"New" German Transformers DVD out

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Nevermore
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"New" German Transformers DVD out

Post by Nevermore »

Fellow German fan Metro reported that a "new" German Transformers DVD is available in stores.
Link

The details:
Front cover (see links):
- The logo of the upcoming Transformers live action movie
- Old Dreamwave promotional artwork of Armada Optimus Prime
- Earth as seen in the teaser for the upcoming live action movie

Back cover (not seen in any of those links):
- The info text from the back of the original German TF:TM DVD
- An image of (Armada) Optimus Prime from the PS2 game
- Don Figueroa's "All Optimus Primes ever" poster
- The battle scene from the back of the 1984 Transformers toys' boxes

Now, about the content:

Metro didn't buy the DVD. I doubt any sane German fan will. It's assumed that the DVD itself is identical to the TF:TM DVD released three years ago, simly re-released with a new cover. And that DVD was bad. Really BAD. Horribly dubbed (think "Star TV" bad), with "original English audio" (!), "trailer show" (of non-TF related trailers) and "slide show" (some low quality stills from the movie) being advertized as "special bonus" features. In fact, the original English audio is the only saving grace of this thing, because the German dub is so horribly bad, if you actually speak German fluently, the constant use of unnatural-sounding language, lines that don't make any sense in the context of the respective scenes, and frequent misinterpretations of scenes will turn you off and make you wish you'd never have started the German audio version in the first place.

Note that there exists an older German dub of the movie that was aired on German TV twice in 1994. That old dub, while far from being flawless, was miles above this piece of garbage. Unfortunately, the original audio masters for that old German dub have apparently been lost (or, alternatively, the rights were not available for whatever reason), so we'll probably never see an official release of that dub ever again.

This DVD is nothing but a re-release of an old DVD with a new cover, with the intention to cash in on the buzz created by the announcement of the live action movie.
Looking for a complete Energon Sky Shadow (from Superion Maximus).
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Can buy in stores: Robot Heroes Tigatron/Inferno, Ricochet/Predaking.
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Post by Tetsuro »

In short, this is TF:TM - The Unrelated Edition?

I haven't got a clue of whether the original Transformers was aired in Finland. All I know for certain is that The Movie was released on VHS - dubbed in Swedish and subtitled in Finnish.

Seeing how we get screwed over even with the new comics and cartoons (we get less than a half of all the current toys, never any special lines, and Armada was replaced with Energon halfway the season, which made no sense at all either since Energon is a direct sequel...), I do not see us getting TF on DVD in any other format than imported from UK any time soon.

Same thing with Star Trek too. Only series we ever saw in whole was TOS, probably because it was only three seasons to begin with. They only ever aired two seasons of TNG, and two or three of DS9 and Voyager...
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Post by Nevermore »

UPDATE: The crappiness in its entirety.
http://img389.imageshack.us/img389/6948 ... 006pj1.jpg

YOu really don't want me to translate that. It's the same text as on the first edition of the DVD.
Looking for a complete Energon Sky Shadow (from Superion Maximus).
Offering: Binaltech Hound, Swindle, Ravage (Corvette), Skids.
Can buy in stores: Robot Heroes Tigatron/Inferno, Ricochet/Predaking.
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Post by Tetsuro »

Well the fact that the back cover treats the original language track as an extra is hardly surprising - I see a lot of DVDs in Germany treat the original language as secondary priority. For example, the Back to the Future trilogy, or James Cameron's Titanic had German in DTS and DD5.1, while English got only the latter.

Of course, this appears to be the case in many countries, especially Spain, France and Germany...doesn't really make any sense to me, surely a home-theatre enthusiast would prefer the original audio?
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Post by Halfshell »

Originally posted by Nevermore
YOu really don't want me to translate that.


Uhm... something about battling for control of the universe... four million years... looks to be the standard generic spiel that could relate to anything... yeah?

Runtime looks right for the Movie, other than that, it could be anything. Interesting how "Made in Germany" is written in English.

Depressingly, my initial shock and horror was reserved for the fact that the title on the spine is upside down. My OCD cannot handle this kind of affront!
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Post by Osku »

Originally posted by Tetsuro
I haven't got a clue of whether the original Transformers was aired in Finland. All I know for certain is that The Movie was released on VHS - dubbed in Swedish and subtitled in Finnish.
Nope. It's the "More than Meets the Eye" first three episodes from cartoon.
Seeing how we get screwed over even with the new comics and cartoons (we get less than a half of all the current toys, never any special lines, and Armada was replaced with Energon halfway the season, which made no sense at all either since Energon is a direct sequel...), I do not see us getting TF on DVD in any other format than imported from UK any time soon.[/B]
Armada -> Energon change was most likely made because Hasbro Nordic wanted MTV3 to show cartoon of toys that were currently in shops. Also I think Finland and Sweden were the first western countries to have Armada completely on DVD.

Also some episodes of Energon and Cybertron are available on DVD.
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Post by Tetsuro »

Originally posted by Osku
Armada -> Energon change was most likely made because Hasbro Nordic wanted MTV3 to show cartoon of toys that were currently in shops. Also I think Finland and Sweden were the first western countries to have Armada completely on DVD.

Also some episodes of Energon and Cybertron are available on DVD.

Armada? Energon? Cybertron? I'd rather not even think about those ;)

Not that it matters though, since I think the lonely Cybertron disc is the only one to have an audio track at least in english - others are dub-only.
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Post by another tf fan »

the upsidedown spine thing f**ks with my head too.
Come on and wind me up.
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