FORMERS
THE
MOVIE
(1986)
[The following review
contains no scenes of "Blurr". Deal with
it.]
So, ya,
I went and saw Michael Bay's Transformers on opening
day, and this may come off as a shock to many--
especially those G1 (Generation-1) fans who are
diligently creating a homemade pipe-bomb as we
speak for Mr. Bay for destroying their
childhoods-- but I actually liked it. And even more so
than that, kind of loved it. Seriously. And why
not? Undiagnosed Insanity? Maybe. I however
still got what I wanted out of it, and was
just thankful that the whole thing didn't
culminate with a slew of filthy-dirty miners
trying to land on a hurdling in-space Megatron.
It's all you can ask for really.
*Although*, if I wanted to be picky, I guess
I could mention that it did have several other Bay
trademarks, however (except for the usual sucking
part). You know, stuff like interchangeable comic
relief characters that serve no real storyline purpose
other than to make you laugh--despite the fact
they're doing all these Hi-larious absurdities
amidst the possible end of the world. Ya, possible world
dominion by giant talking bloodthirsty alien robots
is definitely the best time to be sarcastic and try out
new material. Good thinking. But hey, that
stuff quickly gets lost in the shuffle, 'cause,
holy shit, transforming robots~!
Before
we continue, however, I'd be remiss if I didn't
also mention that this
Megan
Fox is an attractive young lady as
well. Although, in my defense I only
masturbated once to her. The usher said something about
it being "inappropriate in a Theater", and
"illegal" and that " the Authorities had been
called". I don't get it either. And yes fans of
unattainable teenaged trim, there's no shortage of
gratuitous shots of her bending over either. So
like Kudos to Bay there. That's one
definite edge this movie had over the
entire Transformers TV series. Because try as I
must, I just don't remember ever wanting to
fire one off in their cervix,
Galvatron-style. Score 1 for Transformers 2007. And
then one more for not violating one-self to
animation. (I learned my lesson in the late 80's
when I was never allowed back to see Little Mermaid
again).
That
all said, today, we're actually here to talk
about the *original* full-length feature Transformers
film. And I have an admission to make: I still and
have always LOVED the Transformers. From the first day I
got my Starscream action figure for my Birthday in 1985,
then subsequently lost his tiny detachable blue fists in
the park three hours later, me and amputee Starscream
were inseparable. And little has changed. I'm still
obsessed with Transformers to a large degree. And when
you take into consideration my other obsession is PRO
WRESTLING, I think it's safe to say I'll be leaving this
mortal coil one day without an heir. But hey, maybe
that's because I always insist on using Sound
Wave-esque sound-bites during love-making. "Semen
eject! Operation: IMPREGNATION!". Ah well, I thought it was funny at
the time. What can you do? Not equate the most tender of
acts with unloading a transforming cassette into your
girlfriends' nether-regions?
Perhaps.
Anyway, to get
a full grasp on the phenomenon that was Transformers,
you have to travel back with me to 1984. I'll bring
the jacket with 75 zipper pockets.
Ah,
1984. A time when cartoons weren't completely
saturated with faggoty-assed Japanime teddy bears
that shoot lightning and making baby noises. Dear god.
If I ever walked in my kid
emulating the Pokemon cartoon, I'm afraid I'd have to
beat them down fucking Demolition Ax-style, just on
principle. That said, this was a great time to be a kid,
although probably a pretty shitty time to be a parent
--because sometime in 1984, the people at Hasbro figured
out that a pretty good way to bilk an entire generation
of mullet-headed children out of their parents
hard-earned money would be to create cartoons that would
subtly double as 30-minute toy commercials. It was
a pretty good plan, as I vividly remember begging
my Father for my very own Optimus Prime toy.
Unfortunately though, that was last weekend. I think he
may have lost all respect for me. But hey, IT TURNS
FROM TRUCK TO ROBOT as if in
disguise~!
Anyway, the
year is now 1986, and after two full seasons
(with the 2nd season going over 80 episodes) of the
cartoon series that aired everyday after school, news
soon came down the wire (attached to two
biodegradable plastic cups) that they were
now making a full-length movie. I was stoked. After
all, my ultimate life goal at 8 years old was to somehow
figure out how I myself could become a
Transformer. A goal that I eventually reached in
adulthood. Unfortunately, that transformation was
from a polite well-mannered young man with a bright
future...to whatever it is I am today. Transformation
complete~!
Ya, so, that
takes us to the release of Transformers: The
Movie. Now, I'll walk you through some more nuances of
the Transformers and their mythos as we go along, but
there's a few things you should know before going into
this, and especially if you've never seen the
Transformers. And if this is true, Dear god, man. Maybe
stop throwing gay-assed Wii fastballs in your parents
living room and hit the video store sometime, you lazy
bastard. If they even still have them. I steal
everything I have online. So like, watch it, but don't
be like me. Or something.
