Transformers One: A Return to Their Animated Roots, With More 'Reveals' Than Meets the Eye

By John Kirk

Rating: A

Transformers One is a great watch for longtime fans. Though the franchise’s box office success in this century has been predicated on noisy live action with a CGI assist, this exciting and fun-filled film returns the Transformers to their animated roots.

The voice cast, the level of story development and pure imagination in tackling the origins of the Transformers’ relatively untouched civil war, makes this a must-see for any fan of the lore.

Transformers: More than meets the eye.
Transformers: Robots in disguise.

Left and right: Pals D-16 and Orion Pax, the bots soon to be known as Megatron and Optimus Prime

If you’re a Transformers fan, you should be singing this in your head as you read.

Since the ‘80s, the Transformers have developed more of a complex narrative, allowing greater creative freedom in exploring the backstory of these cool characters.

Despite my geeky predispositions and nerdy upbringing, I was not the right generation to have experienced the Transformers as the “cool toy” every kid should have. However, with Marvel Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter’s directive that toy licenses be a major must-have, the Transformers were a Hasbro product that warranted a major comic title, and I was fairly aware of the lore. But despite the television show and the multiple major films that came afterwards, I was not an immediate fan.

With its humble origins of being a toy line lacking a backstory, it was up to comic, television and film writers to devise a narrative behind the two identifiable groups: the noble Autobots and the villainous Decepticons. The former were robots who could change into ground-based vehicles, and the Decepticons were their opposite numbers, who mostly were comprised of robots who transformed into aerial vehicles.

Originally, there was a rough narrative that the two types of robots were engaged in a civil war on their home world of Cybertron, but somehow, this world was lost and their conflict migrated to our planet where they adapted their transformative capabilities to Earth vehicles that we would recognize.

Hence the TV tagline: “Robots in Disguise”.

In Transformers One, we meet Orion Pax (voiced by Chris Hemsworth) and his friend, D-17 (Brian Tyree Henry) in the mining tunnels of the planet Cybertron. Without giving too much away, Cybertron was once a glorious planet populated by transforming robots who were besieged by a deadly race of invaders.

It’s a difficult narrative to explain, but Pax and D-17 are easily recognizable as early versions of Optimus Prime and Megatron, the two major enemies of the Transformers saga. But this film establishes that they were once friends and in fact, lays out the entire reason for the civil war on Cybertron.

This is the curveball behind Transformers One’s success. Prequels risk being predictable because most of the questions in an established franchise have already been answered. The hope here is that the audience will be curious enough to see how it all originated. With its established history, there’s no way it could be foreseeable that Optimus Prime and Megatron were friends.

Of course, it’s difficult to sustain curiosity in a two-hour film; After all, the audience expects to be entertained and Transformers One meets that requirement.

But there’s also a great deal of humour aimed at both fans and newcomers. When you have the talent, timing and abilities of performers like Steve Buscemi and Keegan-Michael Key added to the mix, it adds to the dialogue and the pace of the film.

Though this is clearly a film aimed at families, it’s one everyone can enjoy. In fact, I think I understand the Transformers better because of this film.

Consider this a learning tool for future hopeful prequel screenwriters. I mean, write like there’s more than meets the eye, am I right?

Transformers One. Directed by Josh Cooley. Cast (voices):  Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Brian Tyree Henry, Steve Buscemi, Jon Hamm, Laurence Fishburne, Keegan-Michael Key. In theatres Friday, September 20.