monzo (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} monzo) wrote,@ 2007-10-16 05:29:00 |
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Wal-Mart "Transformers: Beginnings" Review (with sound clip!)
Allright. It's after midnight, and Wal-Mart had their copies of the Transformers DVD out, so I picked up their exclusive 2-pack with the "feature length" Transformers: Beginnings OVA.
The box copy reads:
See what happened before OPTIMUS PRIME and MEGATRON came to Earth in the stylized, action-packed prequel, TRANSFORMERS - Beginnings. On their home planet of Cybertron, the AUTOBOTS and DECEPTICONS are involved in an explosive battle over the coveted AllSpark. With the fate of the universe at stake, the AUTOBOTS send it far from the reach of the ruthless MEGATRON, leader of the DECEPTICONS. But there are even more surprises in store when it crash-lands on Earth. Narrated by the voice of OPTIMUS PRIME (Peter Cullen), this gripping adventure is an essential for every TRANSFORMERS fan.
Part of this blurb is a blatant, blatant lie, which I'll cover soon enough.
The story is an adaption/compression of the 4-issue IDW prequel squeezed into ~20 minutes. It is not "animated" per se - they took Don Figueroa's existing artwork from the prequel and manipulated it in certain ways, effectively creating a Transformers flash movie a la Reading Rainbow.
Now, about that lie? This is not narrated by Peter Cullen. The opening segment is instead narrated by Mark Ryan in-character as Bumblebee. This gives us a far better feel for how Bumblebee sounds than his 2-3 lines in the film itself.
(It turns out Bumblebee is really British. Go figure!)
Although Peter Cullen is not the narrator, he is in this mini-movie, voicing the few lines Optimus Prime gets on Cybertron. Somebody else, though, has a far greater presence. That someone is Megatron... as voiced by Frank Welker.
Yes, Frank Welker.
I am actually kind of indifferent to this. I think Hugo Weaving did an excellent job in the film, but it's interesting to hear how Welker's voice has changed, particularly since I have not played any of the TF movie video games that feature him as Megs. In Beginnings, his Movie Megatron is somewhere between the G1 voice and the voice he used for The Boogeyman in The Real Ghostbusters/Tiamat in the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon, which, frankly, scared me to death as a kid. I think it works far better than just the G1 voice would have, considering what a monster Movie Megs is.
Besides Ryan and Cullen, the only actor to reprise his role from the film is Kevin Dunn, who returns as Sam's dad Ron Witwicky. Interestingly, though, there IS another actor from the film in this production: Brian Stepanek, who was Sector Seven Agent #1 ("This is such a felony, what you're doing"), portrays both Agent Simmons and Blackout.
Unfortunately, most of the post-Cybertron acting ranges all over the place. The African-American "Bald Sector Seven Agent" (who functioned as a sidekick to Simmons in the prequel comic) is rather flat, and Not Shia Sam Witwicky is almost hilariously bad.
Of further note is that, although they keep Bumblebee's Talk Through Songs shtick for Beginnings, they did not license any songs. Instead, we are treated to various song sound-alikes, although the only one that sticks out clearly in my mind is Not AllStar By Not Smashmouth.
So... it's hard to say if I can really recommend this. It's packed with a standard edition of the Movie DVD, and what Transformer fan is really going to be satisfied with a standard edition? I can appreciate Transformers: Beginnings as a collector of the strange and obscure, but this 2-pack version definitely won't be the primary edition of the film for me. If you only want a standard edition of the Movie or can find somebody to sell or trade the disk to, though, you may want to look into buying it. MSRP is $19.96.
For the full cast of Transformers: Beginnings, we have:
Optimus Prime: Peter Cullen
Megatron: Frank Welker
Bumblebee: Mark Ryan
Starscream: Patrick Hallahan
Agent Simmons/Blackout: Brian Stepanek
Ron Witwicky: Kevin Dunn
Captain Witwicky: Patrick Viall
Bald Sector Seven Agent: Harold Hayes, Jr.