Anyway, those
*IMPORTANT* things to remember are: The heroes
are called the "Autobots" and are led by Optimus Prime,
a heroic and benevolent leader that transforms into a
red transport truck. And their adversaries are the evil
Decepticons. As if the name Decepticons didn't hammer
that fact home. They are in turn led by the evil
Megatron. A megalomaniacal robot that transforms into a
Walther P38 handgun at a time where Junior could carry
such a symbol without being inducted into the bloods are
shot by 60 police officers. Megatron also the
world's only asthmatic robot. Just listen to him.
Thankfully, the animators excluded the parts where he
had to go awkwardly cough in the corner of the room
whilst everyone else had to carry on filling Energon
cubes and pretend not to notice.
Oh, and there's
one other thing: NEVER SAY THE WORD GOBOTS IN FRONT
OF A TRANSFORMERS FAN. GoBots are an abomination. And to
make a parable you can relate to, the GoBots were the
"
Carnosaur" to The Transformers "Jurassic
Park". Seriously. Comparing the two is
definitely fighting words. And if anyone who
watched cartoons well into their 30's could actually
fight or even leave their sofas on their own
power, the shit would be on, yo. I'm telling you.
--whilst sitting comfortably for health
reasons.
Let's get to
the movie!
We open up with a shot of
the movie's main antagonist, Unicron (played by Orson
Welles, who was about the size of a planet himself by
the time this was filmed so it wasn't exactly going
against type.). Unicron, is of course a large
bulbous mass that destroys everything it
touches and devours everything in its path.
Hey! Just like Stephanie McMahon! We then cut to a
planet, populated by robots, laughing, eating(?) and
just generally enjoying their peaceful lives.
It's at this point I noticed when I was a child that
these robots had mustaches, and wondered just how in the
fuck that was even possible. Just then, Unicron
approaches the planet, and things begin to rumble and
shake. One of the robots yelled out, "It's Unicron!"
in shock, which always makes me laugh, because if
you know his name, you'd know the fucker is a
galactic planet eater who kind of does this shit on
a regular basis. How did you not see this coming?
Anyway, as expected, Unicron attacks the planet and
devours it entirely. And by "devour", I mean he
sucks the entire thing into what appears to by a giant
sphincter. In fact, the whole scene kind of plays out
like watching someone have a shit in reverse. After
Unicron finishes his meal, he then goes back to
aimlessly float through space. I can't say I blame him.
That's pretty much my M.O. after consuming a
huge meal. Except by "space" I mean "living room" and by
float I mean "just sit there without pants". You get the
picture.
CUE THE OPENING
CREDITS~! YES. The Transformers theme gets the hair
metal treatment by the band Lion. It's Autonomous robots
and skinny dudes with giant white bouffant hairdo's and
pleather pants, working together in perfect
harmony! It's awesome and
relevant.
Now back to the
action; we hear the familiar Transformers voiceover.
We're told it's the year 2005 and the Decepticons have
taken back their home planet of Cybertron. You see, this
is significant because the entire plot of the cartoons
was Megatron and company attempting to accomplish this
very feat by collecting as much energy from Earth as
possible. Wait. An evil group of
war-mongering liars whose soul purpose is to go and
drain various countries of their rich fuels for their
own nefarious use? A dude could really run a
presidential term around something like that! Megatron
in 2000~! Ahem.
Anyway, we see Laserbeak, one of
Soundwave's "spies" that transformed from a Cassette
into whatever fucking kind of bird he was supposed to
be. He records Optimus Prime saying that they will soon
strike back at the Decepticons from their secret bases
on the Planets "Moonbase 1" and "Moonbase 2". Huh. Like
you even needed fucking Laserbeak to "crack" that Da
Vinci code. The planets are named MOON BASE 1 & 2 . Dear God,
Optimus! Get your decidedly disproportioned head in
the game! All they needed was an Austin Powers-esque
map that said "secret underground lair", and
the hat trick of stupidity would be
complete.
Anyway,
Laserbeak flies back to tell Megatron of the plan, who
then decides an ambush is in order, as Iron Hide,
Brawn, Ratchet and Prowl are instructed to
board a ship to head to earth first to get the supplies
needed to get r' done. We then see Iron Hide
transform into a CUBE VAN and roll out toward the
ship (in what would be his last mission). And yes,
Iron Hide-- still in the fucking year 2005-- has
kept a cube van as his alternate mode. I guess no one
ever had the heart to tell him that only Rapists
drive those now...
Anyway, while
Earth-bound, the shuttle is ambushed by Megatron,
Starscream and several other Decepticons, and the crew
is subsequently murdered..yes MURDERED...IN A KIDS
MOVIE...by Starscream who catches a transformed Megatron
in gun-mode and unloads some heavy fire into our heroes.
