INFO PAGE | REVIEW

Review by Chris McFeely
Starring: Ikuya Sawaki, Banjou Ginga, Michihiro Ikemizu, Hori Hideyuki, Seizo Kato, Tesshou Genda, Hiroya Ishimaru

FEATURE
As anyone who buys this boxset will quickly become aware, although “The Rebirth” marked the end of Transformers in the West, Japan continued to produce their own series, supplanting that final three-parter, first with Headmasters, the series collected here, and then further with Super God Masterforce and Victory. The very prospect of one of these series getting a release in the west seemed preposterous, but Metrodome is here to prove everyone wrong.

It is the year 2011, and the Decepticons have not been seen since the temporary truce called by Galvatron (Kato) following the resurrection of Optimus Prime (Genda). But now, the release of the Matrix’s energy has caused Vector Sigma to destabilise, and the war erupts again in the battle for Cybertron – as a new breed of warrior enters the fray! Witness the death of Optimus Prime, the rebirth of Rodimus Prime (Ishimaru), and the coming of the mighty Headmasters, as Fortress Maximus (Sawaki) and Scorponok (Ginga) face off in the greatest adventure you’ve never seen!

Thirty-five episodes in length, Headmasters is immediately accessible as a continuation of the American series, featuring characters from both before and after the movie, as well as introducing the Headmasters to the universe in a different way. What almost instantly sets it apart from its predecessors, however, is its ongoing story – while the American series was content to tell stories that, by and large, operated independently of one another or occasionally referenced past events, Headmasters steadily moves in a (not always clear) direction, with changing situations and events leading on from one episode to the other, building to assorted conclusions across the length of the series. At the same time, however, episodes regularly function strongly as distinct, single stories, rather than blurring into one another – a malady recent Japanese Transformers shows like Armada and Energon have suffered from. In general, it is enjoyable to watch, although it is not unusual to find emphasis placed too heavily on battle scenes to move the plot forward, requiring the Autobots to sit around and wait for the Decepticons to make their next move.

In shaping a story which actually advances, Headmasters features characterisation of a much stronger and more consistent nature than its American predecessors. Chromedome, in particular, is often in the spotlight, and the poor bastard just seems to go through endless amounts of trouble and tragedy in the series, usually at the hands of Sixshot, the other particularly strong character.

However, it’s not all good, because two of the characters at the forefront of the series are the much-maligned Wheelie and Daniel. Now, personally speaking, I never had much a problem with these two characters in Season Three – they were very clearly ill-concieved, skewing younger than Spike and Bumblebee in a season that skewed older, but they were not actually in a lot of episodes. In that respect, it’s all change for Headmasters, as they become two of the series’ main characters, and quickly and easily get right on your nerves (not helped by the fact that Daniel has been regressed to acting much younger than he ever did in the American series). It embodies the Japanese preoccupation with including an intrusive human child character in their stories, right down to the show’s closing theme music. In a way, a lot of Headmasters is about Daniel growing up… but that’s not a good thing. Oh, and Wheelie doesn’t talk in rhyme or have a particularly annoying voice… he’s just a freakin’ jerk.

Visually, there is clearly an effort from the animators to mimic the animation style of the American series, rather than employing a more traditional “anime” style one might expect from a uniquely Japanese production. Mind you, that’s about where it stops, because a lot of other aspects of Headmasters – from Hardheard drunkenly slurring a karaoke version of the closing theme to the Headmasters linking hands and using the “power of friendship” – are very “Japanese” concepts that one would not have seen in the American series. You remember all those mechanical noises you heard used for comedic effect in Dexter’s Lab? This is the kind of show where they get used seriously.

It is not unusual for the dialogue in Headmasters to beat around the bush

The dialogue beats around the bush?

