Transformers One

This review was commissioned by @skaianDestiny


I'm not sure just how many times the Transformers continuity has been rebooted. It's a lot, though. A lot of times. The most recent of them was just last year, with a new reimagining kicking off with the release of the feature-length animated film "Transformers One."

I'm in kind of a weird spot when it comes to reviewing this. On one hand, as someone who didn't grow up consuming Transformers media, this movie seems like a good jumping on point. On the other hand, I still have seen *some* Transformers media, and this movie specifically covers an alternate version of the same origin story I looked at in the IDW comics' "Chaos Theory" arc. So, I necessarily have to compare it against that, while also understanding that there's a lot about both the IDW continuity and the intergenerational Transformers lore that I don't know.

In particular, before going in, I want to say that "Chaos Theory" is especially high regarded *within* the IDW continuity. It might not have been a representative example, in terms of quality. For all I know, the IDW comics completely faceplanted with their plotting and politics outside of that one backstory arc. So, while I am going to compare TO's take on the overlapping subject matter somewhat unfavourably to IDW's, I also acknowledge that if I'd read more of the IDW comics or seen more Transformers stuff in general I might feel differently.

With that caveat out of the way, Transformers One does a lot of things that I'm *pretty sure* are new to the franchise as a whole, and some of them are quite interesting. I'm also somewhat pleased by its take on the characters, and how it isn't afraid to reimagine them very heavily. The best example of this would be TO's take on Optimus Prime himself. He's still the hero of course, but he's a very different *kind* of hero than in previous portrayals. By the end of the film he starts to resemble his traditional self, but even then he's clearly put together differently. This is a snarky, scatterbrained, rule-breaker hero, bumbling his way into success.

Almost like your traditional Disney/Pixar hero, complete with the same style of physical comedy.

I thought of Early Pixar a lot in this movie. But, while I saw a lot of Toy Story and Monsters Inc in here, there's another old CGI film from a different studio that I thought of even more.

And yes, I know about Pixar's "A Bug's Life." But the visuals of Transformers One really *specifically* reminded me of Dreamworks' "Antz." Particularly these telescoping shots that go in, around, and through these masses of underground Cybertronian architecture. And some other scenery within a mine, specifically. Early on in the movie, it occured to me that the animation and cinematography was making all the characters seem very small and lightweight, even though they're supposed to be multi-ton giant robots (as this story takes place entirely on Cybertron, there's no humans for scale). I hadn't been sure what about the transformers was making me understand them to be tiny, but as soon as I noticed the Antz-isms with the scenery it clicked.

Hell, there are even some bits of character design, with the faces and body language of characters who play similar roles in each film, being oddly reminiscent. Yeah, okay, I'd bet money on there having been direct influence now.

It absolutely ROCKS those aesthetics, just to be clear. This is a gorgeous movie to watch. In fact, I'd say the visuals are the best thing about it.

As far as the story itself goes, my feelings are mostly positive. There's a lot I think it did well, but also a good bit - mostly around the end - that I found disappointing, especially compared to how the comics had it.

Anyway. This version of the Transformers' origin story begins with Orion Pax (soon to be Optimus Prime) and Unit D-16 (soon to be Megatron) as a pair of miners, slaving away in the deep caverns of Cybertron to feed their civilization's caloric needs during a time of scarcity. This energy shortage came about when a sacred artifact - the Matrix of Leadership - was lost in battle to alien invaders. Only the wielder of the matrix can cause Primus - the titanic living machine that makes up the core of Cybertron - to release the "energon" material that the transformers feed on. Since the artifact's loss, the transformers have had to chip energon ore out of the bedrock around Primus' body, a painstaking and dangerous labor, and it's still barely enough to keep their species from starving.

Starting Orion and D-16 out as a pair of fellow proles, riding the same trains together to the mines every day where they slave away in the same hazardous tunnels under the same petty tyrant forewoman, definitely makes their eventual antagonism more of a tragedy. And, to be fair, while the IDW comics really got some good, thought-provoking drama out of the contradiction of a former oppressor trying to take himself seriously leading a democratic revolution, I think having them both start out as workers is less fraught. Especially considering that this movie seems to be aimed at a somewhat younger audience than those comics, so clear messaging is for the best.

If anything, their personalities are almost *reversed* from how IDW had them start out. Orion is the idealistic dreamer, questioning everything and always looking for exceptions and justifications. D-16 is complacent, broadly satisfied with his meagre lot, with all the unpleasantness of his exploited blue-collar life being attributed to malicious individuals like "uptight manager" and "brutish cop" and "dickhead security guard." His faith in the status quo overall is strong, and his loyalty to Cybertron's charismatic dictator, Sentinel Prime, is absolute. He has a bit of a rebellious side, but Orion is the one who has to keep giving him the excuses to act on it, and he always claims to resent Orion for it even as he always ends up going along with his hijinks in the end.

