There's like all the jets that are. Are all the same basically. But you're completely right. Like the fact that they even bothered to name them is like. Well, why? It's just like here's your. Your fleet. Like you've got. You've got a bunch of attack fighters for you.

34:06
Nic
Yeah. At least Skywarp and Thundercracker were different colors.

34:11
Case
Yes, exactly. Yeah. But the movie has a lot of like good designs going into it. Like this is our first viewing of the Quintessence, which is like really cool. I'm not sure if they may have appeared in the comics before it, but talk about nightmare fuel. Just freaky head things rotating around. What is it? The Sharkticons? They're.

34:28
Sam
Well the Shark Decades. They're so. There's so many weird like also like the whole underwater scene with the robot octopus and the fish underneath. Those are. There is some very interesting non science thing happening with shock waves and electric. Possible electricity that robot not conducting to the person sending it out. Yeah, there's some weird stuff going on, but overall they look cool but also hideous.

35:03
Case
Yeah. So lots of like cool stuff to be introduced in this movie. Also in this movie is what is titled on the. The DVD chapter selection as bad word which is there's. There's a shit bomb drops.

35:20
Nic
I gotta love the restrictions from TV.

35:22
Case
Lifted in college with the. We got the. We got this dvd. I'm not exactly sure when the DVD came out versus when we bought it, but we got the DVD in college and watched it in my fraternity. And I remember when we watched it so many people were like what? Oh my God, did he just say that?

35:39
Sam
That's for me. You get one curse right in the movie.

35:46
Nic
It's so interesting to see what was deemed as like pushing the envelope back all the way back in the 80s with like kids fair like Transformers. Meanwhile, I read the Skybound comics over the weekend and they get very gnarly with what they're allowed to do with Transformers, just how brutal it can get.

36:08
Case
Yeah, I mean, like, this movie has the reputation for being brutal, but like, it's certainly. It's brutal for the context of being part of G1 Transformers. But yes, we should shout out the. The comics have always been like a really good adaptation of the source material and the current run that's going on is really good. So people should check those out if you're a Transformers fan and listening to this episode as a result. So I'm wondering because I feel like we're all sort of like holding off on. On at this point, going deeper into things because we're like sort of like dancing around like pitch territory here. Should we just take our break now and then come back and then start speculating? Because like, I. My notes are just like weaknesses of the movie and not necessarily fixes.

36:49
Case
And so it's definitely going to be more collaborative on my end. Does that sound like a plan?

36:54
Sam
Yes. I just want to say one last time that Grimlock is the best in this film and he's amazing. And he is not a bozo and he is a king and I love him so much.

37:08
Case
Me Grimlock. Me king.

37:11
Sam
Exactly. I love him so much. And he smashes brains. All things that he said beautifully in this film. He's a poet, Grimlock. He's a poet.

37:24
Case
All right, so we're going to take a quick break and shout out one of the shows on our network and when we come back, we are going to speculate on what could have been done to make this a stronger movie. So until then, transform and roll.

37:46
Sam
Are you tired of watching your beloved characters being tortured by careless authors? Are you sick of feeling like they could have swapped out all of the painful action and the plot would remain untouched? Subscribe to Books that Burn, the Fortnightly book review podcast focusing on fictional depictions of trauma. We assume that the characters reactions are reasonable and focus on how badly or well they were served by their authors. Join us for our minor character spotlights, main character discussions, and favorite non traumatic things. Things in the dark books we love. Find us on Spotify, itunes, Google Play or wherever you get your podcasts.

38:19
Case
And we are back. I don't have another robot thing to say after that.

38:25
Sam
We know, I think another pass.

38:28
Case
Yes, there we go. All right, so why don't we talk about what could actually be done for this movie? And I'm going to say normally we've got the rule that I can't go before Sam, but I don't have much to say on this one. I. Aside from my note about like man cup should have just been like a preexisting character. Like this is one of those movies where I think you could make it a better movie, but you would lose the appeal. Like the bold choice to kill the entire fucking cast at the beginning of this movie is probably a bad choice from the standpoint of like making a movie, but from a standpoint of making this a cult classic. Absolutely not. Like you have to have that scene in there.

39:13
Sam
Yeah.

39:14
Case
So Nick, you're our guest. You brought this movie. Would you like this? Do you want to give a pitch or do you want us to like try to work out this together?

39:26
Nic
I mean, I do have a pitch. It's just.

39:29
Case
Let's hear it.

39:29
Nic
Let's hear. Basically, I just. Basically, like I said, I rewatched the movie earlier last week to just try and strengthen my pitch out. All right. So I think one thing about this movie that may have caused it to bomb at the box office is that it's not very beginner friendly. I get this movie very much. The movie very much assumes like Pokemon after it. You are familiar with the brand, right?

