Michael Bay is apparently a big fan of the 1986 animated cult classic Transformers: The Movie. Last month, he revealed his desire to get Leonard Nimoy, voice of “Galvatron” in the cartoon film, to voice a robot character in his latest live-action installment, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. And awhile back it was revealed that the sequel might have a new version of Stan Bush’s terrible ’80s anthem “The Touch” on its soundtrack. But are these the correct ways to pay homage to the old series/movie? Wouldn’t we rather actually have Transformers that look like the Transformers characters we remember from our childhood? And wouldn’t we rather have a good script and competent directing/editing? Okay, these last things might not be totally relevant to the 80s cartoon, but regardless they are elements that should be more attended to than any lame winks at members of the cult audience.

Anyway, I bring all this up because a music video for the remake of “The Touch” (titled “The Touch: Sam’s Theme”) has popped up online. Featuring both Bush and a Linkin Park-wannabe rapper in the recording and video, the new version — which still hasn’t been confirmed as being in the new film (don’t do it MB) — is undeniably worse than the original somehow. But it makes me wonder: in 10 years or so, when Boogie Nights is remade and reset in the 2000s, should this be the version of the song covered by Dirk and Reed?

A few other bloggers and commenters agree that it’s a downgrade after the jump:

• Alex Billington at First Showing recommends you don’t watch the video:
  

  [Stan Bush song "The Touch"] was, uh, great at the time, or at least, it was hilariously awful and so cheesy that it could be an easy replacement for Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up”…Please don’t tell me this song is in the movie at all?! I can actually listen to the original 1986 “The Touch”, but this remake, wow, this is just awful!

• Commenting at Film School Rejects, “BillBrasky” also views this as a massive fail:
  

  I HATE the new version! The original is classic and catchy, and this is absolute garbage. Even Dirk Diggler’s performance of “the touch” is 1000x better than this new version.

• Sean Duregger at The Geek Couch is another fan of the original who hates the new version:
  

  Oh, how the mighty have fallen (no pun intended)…It’s unclear if this song will be on the Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen soundtrack.  I really hope not.  Thanks Stan Bush for ruining a great 80s memory.

• Rob Bricken at Topless Robot blames the Linkin Park angle for the new version’s suckage:
  

  Frankly, I think he’s not only missing “the touch,” but he sorely seems to be lacking in “the power” as well. But the tragedy is that if the horrible rapping weren’t there, I think I’d really like it as a cover/homage/something — my love for ’80s Stan Bush is pretty fucking considerable — but no beefy middle-aged white dudes rapping, sorry.

• Commenting at Seibertron.com, “Forgotten” believes there is actually a place for Bush in the movie:
  

  That was the worst thing i’ve heard in soooo long and I just listened to the new Eminem cd so there’s a comparison for ya. I think that now that band needs to be cast in ROTF and have megatron step on them, grind his heel and activate a tank tread so that we never have any more of these outbursts of “artistic idea” from Stan & co. appear in the next Transformers movie. Maybe I went to far, but…….I THOUGHT THAT WAS TERRIBLE!!!

• Maura at Idolator thinks Bay will fortunately ignore Bush’s attempt to get on the soundtrack:
  

  It would seem that Bush is hoping that “The Touch ‘09″ will be included on the soundtrack to Transformers 2: Revenge Of The Fallen–although given that the actual Linkin Park already has a place on that particular album, I would think that the producers are preparing to blow him off with the “diversity of genre” excuse. After all that work they did on the video and everything!

And here’s the video, though you may want to avoid it: