**POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD**

I grew up in the 80s and Transformers were the best toy ever. To build on the Transformers empire, after various waves of toys, cartoon series and comics, came this movie.

Some people have their gripes with this film, but at the end of the day it's aimed at Transformers fans, not for someone outside that world. Characters don't need to be introduced, as anyone worth their salt will know who they are. And it doesn't matter if said characters are killed off within 5 minutes of their first appearance either.

Kudos to the awesome idea of having a Transformer who is a planet, who is seemingly indestructible. His name is Unicron. It's still jaw-dropping to see him transform even today.

The only thing that can stop Unicron is a power called The Matrix. Obviously it all comes to a head between the two.

The soundtrack is pure 80s cheese, but who cares. It goes very well with the film and is still memorable even today.

Thank god this film was issued onto DVD.

My kids grew up with the video of this movie. They loved it and I love it.

We all took it as a standalone film - the TV series slightly predated the kids, so we missed that.

And, as a standalone film, it is non-stop action and enjoyment. It is exciting, funny, moving, with great visuals, brilliant voice casting (I never thought I would encounter a film where Orson Welles stood side by side with Leonard Nimoy and Eric Idle), and some excellent songs. Really effective songs.

The science fiction is strong. But the humanity is strong too.

Highly recommended.

The Transformers franchise began in 1984 with a toy line and expanded exponentially to include animation, comic books, video games and films. As an adult, I was an outsider looking in at the time, but my boys, aged five and seven, became total Transformers toy fans. They were ubiquitous on store shelves and every birthday and Christmas for a couple of years had to include at least some configuration of Transformer toys for presents.

I come by way of this picture only because it was an IMDb Top 250 selection in 1996, otherwise I wouldn't have any interest in it. Following the story line well enough, I was baffled by how the Autobot heroes were so easily and arbitrarily disposed of, like Optimus Prime (there's one I remember in my kids' collection), and Ultra Magnus, with the character Hot Rod finishing out the picture as Rodimus Prime. Another reviewer here makes sense of all this by stating that the merchandising for successive toy lines required new characters, so that kind of makes sense, but gee, what would have happened to Superman and Spider-Man if the comic book folks dispatched them that quickly. It took half a century for Superman to die and then he was brought back again!

What really floored me about the picture was some of the big name talent that signed on to voice the characters here - Orson Welles, Leonard Nimoy, Robert Stack. Even Scatman Crothers! Holy cow, I wonder what these guys were thinking when they signed on for the gig. It couldn't be for lack of money. I'd really like to have been a fly on the wall when they brought Orson Welles in to pitch the idea. That must have been some show.

As for the picture, I guess it's OK for a kids' product. The story moves along at a blistering pace, with colorful backgrounds and an almost anime-like quality. Keeping track of the characters can be an exercise in futility, with names like Megatron, Unicron, Galvatron, the Decepticons and Constructicons. Sounds like they'd need a panel discussion at the San Diego Comic-Con to put it all in perspective. If it all sounds like a lot of beryllium baloney, well I guess you just had to be there back in the day watching the TV show and movies. For my part, I'd be interested in a story about the Shrikebots on Dometron.