40:03
Case
So 100%.

40:04
Nic
So also, before I forget real quick, I want to very quickly shout out Linkara from the top of the fourth wall. Cuz like his. His episode on Transformers movie is going to help shape this pitch or the very at least the end of the pitch. So I just want to make sure I shout that at the very beginning. Because I remember a while ago I pitched, I was working on a pitch for the Star wars prequels and I said I'll shout you out. And I forgot to shout him out and it's been eating me up ever since. So thank you Linkara.

40:40
Case
Thank you Linkara. In general, Linkara is an awesome Internet personality. I'm a huge fan of history of Power Rangers series and atop the fourth wall in general. But History of Power Rangers is the reason I got back into Power Rangers which has defined a lot of my like adult nerdom. So yeah, Linkara is awesome.

40:56
Nic
So yeah and good shout out. At the risk of dating when this episode was recorded. Happy 800 episodes, Linkara.

41:03
Case
I was about to say that's not really a huge concern for us because I don't mind saying, oh yeah, we recorded on September 15, 2025. To anyone in the outside world, it is interesting now because the show is currently monthly. This is going to be quite a while before this drops.

41:19
Sam
But you know what? The 800 episodes, it's still. Congratulations on that. So no matter how long after this drops,

41:28
Nic
I mean, 800. Impressive.

41:31
Sam
Yeah, yeah, that's impressive.

41:33
Nic
Like where. Whereas we're at a paltry 183.

41:38
Case
That's true.

41:38
Sam
Which is still impressive.

41:40
Case
I was saying before we started recording, like, man, I can't believe we're at 183 and.

41:45
Nic
All right, all right. Anyways, I'm going to get back to the pitch. So imagine I'm going to borrow a little bit from future movies and have this movie start out with Optimus prime giving a brief narration backstory on Transformers, the war on Cybertron, crash landing on Earth, etc, insert flashbacks to specific episodes of the series. They just give, like, flavor text for newcomers and let fans know. This is what to keep in mind when watching the movie. So we got, like, Wheeljack making the Dinobots, the time Megatron teleported Cybertron into Earth's atmosphere, and the ecological damage that caused. And after that, like, focus on improving human Transformer relations, like the construction of Autobot City, Spike and Carly growing up having a kid together, and Daniel, etc. Etc. So we flash forward to 2005 and, like, most of the Autobots are on Moon, Cybertron, Moon.

42:56
Nic
Moon Base one is it Moon Base one.

42:58
Case
Moon Base one is where most of them are on. And Moon Base 2 is where Spike and Bumblebee are at when they, like, call in to, like, check in with them.

43:06
Nic
All right, all right, Very good. All right. So I imagine movies similar with Optimus laying out, like, oh, we don't have enough Energon, blah, blah. And I want to include, instead of just having the conversation between the two moon bases, I want to include Earth on there. So we cut to. We have Perceptor, Wheeljack, and Cup also talking part of the conversation. I am going to pull back some of the older drafts where instead of cup being who he is, his name was Tanker. He was like a tank Autobot, and he had an eye patches, like, oh, I love robots with eye patches. That's cool.

43:50
Sam
And that's cool.

43:51
Nic
And Case, just pretend this is Ironhide if that eases things for you.

43:57
Case
It does, it does. Ironhide has always been a minivan for some reason, even though he really should be some sort of aggressive military thing.

44:07
Nic
So anyway, once the conversation's done, like, prime feels very, like, winded and talks to Ratchet, the Doctor. He was the Doctor of the Transformers, right?

44:19
Case
Doctor, mechanic, whatever you want to call it.

44:21
Sam
Yeah.

44:24
Nic
So Prime Confides in Ratchet that he feels envious of the Earth Autobot leader, whether that's cup or Ironheart, etc. Optimus feels like they have a lot of fight left in them despite being a little long in the tooth. Whereas prime is second guessing himself nowadays. Prime, even though he's on Moon Base 1, he's felt more close to Cybertron, spending 20 years helping build Autobot city than he's spent during millions of years of war. And Ratchet's like, oh, you can always retire. It's like, no, we gotta finish the fight. So fast forward, Megatron kills all the Autobots. Like, since Ironhide is not there, he kills. Ratchet is the one he basically decapitates.

45:11
Nic
Nice little nod to the Marvel comics where I guess that comes later after we have the scene where Megatron kills all the Autobots and because Ironhide is not there, he kills Ratchet instead. We cut to Daniel in Hot Rod on Earth, like before the fishing scene. Like, have like a little scene like Colossus in Deadpool one who is like, hey, Daniel, before I go fishing, make sure you get your breakfast. And it's like, Daniel's got an energy bar and Hot Rod's got like a cube of Energon. So that way we set up Energon as being important, like what its function is in the universe. And knowing that's probably going to come back later. Fast forward, we're at the battle of Autobot City. We're focusing.

