Transformers: Attack of the Score

I really enjoyed watching this. It's amazing how much more seriously that you can take this movie with an orchestral score. I'm not putting down Vince DiCola. I enjoy his score and own it on CD. It's just that Transformers with John Williams' Star Wars music is magnificent.

The widescreen version of the movie was used, which is a shame, because, in this case, the fullscreen version actually shows more. Oh, well.

As BlueYoda noted, in two places, the original music wasn't removed, because it wasn't possible. The first is in the first scene, where you can still hear a bit of "Unicron's Theme".

The second is the main bulk of the Battle of Autobot City. This is before Optimus' arrival. Basically, starting at about 8:35 (right after the attack on the shuttle) and going to about 16:16 (right after Blaster radios Prime), the original score (as well as Stan Bush's "Dare", which turns out to be the only song in this edit) are present. What this means is, for nearly 8 minutes, you're simply watching the Transformers movie unaltered, which is jarring. Since it's unavoidable, however, I'm not taking off any points for it. I do, however, have to take off a point, because, when the audio goes to the original score and then back to Star Wars music, each time, it's audibly noticeable (not sure what the correct term is). Also, when it goes back to Star Wars music (the end of the radio tower scene), there's a slight video hiccup (at least when I view it), so overall audio/video quality gets a point taken off, too.

Extras include trailers for other edits, two fun gags, and the shuttle attack scene without music (though "Instruments of Destruction" is briefly audible as Megatron transforms). The menus are nice.

Overall, highly recommended.

The John Williams score works far better than the original music. It seems pretty wild that changing the music could raise the movie’s dignity (not as outlandish as it sounds!) as well as the fun factor, but there you go.

BlueYoda manages to match the mood of a scene to a particular Star Wars musical piece, and it’s delightful to watch/listen how well they fit together.

April 4, 2012

This was excellent! All the new music felt that it naturally belonged there. Awesome job blue!

July 29, 2012 @ 8:49 am

Wow! Awesome Job! Thank you to a fellow Montrealer for such an edit.

BlueYoda! Cette idée est de pure génie!

Two thumbs up from me!

What a fun film. I never even fathomed watching this old thing until I came across this intriguing project. Not much to say really: Every track used was perfectly placed, even adding tension to scenes I thought tension-less (I didn't give a damn about Daniel and his dad, but that music sure made me care when Spike was about to get dissolved!) Those "irremovable" songs from the beginning did put me out a little bit, but the rest of the score made up for it. Great edit!