Just like that. The dozenth time that Fortress says something, and one of the four Headmasters repeats it back at him in the form of a question, you really will want to rub your forehead and sigh. And nobody can come up with an original threat. If a Decepticon screams “I’m going to send you to hell!” the best an Autobot can come back with is “You’re the one who’s going to be sent to hell!” And so on. And so forth. Man, it’s a good thing subtitles get a bit of leniency when it comes to formality of dialogue, because this stuff would never fly if it were spoken in the English language.

Overall, Headmasters is a fairly enjoyable show, although some of the cultural difference between it and its American big brother may be a bit of a hurdle for G1 fans that haven’t experienced any of the recent Japanese shows (and I’m sure that this will be the case with many buyers in the UK). The series is bursting with characters both old and new, and holds a lot of appeal purely by being a continuation of G1 that offers viewers the chance to see classic characters again, but it is often dragged down by the grating presence of Daniel and Wheelie. All in all, it’s probably more notable for the simple fact that it’s been released on DVD, rather than for the actual content of the show, but there’s still fun to be had if you’re willing.

DISC SPECS
Thirty-five episodes split up across four discs in groups of nine, nine, nine and eight. The menus are designed in the same sort of visual style as the recent “Transformers: The Movie – Reconstructed” release, which would work okay, except for the out-of-place use of Unicron’s theme as the background music.

The visuals have not been remastered, and are consequently not especially sharp, but remain colourful and perfectly watchable. However, for some unfathomable reason, the master copies that Metrodome received were not quite complete – the “next episode” previews are missing from each episode. Similarly, for any episode which had a sequence before its title card, that sequence is also kaputski. There’s not really any negative effect here – when you have the whole series in a boxset, recaps and previews are decidedly inessential. The main episode afflicted by this is the first one, since it featured a short summary of events with new animation. The absence of this sequence and any information it contains (specifically, the existence of the Athenia base) has been noted in the booklet, with appropriate regret (although any regular Metrodome customers can still see the sequence for themselves, as the first dubbed Headmasters episode, with this sequence intact, is available as an Easter Egg on the Season 2, Part 2 boxset).

There are two audio tracks on offer (or three, in the case of the first three episodes, see Special Features) – the original Japanese audio, and the infamous “StarTV” English dub. A product of Hong Kong, the dub was first found airing on the Malaysian TV channel, RTM 1, in the early 90’s, but is more famous for its airing on the StarTV satellite channel, where it was grouped with Victory and Masterforce under the umbrella title of “Transformers Takara,” and were all labelled with Victory’s opening, and a peculiar pseudo-American closing. Thankfully, since the Japanese animation was used for this DVD, the series’ unique opening and closing remains. But even that doesn’t save the pure awfulness of the English dub, which was clearly done by a small group of people with little knowledge and less talent. The mistake-riddle scripts – in both the names of characters and the translation of the dialogue – and the stilted, flat delivery all combine to produce something so atrocious… that it’s absolutely hilarious, and Metrodome know it. Best used as fodder for a drinking game – take a shot every time someone says “Darnit!” That said, however, in transplanting the English audio on to the Japanese master animation, there have been some slip ups – the soundtrack of episodes 7 and 14 are very out of synch, while episodes 4, 20, 22 and 32 are similarly iffy, to a lesser degree.

To accompany the original Japanese audio track, a new set of subtitles have been created by SDI Media UK. As has previously been noted – and hotly debated – the subtitles have been rewritten to use the English-language names for assorted characters and concepts that have different monikers in Japan. Not being Transformers fans themselves, of course, there was great possibility for some translation cock-ups from SDI, so I provided a list of important info and names, and went on to proof-read the finished subtitle scripts, catching and correcting assorted errors that they had made, that one would not expect a non-TF-fan to get.

Ahem.

NOT A SINGLE F**KING ONE OF MY CORRECTIONS HAS BEEN IMPLEMENTED FOR THE FINISHED BOX SET.

Having spent quite an amount of time reading through and correcting the scripts, this leaves me both disappointed and frustrated. This should not have happened.

