The Transformers: The Movie has been translated and dubbed into many languages, each with its own set of quirks and oddities.

Brazil

Transformers: O Filme, as the movie is known in Portuguese, was released in Brazilian theaters in January 15, 1987, not long after the launch of the series on television. It was later released on home video in the same year on a very small scale, which made it very hard to find in video stores. The movie was aired on television only twice, once in 1990 on Rede Globo (the same channel that broadcast the series) and again in 2000 on Fox Kids, each time receiving a new dub.

The most probable reason for the existence of the first two dubs is that the theatrical/home video dub was based on the American version of the movie while the television one from 1990 was based on the European release, as it had the Star Wars-type text in the beginning and the narrator stating at the end that Optimus Prime would return. These dubs are different not only in the choice of some of their voice actors but also in their translations. Which dub is the best is a regular topic of debate among Brazilian fans, though both versions have their share of problems. Unfortunately, neither of them allowed Spike to swear.

Theatrical/Home video dub

In the theatrical/home video dub, all of the pre-Movie main characters are dubbed by the same voice actors who played them on the television series, and Megatron does not receive a new voice when he is reformatted into Galvatron.

This version is the most localized of the first two, but is also the most "childish" in nature. For example, when Hot Rod and Kup are running toward Autobot City and spot the Insecticons, Kup states, "The Insecticons are in the way," with Hot Rod replying, "Wrong, they're on their way to the hole!", something that makes no sense at all and that the translator probably just thought would sound funny to the kids watching. A better example of localization happens when Kup and Wreck-Gar are greeting each other, in which both make references to Brazilian television series of the time. Kup even says "plim-plim", a reference to the sound effect used alongside the Rede Globo logo during vignettes and commercial breaks.

Instead of casting a deep-voiced actor for Unicron, this dub chose to heavily distort the actor's voice, making him sound menacing but almost unintelligible. The same thing was done to the Quintessons and their servants. A similar situation occurred with Blurr; since his voice actor could not talk as fast as John Moschitta, his voice was also distorted to make it sound faster, which also made it difficult to understand.

Finally, the "robotic" effect on the Transformers voices was not done the same way as it was for the television series, which resulted in the characters sounding as if they're talking through a radio more than anything else.

In this version, Wheelie does not rhyme.

Rede Globo dub

The movie was broadcast only once on Rede Globo during a special week dedicated to Children's Day, which in Brazil is celebrated in October 12. Most of the pre-Movie characters retained the same voices they had on the home video release, but all of the new Transformers got new voice actors, including Galvatron. This dub also lost the localization aspect the other one received; while it resulted in more faithful translations, some instances lost all sense to Brazilian audiences.

The characters possess the same "robotic" distortion on their voices that they had in the television series, and no kind of heavy modulation was used. An actor with an actual deep voice was cast as Unicron and had his voice left unaltered, which made it much easier for the audience to understand his dialogue. On the other hand, no distortion was used for Blurr, so the actor was forced to try and emulate John Moschitta's impossibly fast speech pattern with debatable results.

One notable dubbing error occurs when Hot Rod opens the Matrix at the end of the film; the line "Light our darkest hour!" is delivered by Optimus Prime's voice actor instead of Hot Rod's. Because of this, Brazilian fans who had only watched this version were left to believe that it was in fact Optimus' spirit who was speaking through Rodimus in a deep "passing of the torch" moment. Of course, this belief became much less popular once the original American audio and the alternate dub became much more accessible to Brazilian fans by the start of the 21st century.

In this version, Wheelie rhymes.

Fox Kids dub

Little is known about the third Brazilian dub of the movie, other than the fact that it aired only once on Fox Kids in the year 2000 and has a list of voice actors available online. This version is by far the least known among fans, with a large portion of the fandom not even being aware of its existence and the few who claim to have seen it argue that it is the worst one of the bunch. While unconfirmed, the reason this dub was created is most likely because of rights issues involving the previous two versions.

