Plot: The Autobots must stop a colossal planet consuming robot who goes after the Autobot Matrix of Leadership. At the same time, they must defend themselves against an all-out attack from the Decepticons.
Bah-weep-Graaaaagnah wheep ni ni bong. I was 8 years old when I first saw The Transformers: The Movie back in theatres in 1986; my brother would always take me to see movies even if they weren’t something he would be interested in, so for that – thanks, Greg!
To this day I remember when Optimus Prime died, it was the first time I’d ever come close to feeling something akin to grief. You may think “What an idiot, being emotionally attached to a cartoon character”. Bear in mind, I was 8 years old, and I’d grown up with Transformers and especially Optimus Prime as a major part of my childhood.
Watching the film as an adult it’s easy to view it with more cynical eyes; the toy company wanted to release the 1986 editions of their toy line, so they had to kill off the 1985 characters.
That meant that many of my favourite Transformers were killed off to make way for newer ones and I can’t think of any other movie from that era that traumatized me the way this film did. Don’t think for a second that I don’t love the movie to this day, but even watching it now it brings back so many memories and it’s still my personal favourite Transformers movie to date.
It’s funny how with the Masters of the Universe cartoon on television Skeletor never killed anyone and it was generally watered down for a family audience, but for this movie the filmmakers were like “eff these kids, kill everyone!” and I’ve been in therapy ever since. Let’s not forget the scene towards the end of the movie where various Transformers are dropped into vats of some kind of acid and we even get to see a few being disintegrated.
At 84 minutes the movie is well-paced and filled with near-constant action with some surreal visuals especially the inside of Unicron which feels like something from an Arthouse film.
There is an incredible voice cast in this movie and I still can’t believe they managed to get Orson Welles to voice Unicron; I always found the idea of a planet eater quite terrifying especially as a child and Welles gave Unicron a really creepy voice making him the stuff of nightmares. That opening scene where Unicron devours the entire planet is a heck of a way to set the tone as we see millions of sentient beings destroyed within seconds.
We also have Eric Idle as Wreck-Gar, Lenoard Nimoy voicing Galvatron (who would later voice Sentinal Prime in one of the live action Transformers movies), Scatman Crothers as Jazz, Frank Welker as Megatron/Soundwave /Rumble /Frenzy /Ravag /Wheelie/ Auto-combatant /Junkion and of course Peter Cullen returning to voice Optimus Prime & Ironhide. To this day Soundwave has always been my favourite Transformer mostly due to his awesome voice which is still every bit as cool now as when I was 8.
Our main character is now Hot Rod voiced by Judd Nelson who is essentially responsible for Prime’s death, but ultimately finds redemption by becoming Rodimus Prime; I think we can all agree that scene is beyond epic as Stan Bush’s The Touch kicks in and Optimus can be heard saying “Rise, Rodimus Prime!”and he then proceeds to kick Galvatron’s ass and save the universe.
Despite all the death the movie is still fun with one of the most underappreciated soundtracks of the time period. This is peak Stan Bush with The Touch remaining one of my favourite songs and will lift my mood no matter how low I’m feeling. Dare also continues to inspire as do all the other songs. Then we have Vince DiCola’s (Rocky IV) score filled with electric guitars and synth adding to the excitement of the action scenes as well as Unicron’s haunting theme.
As a youngster I loved the Dinobots, but as an adult all I was thinking aren’t these supposed to be robots in disguise that are meant to blend in? I haven’t seen too many other giant robot dinosaurs for them to blend in with, but I guess they’d stopped caring at this stage and just wanted to sell toys. I mean robots and dinosaurs together? Hell yeah!
Overall, for sheer nostalgia and childhood trauma you’d be hard pushed to top The Transformers: The Movie; the music is still out of this world and there are so many memorable and weird moments to make the film mostly hold up. It’s still the best Transformers movie by a mile for me as it’s the one I grew up with, so there is always that emotional attachment I have to the story. It’s a rapid 84 minutes packed with action and some memorable visuals to go with the amazing music.
