Film Review: Transformers One

 NO REAL SPOILERS

I was there, back in 1984, reading the comics featuring Optimus Prime and Megatron.  I started with Issue 4 of the UK run (the second half of US #2) and that was origin enough for me - the Autobots and Decepticons had arrived on Earth and had the ability to transform.  I could work the rest out backwards.

Origin stories generally have the disadvantage that you know how they turn out (we know the characters from stories we've read or seen previously).  In the case of Transformers, the history of Optimus Prime has been covered in the cartoon series, in the episode "War Dawn", where we meet Orion Pax and Elita One.

With such a depth and wealth of history, how is the latest Transformers film, simply titled, "Transformers One" going to manage to tell a new story?  Partly by rewriting canon, and partly by focusing on the characters - this is the origin story for Megatron (and by changing him from a gladiator to a miner) more than for Optimus Prime.

Orion Pax (precursor to Optimus Prime) is written with a youthful and naive optimism throughout.  D-16 (precursor to Megatron) has a similar personality, at least initially.  Bumblebee is annoying, but far better written that in any of the other Michael Bay films (I was amazed to discover that Mr Bay had got his name on this film, there's far more character development and fewer explosions than a typical Bay outing).

D-16's character arc is far more interesting than Orion's - the two characters start as friends, and in order to become enemies, one of them has to go in a different direction to the other: it's D-16 who changes course.  Orion's development to Optimus is simply due to his relentlessly pursuing 'the right thing'; D-16 is more interested in forging a different path and doing things differently.  This is partly ironic, because Orion is the one who 'breaks protocol' in order to save one of his fellow miners near the start of the film.  

There are some key plot developments around halfway through the story, and the two characters respond differently to them.  This sets D-16 on a tangential course to Orion, and the further the story develops, the further D-16 moves away from Orion.  The plot also takes over - D-16 is captured by the enemy at one point, and his experience while he's separated from Orion change him further.  As I said, this is a character story and keeping the focus on a smaller number of characters works well - because they have such distinct personalities.

This doesn't mean that the planet Cybertron is uninhabited, or populated only by faceless drones.  On the contrary, you could rewatch this film and keep finding well-known G1 characters in the backgrounds of all the well-populated scenes.  G1 fans will thoroughly enjoy tracking them all down (for the record, I spotted Jazz, Brawn, Red Alert, Sideswipe, Ratchet, Wheeljack and some of the Coneheads while watching for the first time in the cinema today).

And when you've counted all the characters, listen out for the references:  I picked up, "You don't have touch and you don't have the power!"; "Transform and Roll Out" and "You're on the surface with these idiot Gobots!".

And then there are the visual references - my favourite was close to the end, where Optimus leaps into the air to attack the 'baddies'.  The film goes into slow-mo to make sure it's not missed, but if you ever saw Transformers The Movie, you'll recognise this sequence:

This is the best Transformers film since Dark of the Moon (2011), and possibly since the Transformers (2007).  It's aimed towards children and teenagers (and benefits significantly from not having the hormone-addled Sam Witwicky and his thoroughly annoying parents), and still has plenty to offer long-time Transformers fans who are the parents of those children and teenagers.  I took my teenage son to watch it and we both thought it was amazing, for very different reasons (although the first appearance of Megatron's weapon had us both wide-eyed and amazed).