Due to its obscurity, it's unknown if Wheelie does or does not rhyme in this version, nor if Spike gets to swear this time around (which is still highly unlikely).

Denmark

The first time the movie was shown was on Danish national television broadcaster DR in the fall of 2009. While there had been dubbed episodes of the original television show made in the 1980s for home video and later TV airings, the movie was not dubbed at that point. Rather a completely new cast was used for the movie, possibly made for this specific airing. The dubbed movie was re-broadcast 2 years later on a sub-station of DR.

The dubbing had a larger cast of voice actors than the late-80s dub of the TV series with one or two actors returning to the franchise after 25 years. However, some lines were omitted by mistake (a few characters could be seen moving their lips visibly but without any sound being heard) while others appeared at completely random times (a line uttered by Galvatron missing earlier in the movie "appearing" towards the end in a completely unrelated scene possibly due to a bad time code in the dubbing software).

This version was based on the UK print of the movie and has yet to see a public release on any kind of media.

France/Quebec

Is Arcee running away from Hot Rod?

The film was released in French theaters in April 1987,^[1] soberly titled "La Guerre des Robots" (The War of the Robots), which suggests that the marketing team really had no knowledge of the existence of the animated series.

For French-speaking audiences, who had thus far been given two separate dubs of the TV series (one made in France and one made in Quebec, a very common occurrence), a single dub was made in France for all French releases of the film. This release used a brand-new voice actor team rather than using either dub team from the series.

The film adds a prologue, voiced by the narrator, which is not present in the original version. It is added during the opening song, while the names follow one another on screen:

Whereas the Canadian French dub used the Canadian French names from the toy packages, and the European French dub avoided using names or created some sort of improvised nicknames, the Movie used most of the characters' English names. However, here are the few exceptions:

• The Constructicons are called Constructitors. They were called Constructicans in the European French dub of the TV series and Constructicons in the Canadian French dub.
• The Constructicons state that they can form le Dévastateur robot ("the robotic devastator").
• The Dinobots, who kept their original name in both dubs, are firstly called Dinosaurobots in the Movie, then Dinorobots.

Moreover, the Movie pronounced the names the original English way (notably "Optimus Prime", which was pronounced the French way in France and called "Optimus Primus" in Canada). For the factions, the Movie kept the pronunciation used in the European French dub ("Autobot" pronounced the French way and "Deceptican"). However, there is an exception in the last scene: when Rodimus Prime says "Autobots, transform and roll out!", he pronounces "Autobots" the English way.

Two characters were given gender changes for this dub; Starscream and Shrapnel both become females (Shrapnel being called "Mademoiselle Shrapnel").

Some robots don't have a continuous voice effect, it depends of the scenes. For example, Bumblebee says his first lines without any effect, and all of a sudden, his voice is exceedingly high-pitched, until the end of the film. Grimlock's voice is more or less altered depending on the scene, the same goes for Blurr. However, Soundwave does not have any particular effect, just the classic slight reverb, like in the TV dubs.

Megatron keeps the same voice once he becomes Galvatron, unlike in the original version.

There are several notable changes to the dialogs:

• Arblus is not named. The line "Arblus, look! It's Unicron!" becomes "Watch out! Look, it's Unicron!".
• The narrator states that "The evil Decepticons have invaded Cybertron, the home of the Autobots", which sounds like Decepticons come from another planet.
• Starscream's line "How do you feel, mighty Megatron?" becomes "How do you feel, damn Megatron?".
• When Starscream asks "Megatron? Is that you?" Galvatron's original answer, "Here's a hint!", is now much more direct: "Yes, but stronger than before!"
• When the Decepticons make space in Astrotrain and push the others out, they say "The injured, jump!".
• Hook tells Soundwave "Nobody would obey a cassette player!". Then Rumble says "Eh! No one has ever insulted Soundwave with such impunity!".
• The Auto-combatant's line "Time out! Time out! Time out!" becomes "We don't negotiate anymore, it's too late!".
• Slag's "Excuse me!" is dubbed by "Toi, écrase !". It's a pun with the expression meaning "You, lie low!" which uses the word "écraser" (to crush).
• Wreck-Gar's noises as the Autobots plant the Quintesson ship in the ground are dubbed by "We have visitors! If you think this is where you're going to find oil, you're in trouble!".
• Optimus Prime's line "Arise, Rodimus Prime!" followed by Hot Rod whispering "Optimus!" are replaced by Hot Rod saying... "Arise, Optimus Prime! Help me!".