46:00
Nic
We focus more on Wheeljack because we already set him up as his role in making the Dinobots being more important. Like, he doesn't die off screen. Get an on screen death. And when Grimlock enters the scene, like that makes him all the angrier, all the more furious with Devastator is like, I'm going to kill you. Fast forward to the touch. Like, we get the very cool scene of Optimus prime mowing down Decepticons. I do want to add a bit where it looks like Shockwave or Starscream or whoever is going to snipe Optimus during that. But then Hot Rod comes in like driving in, hits a ramp and then transforms, kicks Shockwave or Starscream in the face and gives Optimus the thumbs up. And Optimus gives a thumbs up back.

46:49
Nic
So it's like trying to endear the audience more to Hot Rod is like, oh, Hot Rod's cool. He's got Optimus's back. Nice.

46:57
Case
And yeah, nice.

46:58
Nic
Yeah. And then it's all the more upsetting when he doesn't have Optimus's back when he's trying to deal with Megatron.

47:06
Case
Is this different? I mean, he has Optimus's back. He's just bad at it.

47:10
Nic
Well, the difference here is that we get to see him being good at it, but then he just buys off more than he can chew, thinking he can take on even a weakened Megatron.

47:19
Case
Right, that makes sense. Yeah.

47:22
Nic
Right. Like, we get the Optimus's death scene. Well, we'll get to it. He's like, I'm dying. I must pass on the Matrix. Like, here you go, Ironhide. And we still get the scene where he drops it and Hot Rod holds is like, oh, I feel good, but I know this belongs to Ironhide. So Ironheart puts it in, and it actually changes him. He goes from Ironhide to Tanker. Like, again, pulling from the original draft where there was, like, a character named Magnus, and when he got the Matrix, he turned into Ultra Magnus. By the way, Ultra Magnus is not in my pitch yet. Come back to it later.

48:02
Case
Okay, yeah, I noticed that, but okay.

48:07
Nic
All right, so we spend more time in. More. I. I admit my pitch is not very Decepticon or Unicron heavy. Just imagine it happens the same as it does in the movie.

48:19
Case
Sure, sure.

48:19
Sam
Okay.

48:20
Nic
Yeah, yeah. So we get more time on Earth spent mourning. Like, the Dinobots are mourning the loss. The ones they lost, including Wheeljack. And Grimlock, really gets up in Hot Rod's face. Like, it's like, first lose Wheeljack, now we lose prime cause of you. Like, really?

48:39
Case
Yeah, give him. Yeah, give him some guff.

48:41
Nic
Yeah, yeah. Really pull the guilt over on Hot Rod. Completely skipped over the most important part after, because it's so focused on ironhide becomes tanker, aka cup, etc.

48:54
Case
Yeah, no, just back up. Yeah.

48:56
Nic
So Optimus still goes grayscale, but he's not dead. Like, Perceptor is able to keep him on very tenuous life support. Okay. Like, we still get the trauma of, like, oh, this is a really sad sight to see Optimus in. And it's like. It's like, oh, what do we do? And there is Toga's, like, is there any way we can revive Optimus? Like, our Energon reserves are not enough to get someone back from this state of, like, near death. And Ironhide, Tanker is like, well, it's a long shot, but there is a planet in the Seti Alpha system, like, just pulling it out. I don't know. It's basically the Quintesson planet slash the Junkion planet. Let's just go to one planet instead of two.

49:48
Case
Yeah, it does feel like we're doing the same thing twice.

49:52
Sam
Yeah, yeah.

49:53
Nic
Like, it can maybe it can be like a caste system where, like, the Quintessons rule and the Junkion serfs are just like, talk tv. So once Galvatron attacks, another big change is rather than getting into two separate ships, they're still in one ship with, like a saucer section and a main body. And there is commotion, like, trying to avoid getting blown up by Galvatron. And at some point, there is such damage down in the bay ship that Perceptor, the Dinobots, and the Slab of Optimus are cut off. So Hot Rod has to make a choice and he chooses to go back to make sure they all survive. They all get into escape pods and don't get blown up by Galvatron. So we've got, at this point, we got three different parties.

50:42
Nic
We've got the team of Tanker, RC and the other ones on the Junkion section of the planet. We've got Perceptor, the Dinobots, most of the Dinobots, minus Grimlock and Slab of Optimus on another section. And then we've got Grimlock and Hot Rod in the water. And Grimlock is taking his anchor out on the Robo Octopus. But it's too much. And much like in the movie, Hot Rod helps patch Grimlock up and it's like, oh, maybe you not so bad, but don't get in Grimlock way.

51:22
Case
I like this dynamic between Grimlock and Hot Rod. That's nice.

