Transformers the Movie 40th Anniversary Tour
- Thread starter LordGigaIce
- Start date
This, for some reason, just makes me think of an alt-universe where a peaceful cybertron becomes the battleground for two armies of humans piloting transformer-style mech suits, disguised in plain sight.
I actually enjoyed that review.
Ah, good. I've been meaning to make a post on this for a while, so this is as good a time as any.
I did get curious about it last week and checked it out. Helps that they made it widely available via YouTube. And I essentially have the same overall impression -- This Is Okay, it's not terrible or unlistenable, but it seems to do something that was never really needed. I will say I am glad I listened to it for my own reasons before encountering this, because the last thing I want is to have my open listening mind -- not even anticipation, just curiosity -- overwritten by someone else's impression of THIS IS CORPORATE MISERY. Influencing and clickbait can go jump in a goddamn lake.
The "Knights of Unicron + guest" formula was something I halfway anticipated, because it's a good way to knock something out quickly and likely to be cheaper than paying multiple whole bands for each song. Question for those more in the know: leaving aside the obvious choice of Cybertronic Spree, what other hair-metal-y tribute bands would be good for this type of project?
Anyway, if the goal is to tightly emulate and minimally update the original 80's feel, I can see the logic of having one known entity do that and just swap out leads. The problem is that this leads to something that is overall very competent, but makes the songs feel a bit samey -- the opposite of a soundtrack album, which is meant to feel at least a little bit eclectic.
The guest vocalists are a mixed bag. Brittney Slayes and the TF theme are the best combination, and she's the best guest overall. This is track 6, and at the halfway point I REALLY needed something good so I'd keep listening... and I got it. I think more female guests would have been better for this product, actually, although I guess it emulates the specific shrieking-male-vocal hair metal vibe less? "Instruments of Destruction" is certainly different and crunchier than the original, in a good way in many spots. But Francesco Cavalieri sounds uncomfortably like a pirate, and his accent or whatever results in him pronouncing "tools of foul play" as "tools of fall play" (Thew thinks it's "foreplay", as did I upon first listen -- but that's not the line from the original with "foreplay" in it). Sebastian Bach is okay on "Nothin's Gonna Stand In Our Way", but ending each chorus with "not toniiiiite" (prolonged vs the original) is a strikingly distractic tic. Not the best part to make your own thing, especially since the rest of the song is so by-the-numbers. Mark Osegueda and "Hunger" is also solid overall but I wish Brittney had done this one too. She might've done better with that wildly escalating "ohhhI can't beLIEEEEVE myYYYYY" line, because he gets caught badly on it. Torch and "Dare To Be Stupid" is... fine. Again, competent and putting the effort in to represent the original, but... I guess it's hard to do a cover of a funny song without being the reason it's funny. Thew points to it as kind of the summary of the feel of the whole album, and while I resist that a bit, I don't disagree that this really does evoke a Store Brand TF 1986 Soundtrack vibe. It's kind of emblematic of the idea where if you're going to Reformat this while trying to preserve some of its flavor, definitely do that, but also make it feel distinct? It's a hard balancing act, for sure, as it's hard to find that intangible gamble that would make it more than an inferior-by-default cover.
The redone DiCola stuff is on the lower end of okay, shading on straight not-as-good. Was surprised they did those, too, and not just the lyrical songs, and was intrigued. But overall it just doesn't work as well for me and, even more than the songs, feels like a hat on a hat.
The Touch and Dare work very well overall, the former more than the latter (I don't mind the twin harmonies at all, generally, but the "bigger" church organ doesn't hit the same). But the thing about them is mostly like this flavor of hair metal: they work best as simple straightforward songs, so punching up the arrangement feels like another flavor of hair metal and is a bit cluttered. The Touch is still solid, though. But I will say Dare (which I really wanted to like as it's Hot Rod's theme) also makes the aging on Stan's voice come across so so much. It's distracting and a bit sad hearing him have to really really really try to hit the notes. I do respect him not changing the melody to something more comfortable.
(Also, wow, it's been a minute since I watched a Thew joint, and the brisk, clip-to-clip pacing is something I'm just too old for at this point. I need a person speaking in fuller sentences and natural pauses. Take me back to The Basics.)
The "Knights of Unicron + guest" formula was something I halfway anticipated, because it's a good way to knock something out quickly and likely to be cheaper than paying multiple whole bands for each song. Question for those more in the know: leaving aside the obvious choice of Cybertronic Spree, what other hair-metal-y tribute bands would be good for this type of project?
Anyway, if the goal is to tightly emulate and minimally update the original 80's feel, I can see the logic of having one known entity do that and just swap out leads. The problem is that this leads to something that is overall very competent, but makes the songs feel a bit samey -- the opposite of a soundtrack album, which is meant to feel at least a little bit eclectic.