And speaking of Megatron in gun mode, the guy--despite
how completely kick ass he is-- really is useless when
you get down to it; because he requires someone to
always catch his ass when he transforms. Otherwise he'd
just hit the fucking ground, wouldn't he? That's
probably the reason why there was never a transforming
Grenade. And speaking of which, I always wondered
how it is that human beings would be able to also
wield Megatron (and Soundwave as well in Tape deck
mode) when he weighs like 40 tons in Robot mode. And
yes, this type of shit went through my mind at 9. It's
no wonder I turned into the overwrought
critical imbecile I am today.
After the
slaughter, in typical villain fashion, Megatron speaks
aloud their intentions to ambush Earth in this very ship
and destroy the Autobots. We then hear a still
functional Iron Hide, bellow "noooooo!" with his last
gasp, as Megatron presumably blows his head off at
point-blank range with his arm-cannon...as children
likely started blubbering around the world, and parents
wondered just what in the fuck was going on. I myself,
was also upset, but then remembered that their
shitty toy version of Iron Hide never had a head, and
was convinced this would somehow play a part later in
the film. It didn't. They just murdered like 1/3rd
of the original toy-line in like 30 seconds. Gee, I hope
they have some new ones to replace these guys with at
Christmas!!!!! Ahem.
We now cut
to Earth, where we see Hot Rod-- a reckless young
Autobot, voiced by Judd Nelson, who was last seen having
a sexually tense friendship with Molly Ringwald--
fishing with Daniel Witwicky, the son of the TV show's
then-teenaged protagonist, Spike. There is no mention of
his grandfather and other show regular "Spark
Plug", so I guess that means the guy is dead. I wonder
if they buried him in his fucking hard hat? Because
I'll be damned if I ever remember a scene where he
wasn't wearing it. Despite the motherfucker never being
anywhere near a construction site. The two
then spot the Autobot shuttle approaching and the
two race up to the top of "lookout mountain" to get a
better look. And since it's the "future", I'd be remiss
if I failed to mention that Daniel is of course wearing
a one piece monogrammed bodysuit. Huh. I remember 2005,
I don't remember these things. But seriously, why is it
that every depiction of the future involves every person
wearing identical skin-tight bodysuits? And oh ya,
there's never ANY fat people. You know, the actual
complete opposite of the real
2005...
It's at this
point that Hot Rod spots Starscream looking out of the
damaged hull of the ship as it looks to land and warns
the Autobots of the impending assault. From there, a
full on battle takes place, and Blaster (who is the
Autobot version of Soundwave) sends a distress signal to
Optimus, while he battles Soundwave, and while their
respective cassettes war as well. And speaking of
Soundwave, you got to respect the motherfucker for
sticking with a Tape-deck in the year 2005. You just
know his big blue ass has seen a CD player in the last
ten years. But noooooooooo. Jesus, he's as bad as those
assholes that'll have you believe vinyl records sound
better than CDs.
Anyway, things
are not looking good for the Autobots as Devastator (the
robot combination of all 5 Constructions) wreaks havoc
on Autobot city, until the combined efforts of new
faces (Springer, Arcee, Ultra Magnus, Kup and
Hot Rod) all get Autobot City's defense system
functional. Just then Optimus Prime and the Dinobots
arrive, and Optimus single-handedly opens a can of whoop
ass on all the Deceptions, kicking every single one of
their metal asses in short order to the sound of
uber 80's power ballad "The Touch". In fact, just
listening to this song may compel you to perm and
feather your hair, and wear a acid-wash denim
jacket with a logo hand-drawn on the back in indelible
magic marker. You've been warned. This of course leads
to the big Optimus/Megatron showdown we've all
been waiting for. "One shall stand. One shall fall"
says Optimus. I myself always wanted to use this line
amidst a fight, but sadly, most people
don't wait until I finish saying it before
punching me in the face and knocking me out. Maybe one
day.
The two then
do battle in spectacular fashion, and eventually Optimus
triumphs, pulverizing Megs into a cowering mess who now
begs for his life. However, Megatron is just buying time
until he can grab a lone gun laying on the ground. Hot
Rod spots this trick however, and of course he naively
jumps at Megatron, in essence blocking Optimus from
delivering the death blow. This gives Megatron the
chance to grab said gun, and plug Optimus like 5 or 6
times. Jesus. See, this is why you can
never have any
use for teenagers. They're always in the way when you
want to incinerate your 60 foot
sentient robotic nemesis. Plus they never clean up
after themselves.
That
said, Megatron approaches Optimus, to finish him off,
but Optimus has enough energy left to deliver the
fucking POLISH HAMMER~! to Megs and mortally wound
him as well. The Decepticons then retreat as Megatron's
carcass is dragged off by Soundwave. We then cut to
a scene of Optimus on his death bed. Wait. Death
bed? Jesus Christ, I've seen him take a hell of a lot
worse damage in the cartoon and still be back as good as
new. Of course, this was before
they killed Ratchet, the one dude who always pulled him
through. All they have left now is Perceptor.
