Transformers: The Movie
Transformers: The Movie (1986)
Image From IMDB
I must have seen the animated Transformers movie a hundred times as a kid. It was a film my brother and I watched regularly. We revelled in seeing the Dinobots causing mayham, witnessing Starscream get his comeuppance, and the ultimate moment of the raise of Hotrod to Radimus Prime as “You’ve got the Touch” blasted in the background. (That Yeahhhh hit’s so sweetly) It was amazing.
As a forty year old adult, it all still works. The movie has an insane nonstop energy about it and those big moments like Optimus’s death or Megatron being Transformed into Spock by Orson Welles still feel epic. The movie doesn’t let you catch a breathe as it moves from one amazing set piece to the next as we travel the span of the galaxy and meet a bunch of colourful characters.
The animation still looks great in my eyes, but there’s nostalgia talking there. I'll always prefer hand drawn over the 3D computer animation we have for everything now. But I do think all the designs are top notch, and love the look of Unicron.
The movie just has Saturday morning kids show energy and vibes about it, and that’s exactly what it should be. It’s like someone threw a bunch of Transformer skittles at the screen, and the writers decided to give us everything we wanted, and more. Every combination of Transformer fight. Grimlock being a nuisance. Soundwave being his normal super cool self. Whatever you want in a Transformers movie, it’s in the animated one.
It’s a fun action space based sci-fi with giant robots and an even bigger planet eating robot. The action is relentless, the humour is fun without being too mean-spirited, and the big moments are big moments. I imagine it was a very bold move at the time killing Optimus Prime, but every kid my age loved Hot Rod afterwards. To borrow a wrestling term, they made a new top babyface. It’s a great film, and a super easy watch. If you haven’t checked it out in a while, grab some popcorn, switch your inner child back on, and go give it a rewatch.
