Transformers: The Movie Was the Surprising Template for Modern Superhero Movies
“You, who are without mercy, now plead for it?”
1980s animated TV series are often dismissed as shows invented purely to sell toys and tie-in merch, and while that may be true, it completely dismisses the pop culture behemoths these shows truly were. There’s no better example than the Transformers, the robots in disguise who captured a nation with their morphing battles against the Decepticons.
But what happens when the same fight week after week gets old? What happens when every child who wants an Optimus Prime action figure already has one? The answer is one of the most glorious animated movies ever: An 85-minute adventure that simultaneously launched the Transformers into cinematic history and ruined a good number of childhoods.
What Makes The Transformers The Movie So Great
The Transformers: The Movie, the 1986 movie spinoff of the animated series, is relatively unconnected to the main show. It’s set in the far-off year of 2005, 20 years after the last season of the show. It starts off with a normal fight between Optimus Prime and the Autobots, and Megatron and the Decepticons, after the Decepticons take over the planet Cybertron. But only 25 minutes into the movie, Optimus Prime succumbs to fatal wounds suffered from fighting Megatron.
The emotional impact of this plot twist cannot be overstated: After two seasons of an animated series where the status quo was preserved at the start and end of every episode, the first act of the continuing movie killed off the main character, an unheard of act in the world of Saturday morning cartoons.
But that’s just the start of the story. The main villain of the movie isn’t Megatron and the Decepticons, but Unicron, a sentient planet who consumes planets, voiced by filmmaking legend Orson Welles in his final role.
It takes multiple character deaths, but the Autobots do manage to save their planet Cybertron from Unicron, celebrating their victory, and mourning the losses of the casualties.
How The Transformers: The Movie Changed Superhero Movies Forever
Unicron was a villain unlike any other.
The Transformers: The Movie’s effect on the Transformers film franchise goes without saying — Unicron even appeared in Transformers: The Last Knight and Transformers: Rise of the Beasts. But what often doesn’t get mentioned is how this movie affected the greater blockbuster landscape. Unicron is often compared to Galactus, another planet-eating entity from the Marvel universe who is currently slated to become the new Big Bad of the MCU, even appearing in next year’s Fantastic Four: First Steps.
The intent of this movie may have been to refresh and reboot the show for new merchandise opportunities, but it turned out way better than it had the right to be. With a soundtrack centered around Stan Bush’s song “The Touch” and featuring Kick Axe and Weird Al Yankovic, every scene flies by with non-stop momentum, and characters that would seem gimmicky when interrupted by commercial breaks are suddenly delightful moments of comic relief.
But by far the greatest effect of this movie is how it proved that children, no matter the age, could handle death and loss as long as it’s handled correctly. Just as 1980s children watched Optimus Prime die in front of them, modern children watched Iron Man sacrifice himself in Avengers: Endgame. Yeah, it might have been sad, but it was certainly unforgettable.