Cybertron's first openly homosexual Scientist.
Actually, I don't know if he's actually gay. But his
voice and mannerisms ain't exactly bettering his
cause. (Although, it'd be a good choice for him.
A world where there's a male/female
robot ratio of 10,000:1 betters his scoring odds. I
mean, there's got to be a *real* reason for that
giant phallic telescope in robot mode!
AHEM.).
In any
event, we're told by Perceptor that Optimus's wounds are
fatal, and there's nothing he can do. Nothing except
secretly masturbate to the brawny Ultra Magnus when no
one's looking. They must have cut that part out of your
version. Optimus then calls for Ultra Magnus, a robot
that is surprisingly similar to Optimus in stature. In
fact, in toy form, he was IDENTICAL, except he was
painted white and came with a little fake head to
disguise the fact that THIS WAS JUST AN ALBINO
OPITMUS and Dad paid 30 dollars for something he could
have just created in the Garage. Those who lived through
GI Joe's abhorrent rip off known as "Tiger Force" will
understand my disdain for re-tooled toys. We
then find out that Magnus is an "old friend" of
Optmus's. A friend *so close* in fact that this is
the first time in 4 million years they've even mentioned
the fucker. Optimus then says that it's to him he passes
the Matrix of leadership. Yes, The Matrix. And before you
ask, this was indeed YEARS before THAT Matrix. In fact,
The Wachowski brothers were still jerking off to their
Uhura posters (or secretly wishing they were
Uhura) in high school while Keanu Reeves had
not even contemplated taking the red pill, and
instead was about to travel the known continuum in
a phone booth with Bill S. Preston esquire and
George Carlin. So ya, no lawsuits here.
WOAH.
Optimus
soon ejects the Matrix from his chest and gives it to
Magnus, whose first order of business is to drop the
fucking thing. Ya, you picked the right choice there,
Prime. Thankfully, Hot Rod catches the Matrix,
which seems to glow in his hands as if this will play a
part in the movie or something, then hands it to Magnus,
who puts it in his own chest. Optimus then DIES.
Seriously. They killed off the hero of the movie inside
the first 20 minutes. To say this was devastating to
kids would be an understatement. In fact, I'd dare
say this was one of the biggest blunderfucks in movie
history. And as far as kids go, this would be akin
to someone sneaking up behind Santa and cutting the
motherfucker from ear to ear Commando-style (and trust
me, I've been banned from enough Malls at X-mas time to
know how traumatic that is for
them.).
We now cut
to all the Decepticons aboard Astrotrain, who by the way
has about fifteen 40 foot robots inside him,
despite only standing 40 feet himself. It's just then I
realize I'm looking for sense in a movie about million
year old talking robots and subsequently shut the
fuck up. Just then, Astrotrain demands they lighten
their load or risk not getting back to Cybertron.
It's at this point that Starscream takes the
opportunity to FINALLY dispose of Megatron, and
throws him out the side shuttle door along with the
damaged Skywarp, Thundercracker & the
Insecticons. To all the long-term fans of the
Transformers, this was a longtime coming as Starscream
was one of the all time great "tweener" characters.
Evil, but so charismatic you often found yourself
pulling for him. Like me. Minus the Charisma part.
Starscream then nominates himself as their new leader,
and all the Decepticons fight amongst
themselves.
We then see
Megatron and his damaged troops floating lifelessly
through space when they run into Unicron. Yes, they run
into a mobile planet. HOW IS THAT NO
ONE HAS EVER NOTICED THIS GUY?Unicron strikes up a
deal with the mortally wounded Megatron. In exchange for
a new body, and a cure for his pesky allergies,
Megatron must destroy the Matrix of
leadership...the only thing
that can stop him. You know, on second
glance, that part probably wasn't the smartest thing to
mention. Who knew that Unicron was one huge million
foot tall Bond villain? Megatron reluctantly agrees, and
is transformed into GALVATRON. A futuristic Laser
cannon. He then changes the Insecticons and
Thundercracker into Scourge and the Sweeps, and
Skywarp into his new 2nd in command, Cyclonus. He also
gives them a ship, and once again demands that they
destroy the Matrix of leadership. Just then Galvatron
speaks, and gone is Frank Welker's asthmatic voice,
which is now replaced with Mr. Spock's himself, Leonard
Nimoy. Too bad, too. I was really hoping Unicron would
have rebuilt Thundercracker into a giant transforming
inhaler for him. Oh well.
Soon after, we
cut to Starscream's coronation as leader of the
Decepticons, when Galvatron crashes the party and
incinerates Starscream on the spot. NOOOOOOO! Dear God,
here's an idea, Hasbro. How about just giving these guys
new looks? That way you can still move all those fucking
toys without decimating every single character. Good
thing Hasbro wasn't behind say, E.T. Not only would the
poor bastard not have survived, but the FBI agents would
have dragged him outside, put the boots to him, set him
on fire, then fucked him with his own glowing index
finger.
