It is the year 2005, which was about two years ago. In this far flung futuristic past, poorly voice acted buckets battle it out for the fate of the planet while a Michael Bolton wannabe sings "You've got to believe" 80s rock trash anthems that would make Karate Kid proud. Meanwhile, not a lot of sense or consistency of plot is made.

Snide sarcasm aside, I find myself scratching my head as to why this movie is made into some kind of important piece of pop culture by certain circles.

You know that episode of the Simpsons where Bart does something wrong so his punishment is that he can never see the Itchy and Scratchy Movie? Well, thats pretty much what happened to me with the Transformers Movie, except I didn't do anything wrong. My parents just heard that it was too violent or something and banned me. Imagine my surprise the next season when all of my favorite Autobots including the beloved Optimus Prime were gone and replaced by random bots I had never heard of. It wasn't until fairly recently that I finally caught the movie on glorious DVD.

The film does actually have a surprising amount of death and carnage (maybe my parents were right) for a toy commercial, but the intent was to mix up the toy line by "retiring" the old and ushering in the new. Casualties included big shots: Ratchet, Ironhide, Optimus Prime, Megatron, and Starscream.

Wow! You know, looking back on the film it is kind of nice that there were some stakes. Too bad only the wussy survived. The action is set to a pure 80s rock and roll soundtrack that is a lot of fun to listen to today. As for the main plot, there is a huge Galactus style planet eater on the loose named Unicron that must be stopped - and without OP to save the day, someone else must rise to the challenge. Sadly, this movie made only $6 million back in 1986 a number that should be devastated by midnight showings alone of this summers release. This is a fun one though my nostalgia and anticipation for the live action film may be biasing me I am still awarding Transformers a B+.