As you all know, there was a "Star Wars" like crawl attached to TFTM in certain releases. I actually had a VHS copy from Canada with that opening, but, alas, gave that copy away years ago. I'd really like to see it again. Is the crawl opening featured on any DVD that's been released? Or is there video of just that opening floating around on the internet somewhere?

Thanks for the help!

em

 

most if not all the recent versions of the movie on dvd have a copy of it either as a special feature or part of the movie itself. if ya just wanna see it tho heres a you tube link to it

 

Really? Even on the two disc-er Sony released? I'll have to check that out if that's the case. Thanks for the you-tube link!

 

I don't know if any of the US DVDs have had it on 'em, but the UK ones do. The early, cheapie ones have it because... it's part of the UK version of the film. The more recent "Reconstructed" and "Ultimate Editions" use the US master for the feature itself, but include the text crawl as a bit of "alternate footage" in the extras section.

 

yea as chris said the US DVD dont have it either as a special feature or part of the movie(just checked). i could have sworn id seen it under something like international clips.

 

Mmm, I didn't think I saw it on the two R1 releases I own. Guess that clears that up.

 

i had that opening on a vhs dub off of a laserdisc with subs. i personally did not like it i prefer the one with the cast names of all the famous people that played roles in the movie.

 

WOW! I have neither seen nor heard of that ever! I still prefer the Superman-esque opening credits...

 

I believe the opening crawl was added because they wanted more bang for their buck, since paying the narrator just for the line promising Optimus Prime's return was kind of wasteful so they had him narrate the opening as well.

 

Is there anyway someone could post the text from the crawl?

 

I never heard of it either, interesting.

 

That line about Prime's return was also added in for the television broadcast, I believe. It was not in the original US cinema release.

 

Didn't know about that either, thanks guys...very cool stuff.

I'm in agreement that the opening with the actors is better - the crawl seems geared more towards fans that had no knowledge of TFs.

 

I never liked that crawl, which was on all the uk versions of the film I saw. It kinda brought attention to all the similarities TFTM had with Star Wars...

 

It was definitely in our version, I distinctly remember it at the flicks.
Matter of fact, I didn't even know there was an opening other than the crawl...

 

The reason for the crawl was mentioned by the british tf expert in the sony r1 fan commentary as a way of getting the european fans caught up the the movie. Because while the U.S. had finished season 2 part 2 as the movie went in they had only made it through season 2 part 1 (or equivalent on comparison to dvd boxsets)

 

I much prefer the crawl to the Superman swooshing names. I'd rather have something to do like read a crawl or listen to a narrator than sit through flying names. At least the swooshing names on TF '86 wasn't several long tedious minutes like the Superman movie ones were.  

The crawl was on the original UK cinema version back in 1986 as well, which would have nothing to do with DVD releases between countries. That said, here in Britain the cartoon was hardly shown on television, and with many episodes missing. Even VHS releases were spotty at best. So in that case the crawl could've been decided as a good way to bring UKers up to date that may have missed the show or not seen very much of it.

 

wasnt the part where hot rod was training with like a energy sword on the ship after the escape from the base with the little orb shooting at him in star wars too?

 

That's a silly explanation, and doesn't really make much sense IMO. I mean, it's not like the early season 2 was so totally different to the late season 2...save for all the new gestalts and some other new characters. None of which appeared in the movie.

The opening crawl version doesn't really tell anything we don't already know. Yeah, we already know the autobots are heroic and the decepticons are evil. At best, the crawl only serves as a spoiler (rather than shrouding Unicron in mystery, it tells us his name straight away)...plus the narration bit where Laserbeak flies to the Moonbase 1 was already in the US version IIRC and brings us up to date quite sufficiently. (It's the year 2005 and the decepticons have conquered Cybertron...)

What I find particularily amusing is the line promising Optimus Prime's return, when the 3rd season wasn't even aired in the UK.

 

Have you tried youtube for it?