Sigh… but… gnng… anyway, my personal frustrations aside… the subtitles really are fine 95% of the time. Mostly, the mistakes are just TF-specific naming things – Hot Rod, for example, is consistently called “Rodimus,” because the dialogue did not refer to him as “Hot Rodimus,” so when the subtitlers search for that term to replace, they got nothing. Intermittently, the Autobots are the “Cybertrons,” generally when referring to their bases. Episode Three is saddled with the title, “Birth of Double Optimus Prime,” because they translated “Convoy” to be “Optimus Prime” (although the booklet and menu refer to it by my re-written title, “Birth of Double Prime”). Or how the Techbots/Technobots are twice called the “Headbots” because the subtitler misheard the name. Or Superion being called “Spellion” once. And my re-writing of Grimlock’s dialogue to be in his traditional style… ffft.

Mind you, occasionally, there is just dumb stuff, like the way that “the Matrix” is just referred to as “Matrix” for most of episodes two and three. Or that one fleeting reference to “Optimus Maximus.” Or how the city of Lemuria is referred to once as “Demonia” and once as “Lebelia” in the same episode. There are some more errors like this that are not TF-specific, but just the result bad translations, but, thankfully, they are very limited (literally, I picked out maybe ten in the whole series). There one was utterly bizarre occurrence, though, in episode 21, when two subtitles from another episode flashed up onscreen. I haven’t seen this occur anywhere else yet, thankfully.

But, anyway, like I said, personal issues notwithstanding, I don’t think that what mistakes there are will be enough to actually spoil enjoyment of the show. It just really burns me to know that they had a correct version, and ignored it.

PACKAGING AND PACK-INS
The slipcase of the Headmasters set bears an attractive image of Fortress Maximus and Scorponok by noted UK Transformers artist Andy Wildman (though the expansive, featureless “outer space” background lessens its impact), proclaiming it as “Volume One” of “The Takara Collection,” foreshadowing the oncoming Masterforce and Victory releases. In a particularly nice touch, the Japanese Headmasters logo is also on show. The blurb on the rear of the slipcase was penned by me, and summarises the nature and story of the show, and shows how it fits into continuity. I had also included a line about the “infamous English dub, which must be heard to be believed,” just as a qualifier for those who didn’t know what to expect, but it’s been snipped.

Unlike previous Metrodome boxsets, this slipcase does not contain individual DVD boxes – the four discs of Headmasters are presented on a fold out carboard tray, also decorated with Wildman’s image and faction symbols, and some illustrations of Sixshot, Ultra Magnus and Rodimus and Optimus Prime, decently redrawn from stills of the show, mirrored on the discs themselves.

The standard booklet is also included, written by me. It features a brief introduction to the series, a note about the missing previews, an explanation of the origins of the dub and the choices made regarding the subtitles, as well as a comparative table of names and concepts appearing the series with different names in English and Japanese, including Katakana translations. An episode guide fills out the rest of the booklet’s 16 pages. Metrodome have employed a particularly nice design for this booklet that looks nicer than their G1 efforts.

SPECIAL FEATURES
Special features are minimal for Headmasters – the primary one is the audio commentary for episodes one, two and three by me. I really didn’t want to listen to myself, but I bit the bullet and did it, which turned out to be worthwhile, since I can note that they cut some of what I said – namely, when I ragged on the narrator, and when I espoused the value of the dub as a drinking game, which I think it fair enough. I don’t, however, agree with the one other cut, though, from the start of the first episode, when I explained about the absence of the previews and the pre-title-card sequence. That just felt like trying to cover up one the set’s flaws. It’s still covered in the booklet, at least. But, anyway, regarding the rest of the commentary, I’ll just say that I doubt I’ll be telling serious Transfans anything they don’t already know, and that I hope I don’t sound like too much of a rampant dingus.

