PODCAST TRANSCRIPT
Welcome back to “Global Transmission,” the podcast for a nerd to share their interests! Today’s topic is “Transformers.” Starting as a cartoon airing on various channels in 1984, “The Transformers” has fascinated millions of fans for years. After fleeing civil war on their home planet of Cybertron, the Autobots find refuge on Earth, protecting humans from the evil Decepticons. Even though the original cartoon was inconsistent in quality, an acclaimed animated film was released in 1986.
In 2007, a film was released simply titled “Transformers.” It was directed by Michael Bay, who had worked with a few action films previously to mixed reception.
The film mainly follows a human named Sam who is trying to make money to buy his first car. His grandfather went on an arctic expedition many years ago, and he is trying to sell his grandfather’s glasses. Little does he know, the car his dad buys him is an Autobot named Bumblebee. The glasses Sam was trying to sell contain the coordinates to the Allspark, the key to all power for the Cybertronians.
Anyway, there’s a lot of stuff that happens, and the movie isn’t all that great in my opinion. It’s not written well and none of the human characters are likable. Some of the robots themselves are decent characters, but none of their designs are accurate to their original designs. Arguably, the most iconic part is Optimus Prime’s closing monologue with “What I’ve Done” by Linkin Park in the background. The film has a 7.1 out of 10 on IMDb and a 57% rating on Rotten Tomatoes despite making $709.7 million at the box office.
It was 2007’s third highest-grossing movie. The success of the first live-action “Transformers” sparked multiple sequels—“Revenge of the Fallen” in 2009, “Dark of the Moon” in 2011, “Age of Extinction” in 2014, “The Last Knight” in 2017, “Bumblebee” in 2018, and “Rise of the Beasts” in 2023. All of the “Bayverse” films are similar in the fact they seem to drag on for too long. All of them except “Bumblebee,” which I enjoy because of the fact they made the characters more faithful to their G1 designs, and the human character is actually a likable person. I saw the film in theaters and I was really impressed.
“Transformers One” was released on Sept. twentieth. Unlike the films directed by Bay, this film is rated PG and is fully 3D animated. It was instead produced by Josh Cooley, who had previously directed “Toy Story 4″ and worked on films like “Up.” With a resume like that, the film seemed promising.
Michael Bay was still an executive producer for the film, but I’m just glad he didn’t have full control. The fact that he stepped down means the movie had a chance at having a decent script. And the characters would now be accurate to their original depictions in the 1984 cartoon. However, the marketing of this movie was a complete blunder because it has a PG rating and is animated. Many assumed this was a cash-grab kid’s movie, and the ads didn’t help. All the advertisements contained an unfunny joke about Bumblebee (voiced by Keegan Michael Key), saying his nickname is “Badassatron.” This caused many people to write off the film as more animated slop.
However, I saw the movie two days before its release at a fan screening, and I thought it was really good. It details a very good origin story of Optimus Prime, Megatron and the civil war for Cybertron. The most powerful part of the film is seeing the anger between the two main characters build up over time.
Before their well-known names, Optimus and Megatron were named Orion Pax and D-16, and they were very good friends. I won’t spoil the film, but they uncover political corruption, and things don’t go so well. The movie has a 7.7/10 on IMDb and 89 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. I think this film has given the franchise another chance at redemption.
As a fan of the Transformers, I can say that “Transformers One” gives me hope for the future after the past 15 years of nonsense. I would love to hear your thoughts on the movie. Please feel free to comment below. Thank you everyone for listening! I’ve really enjoyed publishing these episodes and I really hope that the audience likes them as much as I do. It’s nice to have a space to talk about the things I’m passionate about. This is Connor Riley with “Global Transmission.” I’ll see you next time.