There are several errors in the dub:

• After Laserbeak's return, Megatron calls Soundwave "Cellule-espion" ("Spy Cell"). He will be called Soundwave for the rest of the film.
• Optimus Prime's phrases are not the same in the replayed footage that Laserbeak shows, several words are different.
• Blitzwing's line "Come on down, Autobrat!" is absent from the dub.
• Hot Rod's line "Save it Kup, let's burn rubber!" is missing.
• Starscream's line "Pathetic fools! There's no escape!" is missing.
• Frenzy's line "Yeah! Let's kick tailgate!" is missing.
• Spike's line "Oh shit! What are we going to do now?" is missing.
• The first three faces of the Quintesson judge laugh, but the last two laughs are missing. This may be a technical issue since the cut is very harsh and we can briefly hear a sound during the last face.
• Unfortunately, some key lines keep changing translation:

• 'Til all are one!" is firstly said by Optimus Prime "Until the day comes when all will be united", then Ultra Magnus says it the musketeer way, "One for all, all for one", and finally Rodimus Prime says "Until we become one".
• "To light our darkest hour" is firstly said by Optimus Prime "To come and illuminate our darkest hours", then Ultra Magnus says "Didn't you say that the Matrix would light us in the darkness?", and finally Rodimus Prime says "Now light up our darkest hour".

On the nice hand, the Junkions make references to French TV:

• "Vous pouvez toujours demander à Grand'Mère si elle fait du bon café !" ("You can always ask Grandma if she makes good coffee!") is a reference to French coffee brand Grand'Mère, which had for TV slogan "Grand'Mère sait faire un bon café" ("Grandma knows how to make good coffee").
• "N'oubliez pas de boucler vos ceintures ! Parce qu'un petit clic vaut mieux qu'un grand clac !" ("Don't forget to buckle your seat belts! Because a little click is better than a big clack!") refers to a 1975 French motto from the national road safety group.
• Kup's phrase "Amis du soir, bonsoir !" ("Evening friends, good evening!") was often used in several night TV shows.
• "Pousse, ça mousse!" ("Push, it foams!") refers to several French TV ads for soap brand Pousse Mousse.

At the end, the film also adds a conclusion voiced by the narrator, which is not present in the original version. It is added during just before the head of Unicron reaches the orbit of Cybertron. Interestingly, it already announces the return of Optimus Prime.

Germany

German 2003 DVD cover

Germany also got two different dubs over the years:

TV dub

As the movie had never been shown in German theaters, the first dub, titled Transformers: Der Kampf um Cybertron (Transformers: The Battle for Cybertron), was made in 1994 for airing on the German TV station RTL, to serve as a "pilot" for the Generation 2 cartoon series which would be subsequently broadcast. (One might argue that the initial omission of the movie from the original cartoon's German airing schedule resulted in an information gap regarding the shift from the season 2 setting to the season 3 setting; but then again, the cartoon started with episodes from season 3 in Germany, and only six episodes from the first two seasons were ever aired during the entire original "Generation 1" run of the show, so it's not like context problems weren't already all over the place.)

Even though the dub was made only five years after the dub of the Generation 1 cartoon had started on German TV, only a few of the German voice actors returned, most of them not even in the same roles they had played before. Optimus Prime, for example, was now dubbed by Thomas Rau, who had originally voiced Rodimus Prime, Blaster and Scourge in the cartoon itself. As in the dub of the cartoon before, all the characters retained their English names... with the exception of Devastator, whose name was translated as "Der Vernichter" ("the annihilator") for reasons unknown (he was "Devastator" in the dub of the cartoon itself). This version of the movie was only shown twice (not counting late-night reruns following those airings), on its TV premiere in April 1994 and one year later, in May 1995. It was never released on VHS either.