The guest vocalists are a mixed bag. Brittney Slayes and the TF theme are the best combination, and she's the best guest overall. This is track 6, and at the halfway point I REALLY needed something good so I'd keep listening... and I got it. I think more female guests would have been better for this product, actually, although I guess it emulates the specific shrieking-male-vocal hair metal vibe less? "Instruments of Destruction" is certainly different and crunchier than the original, in a good way in many spots. But Francesco Cavalieri sounds uncomfortably like a pirate, and his accent or whatever results in him pronouncing "tools of foul play" as "tools of fall play" (Thew thinks it's "foreplay", as did I upon first listen -- but that's not the line from the original with "foreplay" in it). Sebastian Bach is okay on "Nothin's Gonna Stand In Our Way", but ending each chorus with "not toniiiiite" (prolonged vs the original) is a strikingly distractic tic. Not the best part to make your own thing, especially since the rest of the song is so by-the-numbers. Mark Osegueda and "Hunger" is also solid overall but I wish Brittney had done this one too. She might've done better with that wildly escalating "ohhhI can't beLIEEEEVE myYYYYY" line, because he gets caught badly on it. Torch and "Dare To Be Stupid" is... fine. Again, competent and putting the effort in to represent the original, but... I guess it's hard to do a cover of a funny song without being the reason it's funny. Thew points to it as kind of the summary of the feel of the whole album, and while I resist that a bit, I don't disagree that this really does evoke a Store Brand TF 1986 Soundtrack vibe. It's kind of emblematic of the idea where if you're going to Reformat this while trying to preserve some of its flavor, definitely do that, but also make it feel distinct? It's a hard balancing act, for sure, as it's hard to find that intangible gamble that would make it more than an inferior-by-default cover.
The redone DiCola stuff is on the lower end of okay, shading on straight not-as-good. Was surprised they did those, too, and not just the lyrical songs, and was intrigued. But overall it just doesn't work as well for me and, even more than the songs, feels like a hat on a hat.
The Touch and Dare work very well overall, the former more than the latter (I don't mind the twin harmonies at all, generally, but the "bigger" church organ doesn't hit the same). But the thing about them is mostly like this flavor of hair metal: they work best as simple straightforward songs, so punching up the arrangement feels like another flavor of hair metal and is a bit cluttered. The Touch is still solid, though. But I will say Dare (which I really wanted to like as it's Hot Rod's theme) also makes the aging on Stan's voice come across so so much. It's distracting and a bit sad hearing him have to really really really try to hit the notes. I do respect him not changing the melody to something more comfortable.
(Also, wow, it's been a minute since I watched a Thew joint, and the brisk, clip-to-clip pacing is something I'm just too old for at this point. I need a person speaking in fuller sentences and natural pauses. Take me back to The Basics.)
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I'm just hoping this isn't all part of some effort to swap the soundtrack out in the 40th anniversary edition of the movie to get out of paying royalties to the original artists.
I mean, it WOULD be an interesting way to do an "anniversary" edition that isn't just a rerun (tacked-on scene aside). But that would be an unfortunate and unnecessarily mean side effect and a dick move. I don't know how likely it is or isn't, or the cost comparisons (which may factor into having just gotten the session band and individual guests), or if that's worth the bother to edit the music track to swap them out, but I hope it isn't even a question, and that they just don't do it.
Well, we are talking about a Hasbro that currently works for Chris Cocks.
That seems like it would be a lot of work when the whole point of a rerelease is that it's easy money.
It'd be like our own Star Wars Special Edition!
Then when they roll it out again in five years and ten years and so on, they get to keep more of that easy money.
Admittedly, that's a rather forward-looking strategy, and we know that corporations aren't much into that these days...
Then when they roll it out again in five years and ten years and so on, they get to keep more of that easy money.
Admittedly, that's a rather forward-looking strategy, and we know that corporations aren't much into that these days...
I donno what to say.
Toys - Finally, the Figure-Scaled Optimus Prime We've Waited For Our Whole Lives
For the last 40 years of this franchise's existence, there has been one universal problem that toy collector's have never quite been able to reconcile with their Transformers figures: How grossly out-of-scale they are with everything else on their shelf. ...okay, okay, there's been stuff like...
www.allspark.com
Nifty to see Jakks playing with that kind of product again. The whole “Big Figs” theme kind of fizzled after TRU went under, but it’s interesting to see some retailer interest. They also have a similar giant sized Stormtrooper as well.
I'd be more interested in a proper Jumbo Machinder with rocket fists and hilarious stickers. There's potential.
Brittany Slays really is the only one who acts like she wants to be there aside from Stan and Vince. She's said in interviews for years that she's a big Transformers fan.
She has the best collaborator performance on the album, and I'm glad she got the main theme song. She did great with "Hunger" here too. Like I said above, more female vocals might have been nice for this, if not for the "shrieking male vocals with improbably high registers" being so firmly associated with this vibe of hair metal.
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Big Optimus looks like they directly used SS86 Optimus as the basis, even having the kibble panels on the back sculpted to resemble the altmode planks on the back. and the biceps sculpted with truck panels. Also what looks to be the frowny Movie Autobot symbols.