I was one of the millions of 12-year old boys who eagerly anticipated Transformers: The Movie to hit the theaters in the summer of 1986. I had been religiously following the storylines of the war between the Autobots and Decepticons ever since Transformers made its debut in 1984 to amazing results. What kid could pass up a robot that transformed itself into a car or a truck or a fighter plane or a cassette player? (Okay, so maybe the GoBots got the short end of the stick even though they managed to make its debut just before the Transformers).

Two years worth of television programming, plus the endless bombardment of toy commercials, left me salivating for more, more, more. The answer came when I first saw the advertisement for the movie, and I was hooked.

Beyond good. Beyond evil. Beyond your wildest imagination.

Don’t tease a kid a couple of months in advance and expect him to patiently wait for what was like the coming of Jesus Christ. It just doesn’t work that way. But I guess it did because the more I had to wait, the more I HAD to see the movie, and I made sure I was going to be there when it came out. Unfortunately, so did all the other young boys who thought the same as I did. Legions poured out and I had my first taste of waiting in line at the movie theatre. All I knew was that it was going to be worth the wait.


Definitely More Than Meets The Eye

The commercials for the movie indicated that this was going to be something different and big in scale, and for the most part Transformers: The Movie delivered on that promise. The question was “What could be even more threatening than the evil Decepticons?” Actually, the real question was “Does Optimus Prime really die in the movie?”

The story takes place in the year 2005, and the war between the Autobots and Decepticons is still raging on. After millions of years of warfare, the Decepticons, under the leadership of the ruthless Megatron, have finally gotten the upper hand and have taken over their home planet of Cybertron. Optimus Prime and the Autobots do their best to scramble and organize their counterattacks from underground cells (in this case, the two moons that orbit Cybertron). Unbeknownst to all of them, a bigger threat looms in the background—a gigantic world-devouring robot named Unicron, and it will take the combined efforts of these two factions to put their differences aside in order to defeat this threat.

Transformers: The Movie took this franchise to another level. The television show provided two seasons worth of programming before this movie came about, which was enough time to brainwash every boy all over the world. By the time the movie made its debut, it became THE must-see flick of the summer, and it promised many changes.

Many new characters were introduced in the movie such as Ultra Magnus, Hot Rod, Kup, Blurr, Galvatron, Scourge, Cyclonus, and so on. In a sense this was the changing of the guard, so to speak, as they were going to be the new core group of characters that storylines were going to revolve around.

The biggest jaw-dropping incident was the killing of many characters. This was never seen on the television show at all, and watching it for the first time on the big screen was enough to make any young boy start crying. Or at least my case left an empty feeling in my stomach. A lot of favourite characters were dropping off like flies, especially the biggest one of all—Optimus Prime. It was teased in the commercials that he was going to die, and even though I had a feeling he was going to bite the big one, just seeing it on the screen was heartbreaking. In all honesty, the first part of the movie leading up this his death is perhaps the best part of the whole movie.

Everyone thought Megatron would at least die as well after his big battle with Optimus Prime. Instead, he was transformed into Galvatron, a more powerful version of his former self.

But I think the biggest shocker didn’t involve any deaths or changes in the status quo. Instead, it was one little line in the movie uttered by Spike Witwicky, the longtime human companion of the Autobots, which, perhaps garnered the most attention. To say that no one was prepared for any curse words at the time would be an understatement. When the movie was released on VHS, the particular part was cut out or even blanked out in some cases. The DVD version put it back in its original format.

Voice actors don’t exist in the minds of a 12 year old. However, when you close your eyes and listen to just the voices they do seem oddly familiar: Judd Nelson (Hot Rod), Robert Stack (Ultra Magnus), Lionel Stander (Kup), Leonard Nimoy (Galvatron), Eric Idle (Wreck-Gar), and Orson Welles (Unicron) in his final movie appearance before his death.

Everything about the animation screams Japanese anime, and it was very evident by the action sequences, the tonal qualities, shading and colouring—in other words, it was very fluid in movement. It’s not surprising that this movie took two years to complete considering the attention put into the high level of detailing. A fun fact of note: this movie was started at the same time the television show was developed. These characters and stories were already mapped out way in advance.

As much as the animation kicked it up another notch, the plot was pretty thin. Most of the action took place at the beginning and the end of the movie, at least action sequences that at least made an impact. The middle of the movie… somehow, somewhere, someone decided that the plot no longer existed and they needed to add fillers just to make it to the end of the movie. Finding Waldo is easier than finding the missing plot. To make matters worse, the editing became very choppy after Prime’s death. I was confused and, to this day, still am confused as to how sequences fall into play. It was like the director said “Okay, we’ll make this long and drag it out by getting rid of the plot. Now let’s screw with their minds and have no sense of sequential time added onto it.” I’m still scratching my head over some instances of the movie. Maybe it’s just me and I’m just too dumb to understand the simple things.

The heavy metal music added to the movie really gave a sense of danger and trepidation at times. I especially enjoyed the variation of the main theme song as it set the mood for what was going to happen.


Aftermath

Almost 20 years later, I still have some fond memories of Transformers: The Movie. It may not be the best, it may not be the worst, but it’s the most memorable of the Transformers lore. It definitely has a cult following, and will always be referred when making comparisons to the new generation of Transformers cartoons. This movie is like a train wreck that you just can’t take your eyes off at all. A guilty pleasure? You bet. So what if it is?

Your mama still wears combat boots.



Related Reviews
Transformers: The Movie Soundtrack

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This review is to celebrate chelledun's 200th review Nostalgia Write Off.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good for a Rainy Day