Metrodome

All we want is life beyond the Metrodome.

The Dark Side of the Loonland.

Metrodome Distribution Ltd. was a company founded in 1995 that handled the distribution of theatrical and home media titles across the United Kingdom.

In July 2001, TV-Loonland, who owned the rights to several Transformers series at the time, purchased a stake in the company.^[1] A year later, Loonland extended the stake into a majority stake, essentially making Metrodome the de-facto home media distributor for TV-Loonland's properties in the country, including Transformers.^[2] The company began releasing Generation 1 DVDs in the country starting in 2003. Unlike other distributors, they did not secure the rights to any other Transformers series, but distinguished themselves by being the first to release the various Japanese Generation 1 series.

Metrodome also owned a subline imprint called Mini Metro, which delt with budget re-releases of children's TV shows. Metrodome also licensed out some of their releases to Prism Leisure, a budget DVD distributor which entered into administration in June 2007.^[3]

In August 2007, TV-Loonland announced they would divest their stake in the company.^[4] In May 2008, shortly after Loonland sold back their Hasbro-based programs, MediaPro, a Romanian company, purchased 50.1% of Loonland's shares in Metrodome and would purchase Loonland's remaining stake 11.6% at a later date.^[5] Despite this, Metrodome continued to hold the home media license to the Generation 1 cartoon.

Metrodome entered administration in 2016^[6], with its assets sold to 101 Films and the remains of the company dissolved in 2018^[7].

Releases

Having inherited the Transformers license from previous holder Maverick Entertainment, who had only managed to release the first season before losing the license, Metrodome, in a surprising move, opted to pick up where that company had left off, saving their own first season release until after they had gotten through the other seasons.

Generation 1

• PPA1412 — Transformers: The Movie (March 8, 2003)

Metrodome's first Transformers DVD release was a budget-range vanilla DVD of the Transformers movie, released through Prism Leisure.

• PPA1412 — Transformers: The Movie (June 2, 2003)

For unknown reasons, Prism Leisure thought to re-release the movie AGAIN just a shy of two months later with a different cover and DVD label but sharing the same product number as the previous release.

• MTD5118 — Transformers — Season 2 Part 1 (November 17, 2003)

Contains the episodes "Autobot Spike" through to "A Decepticon Raider in King Arthur's Court" across three discs, plus extra features on the third disc including a blooper reel, the dialogue script to "Autobot Spike", some footage shot at Auto Assembly 2003, character profiles, a Titan comic strip, a fan art gallery, a promotional toy gallery and a quiz.

Also comes packaged with exclusive postcards feauring new artwork by Lee Sullivan.

• MTD???? — Transformers — Bumper Collection Special (April 5, 2004)

Re-release of the first disc from the Season 2 Part 1 set. Contains the episodes "Autobot Spike" through to "Enter the Nightbird".

• MTD5150 — Transformers — Season 2 Part 2 (May 3, 2004)

Contains the episodes "The Golden Lagoon" through to "B.O.T." across three discs, plus extra features on the third disc including more character profiles and scripts, another quiz and fan art gallery, the Atari video game's trailer and a game called "Scrambled Transformers".

Also comes packaged with exclusive postcards featuring new artwork by Andrew Wildman, and "The Beast Within" mini-comic.

• MTD5162 — Transformers — Season 3 and Season 4 (August 30, 2004)

Contains the complete seasons three and four across four discs, plus extra features on the fourth disc including another quiz and fan art gallery, even more scripts, masks to print and cut out, some footage shot at Auto Assembly 2004 and exclusive interviews with Lee Sullivan, Andrew Wildman and Simon Furman.

Also comes packaged with exclusive postcards featuring new artwork by Andrew Wildman, Bill Gilson and Isabel Monstran (Age 9), as well as "The Beast Within Part 2, Consequences" mini-comic.

• MTD5168 — Transformers — Season 1 (October 11, 2004)

Contains the complete first season across two discs, plus a third disc full of extra features including the perennial quiz and scripts, some more character profiles, commercials, PSAs, footage shot at Transformerscon 2004, a run-down of animation errors from season 2, and interviews with Flint Dille, Earl Kress, Buzz Dixon and David Wise.

Also comes packaged with exclusive postcards featuring new artwork by Lee Sullivan.

• MTD5169 — Transformers — Free Collector's Tin (October 11, 2004)

A huge tin box big enough to comfortably accommodate all four G1 box sets, available for a limited time with the Season 1 set (as above).

• MTD5214 — Transformers: The Movie — Reconstructed (September 5, 2005)

Given that the movie had seen multiple VHS and budget DVD releases in then-recent years, Metrodome sought to produce a special version of the movie that would distinguish itself from these cheaper options. "Reconstructed" was the result, featuring a new remastered version of the film that exposed the entire visible picture from the film's negative. An assortment of extras including TV adverts, trailers and comparisons between the US and UK versions of the film could not, however, make up for the poor standards conversion, inconsistent remaster, and general pointlessness of the project.

• PPSP11428 — Transformers: The Movie (UMD, September 12, 2005)
  • A budget release of the movie on UMD. It was distributed under license by Pink Entertainment Ltd.
• MTD5267 — Transformers — The Complete Generation One Collection (September 4, 2006)

All four Generation 1 box sets, along with Transformers: The Movie — Reconstructed, collected together in one fourteen-disc set.

This set also contains a free double-sided poster depicting the US and UK movie poster artwork.

• MINI4015 — Transformers — The Classic Episodes (April 30, 2007)

A budget reissue of Transformers — Bumper Collection Special through the company's Mini Metro imprint, with new menus and a trailer for Transformers: The Movie — Ultimate Edition.

• MTD5296 — Transformers: The Movie — Ultimate Edition (June 4, 2007)

In the same vein as Sony's 20th Anniversary Edition of the movie, this two-disc set features a new widescreen remaster of the film. A multitude of extras include trailers, tv spots, character profiles, interviews with Flint Dille and Peter Cullen and commentary on the film by Chris McFeely. Like the other special editions of the film released around this time, the set includes "Scramble City: Mobilization", also with commentary from McFeely.

• MTD5297 — Transformers: The Movie — Special Edition

One-disc version of the Ultimate Edition featuring a stereo and 5.1 soundtrack

• MTDBD5334 — Transformers: The Movie (Blu-ray, October 1, 2007)

A vanilla release of the Transformers movie on Blu-ray. It uses an upscaled print of the 2006 DVD remaster. Despite the U rating, Spike's swear remains intact.

• MTDUMD5362 — Transformers: The Movie (UMD, December 7, 2007)
  • A self-distributed UMD re-release of the Transformers movie.
• MTD???? — Classic Transformers — Series One: Part One (December 26, 2007)

Re-release of the first disc from the Season 1 set. Contains the episodes "More than Meets the Eye" through to "S.O.S. Dinobots".

• MTD???? — Classic Transformers — Series One: Part Two (December 26, 2007)

Re-release of the second disc from the Season 1 set. Contains the episodes "Fire on the Mountain" through to "Heavy Metal War".

• MTD5473 — Transformers — Season One (June 15, 2009)
• MTD5474 — Transformers — Season Two: Part One (June 15, 2009)
• MTD5475 — Transformers — Season Two: Part Two (June 15, 2009)
• MTD5476 — Transformers — Season's Three & Four [sic] (June 15, 2009)

• MTD5942 — Transformers — The Classic Animated Series (November 3, 2014)

The complete series in one box set.

The Takara Collection

• MTD5197 — The Takara Collection Vol 1 — Transformers: Headmasters (September 26, 2005)

A four-disc box set collecting the entire Headmasters anime series. The set features the original Japanese audio track with newly-created (and inconsistent) English subtitles, with the infamous Omni Productions dub as a second option. The masters supplied to Metrodome proved slightly incomplete, however, lacking the "next episode" previews, and the few segments that come before the title cards of certain episodes. The set features audio commentaries on three episodes by UK fan Chris McFeely.

• MTD5249 — The Takara Collection Vol 2 — Transformers: Super-God Masterforce (May 15, 2006)

A five-disc box set collecting the Super-God Masterforce anime series (omitting the clip show that was broadcast as the final episode of the series in Japan). This set includes only the Japanese audio with subtitles, this time translated by Jordan L. Derber. The set again features three audio commentaries by McFeely. Cover art by Nick Roche.

• MTD5262 — The Takara Collection Vol 3 — Transformers: Victory (December 26, 2006)

A four-disc box set collecting the entire Victory anime series. As with Masterforce, the set includes only the Japanese audio, subs by Derber, and three commentaries by McFeely. Notably, the set omits the six (!) clip shows present in the original broadcast run of the series, featuring only the core 32 episodes. Cover art by Nick Roche.

• MTD5327 — Transformers — The Complete Takara Collection (September 3, 2007)

A collection of the three Headmasters, Super-God Masterforce and Victory box sets. The final disc of the Victory set is re-authored to include the set's sole new exclusive - Zone, with a commentary by McFeely.

Notes

• Metrodome's Generation 1 releases use the remastered versions of the cartoon episodes which originated with the Kid Rhino release of the series—thus they contain all the same errors inherent to those masters (these mostly affect Season 1, as Seasons 2-4 had far fewer issues). Additionally, they include Magno Sound & Video's 5.1 audio (with added sound effects), but use a modified version of their 2.0 track.
• One of the sets' most distinctive extra features is a collection of dialogue scripts for nearly every Generation 1 episode.
• The packaging and title menu for the third disc of the Season 2 Part 1 set both claim that it includes the dialogue scripts for "Episodes 16-17", but only the script for episode 17, "Autobot Spike", is actually included on the disc.
• In keeping with the low production values of the disks themselves, Doctor Arkeville's name is misspelled 'Dr. Octoville' throughout the Season 1 set menus.

References

External links

• Metrodome homepage