The TV version was based on the European edit of the film, including the Rank Film "Gongman" at the beginning. Contrary to a widespread rumor,^[2] the German TV edition of the movie was not edited to omit Starscream's death scene.

Notably, the Junkions' dialogue was treated with a surprising amount of finesse, replacing their references to English TV and advertising phrases to contemporary German ones, including an extremely well-known and catchy advertising slogan used by Toyota. In addition, Bernd Simon's rendition of Starscream is spot on, coming frighteningly close to Chris Latta. Overall, despite a few minor hiccups, major technical and translation errors were far and far between.

DVD dub

German 2006 DVD cover

In 2003, the movie, this time simply titled Transformers, was finally released on DVD in Germany, by a little-known, low-budget label. Since the TV edition of the movie had been used as a "pilot" for the G2 cartoon, and it had been archived under the title "Der Kampf um Cybertron", the dubbing masters were not located until more than a year later, so the DVD company assigned an entirely new dub... which makes the Omni Productions dub and the Voicebox dub of Energon look like masterpieces. Numerous translation errors resulted from the apparent lack of an original script, thus requiring the dubbers to translate simply from listening to the original audio; coupled with a lack of experience with the source material and a lack of professional knowledge in the English (and German) language in general, resulting in look-it-up-in-a-dictionary-use-first-suggestion translations, sentences that make no sense whatsoever at all in context, and generally stilted and unnatural-sounding dialogue. For example, after hijacking the Autobots' shuttle and killing off Ratchet, Prowl, Brawn and Ironhide, Megatron makes the completely nonsensical proclamation that he intends to get past the early warning system of the Autobots' shuttle (which he is already in control of at this point), instead of getting past the Autobots' early warning system in their own shuttle (as in, using the shuttle as a Trojan horse). Also, Grimlock's line "Me Grimlock need new strategy" gets misinterpreted as "Me Grimlock need no strategy", and the phrase "mockery of justice" is mangled into a completely nonsensical "Farce der Gerechtigkeit" ("farce of justice", with the loan word "Farce" mispronounced as if the voice actor had never seen that fancy word before, and "justice" in the sense of "fairness" rather than "judical system"). A much better translation would have been "Justizposse".

In addition, none of the voice actors sounded like they were particularly experienced in the field of dubbing, especially since none of their voices were recognizable from other productions.

The DVD is also notorious for its packaging, which does its best to obscure what exactly it contains (i.e. a feature-length animated movie). The front cover uses the cover artwork of the old Panini Generation 1 sticker album, while the back cover depicts stills from "The Golden Lagoon", "The Return of Optimus Prime, Part 1" and "The Autobot Run", coupled with an (incorrect) summary of the general setting of the first two seasons of the Generation 1 cartoon, which implies (likely due to a misinterpretation of the English word "emerge") that the Autobots and Decepticons somehow come into existence on Earth, rather than simply reawakening after lying dormant for millions of years, with the term "Transformers" even translated into German as "Transformatoren".

A second edition of this DVD was released in 2006, this time featuring artwork of Armada Optimus Prime on the front cover, with Earth (from the 2007 movie's promo poster) as the background, plus the 1984 back-of-the-box artwork rotated by 270 degrees as an overlay, and the "Transformers" title logo from the 2007 movie. The back cover depicts a screencap from the Armada video game, Don Figueroa's "All Optimus" poster and the 1984 back-of-the-box battle scene, plus the same sleeve text as featured on the 2003 release of the DVD, with none of the errors fixed.

Hungary

The film was first dubbed into Hungarian by Mahir Studios for the Televideo company's 1992 VHS release; the second dub was recorded by Masterfilm Digital, and released by Mirax both on VHS and on DVD, the latter in 2004. Both versions include the scrolling text and other European edits; the Mirax one even has the "gong man". Issues they both have in common include small dubbing casts, inconsistent voices and translation errors. Neither dub used the name translations popularized by the Hungarian release of the G1 comics.

Televideo

The film's title was translated as Alakváltók (Shape-shifters), a rare instance of a name or expression matching up with the Marvel comic's terminology. The dub has a total of five voice actors (four men for random characters, one actress for Arcee, Daniel and most of Wheelie's lines), and is notorious for the dialogue almost never matching the lip movements and characters changing their voice on the fly. Certain lines are even missing or spoken at the wrong time (most notably Megatron's "Die, Autobots!" shout), and at times lines belonging to different characters were combined into one. Translation errors and flubbed line-reads also abound; Megatron berates Soundwave for jamming the Autobots' transmission instead of ordering him to do so, and Wreck-Gar calls Hot Rod Unicron at one point. But mistakes aside, the translation is surprisingly witty – Blurr's cheesy tongue-twister about shooting Decepticons is especially famous among older fans. In fact, the translator seems to have had a fondness for rhyming, as apart from Wheelie, the Dinobots, the Junkions and Blurr also deliver parts of their dialogue in verse. The problem is that the lines are also drastically compressed, leading to many awkward moments of characters silently mouthing unspoken words.

There are numerous name changes, the most bizarre of which is the Decepticons being referred to as "Varangyok" ("Toads"). This may be a tribute to the '60s German sci-fi TV series Raumpatrouille – Die phantastischen Abenteuer des Raumschiffs Orion (Space patrol – The Fantastic Adventures of the Spaceship Orion). In this series, the main enemy alien race is called "Frogs", but they were named Toads in the Hungarian translation. Other strange name changes include Peca ("Fisher" or "Fishing Rod") for Hot Rod, Zsaru ("Cop") for Kup, RC for Arcee or "IQ Jack" for the Ick-Yak, all obvious misinterpretations of their original names. Curiously, one originally nameless characters gets a name: during the Decepticons' reformation scene, Unicron claims that there's only one Sweep, naming him "Karmos" (roughly, "Claws"). However, the Insecticons' nonsensical name ("Rovarángok") is harder to decipher. It can only be assumed that the translator intended it to be "Rovarangyok" ("Insectoads", a playful pun consistent with the Decepticon-Toad theme), and the voice actor has simply misread it.

One point in the dub's favor is that it at least attempted to retain the spirit of the Junkions' speech. For example, when putting Ultra Magnus back together, they shout "Aye-Tee-Tee!", a reference to old Hungarian ITT Inc. product commercials that were the subject of numerous jokes in the early '90s.

Mirax

Hungarian DVD cover

The second dub has a reputation for including more profanities than the original version of the film. Although Spike's "Oh, shit!" line was cut, Ironhide, Galvatron and the Dinobots say terms akin to "asshole" (from Grimlock to Blurr), "bastards" (Galvatron to the Autobots), "stupid", "brainless, numbskull jackass" (Slag to Grimlock), "sons of bitches" (this one even twice, in place of the original's "Decepti-chops" and "Decepti-creeps"), and "chickenshit" (from Galvatron, regarding Hot Rod). Other oddities are Wheelie only rhyming half the time, Blaster's extremely high-pitched transmission to Optimus Prime (either an audio editing error or a very strange creative choice), and Soundwave and Unicron at first talking in a seg-men-ted, ro-bo-tic man-ner. Numerous grunts and screams were also inserted where there were originally none, even the Sharkticons can be heard yelling a lot.

This dub also uses a mix of untranslated or incorrectly translated names, and character voices – this time supplied by twelve actors – occasionally change from one sentence to the next. Erroneous names include Unicornis (Unicron), Prowl (Blurr), Mega-robot (Devastator, though he is also called "Devastator the Mega-robot" in one line), Constructors (Constructicons), Deceptors (Decepticons, but only said once), Astro (Astrotrain, again only for one line), Gettison (unknown; derived and misinterpreted from the line "Jettison some weight."), Eject (this refers to no one, it was mistranslated from Soundwave's "Eject" call), and the Ick-Yak becomes a "Mega-Missort". Wheelie's name is omitted. Wreck-Gar's dialogue also lacks any sort of creativity, consisting instead of random nonsense and straight-faced reactions to what's happening on screen. These and a multitude of other errors suggest that the translator had no script to work from and had to rely solely on her hearing.

