Editing The Transformers: The Movie (section)

== Reception and legacy ==

=== Initial reception ===
Contemporary reviews were mostly negative. Many perceived a thin but darkly violent plot appealing only to children, based on blatant advertisement, unintelligible action and supposedly lookalike characters. 

The day after release, Caryn James of ''[[The New York Times]]'' wrote: "While all this action may captivate young children, the animation is not spectacular enough to dazzle adults, and the Transformers have few truly human elements to lure parents along, even when their voices are supplied by well-known actors."<ref name="nytimes1"/>

Scott Cain of the ''[[Atlanta Constitution]]'' reported a "packed theater", but complained that "as a jaundiced adult", he "never had the slightest clue as to what was taking place" even after consulting several excited children (who assured him it did not make sense for them either, but "who loved it anyway") and the four-page studio synopsis (which he could not reconcile with what he had seen). He was disappointed that he couldn't identify the voices of several famous actors and concluded that "non-stop action is sufficient for kiddie audiences but ... I am offended that ''The Transformers'' is a 90-minute toy commercial. Even worse, it paints a future in which war is incessant. The only human child among the characters is in tears almost constantly."<ref name="bleak">{{cite news | newspaper=The Atlanta Constitution | location=[[Atlanta, Georgia]] | title='Transformers' a bleak toy commercial mutant | date=August 12, 1986 | url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/399777850/ | first=Scott | last=Cain | url-access=registration | via=[[Newspapers.com]] | access-date=April 25, 2021}}</ref>

In ''[[The Ottawa Citizen]]'', Richard Martin wrote: "It's everything you'd expect from a Saturday morning cartoon blown up to feature length and designed to sell more toys to more kids. [... Unicron is] a monster planet that consumes everything in its path, just as the movie seems set to do."<ref name="carries">{{cite news | newspaper=[[The Ottawa Citizen]] | date=August 9, 1986 | title=Film about Transformers carries on successful creation | first=Richard | last=Martin | url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/455633722/ | url-access=registration | via=[[Newspapers.com]] | access-date=April 25, 2021}}</ref> 

[[Jack Zink]] of ''[[South Florida Sun Sentinel]]'' declared: "[[Dino De Laurentiis]] has seen the future, and it is spare parts", calling the film "a wall-to-wall demolition derby for kids". As "an animated, heavy-metal comic book [with a] maddeningly simple story", he said "The art and graphics may be substantially more complex than the TV series but the net visual result is less impressive than most viewers have a right to expect. [...] Not bad for what it is, but not much in the face of precedents like ''[[Heavy Metal (film)|Heavy Metal]]'' (1981) and ''[[Fritz the Cat (film)|Fritz the Cat]]'' (1972)." He said most of its characters are descended from ''[[Mad Max (film)|Mad Max]]'' and [[Luke Skywalker]], and "have learned the art of the civil insult".<ref name="heavy-metal comic">{{cite news | newspaper=[[South Florida Sun Sentinel]] | location=[[Fort Lauderdale, Florida]] | date=August 15, 1986 | title=An animated, heavy-metal comic book | first=Jack | last=Zink | url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/236639264/ | url-access=registration | via=[[Newspapers.com]] | access-date=April 25, 2021}}</ref>

In a contemporary review later published in his ''Movie & Video Guide'', the film historian [[Leonard Maltin]] gave the picture the lowest possible rating and wrote, "Little more than an obnoxious, feature-length toy commercial...That deafening rock score certainly doesn't help."<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=E3VPDgAAQBAJ&q=That+deafening+rock+score+certainly+doesnt+help.&pg=PA27|title=Ponyville Confidential: The History and Culture of My Little Pony, 1981–2016|first=Sherilyn|last=Connelly|date=March 7, 2017|publisher=McFarland|isbn=9781476662091|via=[[Google Books]]|access-date=November 22, 2020}}</ref>

=== Later reception ===
The [[review aggregator]] [[Rotten Tomatoes]] reports that 62% of the 26 surveyed critics gave ''The Transformers: The Movie'' a positive review. The site's critical consensus reads: "A surprisingly dark, emotional, and almost excessively cynical experience for ''Transformers'' fans."<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/transformers_the_the_movie |title=''The Transformers: The Movie'' |website=[[Rotten Tomatoes]] |access-date=August 2, 2021 |archive-date=November 26, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221126103124/https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/transformers_the_the_movie |url-status=live }}</ref>