This creates some thematic issues with where the story ultimately ends up going, imo. But we'll get there when we get there.

As commoners, Orion and D-16 don't have "transformation cogs" that would allow them to reshape their robotic bodies at all. Only the higher classes - the military, administrative, and similar - Cybertronians are really "transformers." Despite this hardware limitation, Orion has a knack for getting into places and accessing information that he shouldn't while just barely managing to stay out of jail. In particular, he's been making a project of researching the circumstances of the Command Matrix's loss. This is the event that created the status quo that Orion and D-16 were born into, with the scarce energon and the need for endless mining. It's also the event that left Sentinel Prime the effective monarch of Cybertron, as the other Primes - basically, robot demigods birthed directly from the living core of Primus - were all killed in battle when the Matrix was lost. Since then, Sentinel Prime has led periodic military expeditions to Cybertron's desolate surface, both to search for any sign of the invaders' return, and to hopefully find the lost Command Matrix. The thing is, for an event of such singular importance to recent history, and one that occupies much of the very PR-savvy Sentinel Prime's attention, the recorded details of the Command Matrix's loss are weirdly scant.

So, Orion has been breaking into archives and spying on elites, trying to figure it out, while D-16 grudgingly (but with a half-suppressed sort of guilty excitement) covers for him. The real inciting event for the story, though, doesn't involve Orion's research project at all, but simply him being a malcontent. Sentinel Prime has returned from yet another unsuccessful mission on Cybertron's surface, and to cheer everyone up he's declaring a national labor day and holding some bread and circus events to entertain them.

It's a pretty great character introduction for Sentinel. Real slimy, media-savvy demagogue vibe, whose charisma mostly bounces off of Orion and mostly works on D-16, though neither of them are totally immune. Even Orion seems to think that the dictator is a good-ish transformer trying to make the best of a rough situation, though he disagrees with some of his policies.

However, Orion ALSO thinks that the transformer-only race and obstacle course event is a perfect opportunity to stir up shit and call attention to the plight of the miners. Resulting in a very silly, very Pixar-esque sequence in which he twists Megatron's arm into illegally joining the race with a pair of stolen rocket-packs to make up for their lack of transforming ability. It's as goofy as it sounds, but it's also visually spectacular in a way that impresses even someone with minimal appreciation for visual spectacle in media like me. It's impossible for screenshots to convey just how amazing the race scene looks in motion; you'll have to take my word for it or (better yet) watch it yourself to understand.

The hovering smartroad constructing itself ahead of the racers and dissassembling itself behind them in realtime is just one of many amazing details that a still can't capture.​

Like I said, the visuals are the best thing about this movie. Top marks all around for that, especially during the big setpiece scenes like this one. Even if you don't see this movie, I strongly recommend trying to find a clip of the race scene online somewhere.

Rather than ruin everyone's bread and circus with a police intervention, the race coordinators decide to throw the illicit racers a bone and add "miners" as a team to the official listings. And, when Orion and D-16 don't come in last place, or even second to last place, or even third to last place, they create a real stir. Orion meant for this stunt to send a message about the worth and capability of non-transforming proletarians, and he succeeded. After the race (and after Orion and D-16 are given a machine shop visit to treat the wear and tear they inflicted on themselves), Sentinel Prime comes to congratulate them in person.

This is one of the best scenes in the movie, simply for how it manages to explain capitalist recuperation in a way that even children can understand.

In the time that Orion and D-16 have been in repairs, the productivity of all mining crews has gone way up due to the morale boost that their stunt provided. Sentinel Prime is rethinking his entire approach to worker-targeted propaganda after seeing this, and he's eager to thank and reward these two for showing him the way.

They're both simultaneously flattered, relieved, and "um...what the fuck." Orion leaning more toward the WTF reaction, and D-16 toward the flattered one, as you'd expect given their attitudes.

...

Like I said. For kids, this is really, really good political education.

Also, the animators and voice actor nailed Sentinel Prime. Just the perfect embodiment of "media-trained corporate douche" in alien robot packaging.

...