The second and final special feature is one of Metrodome’s staples – episode scripts as DVD Rom content. Each disc contains the respect scripts of the episodes on it, and features both the new subtitle script (again, not my rewrites, and episode 14 appears twice, once in place of episode 15, but the subtitles on the episode itself are fine) in MSWord format, and the script of the StarTV dub in PDF format, in assorted states of production, with lines crossed over and written out… makes you realise these things could have actually been worse, with Scoroponok/Zarak being called “Bronco,” Scourge being “Garth,” and the Autobot and Decepticon Clones being the “Nicks” and “Bens” Brothers, among others. You can’t make this stuff up, folks.

Interestingly, however, although the set makes no note of it, the StarTV dub scripts for episodes 1-6 are not present, and in their place are what I think appear to be (very bad) translations of the original Japanese scripts themselves in MSWord format – looking at episode 1, the presence of some additional scenes, including the Throttlebots protecting Spike and Carly as they take the spacebridge to Athenia, would seem to support this notion.

OVERALL
So that’s Headmasters, folks. It’s no work of art, but the sheer fact that it has been released on DVD for anyone to see is truly a milestone. Of all the Japanese Transformer series, it’s easily the least-talked about, and least-documented, and now, people who have only been able to hear vague stories about it and some bad screenshots online can see and enjoy the whole thing, in its original language, no less. What mistakes there are in the subtitles are the only real detrimental factor in the set (and are, to me, at least, particularly infuriating), but things can only get better as Masterforce and Victory approach.

Now, I just want to add a little something. As should now be apparent to those who didn’t know before, I had quite a heavy degree of involvement with the production of this DVD, and its been a great experience. However, I incredibly ignorantly neglected to include any thanks in the booklet, for which I profusely apologise. Metrodome have inserted some of their own thanks, but I would now like to add some of my own. My thanks go out to Jordan L. Derber, Doug Dlin, Hydra, Tim Finn, Jon Talpur, Groundsplitter, Nevermore, the whole gang at TheTransformers.Net and everyone who voted in the subtitle polls for all the input, advice, help and general support you guys gave in the last couple of months. You all rock.

INFO PAGE | REVIEW

Review by Chris McFeely
Director: Neslon Shin
Starring: Judd Nelson, Leonard Nimoy, Robert Stack, Lionel Stander, Orson Welles, Peter Cullen, Frank Welker

FEATURE
I shall not waste your time or mine doing an extensive review of a film we have all seen many times over. Suffice to say that it’s a cheesey, fun movie that stands out as one of the biggest Transformers stories, which set in motion a series of story concepts that have constantly been mirrored in the fiction to this day. The story’s a bit lurching, and completely derails itself in the third quarter as the writer indulges his imagination with pace-disrupting sequences on Quintessa and Junkion, but it remains an enjoyably watchable affair, moreso if you are a fan.

DISC SPECS
Okay, now, this is where it’s at.

I do not know the technical terms. I do not know the first thing about “interlacing” or “artifacting,” or even what those are. So this is going to be in layman’s terms, which I hope is enough.

VIDEO
For years, fans have debated the existence or not of a true widescreen version of the movie, since no such version has ever been released. It has, eventually, been realised that is because no such version does exist – the film was animated in fullscreen (4:3, the size of a regular TV screen), and for its theatrical release, was cropped into a widescreen (16:9) ratio. However, what is also apparent is that there is a small amount of additional footage in existence around all four edges of the picture, which has previously been cropped off.

And this, my friends, is where the “Reconstructed” subtitle of this movie comes into play. Using assorted technical jiggery pokery, Metrodome have had the movie image resized, to fit as much of this additional image into the frame as possible. And they have succeeded greatly.

The resulting image is not full widescreen, but is, however, somewhat wider than a normal, fullscreen 4:3 image. To accommodate this, the DVD is presented in a widescreen format, with the image “curtained” on both sides with narrow black bars. Consequently, if viewed on a widescreen television, these black bars will be the only empty space on the screen. However – and this is the negative result of this process – if viewed on a regular, fullscreen television, you will have to adjust your TV setting to a widescreen aspect ratio to view the film without stretching, meaning that black bars will appear on the top and bottom, working with the side bars to completely frame the image. Thankfully, I myself have a widescreen TV, so this does not affect me, but I understand that this will surely be rather off-putting to some viewers.