A major blooper also occurs during the attack on the Autobot shuttle: Ironhide speaks his final words in Starscream's voice ("Please, have mercy!"), and curiously, the translation of Megatron's "Such heroic nonsense." line corresponds with this sudden change of personality, as he responds with "Death to all traitors." before blasting him. Now this is foreshadowing.

The DVD case has G.I. Joe pictures printed on the back side, as well as on the DVD itself. Spiffy. On a positive note, the summary on the back of the case is actually competently written, even if the references to the cartoon series (which wasn't released in the country) and to the movie's place in its timeline are worded a bit confusingly, and unlike the dub, it renders Unicron's name correctly. Masterfilm Digital would later localize Armada (episodes 1-26 of which were likewise commissioned by Mirax), sadly still maintaining some of the general incompetence displayed by their handling of this movie.

Italy

The movie got two different Italian dubs: the first one was made for television airings on the channel Odeon TV in 1988, while the second was released straight on DVD in 2007 in order to tie with the release of the first live-action movie.

Both dubs use as a basis the European cut of the film, so they have the same additional narrations at the beginning and the end that are mentioned in the French dub.

Odeon TV dub

This dub featured a completely different voice cast from the one of the main show, with one exception: Massimo Corizza, who voiced Starscream in season 3, reprises his role.

For some reason, while the older characters use their Italian dub names, all the new characters introduced by the movie keep their original English names... with one exception. Wheelie is called "Saetta", which before then was used as Wheeljack's dub name.

A bunch of lines were changed in some way or another, usually sounding a little bit duller than the original ones:

• Devastator's "Prepare for extermination!" became "I will kill you, Transformers!"
• Optimus Prime's "One shall stand, one shall fall" became "One of us will win, and the other will die"
• "Arise, Rodimus Prime!" was replaced with "Now rise up, Hot Rod!", meaning that in this dub Hot Rod still keeps his name after becoming a Prime.

There are also a few mistranslations and flubs:

• The word "shuttle" was misheard as "Shadow", so the Autobot shuttles are treated as if they were all named "Shadow" (left in English).
• Due to the fact that the Quintesson prosecutor is referred to as "Quintesson leader" in the script, the dub took an extra step and refers to him as "The Emperor of Quintesson". The judge even says "Yes, my Quintesson!" before each of his lines.

Blurr's speech isn't really fast, but his voice has been pitched up Chipmunk-style to make him sound faster.

The Junkion "speaking TV" schtick is mostly translated as if it was regular speech, with only two exceptions: Kup's "Don't touch that dial!" being replaced with a generic soap slogan ("whiter than white!"), while Wreck-Gar's "Happy motoring!" becomes a reference to the Naturoil brand of wood coating oil.

The background music has very obvious mixing issues, with pieces sounding often muffled, distorted or at a lower volume than the original version (in particular, "Dare to Be Stupid" is nearly impossible to hear)

2007 redub

This new dub features a completely new voice cast, which is very similar to the one that, one year later, would go on to redub the first two seasons of the G1 cartoons. Of all the voice cast of this movie, however, only one voice actor would reprise the same role he had in the movie, which is Germano Basile voicing Bumblebee. Other voice actors would return, but on different roles (Pierluigi Astore, who voices Optimus Prime and Ultra Magnus in the movie, would go on to voice Ironhide and Bruticus in the series, while Marco Mori, who voices Starscream and Perceptor in the movie, will voice Megatron in the series).