That said,
Galvatron looks to set out on his own agenda from there,
but suddenly BRIGHT RED LINES OF LIGHT~! appear and he's
bombarded by the presence of his maker Unicron, and
compelled to continue on his Matrix-destroying mission.
Damn right. The only way I'm ever becoming a parent is if I
can somehow possess this same ability. I mean, really.
What's the point of bringing life into this world if you
can't bombard them with red lines of psychic fury
and manipulate them into doing your exact bidding
through excruciating mind torture?
Exactly.
In the
meantime, Unicron decides he's hungry again and consumes
both the Autobots moonbases, while Jazz, the only other
African American Autobot (besides Blaster)
warns Earth about the impending
threat. For the record, Jazz was voiced by the
late Scatman Crothers, who let's face it, really had no
choice but to talk jivey after his Mother
named him Scatman. Nice of his parents to map
out his entire future for him like that.
Scatman: "But I really wanted to be
a doctor!"
Mom
& Dad: "That's not how you do,
Scatman. Now dance fah
us."
All kidding
said, this scene is notorious for one reason, and it's
that after Bumblebee and Spike try to blow up Unicron to
no avail, Spike utters the word "shit!"-- a real taboo
at the time for Children's movies. But I
really don't know why. Imagine how much
infinitely cooler Children's movies would be with
expletives...
Fairy
Godmother: "BIPPITY BOPPITY
BOO!"
Cinderella: "Fuck
you."
(Hey, I never said it be
clever, just AWESOME.).
In any event,
Unicron easily devours both moons, and swallows
Bumblebee and Spike's ship as it tries to escape. Back
on Earth, Ultra Magnus, the new leader of the Autobots,
and presumably not a brand of extra durable condoms,
plans his strategy. Just then, Galvatron returns to
Earth and opens fire on the Autobots. The remaining
Autobots split up, as Hot Rod, Kup, and the Dinobots
take one ship, while Magnus, Springer, Daniel and Arcee,
the only female Autobot take the other. Ah, poor Arcee.
Imagine being the only female of their species. She's
got to be their equivalent of Smurfette.You just know
every Autobot uses her as their own personal
cock-puppet. It's just too bad Iron Hide's dead, because
the visual of him bending her over Teletran 1 yelling
out "Leakin' Lubricants!" during climax would be
the greatest moment in Transformers history. You
know, once you get past all the taboos and lifelong
psychological trauma robot porn would bring up. But
hey, if you can get past the fact that Megatron's
trigger is located where his cock would be, and accept
the fact that every time you're firing off a round, so
is he, it makes the whole sordid issue easier to handle.
Penis.
From there,
Galvatron gives chase to Magnus's ship, and eventually
on the other, accidentally, the Dinobots, Hot Rod
and Kup crash land on the planet Quintessa. For the
record, Kup is portrayed as an elderly Autobot. How
he shows HIS age, and the
others don't is beyond me. I mean, they've already
established that most of the Autobots and
Decepticons were in stasis for at least
3 million years on earth, so how long is it before
a fucking robot starts looking old? But all that aside,
the irony of an old robot is hilarious. After all, in
real life, the elderly are TERRIFIED of technology, and
can't even bring themselves to program their
fucking VCRs, so imagine them ACTUALLY BEING
technology? It boggles the mind.
That said, Hot Rod and Kup end up
underwater, where Kup is disabled by a giant robot
squid, so Hot Rod fights his way through and somehow
gets Kup out of the mess before repairing him. But of
course, seeing how Kup is elderly he doesn't appreciate
it. And in reality, let's be honest, Kup would have A
HELL OF A LOT MORE jobs for Hot Rod to do than
that before he'd EVER let him get on his way.
Anyone with annoying grandparents knows
exactly what I'm talking about. "Ya, while
you're down there soldering my arm, lad, how about
taking the trash out, too? And after that, I got these
boxes in my basement. If you could just move
those...".
We then cut to
Ultra Magnus and crew landing on the Planet of Junk.
And they mean it literally. All they needed to
hammer it home was old Fred Sanford waddling out.
Wuh, wuh
wuh wuh wah wah wuh, wuh wuh wuh wah wah
wawawa! In any event, The Autobots
and Daniel, who has been suited with his dad's old
"exo-suit" (which as well remember were completely
commonplace in 2005) exit the ship and help
themselves to the junk, which angers the planets
inhabitants, the Junkions-- a race of robots who like
their robotic counterparts at the beginning of the film
also possesses robot mustaches. And oh ya, they speak
entirely in TV catchphrases, led by Wreck-gar, voiced by
Monty Python's Eric Idle.
