The film ”Transformers One” arrived in theatres on September 20, 2024. It takes a unique spin on the origin of Optimus Prime and Megatron that we’ve seen in series like Transformers Prime. The film takes place on the planet Cybertron and follows Orion Pax and D-16, who work as miners in Iacon city, which is ruled by Sentinal Prime, and their journey, which leads them to becoming Optimuis Prime and Megatron.
While the facial animation has a slight uncanny valley effect, the overall quality of its animation and cinematography is amazing. All the movements flow incredibly well, the transformations are quick, satisfying to view, and believable. The scene transitions are also incredibly nice as they smoothly go from one scene to the next. These two factors combined make for an incredibly satisfying viewing experience.
The writing is also really good. Despite it only being 2 hours long, the film is able to make an interesting world with a compelling main cast. A lot of the jokes are good and help flesh out the character. The only gripe I have with it is that sometimes the characters make jokes during serious scenes, but now that I look back on it, I realize that the jokes help with characterization. For example, in one of the scenes (minor spoilers so feel free to skip), Orion Pax is being encouraged by Elita-1 while they both make jokes during this scene. It shows that while Elita has a bit of a narcissism problem she still cares for those close to her as well as showing Orion’s beginnings as a leader.
My only major problem with the film is that we do not get to spend more time exploring the world and its characters. I feel like an animated series or multiple films would suit the story better as it would give the characters more time to develop I was slightly unsatisfied with how quickly the characters changed. It would also allow the writers to flesh out more aspects of the world as some of it was barely touched upon, this however could be covered in a sequel if they ever decide to make one. However, as stated earlier, the film still does an incredible job with its limited time, and I would recommend seeing it if it’s still in theaters and if not on any digital streaming service.