Additional Voices: Justin Foley, Patrick Hallahan, Kenny Luper, Ryan Pfeiffer, Patrick Viall
And, to cap it all off, here is a 3-minute clip (2.9 MB) from the opening, including dialogue from Bumblebee, Optimus Prime and Megatron.
http://s90690880.onlinehome.us/sounds/Tr
Allright. It's after midnight, and Wal-Mart had their copies of the Transformers DVD out, so I picked up their exclusive 2-pack with the "feature length" Transformers: Beginnings OVA.
The box copy reads:
See what happened before OPTIMUS PRIME and MEGATRON came to Earth in the stylized, action-packed prequel, TRANSFORMERS - Beginnings. On their home planet of Cybertron, the AUTOBOTS and DECEPTICONS are involved in an explosive battle over the coveted AllSpark. With the fate of the universe at stake, the AUTOBOTS send it far from the reach of the ruthless MEGATRON, leader of the DECEPTICONS. But there are even more surprises in store when it crash-lands on Earth. Narrated by the voice of OPTIMUS PRIME (Peter Cullen), this gripping adventure is an essential for every TRANSFORMERS fan.
Part of this blurb is a blatant, blatant lie, which I'll cover soon enough.
The story is an adaption/compression of the 4-issue IDW prequel squeezed into ~20 minutes. It is not "animated" per se - they took Don Figueroa's existing artwork from the prequel and manipulated it in certain ways, effectively creating a Transformers flash movie a la Reading Rainbow.
Now, about that lie? This is not narrated by Peter Cullen. The opening segment is instead narrated by Mark Ryan in-character as Bumblebee. This gives us a far better feel for how Bumblebee sounds than his 2-3 lines in the film itself.
(It turns out Bumblebee is really British. Go figure!)
Although Peter Cullen is not the narrator, he is in this mini-movie, voicing the few lines Optimus Prime gets on Cybertron. Somebody else, though, has a far greater presence. That someone is Megatron... as voiced by Frank Welker.
Yes, Frank Welker.
I am actually kind of indifferent to this. I think Hugo Weaving did an excellent job in the film, but it's interesting to hear how Welker's voice has changed, particularly since I have not played any of the TF movie video games that feature him as Megs. In Beginnings, his Movie Megatron is somewhere between the G1 voice and the voice he used for The Boogeyman in The Real Ghostbusters/Tiamat in the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon, which, frankly, scared me to death as a kid. I think it works far better than just the G1 voice would have, considering what a monster Movie Megs is.
Besides Ryan and Cullen, the only actor to reprise his role from the film is Kevin Dunn, who returns as Sam's dad Ron Witwicky. Interestingly, though, there IS another actor from the film in this production: Brian Stepanek, who was Sector Seven Agent #1 ("This is such a felony, what you're doing"), portrays both Agent Simmons and Blackout.
Unfortunately, most of the post-Cybertron acting ranges all over the place. The African-American "Bald Sector Seven Agent" (who functioned as a sidekick to Simmons in the prequel comic) is rather flat, and Not Shia Sam Witwicky is almost hilariously bad.
Of further note is that, although they keep Bumblebee's Talk Through Songs shtick for Beginnings, they did not license any songs. Instead, we are treated to various song sound-alikes, although the only one that sticks out clearly in my mind is Not AllStar By Not Smashmouth.
So... it's hard to say if I can really recommend this. It's packed with a standard edition of the Movie DVD, and what Transformer fan is really going to be satisfied with a standard edition? I can appreciate Transformers: Beginnings as a collector of the strange and obscure, but this 2-pack version definitely won't be the primary edition of the film for me. If you only want a standard edition of the Movie or can find somebody to sell or trade the disk to, though, you may want to look into buying it. MSRP is $19.96.
For the full cast of Transformers: Beginnings, we have:
Optimus Prime: Peter Cullen
Megatron: Frank Welker
Bumblebee: Mark Ryan
Starscream: Patrick Hallahan
Agent Simmons/Blackout: Brian Stepanek
Ron Witwicky: Kevin Dunn
Captain Witwicky: Patrick Viall
Bald Sector Seven Agent: Harold Hayes, Jr.
Additional Voices: Justin Foley, Patrick Hallahan, Kenny Luper, Ryan Pfeiffer, Patrick Viall
And, to cap it all off, here is a 3-minute clip (2.9 MB) from the opening, including dialogue from Bumblebee, Optimus Prime and Megatron.
http://s90690880.onlinehome.us/sounds/Tr
