Transformers Artifact of Week: Transformers: The Movie 35mm Film Trailer
Picked this up on ebay for only $15 plus shipping. It’s a 35mm Movie Theater film trailer for Transformers: The Movie. I have nothing to play it on and I didn’t want to chance unrolling it, but based on what I can see from the inner most frames, it appears to be this trailer, but missing the first 25 seconds:
I say that is missing 25 seconds because the end on the inside of the coil starts at about 25 seconds. This also explains something I found initially puzzling.
As you can see “#2” has been written on the label. I initially assumed this meant that it was trailer #2, but if it is indeed the above trailer, then it would have to be the first one, as it shows Ultra Magnus in his original Diaclone colors scheme. I believe that he would have only appeared in those colors in the first trailer, but I was unable to find confirmation of that anywhere. I looked at a bunch of trailers on YouTube, and this is the only one that resembles the film I pulled out of the coil and looked at. So, since it does appear to be missing the first 25 seconds, I am assuming that there was a second piece of this film, and that is why it has the “#2”. There are pieces of yellow tape on both sides of the end inside the coil, so it was clearly taped to a second piece. That may mean the trailer was in two pieces and put together, though with it being so short that doesn’t make a lot of sense. I really don’t know much about this stuff, so I’m making a lot of guesses that might mean nothing. There is one additional odd thing though.
It carries the approval of the Alberta Board of Censors and is dated July 17, 1986. I find it odd that the first trailer was approved in July for a movie coming out in August. There is probably some technical reason for this, but I found it very odd.
I am searching for a projector that will play this so I can confirm it is the trailer I think it is, but it is unlikely I will find one. If I do I will update this.
As always, you can find over 9000 Transformers merchandise items and collectibles at TFMuseum.com. I have not done an update to the site in a while. Hopefully I will be doing a major update this winter with more than 1200 more items including a huge number of Age of Extinction items.
Thanks for reading!
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