Transformers: The Movie

This 1986 theatrical cartoon—inspired by the TV series tied to a toy line—earned some notoriety as the ignoble final screen credit for Orson Welles, voice of a voracious villain who is literally the size of a planet: Unicron, an enormous entity heading for Earth (of 2005!) and meddling in the ongoing war between the Autobots and the Decepticons. The frantically paced pre-CGI line-art animation is only marginally better than what appeared on the small screen, and the soundtrack is nonstop 1980s arena rock (and Weird Al Yankovic's "Dare to be Stupid"). This 30th-anniversary edition is packed with extras, including a new retrospective documentary, behind-the-scenes featurettes, storyboards, and an informative commentary track with director Nelson Shin, voice actress Susan Blu, and others. The discontinuation of the Optimus Prime action-figure dictated the hero robot's onscreen death, a seriously traumatic event for kiddie fans. Viewers will also learn that Welles (with only weeks to live) was a charming fellow; more prickly was the studio's relationship with Lebanese-American DJ Casey Kasem, a voice actor known to demand script rewrites when material stooped to Arab stereotypes. And Scatman Crothers regaled his voice actor costars with tales of working with Stanley Kubrick on The Shining. Recommended. (C. Cassady)