The time was 1986. The place was some shitty theatre that they tore down to pave way for a wholesale outlet here in NY. The event? Transformers: The Movie.

My mother had agreed to take me and two friends to what we were sure was going to be the greatest 90 minutes or so of our lives. We got to the theatre a little early, so we had time to debate what was going to happen. The commercials had teased the death of Optimus Prime, but I argued that there was no way in Hell Optimus would get killed by 'the bad guys'. My friend made an excellent point that they didn't even mention Megatron in the commercial, so I started to worry. Nevertheless, us three seven-year-olds were pretty certain that we were gonna be seeing the coolest thing of all time, and we didn't want my unhip mother spoiling any of the fun, so I made her sit two rows behind us.

Now while that in itself may seem cruel, it's actually a lot worse than it sounds. Not only did I demand that this poor woman not sit with us, I made certain that no one would even think she was there with us. No speaking to her, no acknowledgement, nothing. So what the audience thought was that a 40 year old woman spent her afternoons alone in the movie theatres hanging on Hot Rod's every last witty comment. Needless to say, this was the last time she'd agree to bring me to the movies under my strict regime.

Now, onto the flick:

No wait, before that...here's a pic of Torrie Wilson. That should keep the non-Transformers fans here for awhile. Stay with me, and maybe I'll give you another one.

Proceeding...

As you can tell just from reading my past articles here, I own a lot of shitty movies. Movies that I would never admit owning to the general public. Movies that are so strange, stupid, or embarassing, I relabel them 'Seinfeld Reruns' before adding them to my video wall. Transformers: The Movie is not part of that ongoing saga. I'm proud to have it...I fucking take the thing with me on weekend trips if there's even the slightest rumor of a VCR being present. In fact, a few weeks back I went to the Poconos with my trust video, and forced a bunch of friends to watch Rodimus Prime rather than focus on seeing color trails with the help of their unprescribed 'medicines'. The point is, it's something I don't think any self-respecting person should go without seeing.

Most of us know the plot, but I guess some of you have been subjected to the crime that is not seeing this movie, so here's the basics:

* Tensions between the Autobots & Decepticons are high. Oddly, there seems to be a lot more Autobots than before. And what's even stranger, some of them seem to have celebrity voices. I spent more time waiting for the Robert Stack-voiced Ultra Magnus to tell me that perhaps I could solve this mystery than wondering who was going to put the poor sap out of his misery by shooting him.

* War on Earth between the two robot factions. Hot Rod, a cool looking car with the classic 80s party attitude and Judd Nelson's hip happenin' voice, inadvertently causes Optimus Prime to get seriously injured (read: smashed up) in a battle with Megatron. Luckily, Prime inflicts almost as much damage on Megs before the retreat finally goes through.

Now, before we move on, I must explain to you that, apparently, the time before the original series ended and the movie began, these Transformers must've really bolstered up their weaponry. In the cartoon show, an Autobot could get shot by the entire Decepticon army, and yet he'd still be there to laugh at Spike's witty comment at the end of the show. In the movie? One shot, you're dead. Megatron layed out about a dozen classic characters with ease. Pretty graphically too, or at least pretty graphically considering this was a cartoon and these were robots.

* Optimus Prime Dies, Long Live The Alliance. Despite the fact that Optimus was shot no less than 8,674 times in the first season of the Transformers cartoon series, Megatron's gunshots proved fatal. Everyone cried, including Daniel, Spike's son. Actually, Daniel was the only one who could actually cry, but fembot Arcee looked pretty close. Point? Prime handed the Matrix of Leadership over to Ultra Magnus.

Matrix of Leadership? Hmmm...I don't recall any mentions of a special Matrix of Leadership before. And I didn't know every Transformer had a compartment for it. Isn't that kinda a tease? You have this big gaping hole in your chest perfectly suited for Matrix carrying, yet only one or two guys in a millenium actually get to have the damn thing. Imagine the conversations...

Bumblebee: I don't get it. Why do I have a spot for the Autobot Matrix? It'll be a cold day in Cyberhell before anyone passes that fucker to me.

Springer: Just do what I do! ::opens his chest:: Look, I can fit the entire 8-track set to Desert Isle in here! It's great!

* Decepticons dump Megatron. Unicron does some wacked out shit. In order to unload some space, the healthy Decepticons unload the battered and bruised ones off Astrotrain into space. Starscream takes personal delight in kicking ol' Megs from the ship, most likely cuz Megatron's whipping his cybernetic ass in our first X-Entertainment Poll.