51:25
Nic
Yeah, like, give again. Give Hot Rod something to push up against. Like, something to challenge him. Make him really earn the audience's favor. Make him earn the Matrix. At the end, after Ironhide becomes Tanker, like either on Earth or on the ship, like, Iron Hot Rod asks him for advice. Like, like, what's the universal greeting again? So that way Hot Rod knows how to knows the best way he thinks of to defuse any situations. Like, so, like, Grimlock doesn't get into a fight if he doesn't have to. Hot Rod and Grimlock get captured by the Quintesson Patrol and the. I guess they're Crocticons, because the Sharkticons come later and swoop the swoop. The Pterodactyl Dinobot is able to see them and makes it back to Perceptor and everyone. But they have their own troubles.

52:19
Nic
Perceptor realizes that the very gruesome executions the Quintessence rule out because we didn't even talk about that part in the Top half is like just feeding them to the. Feeding innocent people to the shark.

52:35
Sam
The Cons is like, yeah, that was so sad.

52:39
Nic
But Perceptor realizes that this is how the quintessence are making, like, high grade. Energon is like, if I can get enough of this Energon, maybe we can bring Optimus back online. And I originally. So I originally had written that Perceptor makes a heroic sacrifice getting the Energon to help revive Prime. But then I realized, oh, wait, my pitch has completely neglected other characters I don't care about. Like, Wheelie. Like, can we talk about Wheelie for a second?

53:18
Case
Yeah, we. We didn't before because I just blanked on the character because I don't like Wheelie.

53:23
Nic
Yeah, like, it's not. It's not enough that he's a small guy who rhymes with everything, with every sentence he says. He's also got a very annoying voice. Like, very high pitched, very atonal. And it's like, I don't like it at all. But he can have purpose in this pitch because his him being there helps him save Perceptor from otherwise near certain doom. So Perceptor lives actually. Hooray.

53:52
Case
Hooray.

53:53
Nic
Back to cut back to Hot Rod and Grimlock. Like, they're fighting the Sharkticons. They're back to back. They're finally gelling with each other. And I imagine when it's when it looks like the Quintessons and the shark are going to kill them all, like, Hot Rod is like, how dare you. Blah, blah. Freedom is the right of all sentient beings. Which I realized that was never actually said by Optimus prime until the first Michael Bay movie. Technically, like, I was said by optimal Optimus in like season three of Beast wars, but otherwise it's just been relegated to like the back of Optimus's toy box, apparently. So I thought that was interesting. But basically in. In comes the voice goes like, I couldn't have said it better myself. And it's Optimus who is back online, but barely holding together.

54:45
Nic
Like, he needs to be propped up by the Dinobots and Perceptor and he gives a big speech to the Sharkticons is like, rise up against your oppressors. And the Sharkticons listen. And it's like, I guess the problems here will sort themselves out, says Hot Rod. So then we go back to. We reunite with the Junkions and the other group of Autobots. Tanker has been like, shot to basically been brutalized by Galvatron and crew. But Unlike Starscream's bad comedy, Galvatron actually finds it funny how an old fossil like Tanker is trying to pull up a fight. And it's like, this is the first real I've. This is the first real life I've had all day. I'll let you live so you can see the end of the universe because. Because I. Again with my whole dislike of Ultra Magnus.

55:42
Nic
It's like Optimus dies, but Ultra Magnus gets blown up, but put back together way more damaged.

55:50
Case
Way more damaged.

55:52
Sam
Yeah,

55:54
Nic
I don't like it anyway. Yeah, the Junkions are able to patch up, are able to re. Are able to patch up Tanker. They're able to put some red and blue life support casings on Optimus. So, like, he's still. He still needs help moving around, but he can move on his own power, like Junkyard. So I was like, oh, they don't make these parts anymore. So, like, it's harder to like, for them to like, rebuild a Prime. So they need to get the Matrix back from Galvatron. So fast forward, Galvatron and Hot Rod fight is like. And once Hot Rod gets a hold of the Matrix and becomes Hot Rod, like, Optimus also starts transforming and the casings become part of his form. And it's like, I'm all better now. And they drive out of Unicron and it's like, yeah, yay.

56:55
Nic
We're all happy and everyone's good. And Rodimus is like, are you okay with this, Prime? And Optimus is like, optim. The time for Optimus prime is over. Dead and gone. I am reborn as Ultra Magnus. There we go.

57:19
Case
That certainly makes a lot of sense, especially based on the COVID and what I assumed when. When looking at it.

57:24
Nic
And then like a mid credit scene. Galvatron is floating around in space and it's like, oh, I'm blown off in space from Unicron's explosion. From the explosion of Unicron. And, well, at least I'm alone by myself. And then Starscream's ghost is there.

57:43
Case
You're just doing Dragon Ball Z abridged at that point.