Anyway, back to
Hot Rod & Kup. Despite escaping the underwater
pitfalls earlier, They soon run into the
Sharkticons. Kup tries the universal greeting of
"BAH-WEEP-GRAAAAANAW-WEEP NEENEE BONG", a
language reputably invented by
this
man. Unfortunately, it doesn't work,
and soon the duo find themselves captured, which of
course Kup probably somehow blames on Hot Rod. But
hey, call me crazy, but I bet under that harsh exterior
lies a heart of
gold~!!!
Soon after, Hot
Rod & Kup find themselves imprisoned, along side a
cell containing the sole survivor of the world seen
devoured during the film's opening by Unicron. And
of course, he fills in our heroes on the peril's of
Unicron, before being immediately sentenced
for execution after serving his purpose. The only
thing that would have made it better is if he yelled out
"I had only one more day until retirement!" before being
dropped into the Sharkticon tank, just to, you
know, hammer home those movie clichés a little bit
more.
We now cut back
to the Planet of Junk where the Autobots repair their
shuttle. Man, it's a good thing they spontaneously
landed on a planet that just happened to have every
single part they were looking for. And yes, this does
happen ALL THE TIME. Just the other day, I was dropped
off in the middle of the woods, and there I found all
the parts needed to repair by broken Xbox. I guess I was
just lucky. That said, things get bad pretty quick when
Galvatron and his troops attack. And in retaliation,
Magnus TRIES TO OPEN THE MATRIX OF LEADERSHIP. For this. Seriously. Didn't Prime
tell your big ass earlier that it was only to be
used to 'light your darkest hour'? (I insist it's
engraved with "Caution: Only open during Darkest
Hour. -Thanks. Optimus.").
Seriously,
Magnus, an attack from about 6 Decepticons is your
darkest hour? This shit
happens ALL THE FUCKING TIME. Clearly, Prime picked
the right man for the job. Anyway, as expected, The
Matrix's opinion of darkest hour and Magnus's obviously
differ, and Magnus is unable to get the thing opened,
and as a result the Sweeps reign laser fire upon him
that causes him to EXPLODE. Explode into perfectly
symmetrical little pieces mind you, that call me crazy,
just might be able to be neatly re-assembled in about 10
minutes. Lucky him. But hey, irregardless, that had to
suck. It's definitely been a bad day to be a giant
Matrix-harboring Transport truck, that's for
sure.
With that
Galvatron takes possession of the Matrix, and decides to
double cross Unicron with it. "With this I shall make
you my slave!" says Galvy.
"Noooooooooooooo!" says Unicron in the depths of space.
Dear God, Unicron; you didn't see this coming? YOU TOLD
HIM IN EXPLICIT DETAIL THAT IT WAS THE ONLY THING THAT
COULD STOP YOU. What did I say about Unicron being
the world's biggest Bond Villain? Hell, we even saw
sharks with laserbeams! Holy shit.
From there,
Hot Rod and Kup are now brought before the tribunal
of Quintessons. A race of creatures whom apparently have
nothing better to do with their time than to try and
execute every asshole who rolls through town. Anyway, as
for the Quintessons themselves, we are eventually told
during the 3rd season that they actually
created the Transformers. Just
how giant fucking eggs with only tentacles for
hands could create intricate machinery is anyone's
guess. Anyway, the Quintessons, have five faces, hence
the Quint part, and all five find Kup & Hot Rod
innocent...then summarily sentence them to death anyway,
and drop them into the shark pit. Finally, a
justice system I can get behind! You can't tell
me a Sharkticon pit wouldn't have came in pretty
fucking handy during Paris Hilton's trial. Hell,
they're probably the only things that haven't eaten
Paris Hilton these days.
Once in the
tank, the duo fight their way through underwater, and
decide the best course of action is to drive in circles
until the water creates a whirlpool and they can
drive right out, physics be damned. Clearly had Ted
Kennedy thought of this scenario at
Chappaquiddick, he'd probably be
President right now. Ahem.
Once on dry land, Kup and Hot Rod fight
off the multitude of Sharkticons, but look overmatched,
but never fear, because here comes the Dinobots and
their new friend "Wheelie" (whom I purposely didn't
mention earlier) to make the big save! And you
might be asking yourself, "Who the fuck is Wheelie?" to
which I'll answer "Exactly." You see, Wheelie, is an
annoying androgynous funboy who speaks in rhymes
and gets to live while the other Autobots who paid their
dues get annihilated. It's a cruel world where a guy
like Iron Hide gets his head blown off, but fucking Elmo
in car form gets to live. That said, The Sharkticons
look to attack, but are ultimately intimidated by
Grimlock (the T-Rex leader of the Dinobots). He
then tells them to instead just turn on the
Quintessons, which they do. Huh. A group of slow-witted
shapeless people who'll seemingly do pretty
much exactly what they're told? Maybe the
Sharkticons are wrestling fans? Could
be?
