Product: The Transformers - The Movie (1986)
Rating: 4.0
Chicken soup for the inner child's soul
There are some bits of pop culture that end up occupying a far more important place in a person's life than they possibly should because of the time and place of their arrival. Such is the case with the 1986 Transformers movie, which appeared on the big screen when I was about nine years old and at the peak of my obsession with the war between Autobots and Decepticons. I remember well receiving my first Transformer toy (well, actually it was a Go-Bot, the Transformers' less popular cousins) from my dad in about 1984 when he returned from a business trip to Europe. I was hooked from then on and shortly before every birthday or holiday I would beg my parents for a few. I watched the TV show religiously from 1984 onwards, and was enamored with the heroic and wise Optimus Prime and his band of soldiers who spent every afternoon from about 3:00 until roughly 3:30 (with commercial interruption of course) defending the world from the increasingly zany plots of Megatron and his bumbling yet commitedly (or commitably?) evil Decepticon forces.So of course I begged my mother to take me to see this movie, and arrived at the theater expecting to see the usual fare only on the big screen. What I saw was far different and drastically more traumatizing to my young mind. Within roughly the first fifteen minutes of the film, many of my favorite characters were unceremoniously gunned down by Megatron and his somehow-suddenly-much-more-powerful-then-ever-before Deceptions. A few of them even had quasi-gruesome deaths, if a robot can have such a thing, exploding in flames from within their metal "guts." But nothing could prepare me from what was next. Optimus Prime, the reliable and strong Autobot Leader, was killed off by Megatron. Yes at least he put up an epic fight, but the effect was no less devastating for me. Optimus was more than just a cartoon robot for me, he represented a certain constancy and depth of wisdom and good which I KNEW had to always prevail. And there he was, not just dead but decaying and gray. I sat there aghast and then asked my mom if we could leave the theater. We walked out right as Unicron began attacking Cybertron's moons.This moment was notable as the first act of cultural criticism in my young life. I decided that I didn't want to waste my time as well as my allowance money and voted with my feet. I have since used that technique more than once on the same principle.None of this stopped me from watching Season 3 of the Transformers TV show, where the Decepticons returned to their bumbling ways and nobody (major) except for Optimus Prime (for the second time, in an episode called Dark Awakening) died. However, I didn't fully understand who Rodimus Prime was and how he got there, so I began to wish I had sat through the movie just for some context.I saw the movie in full soon thereafter (I think it was actually on TV, aired in pieces) and by that I time had seen the Return of Optimus Prime episode which concluded Transformers Season 3 so I took comfort in the "fact" that Optimus never "really" died. By this time I was probably ten and with the life wisdom I had gained in my one additional year I wasn't quite so sensitized to all the character deaths. What I saw was a fun, very Star Wars-derivative romp through an animated galaxy where our heroes faced danger at every turn. The Quintessons made for interesting villains (especially given the knowledge that they had created the Transformers in the first place; the back story was provided in Season 3 of the animated series) and the sheer giant scale of Unicron was, well, freakin awesome. I saw the movie a few times after that and then soon thereafter became a teenager who was supposed to think toy robots were childish and therefore forgot all about this experience.Or did I? As an adult, I found myself remembering this movie when the live-action Transformers films were released and wondered whether this bit of 80s nostalgia had any value. At first I watched it online (it can be found for free there) and then subsequently bought the DVD to see it on a larger screen. I can honestly say that watching this movie was a lot more fun and exciting than I had expected. The animation isn't so bad and the characters are actually pretty well written. The settings are pretty cool too (planet Junk being my favorite) and the plot has plenty of weird and unexpected twists and turns. For a 2-hour-long toy commercial this movie is pretty good. I also enjoyed the commentary provided by the film's creators in the bonus material. They obviously did not know the impact that killing off Optimus Prime would have on youngsters, and it was amusing to learn that I was hardly alone in my extreme reaction to the film the first time I saw it. I felt like I had unwittingly been a part of a larger cultural experience shared by many, which is what happens when a piece of pop culture has a wider impact than anyone had expected.Now for the four stars - no this isn't a great cinematic triumph. But for what it is, taken as both an animated space adventure and a cultural landmark for those who came of age in the 1980s, it's well worth a few viewings. I'm not sure that it would have the same impact if seen by subsequent generations (given some of the video game content I've witnessed, the violence here is hardly on the extreme side for them), but for us 80s children, especially those who are feeling nostalgic, this DVD set is a worthy purchase (when it is available again, that is).