Transformers the Movie

Transformers the Movie:  How a cartoon designed to sell toys became one of the first steps toward adulthood.

For a young kid, the movie opens like a shotgun to the face, with the ultimate Transformer’s antagonist, Unicron, consuming an entire planet for fuel. We are shown the scale of the upcoming threat as the movie sets the tone five minutes in. The Decepticons intercept an Autobot shuttle to Earth murdering all inside. Ironhide, Brawn, Prowl, and Ratch are now corpses decorating the inside of the ship all while NGR’s Instruments of Destructions blares through the speakers. For fans of the show, all jaws were dropped. This was supposed to be a stupid show about transforming trucks made to sell toys to gullible kids. Now, the stakes were raised. The violence and action was cranked to 11 with a power metal soundtrack while children across America had their minds blown. Advertising needs to take notice. This is how you sell stupid toys to impressionable kids.


Grimlock- Comic Relief. Murder Machine.

The show featured robots that turned into cars and stuff evolved in to a civil war over the planet Cybertron. The Autobots fell back to Earth while the Decepticons, being the assholes they were, hunted them down. Most of the episodes had the two factions fighting over resources and shoehorning in new characters. It was light-hearted fun. Since this thing was designed to sell toys, they needed to find a way to push the new line. They did this in probably the best way possible, with a movie that was almost too violent for kids. They killed off the old guard to include the dauntless Optimus Prime, and replaced them with the new characters like Hot Rod, Galvatron, and Wreck Gar. Fuck yeah. Wreck Gar. Threatening all life is the planet-sized menace Unicron voiced by Orson Welles. It’s up to the remaining Autobots to stop him at any cost.

"I'm tired of your shit, Megatron. Turn into your stupid gun. I fucking dare you."

There was also the ultimate showdown between Optimus and Megatron which easily dwarfs anything that Michael Bay could produce. Optimus rolls up in his iconic 18-wheeler taking out five on his own before even reaching Megatron. The two meet and exchange words. “Why throw away your life so recklessly?” “That’s a question you should ask yourself, Megatron.” The two then proceed to beat the shit out of each other with The Touch playing in the background. This shit’s right up there with the They Live slugfest. If you replace the final fight scene in the Fantastic Four movie with this, it would immediately make you forget those suicidal tendencies you were having.

Unicron is kinda like that greedy fat kid that smuggled twinkies in class....and turned into a planet sized robot.

I still can’t believe they got away with what they did in this movie, even letting the word “shit” slip out from Spike during their first run in with Unicron. It was like the writers and producers sat around drinking scotch and decided, “You know what? Fuck parents! Kids love violence”. It was great and we will probably never see another star like it.