Childhood’s End: “Transformers: The Movie”

Filed Under Movies

I remember seeing the original “Transformers: The Movie” in the theater in the summer of 1986. When Optimus Prime (*Spoiler Ahead*) dies (*End Spoiler*), I almost cried. My VHS copy of the film has so much tape noise from repeat-viewings, you can barely read Orson Welles’ name during the opening credits. Yep, Charles Foster Kane is in “Transformers: The Movie.” Does that mean this is the “Citizen Kane” of animated features that are basically glorified toy commercials?

I would have to say yes.

“Transformers: The Movie” bridges the second season of the animated series with the third. Set in the far-flung future — 2005 — the film introduces a batch of fresh faces along with some of the familiar. The evil Decepticons have beaten back the heroic Autobots, forcing them off their home planet, Cyberton. The Autobots have since made a home for themselves on Earth, living in the transforming metropolis, Autobot City. Meanwhile, Autobot leader Optimus Prime has holed up on one of Cybertron’s moons, where he’s secretly plotting a counter-attack.

The Decepticons, however, launch a devastating assault on Autobot City, one that brings Prime back to Earth and leaves him mortally wounded at the hands of central baddie, Megatron. The film kills off about two-dozen characters from the first two seasons of the animated series, making way for new characters, like the film’s unlikely hero, Hot Rod (voiced by Judd Nelson).

During the return flight to Cybertron, Megatron and other injured Decepticons are scattered across the cosmos by Starscream, Megatron’s second-in-command — a right bastard who’s been jockeying for the #1 spot all along. Starscream was the first Transformer I ever owned and probably my favorite. He’s easily the most psychologically complex and has a fantastic voice, performed by the late Chris Latta. He also doesn’t get to enjoy his leadership role for long before finding himself at the wrong end of a laser-cannon.

Before then, Megatron floats into the orbit of a sentient Death Star named Unicron (Orson Welles). Unicron gives Megatron and his wounded allies an extreme makeover. Megatron is reinvented as Galvatron (voiced by Leonard Nimony) and summarily tasked with destroying the Autobot Matrix of Leadership, a crystal orb that is kept in one’s chest cavity; before Prime died, he passed it along to the reluctant Ultra Magnus. Opening the Matrix will “light [the Autobots’] darkest hour.” That said, it’s a threat to Unicron.

For an 90-minute toy commercial, “Transformers: The Movie” is damn entertaining. Some might find fault with the amount of hair metal on the soundtrack, but I think it’s a great 1980s send-up of animated Disney musicals I grew up on. Keeping with tradition of the previous Childhood’s End reviews, the movie didn’t perform well at the box office; I promise I’ll do a blockbuster tomorrow. Not even a PG rating, earned by a character dropping an s-bomb, enticed kids to pay to see something they can see on TV for free.

Still, the film holds up just as well as it did more than two decades ago. Last year’s live-action movie doesn’t even come close.

Tomorrow: “Batman.”

-Brad Lohan

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