It’s a good time to be an old-school Transformers fan right now. Not that I would classify myself as one, since I tend to enjoy the newer entries into the franchise a lot more than the original. But still, I was around back then, so I know the score.

The new 20th Anniversary Edition of the Transformers Movie came out on DVD yesterday. I watched through it today and it’s a very comprehensive package. The picture quality is the best that this movie has ever seen, with very vibrant colour and effects. The disk includes the full screen version, and for the first time ever, a widescreen presentation. It seems like the widescreen version was cropped from the full screen print, which is likely how the film was originaly shown in theaters, but it still works well compositionally. There are tons of extras, including nostalgic old commercials, trailers, the Japanese exclusive episode “Scramble City”, and a little bit of a preview for the upcoming live action film. It’s not a great movie, when you get right down to it, but I couldn’t help to smile while watching it again for what has to have been the 100th time by now. It’s probably my favorite part of the first generation of Transformers. This DVD completely blows away the DVD released by Rhino years back, and it’s totally worth getting if you’re a major Transformers fan, or even just somebody with fun childhood memories.

Also out now are the Transformers Classics line of toys. These are brand new figures based on the classic characters. I picked up Starscream and Rodimus. They are both really good. It’s cool to see these classic characters return in a more traditional design but with modern technology going into making them. I’ll put up some more pictures in a future post.

Sayonara.