From there,
Hot Rod, Kup, The Dinobots & Wheelie look for an
escape. Wheelie points out a large cork-screw
shaped ship, and suggests they take that, thus rising his stock
from "completely useless and deserves to be incinerated"
to just "deserves to be incinerated". The Autobots then
steal the cork-screw ship and set a course for the
Planet of Junk. And speaking of Cork-screw ships, I
always imagined this would be the shuttle Jake Roberts
would use if he ever was an Astronaut. After all,
if the cork-screw is that big, imagine the size of the
bottle of wine! Maybe I just wanted to use that joke,
sue me.
Meanwhile on
Planet of Junk, The Junkions come out of the wood work
(junk-work?) and a battle ensues between them and the
Autobots to Weird Al music. It's true. And a more
intimidating battle Anthem I cannot think of.
However, in the midst of the battle, here comes Hot
Rod and company to break up the party, as he offers
Wreck-Gar a peace offering of Energon, while spouting
the Universal greeting--and this time it works! Then, for some strange reason,
a full-on Gay robotic hoe-down takes place, and everyone
starts line dancing. Seriously. Hell, Wheelie even
explores his burgeoning sexuality and kisses
Grimlock. What the fuck? There's dancing, hugging,
groping and loving! And this all goes on despite the
fact that their interim leader Ultra Magnus lay in a
smoldering heap like 5 feet away from them, and their
sacred vessel, the Matrix is in the hands of the enemy.
Why everyone chose THIS exact moment to
explore their cybernetic bi-curiousness, I have no idea.
In any event, they do all stop soon after, and realize,
"Umm, ya, I guess we better do something about dead
Ultra Magnus here", before likely throwing one in Arcee
just to regain their masculinity. The Junkions
then reveal that they can fix Magnus up as good as
new, which is exactly what they do, and like 25 seconds
later he's reassembled and fully functional! Which of
course leads to the question of WHY DID OPTIMUS PRIME
DIE FROM 6 SHOTS, YET MAGNUS EXPLODES AND CAN BE
RETURNED AS GOOD AS NEW? Someone get back to Earth
already and get fucking Optimus' corpse, and bring
it there. It's a much better option then
sticking with the dude who got blown up like 5 minutes
into his leadership term. In any event, The Autobots now
set out to reclaim the Matrix, and are now joined by the
Junkions who take their own ship.
Meanwhile,
Galvatron returns to Unicron, wearing the Matrix around
his neck like a blinged out necklace. YEAHHHHHH
BOYYYYYYYY. GALVA GALV is the one that makes to
mos' money! Galvatron then reveals again his intentions
to make Unicron his slave, but Unicron's answer
is to transform into his full robot form...SLOWLY. Oh so
tediously slowly. In fact, I think an old man putting on
his knee-high socks after getting out of the pool at
Seniors swim moves at a faster pace. But he is
imposing. As the look of complete and utter horror on
Galvatron's face tells the story. A look not seen since
I walked in on my friend Jason's mom nude once. From
there, Unicron reveals that his intention is to destroy
Cybertron, which upsets Galvatron to no end!
"Destroy Cybertron? THAT'S WHERE I KEEP ALL MY
STUFF!" Ok, he didn't say that, but he should have.
In the meantime, Unicron decides to just swallow
Galvatron, and the remaining Decepticons open fire on
him, which he easily shakes off. Soon after, The
Autobots and Junkions arrive and join in on the fight,
as Unicron begins stomping and smashing at Cybertron.
Hot Rod, driving the corkscrew manages to steer the ship
towards Unicron's face and eventually drives it right
through Unicron's eye! Man, you'd think Unicron would
have an eye made of something a little more durable
then glass, but what do I know? Now the poor
bastard is blind. Although, the visual of a million foot
tall 
robot with sunglasses and cane
and a cup of pencils is pretty
hilarious.
Now inside Unicron, Hot Rod falls down a
passage, while Arcee, Kup, Springer and Daniel fall down
another. It's there that they fight off tentacles with
buzz-saws and the like inside Unicron's digestive
system. What, you don't have buzz-saws in your
stomach? Well, they're there. You just need the right
microscope to see them. Clearly. While they're fighting
that off, Hot Rod ends up in a darkened part of
Unicron's stomach where he sees Galvatron and the
Matrix. Galvy looks like he's ready to cut a deal, but
once again, RED LINES OF FURY compel Galvatron to still
do Unicron's bidding. And since it was
the 80's, I was hoping they'd have cued up a special
redux of the Police's Roxanne just for this scene.
UNICRONNNNNNNNNN! YOU DON'T HAVE TO PUT ON THE RED
LIGHT!...
With that,
Galvatron overwhelms Hot Rod, and grabs him around the
neck and begins to strangle him to death...you know,
despite the fact Hot Rod possesses no throat and doesn't
breath air. But hey, it's the thought that
counts.
