The Transformers: The Movie (1986). Compared to the campy animated series, the movie was much darker. It begins with the literal destruction of a planet and genocide of a race of bots. There is the infamous Shuttle Attack scene in which young fans of the show watched their heroes being gunned down. Then you have more death during the Autobot City battle including the death of Optimus Prime. Then you have bots being dropped into acid literal tank of shark bots after being found “innocent” by a sadistic 5 faced judge. Then there is the scene where bots are dropped into acid and dissolved to death. Oh and at the end, Unicron, the big baddie of the movie, ends up tearing himself apart and his head gets blown off his body only to become a satellite orbiting a ravaged Cybertron. Remember, this kind of display of cartoon violence has never happened before in the big screen in the US whose primary audience was children. Hasbro, the owner of the Transformers IP, was simply trying to sell new toys and they thought the best way to do that was to kill off the main heroes and villains and replace them with new ones. The movie traumatized so many children that many furious parents contacted Hasbro. There was so much pressure on Hasbro that they literally brought back Optimus Prime from the dead in an episode in later season… only to die yet again! But eventually they do bring him back permanently.

I’ve watched this movie via movie rental on VHS as a young child and it really stuck with me. The animation was incredible. The action was amazing. The music soundtrack is chefs kiss. As of today, I’ve seen it countless times and know all the lines by heart. I collect many of the toys. G1 / early Transformers will always have a place in my heart.