In 2007, John Swansburg of ''[[Slate (magazine)|Slate]]'' wrote, "Though a modest film compared with [[Michael Bay]]'s blockbuster <nowiki>[</nowiki>[[Transformers (film)|2007 ''Transformers'']]<nowiki>]</nowiki>, the original ''Transformers'' is the better film ... [T]here's nothing even approaching the original's narrative depth." He recalled the film giving him a new curse word and childhood trauma: "Only in our scariest nightmares would we have imagined that a mere 20 minutes into the movie, Optimus Prime, the most beloved of Autobots, would be killed ... It just blew me away. Witnessing death on that scale was [...] every bit as shocking as ''[[The War of the Worlds (1938 radio drama)|War of the Worlds]]'' had been for Grandma and Grandpa."<ref name="SlateWelles">{{cite web|last1=Swansburg|first1=John|title=When Orson Welles Was a Transformer|url=https://slate.com/culture/2007/07/transformers-why-the-original-animated-movie-is-still-the-best.html|website=Slate|access-date=August 8, 2016|date=July 2, 2007|archive-date=May 31, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230531213653/https://slate.com/culture/2007/07/transformers-why-the-original-animated-movie-is-still-the-best.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

Gabe Toro of ''CinemaBlend'' wrote in 2014: "...''Transformers: The Movie'' otherwise provides the sort of chase-heavy thrills that comes from robots that can become cars. Contrast that with Michael Bay's vision, where the robots basically abandon their transforming skills to have endless, violent punch-outs that annihilate cities. Bay's films show the action as a junkyard orgy. The '86 offering slows down to allow for actors like Leonard Nimoy and, yes, even Orson Welles to give actual performances. Fans of Michael Bay's ''Transformers'' movies are free to enjoy them. But they'll never top the gravity and excitement of ''The Transformers: The Movie''."<ref>{{cite web|last1=Toro|first1=Gabe|title=Sorry, Michael Bay - Why 1986's Transformers: The Movie Is The Best|url=https://www.cinemablend.com/new/Sorry-Michael-Bay-Why-1986-Transformers-Movie-Best-43582.html|website=CinemaBlend|access-date=August 8, 2016|date=June 24, 2014|archive-date=October 11, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161011095846/http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Sorry-Michael-Bay-Why-1986-Transformers-Movie-Best-43582.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

Kashann Kilson of ''Inverse'' wrote in 2015: "[N]ostalgia is a funny thing: for many of us in the 30-and-over ''Transformers'' fan club, that first movie was an integral part of our childhood. To hell with what the reviews said—the O.G. ''Transformers'' movie rocked our collective worlds ... We still love the original so much today, part of the fun of watching Bay's explosion-fests is being able to wave our canes at the youngsters and wax poetic about how back in our day, Hollywood knew how to make a real movie about giant, alien robot warriors."<ref>{{cite web|last1=Kilson|first1=Kashann|title=6 Enduring Legacies of 1986's Animated 'The Transformers: The Movie'|url=https://www.inverse.com/article/7309-6-enduring-legacies-of-1986-s-animated-the-transformers-the-movie|website=Inverse|access-date=August 8, 2016|language=en|date=October 22, 2015|archive-date=September 21, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240921022540/https://www.inverse.com/article/7309-6-enduring-legacies-of-1986-s-animated-the-transformers-the-movie|url-status=live}}</ref>

In the late 2010s, ''[[Den of Geek]]'' published several retrospective reviews focusing on the film's gruesome but quirky tone, and on the traumatic cultural impact of its violence which is heavier than most preceding animated films. In 2018, it said "the shadow of death hung like a black curtain" over the film and called the psychedelic scenes of Unicron's world-eating guts "a futuristic rendering of [[Dante]]'s [[Inferno (Dante)|''Inferno'']]" in "apocalyptic detail".<ref name="Quirky">{{cite web | title=The Quirky Brilliance of Transformers: The Movie | date=December 20, 2018 | first=Ryan | last=Lambie | work=[[Den of Geek]] | url=https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/the-quirky-brilliance-of-transformers-the-movie/ | access-date=April 19, 2021 | archive-date=August 28, 2021 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210828105222/https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/the-quirky-brilliance-of-transformers-the-movie/ | url-status=live }}</ref> In 2019, the film was called "The Great Toy Massacre of 1986" which "traumatized a generation of kids with a string of startling deaths".<ref name="Massacre"/> It is remembered as "a story about death, transfiguration, guilt, and redemption",<ref name="Quirky"/> and as "a milestone in animation history".<ref name="Nostalgia"/>

=== In other media ===
The song "The Touch" is performed by [[Mark Wahlberg]]'s character Dirk Diggler in [[Paul Thomas Anderson]]'s 1997 Oscar-nominated film ''[[Boogie Nights]]''. His performance appears as a [[hidden track]] on [[Boogie Nights (soundtrack)|the soundtrack album to the film]].<ref>[https://www.vulture.com/2014/06/transformers-song-history-the-touch-stan-bush-mark-wahlberg-boogie-nights.html Do You Have 'The Touch'? Learn the Bizarre History of the Greatest Transformers Song Ever – Vulture]</ref><ref>[https://www.avclub.com/you-got-the-touch-you-got-the-power-yeah-1798271421 You got the touch! You got the Power! Yeah! – AV Club]</ref>