Editing The Transformers: The Movie (section)

=== 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>