In contrast with the first dub, this one tries to use the Italian dub names from the 80's... but not all of them, as Decepticons, Constructicons, Ravage, Laserbeak, Ratbat and Rodimus Prime are called with their original names instead of the Italian "Distructors", "Excavators", "Iena", "Gufo", "Stridek" and "Captain". Autobots are still referred to as "Autorobot", but uses the English pronounciation of "robot" (as done in the dubs of Robots in Disguise (2001) and throughout the Unicron Trilogy), instead of the French one that was used back in the 80's.

Arcee is referred to as "Saturnia", a dub name that before then was used only in the dub of The Headmasters.

The dub strives to be more faithful to the original script than the first one, but often stumbles down to mishearings of the original dialogue and other errors:

• Kup's "Prime did it! He turned the tide!" becomes, for some reason, "Even Prime is going to do the big leap!"
• During the whole discussion inside Astrotrain, characters begin talking about themselves putting determinative articles in front of their names, creating very stilted dialogue ("The Constructicon makes the Devastator! We should rule!" "The Soundwave is superior, the Constructicon is inferior!"). Also, for some reason, "Constructicon" is suddenly treated as if it was the name of an individual being.
• Kranix's "Spare me from this mockery of justice!" becomes "Explain me this justice farce!"
• The Junkion's chant of "Remove the toughest stains" becomes "Eliminate even the hardest Tricex!". As "Tricex" is Slag's Italian dub name, this means that the translator somehow misheard the word "Stain" as "Slag" and from there jumped to the conclusion that the Junkions were going to fight an army of clones of the Triceratops Autobot. Don't ask.

While Blurr's speech is actually made sounding faster in this version, this dub also makes him talk in rhyme for some reason. Infamously, his scene of complaining about Decepticons being everywhere was completely changed into a boastful banter where he prides himself of shooting Decepticons in their butts.

Overall, the Italian fandom treats this dub as the inferior one.

Japan

The Japanese dub was an official translation by Katsushige Hirata. Although Transformers: The Movie (トランスフォーマー ザ・ムービー) was advertised during 1987, and was even originally scheduled for a theatrical release in the summer of that year, unknown circumstances resulted in a delay of the Japanese release. It was not released in Japan until August 9th 1989,^[3] first through limited charity screenings for UNICEF in Tokyo and Osaka (where a man in a Super Ginrai costume greeted guests), followed immediately by a LaserDisc and VHS release. According to one attendee of the charity screening in Tokyo,^[4] some tickets to the event were offered to S.T.A.R.S. members via lottery, the version screened was in English with Japanese subtitles, and Tessho Genda (Japanese voice of Optimus Prime) was present to speak with fans; according to a different fan, leftover mail-away Landers from Masterforce were available as point-of-sale items at the screening.^[5] Footage taken during the charity screenings was included in the straight-to-video promotional film, "Transformers Theatrical Version!! Video Finally Here" (トランスフォーマー劇場公開バージョン!!ビデオついに登場). This was the second promotional VHS relating to the film, as The Transformers: The Movie - Apocalypse: Be Eternal, Matrix was produced to promote the movie prior to its Japanese release.

Unfortunately, the film's delay would later cause some continuity problems in future Japanese-penned Transformers fiction, as characters killed in the movie (notably Prowl and Wheeljack) appear in later series The Headmasters and Victory respectively (though these would be addressed years later).

Despite not being released in Japan in 1987 as intended, the events of the movie were summarized in TV Magazine with accompanying artwork by Ban Magami and Studio OX so that children tuning into Transformers 2010 would not be lost. The events of the movie would regularly be referred to as the "Unicron War", gaining something of a mysterious and legendary quality, as their events were constantly referred to but never seen.

Although Transformers: The Movie was dubbed several years after Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers and Transformers 2010 had ended, the majority of cast members from those series returned to reprise their roles.