57:45
Nic
Yeah, actually I am, stupid Ghost of Napa. But yeah, it's just more basically more just fan service for me. It's like Starscream did become a ghost and it's like, so why not? And Galvatron does go insane between the movie and season three, so why not tie them together?

58:05
Case
All very fair. All very fair.

58:07
Nic
Yeah. So that's all I had to say as. As far as trying to strengthen character arcs and Bring it all together.

58:15
Case
Yeah. I think you addressed a lot of the issues that I have with this movie that we didn't really talk about at the start. The fact that it requires you to just know the Transformers, like, just know everything about them and go from. There is certainly an issue with this movie in terms of, like, bringing on fans or bringing on new fans, I should say. So. I think you address that really well. I think you address the value of Energon really well. Like, it's referenced in this movie, but, like, I don't think we see it in the movie. Aside from, like, maybe, like, very small increments of Energon, we certainly don't see any, like, big cubes.

58:50
Nic
The most we get is, like the little fanny pack of Energon that Cup and Hot Rod try to give to the Sharkticons when they did the universal greeting. And that's it.

59:03
Case
Yeah, exactly. So, like, I think you address that area really well. I like that you worked an ironhide, the role of cup in the scenario.

59:14
Nic
I listen to feedback.

59:16
Case
Yes. That, that I think addresses one of my big concerns with this movie. So that's really good. Yeah, I, I like this all. Yeah, I, I, I really like this pitch across the board. I, I, I, I am curious if. Well, but no, because you addressed the Ultra Magnus part or like, Optimus prime becoming Ultra Magnus. So a new toy is there, he.

59:36
Nic
Has healed, and he is going to be more at home, like, building Cybertron human relations and building up more cities and just being a, a peacemaker rather than a wartime general. So you get to write them out without writing them out? Basically. Yeah. You had to write them out without killing them off.

59:57
Case
No, I like that a lot. Sam, what are your thoughts?

59:59
Sam
I like that a lot. I will say that I have zero pitch for this movie because I love it too much. And I know that I used that once for Hercules and I know Case told me I wasn't allowed to do that ever again.

01:00:15
Case
No, but we're here now having the situation, because I've got nothing.

01:00:20
Sam
I'm pulling it again because, you know, here's the thing. I think that this movie is so uniquely product of its time. This is like such a time capsule for me. This is like, emblematic of the mess that was animation in the 80s, where some things are so incredibly intricate and amazingly crafted, and then the rest of it just looks like it's slapped together with a wish and some tape and the soundtrack just slaps. And I know, like, From a writing standpoint, if I actually sat down and really thought about it, I could come up with something like Nick said is absolutely. Makes more sense and might have saved some children a little bit of trauma, but that's not what the 80s were about.

01:01:13
Sam
The 80s were about embracing your trauma and making sure that your kids were traumatized at home so that when they went out in the real world, they were just already traumatized. And I just. I, you know, love it. And I think that Nick's. Nick's beautiful film he's just done. His pitch might be a little too measured for the hair metal and the amazing soundtrack. And I can't lose that. I can't lose any part of this dumb movie because I love it so much when I have zero pitch. Could I make it better? Sure. Do I want to? Absolutely not. I want this to stay exactly like it is. Using music video for the first half, which is just all robot lasers and bare metal bands, and we're down number with the strangest robots on the planet.

01:02:12
Sam
Just directing the, quote, advertising companies, which I absolutely freaking love. I. I love them. And I want the Dinobots to be exactly who they are. Dumb, dumb dummies who want to smash brains. I love them so much, even though I know the monster that my child is. I love this movie. I have notes. It's perfect.

01:02:43
Case
Yeah, I'm also coming at this with, like, I really like your pitch, Nick. I think you address actually a lot of the concerns that I had, but I didn't have, like, you did it better than I. Than I did at all. Strong words, because I was just thinking about, like, oh, hey, the structure is a little bad. Oh, hey, I don't like cup. Or rather, I don't like that cup as a new character. I wish that cup was an existing character, you know? Oh, hey, like, is the death of Optimus prime necessarily the right choice in this whole situation? How do you get around the. The Toyetic component and, like, and so forth? And I. I really like your, like, having Optimus prime turn into Ultra Magnus, I think covers, like, that one big issue, and you still end up with a Rodimus Prime.

01:03:26
Case
Still, still end up with a Rodimus Prime. But I like your hot rod a lot more. So, yeah, you've addressed, like, most of my concerns pretty succinctly without. Without me really having much feedback beyond being like, oh, bravo.

01:03:39
Nic
All right. Is there anything I didn't address? Yeah, let's. Let's work this out in real time.

01:03:44
Case
Yeah, let's talk this out. So I think Unicron is fine as is. Like, I don't think there really needs to be much change to Unicron besides maybe, like, paying attention to the scale of Unicron a little bit better. But that's. That's just the Transformers problem. And we've talked about that one before.