Unfortunately for them, some of Sentinel Prime's underlings are much less thrilled about these upstart workers. Especially since some of them lost their own placings in the race because of the two's antics. So, as soon as Sentinel Prime has headed back up to the surface for another mission, Orion and D-16 find themselves tossed into a waste-disposal labour camp by these disgruntled enforcers. A series of whacky hijinks in the waste processing facility has them making the acquaintance of not-quite-sane laborer B-27 (soon to be known as Bumblebee), and - through him - lucking into an ancient data storage device that contains a clue to the location of the lost Matrix of Leadership.

D-16 is reluctant to go on yet ANOTHER illegal goose chase in the hope of improving their status, but the knowledge that Sentinel Prime actually did favor them and that their misfortune since was blatantly the work of criminal actors makes him a bit easier to sway. So, they escape the garbage disposal gulag and head for Cybertron's dangerous and forbidden surface. Hoping to either find Sentinel Prime's retinue and hand the data over to them, or to find the Matrix of Leadership themselves and hand him that. As luck would have it, some of the waste that's been processed is brought up to the barren surface for disposal, so getting there is as simple as sneaking aboard a garbage train.

Well, "simple." It turns out that Orion and D-16's petty tyrant manager, Elita, from the mines was reassigned to garbage disposal herself as a result of some earlier hijinks (there are a lot of hijinks in this movie, it can be hard to keep them all straight), and she thinks that catching these stowaways might get her some of her old status back (and also be satisfying personal revenge). Cue another silly, but very visually spectacular, action scene as they chase each other around the train while it crests along another smart-road onto Cybertron's hauntingly beautiful and absurdly dangerous surface.

Once again, stills don't do it justice.

They manage to resolve their conflict in the name of survival, once the seemingly sentient earthquakes that plague the surface start closing in on them and knock them off of the train. Finding either Sentinel Prime or the Matrix itself is in all four of their interests, after all. So, they follow the coordinates in that ancient recording, and it leads them to a rugpull discovery.

This is actually another place where Transformers One does the exact opposite of what the IDW comics did. In the IDWverse, the old Cybertronian regime was an imperial core with external colonies to exploit as well as its own put-upon working class. In the Transformers One continuity, it's a banana republic.

Sentinel Prime (who isn't actually even a Prime, as it turns out; just a high-ranking official who stole the transformation cog of a genuine Prime) betrayed his superiors to the alien invaders. The real reason for the energon shortage is because he's been shipping the lion's share of their harvest to the surface; energon is what the aliens were after when they attacked Cybertron in the first place. Sentinel Prime's regime is a puppet government installed by the space squid CIA to make sure the fruit stays cheap.

The Matrix of Leadership, meanwhile, no longer exists. It self-destructed when it fell into enemy hands. The reason that Primus has been stingy with the energon, and the reason why both the surface and the mines are plagued by deliberately aggressive earthquakes, is basically because Primus is having an extreme immunoresponse; hiding inside its shell and trying to repel the parasites.

Of course, the immiseration that this status quo resulted in for the majority of the cybertronians makes things dangerous for the regime. Hence, Sentinel Prime has been removing the transformation cogs of all newborn miners and laborers before they come online, to ensure that they remain much weaker and able to be overpowered by his numerically inferior soldiers.

...

Really inspired and novel take. And also, once again, really good at explaining the nature of imperialism - including its intersection with environmental degradation - in a way that children can understand.

Heck, it does a better and more sophisticated job of this than the Avatar movies, and those aren't even aimed at children.

...

Unfortunately, after this point is where the movie starts to go downhill for me.

The biggest problem is D-16. I see what they were *trying* to do with him, after his faith in the system and the leader are both shattered and he spirals into anger and resentment. The thing is, the conflict the story creates around this anger and resentment of his just doesn't add up.

He starts doing this thing where, whenever anyone talks about any kind of plan for overthrowing the regime, D-16 just angrily screams at them about how killing Sentinel Prime himself is all that matters. And everyone gives him these shocked and freaked-out looks while ominous music plays. And like...okay, I get that this kind of obsession is unhealthy and counterproductive. But I also don't understand where this monofocus is coming from, or - more importantly - why D-16 sees it as mutually exclusive with what everyone else is trying to do. I can see the difference in priorities leading to conflict later on, but the movie has it as leading to conflict immediately, before any such contradictions arise, and it's just weird.

Concurrent with these revelations, the gang are given the transformation cogs they were denied at birth by a dying remnant of the old Prime government they find on the surface, giving them the transformation ability that lets them fight on a level with Sentinel's enforcers. In this version, having a transformation cog doesn't just give them an alternate form; it lets them restructure and reshape their bodies at will, granting them each a range of configurations as well as (effectively) moment-to-moment self-armoring and self-repair capabilities. It's pretty well thought out. However, the next big WTF comes when they use their new powers to prove themselves against a remnant of the original Prime regime's "high guard" elite forces, who have been fighting a fruitless guerilla war against Sentinel and his masters on the surface for decades and gone kinda nuts in the process. Led by this guy:

And including among their number Soundwave, Shockwave, and some other familiar faces.