Additionally, there were early conflicting reports that the aspect ratio of the active picture image might change from scene to scene, as a result of each one being filmed differently. Well, you’d need to be looking very, very closely to spot it – any fluctuation in the size of the image width is barely perceptible though it does occur. And when I say barely perceptible, I mean, I had to hold something with a straight edge up against the screen to be absolutely sure if the picture was overlapping it at times. Rest assured, the image is not jumping from widescreen to fullscreen, as initial fears suggested.

There are, however, one or two moments where the picture resizing reveals reasons why it wasn’t done before. The glowing line on the edge of the title sequence, for example. Or when Grimlock growls at a Sharkticon, you can see, just at the very bottom of the screen, the un-delineated bottom of the animation cel, where the paint fades out – basically, it’s a part of the movie that wasn’t properly animated, because it was never truly intended to be on the screen. Although in all honesty? I can only tell you it’s there because I was made aware of it beforehand. I doubt I would have noticed it so readily had I not, and it’s miniscule anyway.

Hopefully, I have sufficiently explained all this.

But on top of all this picture resizing, the actual video itself has also been remastered, the only other DVD release of the movie to have done this being Rhino’s R1 version, which I do not own, but have seen images of, and have heard to be criticised for being overly dark. Well, that is certainly not a problem with Metrodome’s version. Admittedly, the opening scene of Unicron’s fly-by does not immediately fill the viewer with confidence – the colour balance is way off, with the blacks of space and shadow possessing a distinctly greenish hue. Thankfully, it’s not something that’s repeated – everything soon falls into line, and results in a very nice looking version of the movie that’s bright, sharp and colourful; the screencaps on Metrodome’s messageboard did not do it justice. There are times, mind you, when it seems a little too light, occasionally appearing a little washed out, and there are occasional moments where scenes and shots seem unremastered – for example, Astrotrain’s take off seems very saturated and blurry. But in this case, I’ll take the bad with the good – when all is said and done, I really like how the majority of the film appears.

Oh, and finally, one more thing about this release makes it unique for the UK – it’s actually the US version of the film, featuring the cast instead of the Star Wars scrolling text and Victor Caroli’s narration, Spike’s expletive, and no closing narration assuring us that Prime would return. As far as I know, this version has never been released in the UK before.

AUDIO
Ah, hereby hangs a tale.

Everyone remembers Rhino’s season boxsets, right? How the 5.1 audio tracks were filled to overflowing with oppressive, excessive new sound effects, which either by accident or design, sometimes wound up on the 2.0 audio tracks, which were supposed to contain the original, unmodified soundtrack of the show? Sure you do.

But do you also remember how, when questioned about this, they claimed that these sounds were always there, and that we just hadn’t been able to hear them before now?

That is, of course, a load of the purest arse.

But that’s what we’re hearing again.

Transformers: The Movie – Reconstructed presents two audio options – 5.1 and 2.0. And both soundtracks have been mixed by the same sound studio – “Magno,” I believed the name is – who did Rhino’s sets. And surprise surprise, they both feature a collection of new noises not in the original film, matching those inserted into the season sets, and the studio (notably, NOT Metrodome, but the studio themselves) is proclaiming they were always there.

Déjà vu.

Well, anyway, there is at least something positive to be said about all of this – the sound effects this time around are, to my ears, suitably more subtle and better integrated to the original audio than on the season boxsets. Well, on the 2.0 track, anyway – I don’t have a 5.1 sound system, so I can’t really comment on what it sounds like coming out of that. And in truth, some of the new sounds do work well. Starscream’s death, in particular, I feel gains a bit of oomph from the remixed sound, which is done well enough that I genuinely had to check an older copy of the movie to make sure that it was remixed (something that I had never had to do when dealing with these new sounds before).

