Two of the main cartoons, comic book series, and toy lines of my childhood were G.I. Joe and Transformers. I started the G.I. Joe comic with issue #6 and Transformers with “Issue 1 of a 4-issue limited series” (which then ran for 80 issues).
When Transformers: The Movie hit screens in 1986, I was excited. I saw it and I loved it. The ideas of Unicron and the Matrix of Leadership and everything were awesome. The boost from the movie reinvigorated the TV series a little bit. (The comic really didn’t need any reinvigoration, as it didn’t keep continuity with the show and generally had better, deeper, and more developed stories than the cartoon did… I liked the comic more than the cartoon.)
If I hadn’t been such an avid reader of the comics, the “big deal” scene of Optimus Prime’s death certainly would have had a much deeper impact… but we’ll talk about that in a minute. The key thing here is that I loved the movie when I was a kid. I haven’t seen it more than twice since then.
The 30th anniversary edition of the film just came out. (I actually have a friend who work on the restoration… and that work is amazing, I’ve never seen the art and animation so vibrant, crisp, and detailed.) I’ve just watched this move for the first time in more than a decade. So… here we go…
The Plot
The war between the Autobots and Decepticons has raged for many years on both Earth and their home planet of Cybertron. The Decepticons have taken control of Cybertron, the Autobots having fallen back to the planet’s moons to maintain a resistance movement, hoping to topple Megatron and his forces from power. The fight is not going well. Supplies are low and, unbeknownst to everyone, there is an even more grave danger–in the form of a planet-sized, world-eating robot called Unicron–heading toward Cybertron.
As it plays out, the plot is a bit episodic, with obvious breaks built in between chapters to make it easy to repurpose for normal broadcast TV. Overall, the story is a step above most of the animated TV series up to this point. The art and animation are definitely of higher grade (especially in the new restored version, where you can actually see the details work that was put in). Mostly, though, the transitions from point A to point B to point C are… not the smoothest.
This is, after all, still basically a kids’ show.
Which is why people were so terribly shocked at the death of Optimus Prime about a half-hour into the movie. That death is also one of the key things that elevated this film from “just another toy-selling movie” to a cultural touchstone for an entire generation (or, at least, the subset of a generation that had their eyes glued to the TV for half an hour a day and their hands wrapped around cars and things that could change into robots).
The Moment of Impact
Megatron and a bunch of Decepticons have taken over an Autobot shuttle on its way to Earth for a supply run. They outright kill the crew of recognizable characters. This is the beginning of the house cleaning that Hasbro had planned so they could introduce a new wave of toys to the shelves. The attack on Autobot City culminates in an truly epic battle between Optimus Prime and Megatron, which leaves both on the verge of death. The Decepticons retreat (as always) and we’re “treated” to one of the most heart-rending death scenes ever put into a kids’ show (at the time).
Here, watch:
That’s right up there with Old Yeller having to be put down.
Kids were upset. Parents were angry. Everyone was surprised, including the Hasbro execs and the filmmakers. It seems no one had quite realized just how popular their show and product actually was. As adults who knew they were just making a cartoon to sell toys, it had never occurred to them that kids weren’t just buying into the neat hunks of metal and plastic that could change shape. Kids were bonding with these characters. I know I did (though, again, mostly from reading the comic).
That ignorance allowed them to take what turned out to be a bold artistic step forward with this film.
And it immediately left them reconsidering ever taking a bold step like that again. The G.I. Joe Movie, which was already mostly done by the time this film came out, had a couple of hasty edits happen in order to avoid the same “mistake” of killing off a big deal character. Notice that no one ever talks about that G.I. Joe movie, but lots of people have very strong, fond, memories of this film.
This is why the marketing department should rarely, if ever, be directly involved in the creative side of storytelling.
The Verdict
Everything else in the film–the oh-so-80s synth and arena rock laden soundtrack, the transformation of Megatron to Galvatron, Unicron eating planets, Spike saying “shit” as his ship is being swallowed by Unicron–all of that is good enough, but pales in comparison to Prime’s death. Without that completely accidental moment of real emotion, no one would really remember much about this movie.
Because, really, it’s not that great of a movie when you look at it as a grown up. Plot holes and logical (and logistical) issues are all over the damn place. Stuff just doesn’t make sense. As a kid, you don’t care about that stuff much (I usually took great pleasure in working out how those inconsistencies could be explained… I was an odd kid.)
The famous voices that were brought in–including Orson Welles in his last performance (which they almost couldn’t use because of how much trouble he was having breathing)–are cool, but only notable if you know the actors. The music rocks, but only if you remember the 80s. The story is neat, but really nothing special compared to anything else… except for the death of Prime.
If you remember loving this movie as a kid, be sure to watch it as a kid at heart. If you’ve never seen it, you should probably skip it unless you have a distinct interest in the 80s (which this film encapsulates pretty spectacularly). If you were indifferent to it when you were a kid, you’ll hate this now.
Me? I couldn’t be happier that I own this. The 30th anniversary edition has a wealth of behind the scenes stuff and the clean-up they’ve done on the film itself is impressive. Definitely a “must have” for a fan.
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