The Japanese dub is notable for adding a lot of lines and voice effects to moments which had been silent in the English version, including the following:

• The shuttle attack scene originally doesn't have much talking during combat, but the Japanese dub adds numerous lines to many characters on both sides of the fight. For example, after killing Brawn, Starscream cheerfully asks who's next while waving Megatron around.
• During Optimus Prime's attack on the Decepticons and his fight with Megatron, every Decepticon Prime shoots can be heard screaming in pain, while his battle with Megatron has numerous grunts and curses added in.

"Hang on, there's something on the screen down here. Let me get that..."

Some of the additions were quite goofy (e.g., Blitzwing begs Prime not to run him over before getting out of the way) but some were actually quite disturbing. For example, when Starscream is killed by Galvatron, he gives off a long, tortured scream. In addition, the destruction of Lithone is made more horrifying by the sounds of the natives dying (some of them even being cut off mid-scream).

There are also a few slight dialogue alterations, such as Megatron specifically ordering the Insecticons to breach the Autobot defenses, to which Shrapnel and Kickback respond in unison with a high-pitched "Yessss siirrr!" Soundwave's famous "Soundwave superior, Constructicons inferior," is modified into "Soundwave is intelligent, the Constructicons are just idiots!"

The only other alteration of note in regards to the Japanese version is that whenever a character appears on screen for the first time, their name and function appears with them (written in Japanese, of course).

Latin America

The Latin American Spanish dub was done in Los Angeles and is notable because it kept all the voice actors from the cartoon and the new characters remained with the same voices for the remainder of the show. Every character is referred to by their original English name, since none of the characters' names were translated when the cartoon was dubbed into Spanish (except Ravage, who was called "Destructor" on the cartoon, but kept his English name on the movie).

Features the Star Wars-type text in the beginning and the narrator at the end stating that Optimus Prime will return.

Though it is one of the most popular dubs of the movie, it has only been released domestically on home video once and is very difficult to find nowadays. In addition, it hasn't been shown on TV since the early Nineties. Despite this, the dub has been included in many international releases of the movie.

This dub removes all swearing and makes Optimus Prime's death scene even more traumatic by having Daniel actually crying when Optimus flatlines.

Galvatron sounds exactly like Megatron and Wheelie occasionally rhymes because his dialogue was literally translated.

Poland

In Poland, the movie was never professionally dubbed. In the only official (and cult classic) release on VHS in 1992, all the dialogue was read by a single voice-over actor, while the original sound was left intact and could be heard in the background. To this day, that characteristic form of "narrating" is a very popular solution in Poland when it comes to translating movies for TV or DVDs. Thanks to this method, you can both understand the story and hear all the original voices. In the case of The Transformers: The Movie it also forced translators to leave (almost) all the original names intact. (Yay!)

Spain

In Spain, the movie was aired once in Latin American on the channel Antena 3. However, when the Generation 1 DVDs were published by the company Selecta Visión, they included both the Latin American dub and a new Spanish one (Castilian) that recycled the first's translations, but adding some errors in the character's names. It was aired for the first and only time in Castilian the year 2008 in Local Media TV, but the audio quality wasn't very good, probably due to emission problems.

South Korea

KBS dub

The first Korean dub of the movie aired on the Korean TV channel KBS in 1989, titled "Unicron and the transforming robots". The voice acting is decent, almost matching the Japanese voices of Shockwave, Starscream, and Soundwave. At that time, many robot shows had only one robot appearing, but Transformers had more characters in their cartoon, gaining the attention of many children. KBS would later go on to dub several movies of the Live-action film series. This version is not found at the moment, and is still yet to reach the world of internet.

VHS dub

The VHS dub by Iljin Production was titled "Transforming robot Unicron", and this time, Starscream sounds like the original US version.

DVD dub

The DVD dub, which was released in 2007, was titled just "Transformers", and it is filled with a lot of music errors, such as the first part of Dare being very quiet, The Touch had its lyrics repeating, and sometimes random music was added, for instance, when Hot Rod becomes Rodimus Prime, the music suddenly changes to Nothin's Gonna Stand In Our Way by Spectre General, and changes back to The Touch. The interest for this dub probably died out, as South Koreans could have easier reach to the original English version.

References