The most noticeable alteration – and what is probably the most awful one – is during the “Touch” scene when Optimus Prime blasts through the Decepticons to get to Megatron. As he opens fire on the ‘Cons, the nigh-iconic blaster noise is supplanted with a ghastly “banging” sound, like miniature explosions, or a pop-gun. It’s just not right. And even though rest of the remix is not hugely objectionable, I would still have desired that at least the 2.0 track remain unmodified in the name of accuracy to the original. But that seems to be the furthest thing from the studio’s mind.

PACKAGING AND PACK-INS
The packaging consists of a standard, blue-coloured DVD case. The regular, widely-available sleeve that goes in this case features the US poster artwork for its cover, while UK retailer Silverscreen is offering an exclusive reversible cover, featuring both the US poster artwork, and the UK’s version. This might have been done as a result of the negative reaction a lot of UK fans had to the use of the US artwork, but y’know what? I still support the decision to use it. Sure, the UK version might be better drawn, but Optimus Prime’s back is not a great focal point, and the image is messy and busy. The US poster better reflects the movie (even if it doesn’t even show robot-mode Hot Rod), and again, I don’t think it’s ever been used as a cover for a DVD or video in the UK, making it stand out (Maverick’s video release of the movie a good couple of years back did use a nastily-redrawn version of this cover, though).

Included inside the box is a sixteen-page booklet primarily written by Metrodome’s Jezz Vernon, covering the reconstruction process, the extra features, a run-down of the cast, how the movie fits into the series timeline and some notes on its production. Vernon intelligently and accurately gets the information across – a very good job for someone who is not actually a Transformers fan. The booklet is rounded out by three short pieces of writing from three fans (Seibertron.Com’s Raymond T., TheTransformers.Net’s Darren Jamieson, and me) about what the movie means to them, and then with an advert for the upcoming release of the Headmasters boxset, advertising its feature, and snipping some of the text I wrote for it’s booklet and packaging.

SPECIAL FEATURES
And at last, we come to all’a this. So lets hit them one by one.

Well, the first special feature isn’t on the features menu – by selecting the icon in the Transformers logo on the main menu, you can choose between an Autobot and Decepticon theme for the main menu, nicely accompanied by a G1-cartoon-style scene transition when you switch designs.

The first option on the Special Features menu is “Compare and Contrast” – a section which gives you the opportunity to look at the alternate scenes from the UK version of the movie, as discussed above (the Stars Wars text and narration, no swearing and closing narrative). This is a great idea, but when there was originally talk of creating a branching version of the movie that would allow you to watch either version you chose in context with the movie, this doesn’t quite live up to that. It’s still a really good extra, though.

Next on the list is the disc’s ROM feature – a despicably bad transcript of the movie, which the menu incorrectly calls the original script. What was really necessary here was the real original script that’s around online. This thing is, in all honesty, just a bit of a mess.

“Trailers and TV Spots” lifts things up a little, though. In additional to the US Theatrical Trailer, and the extended, four-minute Japanese affair with the additional shots of Unicron eating Lithone and Diaclone-colours Ultra Magnus, there are twelve TV adverts for the movie, including a tie-in sweepstakes competition, an ad for the Ultra Magnus and Galvatron toys, and a series of ads for the Sharkticon toys. Admittedly, it all gets a bit repetitive, and a few of the ads clearly came from low-quality VHS sources.

The next option is a series of animation tests, showing the final test of the opening credits (the cast names flying around), and then a series of further colour and exposure tests, including various pieces of animation. Mostly notably among these is what would be called a “Clean Opening” – the shots of Laserbeak’s approach to Cybertron’s moon sans the credit text that appears over them in the finished film.

