Movie Review: Transformers One

Transformers One tells a version of the origin of the Transformers. I’m not going to bother summarize it. If you’re a Transformers fan, you’ve probably seen it by now, so let’s start with what I loved.

Starscream getting his high voice because Megatron choked him will always be the number one thing to love about this movie. I will always think of this being why Starscream has such a high voice.

The voice cast is amazing. Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jon Hamm, Steve Buscemi, Lawrence Fishburn, Keegan-Michael Key, wow. I love Steve Buscemi as Starscream. He should always voice him from now on. Lawrence Fishburn was fantastic as Alpha Trion. The voice cast is, however, a double edged sword. More on that later.

The animation is gorgeous. This movie is visually stunning.

As to what I liked.

Initially I liked the story. I have never liked anything comic wise done past the G1 Marvel, and to me the origin I like is the one from the cartoon. So, sure, they substituted being slaves of the Quintessons for them being duped into being slaves of Sentinel Prime. Okay, not the way I would have liked to see them go, but that’s fine. I see the logic as a potential sequel could have focused on a Quintesson invasion. I liked this as the setup for the story and everything that came later was good.

I liked that Megatron essentially took over the High Guard. Seems like a logical way to have started his army and explain why he has so many flyers.

What I did not like.

Hasbro, like Ikarus, made the fatal mistake of flying too close to the sun. This movie bombed because Hasbro spent way too much money on it, thinking all the fans that flocked to Michael Bay’s live action masterpieces (and the two lesser movies since) would flock to this one too. The reality is, only fans and kids were going to go to this movie, because people in this country still stupidly look at animation as for kids. The voice cast that I loved was also this movie’s Achilles’ heel. (Hasbro should read more Greek myths.) How much would the budget have been reduced if instead of casting these big name actors, they had cast the usual suspects? Cullen as Prime, Welker as Megatron, Gilvezan as Bumblebee, etc. I don’t know how much voice actors get paid, but I have to believe the cast ate up way more of the budget than they would have if they hadn’t gone for the big names.

I think this really should have been a Paramount Plus release. Then they would have saved a ton of money on promotion and I’m sure other costs a theater release has that a streaming one doesn’t. Would these changes have reduced the cost of the movie to a point where it would not have been considered a success? I don’t know, but it couldn’t have hurt. Then again, I am not expert on the economics of movie making, so maybe I’m wrong.

And now for the things I hated.

Bumblebee might be the most annoying character in the history of television and movies. I was desperately hoping Megatron would blow his head off just so he would shut the fuck up.

I feel like they missed an opportunity with the Primes. I would have liked to see them all woken up and Megatron have a chance to interact with Megatronus, maybe have something Megatronus says to him push him toward his ultimate betrayal of Optimus Prime. It just seems like waste to have all the Primes and do very little with them.

And now for the things I really hated.

The Quintessons. If they aren’t egg shaped and don’t have five faces, then they aren’t Quintessons.

As I said above, when I saw it, it felt like they had substituted Sentinel Prime for the Quintessons so the Autobots were duped into slavery rather than just being slaves. Stupid, but not horribly so. Then I read online that a major theme of the move is “bodily autonomy”, and I said, what the actual fuck? What complete moron decided that made sense in a Transformers movie? It’s an important issue in the real world, but has no place in a Transformers movie or as part of the Transformers mythos. The Transformers were slaves who rebelled against their masters and eventually split into two factions who went to war for millions of years. It’s not that fucking complicated. The more I thought about it, I realized why this boneheaded, moronic, incompetent decision was made. Some dipshit didn’t want them to be slaves as it might offend someone. Probably the same moron who was working at Disney/Marvel when they said the X-Men wouldn’t be the X-Men because they weren’t all men. So this movie can fuck all the way off. I will probably never watch it again, because all I will be able to think about is how grotesquely stupid it is.

I am so happy this piece of garbage is not getting a sequel. Unfortunately, the doomed to disaster Transformers/GI Joe debacle is still apparently in the works. Perhaps Hasbro could do an intelligent thing and create a coherent, well written, continuing animated series instead of the garbage like this movie and the series we’ve occasionally gotten in recent years, or even better, beg Michael Bay to come back and make the sixth movie we deserve.

Thanks for reading!