Transformers ONE

This isn’t going to be a movie review, because I don’t do those. But more like a retrospective, now that we’re about a year post-release of what I consider one of the best Transformer movies produced.

Back when the Bay films were in their “Prime”, I had this wish. I wished someone would come along and make a movie about our favorite robots in disguise that focused on them as the characters themselves, at the beginning of the great war.

I thought if someone talented could bring these characters to the big screen it would be a massive hit. In my head I often thought about the song “Zombie” by the Cranberries playing while Ironhide and Prowl were running from enemy fire, hunkered down as the Decepticons advanced on them, their situation clearly hopeless.

(That’s literally as far as I got).

But the premise was there. A war-torn story, but with robots instead of humans. Same emotions. Same stakes. A familiar story, in new packaging.

So when I heard about Transformers ONE I was intrigued, but I wasn’t a believer. Not yet. I thought it might turn out to be too kid-focused. A movie built by committee, as it were.

I got to see the movie a few weeks before official release.

Boy, could I have not been more wrong.

Sure there are a few missteps, a few bad jokes that made it look like a silly kid’s movie. But the story is strong. And it leans heavily into the lore of Transformers, far more than any movie before it, even the 86 movie.

It was everything I wanted from a Transformers movie and more. The team knew how to deliver on a story that was both respectful to the franchise while also giving us something new and exciting. I remember feeling so good at the end of this movie that I couldn't wait to see it again. (And I did, two days later, lol)

Of course, the problem is while the director and the creative team knew exactly what they were doing when they made this movie, the marketing team did not. I can just imagine a bunch of executives sitting around a room having just watched clips from this movie and asking themselves: “Who is this movie for? Who do we market it to?”

The answer they came up with, was kids. If you’ve seen the trailers this is obvious.

And I don’t have a problem with your market being kids if you’ve made a kids-only movie. But this wasn’t that. And if you’ve seen it you know that.

Would better marketing have saved this movie? Given it a chance for the sequels that were obviously planned from the start? Maybe. Maybe not.

Maybe I just have to come to accept that the thing I love is not part of the mainstream. That no amount of storytelling will break through the general populace’s preconceived notions that Transformers is “for kids”.

I think a lot of us can relate to that. We’ve confronted it all our lives. It’s why we have online communities, conventions, Botcons and message boards…because we know the secret.

There’s so much more here than a simple kid’s show.

It really is unfortunate we’ll never see the continuation of this story. The seeds they’d planted with the Quintessons were intriguing to say the least. I can only hope that one day we’ll get the story treatments for movies 2 and 3, in some form or another.

Gimme dem Sharkticons!

Or who knows. Maybe Netflix will come along and decide they’d like to see the sequel too. 

One can always hope.