The movie's treatment of the other proto-decepticons is even more bizarre than its attempt at showing D-16/Megatron's fall.

Like, they've apparently degenerated into Mad Max bandits obsessed with individual strength and brutality during their decades of guerilla warfare. Largely as a consequence of them being cut off from the rest of transformer society and bereft of their Prime leaders. But like...even if we assume that these conditions would result in that outcome (which I have problems with), there's a big problem here. Nothing would have PREVENTED the High Guard from returning to the underground cities and telling everyone what happened. Getting to and from the surface is not that hard. The names and memories of the high guard members are held in high esteem by transformerkind (D-16 recognizes Starscream's face from the history books as soon as he sees him, and is immediately reverent until he realizes how batshit the latter has gone).

D-16 has to beat Starscream up in personal combat in order for the high guard remnant to take their group seriously. After which point they consider him their new leader. Because that's how they work now, for some reason, I guess.

Their return to the underground is preempted by a surprise attack from Sentinel's forces, resulting in many (including Starscream and D-16) being captured and tortured by Sentinel. There's one bit of this sequence where Sentinel notices a decorative patch that D-16 was wearing, depicting Megatronus Prime - the most powerful of the original Prime Transformers - and reveals that he personally murdered Megatronus and took his transformation cog. An a whim, he tortures D-16 by painfully branding the outline of the Megatronus patch into his hull, and that ends up being the origin of the Decepticon symbol. Eh, okay I guess.

Anyway, Orion, Elita, Bumblebee, and the remaining proto-decepticons return to the underground and reveal the truth to the public, spurring a mass revolt. There's some good action here, with the proto-decepticons running distraction around the capital city of Iacon while Orion and Elita get themselves into position to disseminate the info (though I groaned a little when the dissemination took the form of broadcasting some candid conversations with Sentinel. That trick was the crux of a lot of plots throughout the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, but for a futuristic movie made in 2024 when deepfakes have been a thing for many years already...I think the writers could have worked a little harder here). Anyway, amid the chaos, we end up getting a one on one duel between D-16 and Sentinel himself, which ends with Orion taking a bullet for the defeated Sentinel to stop D-16 from killing him.

Because killing is wrong.

:/

Okay. I agree that killing defeated enemies is wrong when you have the option of giving them due process. D-16 is doing a bad thing here. However.

1. I don't think it's that important what happens to Sentinel personally. Certainly not as important as the movie wants us to think it is, especially considering that...

2. A few damned minutes ago, we have Bumblebee slaughtering his way through enemy soldiers without knowing what he's doing, and playing it for laughs. Sure, those are unmistakably combat deaths, but the fact that the movie is still making light of these unnamed mooks' deaths almost in the same breath as it gives so much weight to the prospect of a named villain's is part of a really fucked up thing in action movies that's always bothered me. Also...

3. I don't think it's right for the movie to put Orion in place to pass judgement on D-16 for this particular thing at this particular time. D-16 is the one who was just being physically tortured by a sadistically gloating Sentinel. That doesn't make what he's doing now right, of course, but the way the scene has Orion judging him for it rather than just stopping him from doing it seems really off. If Orion himself was being framed as insensitive for how he handled this, I'd have fewer problems with it, but he isn't.

Anyway, D-16's response to this is to throw the wounded Orion off a cliff. And then give a villain speech to a crowd of watching cybertronians. And then...he and the high guard start blowing up random buildings and declaring how they're going to destroy the city now.

-___-

What...?

Why...?

Where does this...?

Fortunately for everyone, Orion falls into the core of the planet and is absorbed by Primus. Who remakes him as a genuine Prime Transformer, gives him the new name of Optimus, and spits him back out to smack D-16 down.

Which he does. Even though D-16 has already torn the Megatronus cog out of Sentinel's hulk and installed it in himself, taking on his own name of Megatron in the process. Wrong of him because it wasn't divinely ordained like it was for Optimus, I guess.

After defeating Megatron, Optimus Prime exiles him to the surface. Along with the entirety of the Royal Guard remnants.

-____-

Really? No, like...therapy? These guys might be (inexplicably) crazy, but they also just fought and died for your liberation. Not even any considerations of amnesty? Including, like, judgements of "not guilty by reason of insanity?"

