TRANSFORMERS THE MOVIE (the cartoon from 1986)

So apparently an early draft just killed everybody.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transformers:_The_Movie#Character_deaths
http://screencrush.com/transformers-animated-retrospective/
http://misc.thefullwiki.org/The_Secret_of_Cybertron

Some artifact a friend of mine dug up and emailed around has Flint Dille's recollection as follows:

A week later we had a draft called ‘The Secret of Cybertron.’ When we were done, we thought we had something truly great. It was an intense experience. We knew most of the characters in the beginning of the movie, but didn’t know the stars (Hot Rod, Galvatron, Kup, or Unicorn at all). And, behind the idea of making a movie was the business reality of introducing a whole new year’s product line while ‘discontinuing’ several of the stars from the first two seasons. After all, the thinking was, how many Optimus, Megatrons, Starscreams and Bumblebees can one kid buy?

When Jay and I got done, we thought we had the best script ever written by anybody for any reason.

The overall premise of The Secret of Cybertron as I recall was that Unicorn was coming to destroy Cybertron and he was sort-of acting in league with the Decepticons (or they were acting in his interests). The Autobots were determined to stop this, but they had no idea how. Finally, they realized that the Autobot Matrix had a secret power: It could transform Cybertron. The problem was that it had to be inserted at the very center of Cybertron and the Decepticons had holed up in there and set numerous traps to stop the Autobots from succeeding. At one point, every autobot we’ve ever known streams into Cybertron in something ike the Transformers equivalent of the Charge of the Light brigade to install the key. (Or at least, that’s how I remember the story and remember, memory is a very tricky thing. In any case, in one charge we wiped out 90% of the 1985 Transformers product line.)

I think one of my models was Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch which was probably the most violent movie I saw in my entire childhood. Not exactly children’s fare and imagine the trauma that would have been caused if kids had seen their entire product line slaughtered.

Transformers #50 the comic had Starscream absorb this vast matrix called the Underbase and he used the power to kill 80 percent of the existing Autobots and Decepticons to make room for new toys.

Dille once bailed Chris Latta out of jail. When questioned, Latta claimed to have been arrested for jaywalking. This apparently happened more than once and (Dille claims) was a main factor in phasing Starscream out of the series.

His voice was pure rasp towards the end; it was great.

can't believe the woeful attempts upthread to transliterate Bah-weep-graaaaagnah wheep nini bong.

esperanto is harder than it looks.

weep grandma weep ninny bum

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFuQYh3gXfA

I just thought of all the fun 8-10yo me would have had re-enacting this calamitous charge through the gauntlet of Cybertron's lower levels. Although to be pedantic, the actual charge of the Light Brigade resulted in 40% casualties, not the 90% that Hasbro was apparently looking for.

I like to point out that this movie is Orson Welles' last film.

It also has the word 'shit' in it.

for some reason the most memorable line for me has always been "spare me this mockery of justice"

I liked Unicron's dry, droll response to Megatron's "Nobody summons Megatron!": "Then it pleases me to be the first."

the only profanity i remembered initially was this one:

Ultra Magnus: [straining] Open, damn it, open! Prime, you said the Matrix would light our darkest hour.

ultra magnus, the JJ Watt of transformers

the bit that stuck with me me was the injured Decepticons wailing "brothers! don't!" as they're thrown out of the Astrotrain

btw I'm no animation expert but this blew me away at the time and I still think it holds up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzNsOGt3bHk

when the third season of Transformers started I used to wrack my seventh grade brain wondering whether Galvatron had Megatron's memories and how much he was aware of his former self.

xxp

sourced from the same scrapyard

If this goes back up on the big screen near me again I will watch the shit out of it

Judd Nelson cuter as Hot Rod than as Johnny Dangerous or whatever he was in The Breakfast Club.

wondering whether Galvatron had Megatron's memories and how much he was aware of his former self.

From the UK comics: yes, but it's complicated (at least in the TF:UK timeline)

Yeah, I remember seeing the British comic here (and I just spent 20 minutes reading the Wiki).