Meanwhile, back
to Kup & the Gang in the stomach. They
continue fight off more of the stomach's defense
system. Somewhere in all the chaos, though, a laser
blast goes astray and blows a hole in the wall, and
everything floods with water. Completely inexplicable
water. It's just then I get the visual of Unicron
earlier in the day filling a giant paper cup at one
of those office water jugs. Anyway, in the chaos, Daniel
is separated from the pack and somehow finds his way
into a room, where a hanging conveyer belt is dropping
random robots into a vat of acid. He then spots his Dad,
Jazz and Bumblebee in line to be dropped, and Spike begs
Daniel to close the lid. It's at this point, *I* would
have bartered to get some new shit out of the old man
before even contemplating following his instructions,
but hey, I'm a "bad person" as people like to say. Long
story short, Daniel manages to close the lid and
everyone is safe! Even Jazz! This movie has created a
new precedent: BOTH Black characters LIVE. What a
wonderful tool this movie is when it comes to race
relations. Well, except for that whole complete racial
stereotyping thing.
Meanwhile,
back to Hot Rod/Galvatron; somehow, in his last
dying gasp, Hot Rod grabs the Matrix. Cue Stan Bush,
You've got the Touch! You've got the Power! And with
that, Hot Rod grows a swank mustache and cuts the
sleeves of his denim jacket..err, I mean, he becomes
RODIMUS PRIME. Just then I get the visual of all the
previous Prime's laughing hysterically inside the
Matrix. "Haha "Rodimus". And the
fuck is actually going along with it! Sucker!".
Anyway, with
his transformation, Rodimus grows triple his size and
bench presses Galvatron over his head and tosses him
through Unicron's stomach and into space. Funny, I've
tripled in size, and I possess no unique changes,
other than maybe a heart murmur. Why is
he so special? Hot Rod then opens the
Matrix saying "now light our darkest hour!" as Unicron
begins to react violently to the energy bursting through
his vital umm, organs. All the Autobots then transform
and drive out, even Daniel, who somehow transforms in
his exo-suit, without breaking every bone in body. It's
there we get to see Rodimus's new alternate mode... a
fucking WINNEBAGO. Seriously. Perfect for
going on a weekend camping trip? Definitely.
Leading the Autobots into intergalactic war? Umm,
not so much. At this point as well, I should mention
that Kup, as predicted earlier, is now incredibly
proud of Rodimus. "I knew you had it in you,
lad" he says, before eventually muttering :
"Now could you go into the backyard and tighten
the bolt on my hose, it's been leaking. And while you're
there could you maybe carry those sacks of soil for
my garden to the front? Thanks, lad."
With that they
all drive out the other undamaged eye of Unicron, which
now makes him utterly useless, but does open up
some great new possibilities in soul music for him.
Hell, Stevie Wonder can't eat worlds, right? Unicron has
the definite advantage! Unfortunately though, his
burgeoning music career would have to wait, as he just
explodes, but not before bellowing out "You cannot stop
my destinnnnnyyyyyyyy!". But hey, how does he know that
blowing up wasn't his destiny? Because if so, he
accomplished that quite well. Roll that around in your
mouth and see how it tastes.
Our closing
scene is back on Cybertron where Rodimus Prime
gives an inspiring speech to the troops as the new
leader of the Autobots. Wait. Why is HE leader? What,
because he opened the Matrix when no one else could? If
I was an Autobot, I wouldn't let this King Arthur shit
fly. So much for seniority. I guess we know now
that the Autobot's aren't unionized. Oh, ya, parting
words: "The Cybertronian Wars are over!... Umm, until
September when Season 3 starts, but hey, until then
everything's hunky-dory! To All are one!". And hey,
there's Unicron's head just left circling
Cybertron. Nothing potentially dangerous about that!
Ahem. Let's just let the fucking thing coast out
there! What's the worst that could happen? The
End.
Final
Thoughts: This movie is awesome, and is better
than you or anything you could ever accomplish. I
wish I had two more arms so I could give them titties,
err, I mean Transformers four thumbs up. That said,
things kind of went down hill fast for the franchise
soon after. Hasbro obviously realized that killing
Optimus Prime was a mistake and resurrected the guy by
the end of Season 3 (along with Starscream). And good
thing too, because Rodimus ended up being HORRIBLE as
leader. Basically he turned into one big whiny Emo
mess. (Rodemo Prime?). In fact, I wouldn't be surprised
if Rodemo's story eventually ended with him sitting in a
parking lot in Winnebago mode listening to Linkin
Park on his computer stereo, muttering how "no one could
ever understand his pain", while slowly
cutting his gas lines with a razor blade. Still though,
THUMBS WAY UP.
I’m
Sean.
Sean
Carless is a man of many hats. And he wears those hats
to cover an ever-increasing bald spot. Sean's various
scribblings have been read at Live Audio Wrestling, 411
Mania, Wrestlecrap, Honky Tonk Man.com, The Toronto
Star.com, and Lethal Wrestling. He has also cured
AIDS.
