Review of The Transformers: The Movie (1986) by Adam W — 12 Feb 2009

From the moment that the different version of the theme tune starts, its clear that this will be something else entirely from the TV show. This is further emphasised when with around 20 minutes of the movie, numerous mainstays of the cartoon have been killed off, including Optimus Prime, the lead hero. Ordinarily this would leave a movie like this struggling to fill the gap left by the absence of such popular characters. However, the introduction of new characters, and Megatron's change to Galvatron works perfectly, as does the appearance of Unicron, a colossal Transformer who feeds on planets.

Visually this is a cracking movie, with some of the animation being ahead of its time and still looking good today. The music also works perfectly, between the 80's metal soundtrack and the score performed by Vince DiCola, who is also responsible for the scores for the Rocky films.

The enduring popularity of this film is about more than just nostalgia. Other films based on cartoons from back then such as Thundercats are just funny when viewed now, whereas this is still a great film.

Eat your heart out Michael Bay, this is how its done.