01:04:02
Nic
Like, you could. Like, in my. With my idea of Optimus giving out narration, you could include a part like. But even though Decepticon and Autobot war rages on, I fear something even more.

01:04:18
Case
What.

01:04:18
Nic
What was the line Obi Wan said in Phantom Menace is like. It's like something elsewhere elusive or like that. That. That basically, like Optimus prime feels that. Because I don't know if you want to. I don't know if we want to put more lore in this movie. And it's like, it's talk about Primus and it's like, maybe that's a bit too much.

01:04:37
Case
Right. And I don't know how much lore they had actually figured out at this point when they were introducing Unicron. Like, Unicron as a character has been like, reconceived as sort of like the devil, basically, in Transformers lore, whereas in this movie, he's basically just Galactus and that. It's not a huge leap from Galactus to the devil, but he's just Galactus in this movie, right down to giving people the power cosmic. No, I think we. I think we are pretty solid on all of this. I mean, I. I'm like, even the Starscream Ghost.

01:05:10
Sam
I'm.

01:05:10
Case
I'm. I enjoy rather as. As a. And sign off piece right there. Now, that's a more comedic version of this movie than I think anyone would actually go for, because I can't imagine a version where it's not played for some kind of a joke. And I. It's a little bit more of a comedy than this movie is. But aside from that, I think you. You did a really good job kind of hitting all the. All the. All the areas while keeping it. The cult classic nature of this movie. I mean, I think that Optimus Dying is part of why it's such a cult classic. And it would be difficult to lose that without removing some percentage of that detail. But I think you're still getting most of it and you're still addressing. We're still getting, like a huge amount of the cast dead.

01:05:51
Case
We're still getting Optimus prime wounded and going grayscale. So you still get the same scene.

01:05:55
Nic
It's still keeping the striking imagery.

01:05:59
Case
Yeah. So, yeah, I think you Address it really well. I'm not positive that without Optimus dying, it would have the same cachet, but that's. That's a minor detail considering that I think that the rest of it is pretty well nailed.

01:06:15
Nic
Yeah. Like, also, part of trying to smooth everything out is, like, hopefully we get a season three that doesn't end with saying Rodimus prime was a huge mistake on our part and we should have just kept Optimus around. Like, hopefully this avoids that going into the future and the character doesn't have that stink attached to them.

01:06:40
Case
Oh, poor Rodimus. Yeah, no, I really like this. Dope, dope. Is there anything we haven't talked about with the Transformers movie?

01:06:47
Nic
Rc. We've not talked about rc and we.

01:06:50
Case
I mentioned her, but that's true. We haven't really talked about her. I mean, aside from that, we get. We get a regularly occurring female character in this movie. I don't have a ton to say about her. She's a. She's effective.

01:07:03
Sam
Yeah.

01:07:04
Case
Yeah.

01:07:04
Nic
Eric Idle as Wreck Gar.

01:07:07
Case
Right? Yeah. I mean, that's a stunt casting right there. What's the helicopter's name? I always forget.

01:07:13
Nic
Springer.

01:07:14
Case
Springer. So I was watching it and I was, like, thinking about, like, Springer is just like a knight in this. Like, he's not a. He's not. He's not. He's such. Not a character that I can barely remember his name, but he's a very effective. Like, he. He's in your corner and you recognize him and he's got a sword.

01:07:28
Nic
Yeah. I was kind of. I was really struggling with not just calling him the green one.

01:07:34
Case
Right. Exactly.

01:07:34
Sam
Like, yeah.

01:07:36
Case
Because there's so many fucking Transformers that it's difficult to keep them straight. And, like, you can keep them visually straight, but, like, there's. There's just a lot of them. But I was thinking about him in this one because it's just he's another introduced character that is, you know, slightly newer design and. But doesn't stick out as aggressively. He's just there in a way that I think really works.

01:07:59
Nic
Yeah. When I. When I originally working on my pitch, I was like, oh, let's have Springer take up the Ultra Magnus role. I was like, no, wait, like, why not? Why not do cup? I like cup more.

01:08:10
Case
Yeah.

01:08:10
Nic
Going back to that Chris McFeely video, apparently Springer, as the script was being more and more refined, Springer got more of a, quote, Indiana Jones personality type as the writing went on. Whereas originally he was basically an Arnold clone.

01:08:29
Case
Oh, really?

01:08:30
Nic
Yeah. The Springer.

01:08:35
Case
I mean, I guess I can see it as being an 80s action hero kind of character. But, yeah, like I said, he's just, like, comes off as, like, just a good soldier. Yeah. Yeah. Sam, is there anything that we haven't addressed that you wanted to bring up about the Transformers movie?