Character Biographies are up next, split into Autobots and Decepticons, covering the living and the dead. Arcee, Blurr, Hot Rod, Kup, Springer, Ultra Magnus, Brawn, Ironhide, Optimus Prime, Prowl, Wheeljack, Ratchet, Windcharger, Galvatron, Cyclonus, Scourge, Bombshell, Kickback, Megatron, Shrapnel, Skywarp, Starscream, Thundercracker, and out in his own section, Unicron, all get covered, although these are simply the profiles which previously appeared on Madman Entertainment’s R4 Australian release of the movie (happily claiming that Skywarp is Cyclonus – something that I personally agree with, but wouldn’t state so factually if it were me).

The final extra is the big ‘un. When the previous licence-holders, Maverick Entertainment, released their version of the movie, they included as an extra the first episode of the Japanese-exclusive series, “Headmasters,” in its wretchedly dubbed form. Well, Metrodome have done them one better – as an advertisement for the upcoming complete Headmasters boxset, they’ve included the first episode as well, this time in it’s original Japanese language (with the correct opening and closing) with a set of newly-created subtitles. There’s no dub option here, but there will be on the set.

However, it should be noted for anyone concerned that the subtitle script used for this episodes is an early one, from before I got my hands on it to correct any spelling or TF-based errors or inconsistencies. So if you see any (there are a few) don’t worry, ‘cause they should be gone on the boxset itself. Take that very British line, for example – “I’m Grimlock and I’ll do you all in!” I turned that line into “Me Grimlock smash you!” 🙂

And that is Transformers: The Movie – Reconstructed. It’s clearly a very fan-targeted project, and in general, it’s a film that looks very nice and holds a lot of curiosity value for those who have a copy already. The audio is main the hiccup, and the extras are not as hot as they could be, but there is already talk of another version in the future. There is no region information printed on the sleeve that I can see, but I assume that it has indeed been released with Region 0 encoding, meaning that our interested cousins across the pond can import with minimal concern.

INFO PAGE | REVIEW

With the release of Sony’s Playstation Portable in Europe on 1st September, Metrodome sublicensed the rights of Transformers The Movie to Pink Entertainment Ltd, for a release on UMD (Universal Media Disk).

Now to the most important bits; there is no re-mastering, no editing and no reconstructing. The film is presented in exactly the same format that was shown in the UK cinemas back in 1986. This includes the BBFC rating information at the beginning of the film (this is shown for every film at a UK cinema), the Rank Films Distribution logo and the Sunbow/Marvel logo appearing with no sound. The film also has the Star Wars opening, no swearing from Spike and the narrated ending.

Video
The 4:3 aspect ratio means there are black bars on either side of the PSP’s widescreen screen, but this does not distract from watching the movie itself. The image is mostly crisp, not nearly as fuzzy as the Maverick DVD, and the sound is as good as it could possibly be without being edited. The impressive thing is, compared to previous DVD editions of Transformers the Movie, bits of the dialogue and sound effects are a lot clearer. For example, when Unicron first meets Megatron, Unicron says ‘Megatron’ TWICE, but often the first cannot be heard due to the dialogue being too quite. This is not the case here.

Extras
There are no extras on the disk, but while on the move, all you want to watch and listen to is the movie itself.

The packaging cover is the same as the first edition of the Prism Movie release, except they have used the proper logo. Also a nice piece of info on the back for customers reads: ‘Due to the original nature of the film source material the publisher has elected to run this film on a 4:3 aspect ratio. This will ensure that the user views the film as the Director intended it to be seen.’ All credit to Metrodome for looking for the ultimate copy of the movie, but editing the original source is never the cleverest. Disappointingly, there is an image from a G1 episode on the back of the packaging, which has little relevance and in the main menu, there is an image of Armada Optimus Prime. There is also the drawing of Optimus Prime from The Ultimate Guide on the PSP main menu preview screen. The scene selection only has 12 chapter points, which is not nearly enough for a movie which needs around 20.

Overall, this is an alright package, but with this game being sold at a discount when bought with other PSP products, it could become quite popular with the general public. A booklet would have been nice, but for the first ever Transformers media on UMD, it’s not exactly needed.