Enter Unicron. I didn't mention him earlier, but he's kinda important, considering he's a Transformer the size of a planet ::coughDeathStarcough:: who destroys other planets to sustain energy. ::coughGalactuscough:: In any event, after some bargaining and hooplah, Megatron agrees to let Unicron give him a new body. It wasn't a tough decision really...

Megatron: So let me see if I got this deal straight. Either I let you give my battered self a new, more powerful body...or you'll eat me. Let me think about this.

So Megatron is transformed into Galvatron, and some other Transformers are turned into more powerful robots, including my personal favorite, Cyclonus. Unicron sends them off to destroy Ultra Magnus, or more specifically, the Autobot Matrix. For some reason, the Matrix is the only thing that stands in the way of Unicron's universal domination.

Before we move on, here's another pic of Liquorhead's girlfriend.

Continuing...

* Some funky shit goes down. Hot Rod and Kup fight Sharkticons. Ultra Magnus gets destroyed and rebuilt by the Junkions. Annoying Transformer Wheelie comes into play. And a load of other crap happens to, but all you really need to know is that Galvatron has killed Starscream in revenge and regained Decepticon leadership, the Autobots aren't too thrilled with their chances, and Galvy now also has the Autobot Matrix, which he decides to use as a tool to hopefully put Unicron under his control.

Clusterfuck!

* All out chaos. Unicron's none too pleased with Galvatron, so he decides to eat Cybertron. But not before transforming into special robot mode. Autobots are fighting Decepticons. Decepticons are fighting Autobots. Autobots are fighting Unicron. Unicron is fighting everyone.

* Hot Rod Goes Corporate. The true power of the Autobot Matrix is revealed! It makes certain Autobots 6" taller! After morphing into Rodimus Prime, the former Hot Rod kicks Galvatron's tail...Unicron blows up...all rejoice. Everyone's happy, except for Orson Wells, who died before he could finish Unicron's voice.

And there you have it. I kinda got lost there at the end, but that Torrie pic is a tad distracting.

That's the plot. Now here's the plot oversights....

THE DINOBOT SNARL LEGACY --

Snarl was present for the initial battle on Earth...for 2.5 seconds. Then he dissapeared for the rest of the movie. To this day, nobody knows what the fuck happened to Snarl or where he went...until now.

I can't say I blame him.

Hey Unicron...you forgot. The Matrix is supposed to HURT you!

For a guy who seemed to fear the Matrix so much, Unicron didn't seem all that affected by it's presence. Also, for a Transformer who could destroy a planet in about two minutes, didn't Unicron seem to be having a little bit more trouble with a handful of Transformers flying around his head than he should've?

Also:

* When Hot Rod fires at the incoming shuttle with the Decepticons onboard, there is a shot with Kup saying, "What's that darn fool doing?" In this scene we see from left to right, Kup, Hound, Huffer, and Sunstreaker. But later, when Optimus Prime flies to Earth with the other shuttle, we see Sunstreaker co-piloting the shuttle. How can he be in two places at once?

* When the fallen Decepticons are thrown out of Astrotrain on the way back to Cybertron, we see Thundercracker (blue jet) and Skywarp (black jet) get thrown out with Megatron and the Insecticons. Wee see them get turned into Cyclonus and the Sweeps, but during Starscream's coronation on Cybertron, both Thundercracker and Skywarp are there, happy as clams that their fellow seeker jet got his long-awaited promotion.

There's a ton of them, mainly having to do with Transformers that die only to reappear playing trumpets at Starscream's celebration five minutes later. But we're at the part of the article where we do multimedia now...so if you want to hear me endlessly debate whether or not Rumble's color scheme was erroneous on the tv show or in the toys, e-mail me instead. :)

Note: More neato Transformers multimedia can be found on our, you guessed it...Multimedia page. Check the main page of X-E for the link. As for these clips - allow them to download FULLY before playing them, otherwise you'll have to keep pressing start and play till they're all done. Got it?

Remember the movie commercial? The one that begged the question...does Prime....die? Click HERE to see the ORIGINAL Transformers movie trailer!

How does a Transformer go through puberty? He inherits the Autobot Matrix. Watch Hot Rod's stunning transformation in Rodimus Prime by clicking HERE.

So my friends and I met back up with my mother, leaving the theatre, with our minds completely blown. What had we just seen? One of the greatest things of all time. Something I'd end up seeing no less than a thousand times more, with many different people, in many different places. I can tie this fucking stupid movie to every major event in my life if I tried hard enough.

Afterwards, she brought us food shopping. We got in trouble for impersonating Dinobots and running amuck screaming the two curse words found in the movie. It was definitely a good day, and this is definitely a great flick.

- Matt
matt@x-entertainment.com