01:08:48
Sam
No, but I just, like, shout out to, like, Starscream for just being a general jerk and being consistently a jerk. I just really appreciated him throwing and really enjoying throwing Megatron off the ship. That's just, like, just. Just a moment that I generally enjoyed. Like, I. On my rewatch, I was like, oh, yeah, I forgot what a jerk this character is.

01:09:13
Case
Ye.

01:09:13
Nic
Yeah, I just, like, he's delightful. I like to apologize real quick for this podcast being very dismissive of Decepticons because, like, when the classics are on screen, they're great. Like with Starscream, like, kicking Megatron when he's lying dead on the ground and he needs to be carried.

01:09:31
Sam
Yeah.

01:09:31
Nic
Soundwave, my boy Soundwave. Like, opting to help carry Megatron to the. To Astro train. Soundwave. Superior constructor cons inferior. Lots of good stuff from them.

01:09:44
Sam
Yeah.

01:09:45
Nic
And they disappear once the new ones come in.

01:09:48
Sam
I know. Which is definitely something that is bad about the film. Oh. I finally found one thing that I didn't like, because it just, like, I think also there they showed so much, like, the difference between, like, the Decepticons and the Autobots. Right. Like, because they're willing to kick each other when they're down, they're willing to, like, kind of take over and, you know, kind of turn on each other, which the Autobots wouldn't do. And. But, yeah, just shout out to Starscream because he's hilarious. So that's it.

01:10:22
Case
Yeah. Star Stream's great. It is well past time that he dies when he is actually killed.

01:10:27
Sam
Yeah, yeah. For sure.

01:10:28
Case
The fact that he had made it that far. He's a great character. I'm just saying that, like, Megatron should have killed him long ago.

01:10:33
Sam
Yeah.

01:10:34
Nic
I had originally.

01:10:35
Sam
Definitely had it coming.

01:10:36
Case
Yes.

01:10:36
Nic
Like, in my head, after he gets turned to dust by Galvatron's cannon, I just imagine Galvatron taking him by the head and crushing it and, like, that. Maybe that's how he gets a spark on him. Who knows?

01:10:49
Case
That's. Yeah, that works.

01:10:50
Nic
Or maybe Galvatron is just going insane because he's cut off from Unicron.

01:10:56
Case
Yeah. No, that. That also makes sense for the character and then makes sense for, like, how the character goes as further stuff develops.

01:11:04
Nic
Cool.

01:11:04
Case
Well, Nick, thank you for bringing this pitch. It's a really solid pitch. I'm sorry that we don't have more to feed back. We're just like children of the 80s and having a hard time with this one.

01:11:14
Sam
Nick, thank you so much for making me rewatch this film. I haven't watched it in, like, I don't. It's been a while. I think the last time I watched it, I was with my friend Vash and were making costumes for Comic Con and it was just like, on in the background and I was like, hoping, like, lose something onto a belt. And were watching this film. I haven't watched it since then, so it's been a good 10 years. And so I'm really glad that I got to watch it, even though I didn't know pitch value to this. Yeah. Thank you for bringing it anyway.

01:11:50
Nic
You need new blood to bring in new ideas.

01:11:54
Sam
Yeah, exactly.

01:11:56
Case
Well, that's why the show isn't just me and Sam. That's why we always have a guest.

01:12:00
Nic
Yeah. Again, I bring the Beast wars first energy to it. I bring in the show that did have the character who did die and did come back to life, but then died again and it was good both times.

01:12:16
Case
Dinobot.

01:12:19
Nic
Dinobot.

01:12:21
Case
Truly great. Yeah. No, if we wanted to talk about. For one thing, I'm going to shout out this part. We did an episode on Beast wars on Men of Steel just because it's my goddamn show and I wanted to talk about Optimus Prim and that was a lot of fun just to revisit Beast Wars. So if anyone is enjoying this Transformers conversation and wants it to be more Beast wars centric, go check that episode out. It was like last year, so it's not like that long ago. Maybe two years ago now, been a minute, but not that long. So, Nick, thank you for coming on for people who tuned in and where can people find you and follow you? What have you got going on?

01:12:53
Nic
Like I said, I'm frequent collaborator and frequent lurker and contributor of the Certain Point of View Media discord, and sometimes I'm up around on Reddit, on U My C K O U N T. And that's it. That's it. I just summed. I. I've been reduced to just lurking about and making my streak go higher. I'm up to 400 days now. You can't stop me.

01:13:30
Case
Can't stop, won't stop.

01:13:32
Nic
Gamifying is the worst thing to happen to social media. Please send help.

01:13:37
Case
That is true. And social media is the worst thing that's happened to us. In general, no. But thank you for coming on. Sam. Where can people find you and follow you?

