I recently bought the real Transformers movie on DVD, to help heal the trauma the cinematic "Twenty one-dimensional humans with occasional guest stars, the Transformers". I was reminded of how awesome it all was, and of this article. I was inspired by both to add "5 more things to love about the movie"
1. Shit does not stop happening
The scriptwriters realised that they were writing about giant robots that transform and blow things up, and that their job is done if those things just continue to happen for ninety minutes. The entire plot is:
Decepticons attack Autobots
Decepticons attack each other
Decepticons attack Autobots (redux)
Shit blows up
Bonus: Sharkticons!
Decepticons attack Autobots (again!)
Junkions attack Autobots
Everyone attacks Unicron
More shit blows up
You will notice that there is no "Wait patiently for actual Transformers to turn up" stage, and the "Suffer as blonde scientist and wacky fat guy contribute absolutely nothing to the movie" scenes are strangely absent.
2. Absolute minimum quantity of humans
The animated movie has only two human characters (less than 5% of the total cast) and the makers knew that was still a dangerously high percentage of fleshy useless skinbags, so the writers gave them kickass transforming robot suits to minimise the drag factor they inflict on the movie.
3. Rodimus Prime Kicks Ass
Sure, we know that in the series he was a spineless whiner who could be paralysed by the choice between tea and coffee, causing him to collapse into a fetal ball crying "What would Optimus do?", but that was the fault of the writers. They wanted to go in a new direction with the leader, exploring the challenges of command. Unfortunately they overdid it and Rodimus ended up "exploring the challenges of command" in the same way a brittle-boned leukemic albino "explores not being quarterback". It was tragic and painful, but for those few minutes at the end of the movie you see what he could have been. In five minutes he:
1 - Throws Galvatron into space
2 - Blows up a robot the size of a planet
3 - Turns into a goddamn truck
That's more heroic manliness in three hundred seconds than most characters manage in an entire existence.
4. Famous voices
Many are upset that the great Orson Welles final role, his swansong, was a childrens cartoon that he famously hated every moment of. For them the Transformers movie had the same effect on Mr Welles's memory that toilets had on Elvis Presley's. I think it's brilliant.
"Hey there, Mr Welles, you think playing the part of a great big toy is beneath your dignity? Then maybe you shouldn't have taken the big bag of money and said 'I'll do it'!" His deep, booming voice adds great character to the planet-devouring Unicron, and the knowledge that he hated every second really adds to Unicron's universal malice.
Leonard Nimoy's contribution isn't so uniformly wonderful, given that Satan himself could ascend to the sound stage and still not do as good a ridiculously evil voice as Frank Welker's Megatron. The evil fusion of "Galvatron" and the "Imperious Insane Spock with a Goatee" that you can see in your mind every moment he opens his mouth is still worth seeing though.
Bonus: high-speed gibberish TV-speaking Eric Idle, in a part as custom made for a Monty Pythonite as any giant robot can be.
5. The only happy "They're not dead" moment ever.
Right off the bat the movie slaps you in the face by killing Ratchet and Ironhide in a shockingly brutal (for a kid) scene. "That's right!" it shouts, "Pay attention, because the shit is going down now!" After that every fight is nail-biting because you genuinely don't know who's going to survive. This makes the revelation that Jazz is still alive, rescued moments before destruction, a genuinely happy surprise rescue. (Technically Ultra Magnus did this first, but nobody was actually happy to find out that he wasn't dead).