OCT 26 —As a kid who grew up in the 80s and 90s, I had my pick of all sorts of animated and tokusatsu series to fall in love with, from He-Man to Ultraman to Silverhawks, Thundercats, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Voltron, Space Cop Gaban, Kamen Rider, Centurions, MASK and beyond.
Yet out of all these, it was the various iterations of Transformers that has kept me coming back for more, even when faced with the increasingly terrible “live” action Transformers films that don’t seem to know when to quit, even after Michael Bay stopped directing them.
When the teaser trailer for the latest film in the Transformers franchise, this time a 3D animated film called Transformers One, arrived earlier in the year, I almost decided to not even watch the film because that teaser presented the movie as an awful, smart-alecky buddy comedy (in which the buddies are Optimus Prime and Megatron, when they were “young adults” and still had different names!) which will bring to mind awful memories of the disaster that was Thor: Love and Thunder, because it’s Chris Hemsworth providing the voice for the young Optimus Prime.
For a pretty loyal Transformers fan like me, who has seen every single one of the “live” action Transformers films in the cinema, to even think of not giving the film a chance really says something about how misguided the film’s early marketing was.
Thank goodness when the full trailer arrived, a very different impression was given, and I was back to being excited about wanting to catch it in the cinema.
Unfortunately, when the film did open in local cinemas in September, it was right smack in the middle of an almost two-week vacation I had in Indonesia, which meant that I simply had no time to go catch it in the cinema, even the ones in Indonesia, as I was too busy getting caught up in my holiday itinerary.
By the time I got back here, very few cinemas were showing it already, and with very few showtimes as well, so I just had to wait for its digital release in order to finally watch it.
Transformers One is now out on digital, so let me say that I’m more than happy to report that this new movie is so earnest, so funny and so refreshing that it’s now probably my second most favourite Transformers film, with a real possibility of it taking the number one spot after further viewings.
For now, that number one spot is still held by that first “live” action Transformers movie, not because it was a great film or anything like that, but purely because of nostalgia and the awe of seeing things in a “live” action setting.
Story and script-wise, I think Transformers One is already the best one so far, and that includes the animated movie from 1986 that got us all singing, “You’ve got the touch, you’ve got the power!”
Directed by Pixar alumni Josh Cooley, who directed the pretty brilliant Toy Story 4, Transformers One tells the origin story of how Optimus Prime (here called Orion Pax) and Megatron (here called D-16) became the characters that we know and love.
And you know what, they started off as best friends when they were younger!
Young nobodies who were born without transforming cogs, they were happy to accept their fate working as nobody miners, looking for Energon so that life on Cybertron can continue.
Orion is obsessed with old Cybertron lore, and consistently gets himself and D-16 into trouble with the authorities as he tries to find any information he can to locate the now missing Matrix of Leadership and help their current leader Sentinel Prime in his quest to find it.
Eventually, one of their many misadventures leads them to discover the real truth about Cybertron, the other missing/dead Primes and their ongoing war with their enemy, the Quintessons, which will then set them on the two different paths that will ultimately make them the adversaries that we know today.
Yes, you read it right, Transformers One has a narrative that will ultimately be shaped into a tragedy, because Cooley and writers Eric Pearson, Andrew Barrer and Gabriel Ferrari are careful to craft and deliver a story that makes us care about its two main characters, Orion and D-16.
Their banter feels natural and funny, and as the film progresses the audience will get a feel for how these two can become the best of friends, and how, as the plot lurches towards its tragic end of witnessing two best friends becoming unintentional foes, we empathise and sympathise with the plight of both characters.
While yes, we may not agree with the choices that D-16 makes in order to ultimately become Megatron, the filmmakers have made sure that we understand how he arrived at those choices.
I may have made this movie sound a tad heavy with all this talk of tragedy, but like all the best Pixar movies, all this adult stuff does not get in the way of the joy and wonder that the film dishes out for all the younger kids in the audience.
Whether it’s in the character of the ambitious Elita-1 or the scene stealing B-127, a non-stop motormouth (even when unconscious!) whom we will eventually know and love as the voiceless Bumblebee in the “live” action movies, there’s plenty here that will be loved by the kids.
It’s just that, ironically, in making an animated film directed at kids, Paramount and Hasbro have somehow made the most mature Transformers film yet. Yes, there’s more than meets the eye here.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