Megatron himself doesn't even seem like he's fallen to evil in his arc, so much as he seems like a guy who's having a violent nervous breakdown (well, it seems MORE like that than anything else. More than even that, it just seems like bad writing).

The contemptuous treatment of the royal guard bothers me more, though. Largely because it really, REALLY echoes the real life treatment of American military veterans. "Who cares, they're crazy and dangerous" isn't an unfamiliar sentiment for the makers of this American-made movie.

The movie ends with Optimus Prime as the new, divinely-appointed leader of Cybertron, and the newly-christened Decepticons exiled back to the surface to plan revenge.

Once again, if Optimus was framed as having done something wrong here, I'd find it more palatable. But the movie is really rubbing in the "wise prophet-king" framing for him throughout. And we end with the Autobots as the newly entrenched government, and the Decepticons as ragtag rebels against them, which...yeah I don't like it.

...

The thing is, there was a much better approach the movie could have taken. It seemed like it was setting it up deliberately, but then it just drops it before the ending.

See, the alien imperialists - the quintessons - are organic. Just to rub it in, they fly around in what look a lot like bioships. During the surface escapades, the characters find an organic ecosystem taking root on Cybertron's surface, and their mystified reactions to it suggest that such life forms are not supposed to be here.

It's pretty strongly implied that these trees, grasses, etc, are invasive species brought here by the quintessons. Either deliberately as part of a longterm colonization plan, or just by accident.

Given that synth-supremacism has been a major part of the decepticon ideology in previous continuities, it...well, I think you can all see where I'm going with this. And where I thought the movie was going to go with this.

The treatment of the overthrown Sentinel and his allies could have still been a major tension point in this story's ending. It's something that could have led to a falling out between Optimus and Megatron, and perhaps been the cause for Primus only choosing one of them for an original Prime treatment. But Megatron deciding to kill Optimus over it - and, for that matter, even Optimus being willing to die over it - seems really premature. And the whole thing with Megatron and the High Guard randomly deciding to destroy the city that they've just fought to save - thus twisting Optimus' arm into exiling them to set up the next conflict - was just idiotic. ESPECIALLY when you consider that, um, the quintessons are still out there, they still think they own this planet, and the cybertronians all KNOW that they'll be back soon expecting more energon from their vassal. Kinda a pressing issue? Just a little? Maybe?

So. I think this movie should have ended with them all still on the same team, albeit with deep tensions and disagreements starting to form, and that the next movie should have had the Autobot/Decepticon conflict start over the treatment of organics. Maybe start with a controversy over whether or not to purge the invasive species on the surface. Then, when it comes time to fight off the quintessons when they next return, we get conflict over what to do with quintessons who surrender. Or, eventually, with quintesson civilians. Let that be an *intensification* of Megatron's earlier desire to kill a defeated opponent, only now broadened against anyone he hates whether or not they deserve it, and with a powerful bigotry against quintessons borne of legitimate historical grievances causing a lot of cybertronians to take his side. Then we start meeting other organic sophonts, perhaps even other victims of the quintesson empire, and...well, that pretty much brings us to the expected state of the Autobot/Decepticon conflict before they get involved on Earth, doesn't it?

Like I said. It seemed like they were laying the groundwork for this to be the big divisive issue. I'm not sure why they didn't do it, in favor of something that makes far less sense.

...

There are some interesting continuity nods in this new backstory. For instance, according to my background reading, the G1 Transformers series had the quintessons as the abusive creators of the cybertronian race, and the autobots and decepticons descending from laborer-robots and war-robots respectively. Having the rebellion in Transformers One mirror that, with the foundation of these two factions being against a pro-quintesson puppet regime, and Optimus and Megatron's core followers coming from laborer and high guard backgrounds, pays homage to the original while keeping things fresh and allowing room for later additions like the idea of a cybertronian ancien regime and the role played by Primus and such.

There are even shoutouts to same later G's, like the scenes where Orion Pax is breaking into archives, and the scene where D-16 has to beat up Starscream in front of a hooting audience. I know there was one continuity in which Optimus started out as an archivist and Megatron started out as a gladiator, and these scenes feel like a respectful nod to that version while still, once again, keeping things fresh.

Once again, I also want to praise this movie's visuals through the roof. Seriously, I cannot emphasize enough how amazing it looks, especially in motion.

Overall, my feelings are positive. The ending does hurt it a lot, though. Especially because I have the IDW version of the Decepticons' backstory to compare it to, and just...I'm sorry, there is no comparison. TO did a lot of small things better than IDW, but this one big thing that it did much worse is a major blemish. Still, like I said. Mostly good.