01:13:48
Sam
Well, I am very busy trying to learn other robot languages, so I can greet everyone in the universe and maybe ride in a very cool Transformer someday. Or make best friends with Grimlock. I haven't decided. I'm searching for him, maybe. Although I will be worried that he will smash my brains because that's what he loves to do so much. But if you have any complaints, although, I don't know, I don't think I said anything today that anyone would have complaints about. If you should find any complaints about anything I said about loving this film, you can complain to Case at.

01:14:27
Case
Well, you can find me on most social platforms. Aiken, the Discord server, as Nick pointed out, is a great place to contact us. Sam's on it and if you tag her, she'll respond.

01:14:36
Sam
Sometimes maybe.

01:14:39
Case
Generally speaking, she'll respond, but the Discord server is a great place. Or most socials. It's Aase Aiken, with the exception of Instagram, where I'm holding on to my AIM screen name from high School for Dear Life, which is Quetzalcoatl5q u e t Z A L C o a T L5 because I was pretentious in high school too. And yeah, those are great places to find us. Sam, one thing we haven't talked about, but you kind of alluded to this already, is how does this fit on your chore scale?

01:15:07
Sam
Oh. Oh, well, yes, this movie is great for chores, especially because it's got a great soundtrack. So no matter what, if you're like washing, watching, like washing dishes in the other room, it doesn't matter because you can do it during a battle scene. You're not going to miss anything too crazy, right? Also, if you've seen it a million times, you don't really need to follow the plot that closely because this soundtrack just slaps. So this can be on in your house like 247 and you'd be totally happy folding laundry, doing crafts, all that stuff. This is a great film for all sorts of chores. If it is on, just let it rock.

01:15:50
Case
Hell yeah.

01:15:50
Sam
Hell yeah. I love it.

01:15:53
Case
That is quite the high praise from Sam Alicea.

01:15:56
Sam
Yeah, yeah. This is like. Honestly, this would be like my go to for just like having in the background while you're doing stuff. Great.

01:16:07
Case
That's a solid one. Also, we have high praise for the people who support this show because we have a Patreon going now. It is a wonderful service that has allowed for us to get a little bit of support from our fans. And we have so many fans that we have to shout out, specifically those who have joined at the executive producer level. And so I want to thank the following people, which is Micah McCaw, Carter Hallett, Sean Muir Lee, Gregor Memento Young, Logan Crowley, Joe Master, Piero Casey and Nancy Aiken, Adam Sampter and Keith Lettinen. So if you want to support the show, you can join at the paid tiers like these people all have. We have all kinds of promotional material that we're putting out. We're doing advanced clips of the episodes. We are doing early videos in some cases.

01:16:52
Case
And then even if you join at the free tier, you can get many of the bonuses that we're putting out, such as essays that I'm writing every week. I'm doing one. One every Monday that is on just a random nerd topic and one every Tuesday that's on a D and D related topic. So check those out. At the time of this recording, I just did a massive essay entitled Never Go Full Ranger, which is my thesis that you should never go to take ranger to level 20 in D and D because it's a terrible choice. And I go into a whole rant about why almost any single class Dip Besides going Ranger 20 is a better choice than going Ranger 20. So that one is a worthwhile essay to check out.

01:17:28
Case
But there's all kinds of stuff at the Certain POV Media Patreon, and you can find that at patreon.com certainpovmedia otherwise you can check us out on all the podcast platforms. You can check us out on YouTube on the certain POV media YouTube channel. So check that out. And otherwise you should check out some of the great shows on Certain pov. Right now I'm going to shout out a new show that we just launched, and that is Trade School. This is a show that is sort of the sibling series to Side Quests, which is a format where a guest host just talks about a video game for 5 to 15 minutes. Trade school is that but for comic books.

01:18:07
Case
So if you have a comic book that you have a strong feeling about, particularly a trade paperback, then please talk to me because we would love to get your thoughts. It's just a guest host comes on, talks about a comic book they love for five to 15 minutes and explains why someone should read it. And it's a really cool project about generating positivity in the comic book space. So I really want to shout that out and recommend people to check that out, but otherwise, Sam, what have we got? Coming up next time on this show.

01:18:38
Sam
Next time we'll be talking about Highlander 2 the Quickening. But until then, if you enjoyed this, pass it on.

01:18:50
Nic
Thanks for listening to Certain Point of View's Another Pass podcast. Don't miss an episode, just subscribe and.

01:18:57
Case
Review the show on itunes.

01:18:59
Nic
Just go to certainpov.com another pass in.

01:19:03
Sam
A certain POV production. Our hosts are Sam Alicea and Case Aiken. The show is edited by Sofia Richardi, our logo and episode art is by Case Aiken, our intro theme is by Vin Macri, and our outro theme is by Matt Brogan,

01:19:20
Case
CPOV certainpov.com.

  Transcribed by https://fireflies.ai/