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I am writing a research paper about this film and would like to include some quote from people who saw the movie when it first came out in theaters (or anyone really). What do you remember thinking of feeling about the film, and in particular, the death of Optimus Prime? How do you think the film impacted the Transformers brand, or more generally, the culture of the time? Thank you so much! Also, if you don't want me to include your quote in my paper, please let me know- I wouldn't want to use your words without your permission!

I'll gladly respond to this first.

I was in kindergarten in '84/'85, when the mid-80s toy-franchise boom was really ramping up, a perfect time for sheer variety of cartoons, when I could see the vestiges of '70s Saturday morning glory alongside Muppet Babies cross-promoting Lucas and Spielberg's epics, in addition to all the action cartoons that defined the weekdays. My first TF was Sludge just after Christmas of '84 from someone on my dad's side of the family. I got a few of the mini-vehicles from my Mom throughout 1985, but never enough TFs to wage some actual battles until early '86, and there's a reason for that.

Before I figured out when and where Transformers was on TV, my favorite cartoons were Thundercats and Voltron, but of the former, I only ever got Lion-O with Snarf because my mom thought they were sexually suggestive or something; not sure if that was because of Cheetara's voice, or if she was actually paying attention to the first episode where they were all naked. She must not have been watching Voltron too close, because when I described him bisecting the robeasts with the blazing sword, she was disgusted until I explained, "No, they're not people, there's just static inside them". My dad was kind enough to buy me the big ol' die cast metal Voltron on his lunch hour. But when I actually got into a fight with a classmate over whether Lion or Vehicle Voltron was better (I think we were actually both arguing for the Lion Force, but I confusingly called him "Voltron 3", his label from a smaller toy's cardback), and I insisted on having the toy of Hagar the Witch (mom didn't understand her importance as creator of the Robeasts, briefly buying into that "hidden-satanic-messages" goat-shit from other adults who just didn't understand the toys or corresponding action cartoons American children were into these days because for the first time in human civilization, both mediums had actually gotten GOOD, the crowning achievement of the Reagan administration), mom and dad had to get me to shut the f#@k up about Voltron somehow: buying me all the Transformers I wanted within reason was the only viable answer.

I know, TMI, but the point is I wasn't quite there for TF from the very beginning, so the first 2 years' toylines blurred together, and I felt a little behind the other kids, so TF:TM was the first jumping-on point I was "there" for. I first learned about the movie from the promotional poster sent to me after I mail-ordered Camshaft and Drill-Dasher. The reverse side showed Unicron in robot mode, which should've been a horrible spoiler, but ultimately did nothing to stop TF:TM from being the most surprising experience I'd ever have in a theater: in a world where movies never quite live up to their trailers, one would actually leave me in a state of shock by being several times better than whatever I expected going in.

See, I'd watched enough action cartoons to become cynical about the lack of continuity between episodes. A few eps made a big show of introducing new characters, but nothing ever changed. Sure, GoLion had an ongoing story that asserted itself at the beginning and end, but the producers of Voltron undermined it by coping out on most character deaths, confusing me so badly that I never gave Robotech a chance back in the day, something I actually got mad at Voltron for in hindsight when Toonami let me revisit it. In the more coherent G.I.Joe and Transformers series, nothing ever really changed the dynamics of their respective wars, and shortly after my 7th birthday, I went into that theater knowing that nothing, not even a planet-eating monster, ever would.

You know, IDR how many movies I'd even seen before then, live action or animated. Maybe 20? Not that I don't remember them, it's just that at some point before I got up to leave, none of them mattered anymore. I knew I was seeing my eternal favorite movie for the first time, THE film against which everyTHING I ever saw would be judged.

The only distinct audience reaction I remember was kids saying "Laserbeak!" upon finally seeing someone they recognized after the disorienting apocalypse that must've briefly left some confused as to whether they were in the right show. Theaters full of kids crying is something I only know of third hand. I certainly wasn't upset by Optimus Prime's death, just stunned that they actually did it. After nine-million/two years of war, the fighting actually led to what were clearly permanent casualties, proving that the cartoon creators I was beginning to develop a dim opinion of had the brains and balls to tell a story epic enough to produce consequences that could change everything, playing for the higher stakes than I could've ever imagined!

I was the last one to leave the theater. My parents played mostly country and folk music at home, and we didn't have MTV, so I had to soak in every last note of the soundtrack. More than that, I just didn't want Transformers: The Movie to end.

"I didn't know a movie could BE that good!"

"Uhhhhhh...next time, we're picking the movie."

I'll have more thoughts on this later...even if other Seibetronians respond so you don't need them. Hope this is a good starting point...or did you already find any of the past threads reminiscing about TFTM?

Are you writing this for college? Or some book on pop-culture? Just curious.

I'd recently discovered Transformers as a fun, inspiring alternative to the total sh tshow that was my school. The toys were good, especially the die-cast ones. The comics had plenty of action and new concepts. I was very excited for the movie and I wasn't disappointed. For me, it was one of the best films of all time.

Unicron showed up: it was an OMG moment. Megatron and his elite executed many Autobots in chilling fashion. I suspected that parts of the action had been left out. Years later, I heard that more characters would have been killed on screen but that was scaled down because it was depressing. Optimus went out in a blaze of glory. I wasn't too sad because I knew that important characters like him are easily resurrected. The battle was tremendous and Megatron got a full revival as Galvatron, which gave further hope for Optimus.

Unfortunately, in the quest for more money, some stupid characters were introduced and we had to sit through their crazy shenanigans. It was fun to see the Quintessons vanquished, though. The final battle was spectactular but stretched credulity because it was so one-sided. Unicron could have crushed all the Transformers much more easily. Why didn't he have a large force of drones, for example? We got Rodimus Prime, who had a silly name and a psychedelic motorhome alt mode.

The soundtrack kicked ayass and I bought the LP. I listened to it over and over. Later, I bought the CD plus the movie VHS and DVD.

Some people thought that the movie was only for little kids. One of my teachers tried to mock me for watching it. I simply stared the [blank]er out. The nerve of that guy!

Personally, I found that the movie cemented my love of Transformers as a concept. I'm still writing stories about them today. Maybe the 'death' of Optimus put many people off (too heavy for sensitive people). On the other hand, many people are fickle and quick to move onto the next craze. I don't have a clear idea about the movie's impact on society. People like my parents thought Transformers were exploitative marketing. People like me were entranced by the myriad possibilities that Transformers opened up.

Later, with more experience, I realised that the movie drew much inspiration from Japanese manga. At the time, I was ignorant of manga so I was more easily impressed. It was one of the few movies that I watched again. With VHS, I mainly watched the serious action and not the larking about.

As usual, I probably said too much, but I'll bump this thread up with some more thoughts.

I've heard that a lot boys who didn't have a father figure in their life sort of thought of Optimus Prime as their dad, which probably explains the worst of the backlash against his death. My dad was really stable and dependable, which may explain why my favorite character was always Soundwave, the dad I subconsciously wanted to be when I grew up. See, I have a theory that because boys' toylines don't bombard them with fathering fantasies the way girls are bombarded with mothering scenarios, any inherent paternal instincts at that young age remain unstructured enough to blur together with one other specific fantasy: having an army of dangerous exotic pets at your command to sic on people. (If you doubt that every little boy's nurtured that fantasy, then explain why Pokemon's still going strong 25 years on). Soundwave embodies this idea better than any other fictional character, with the humanoid and animal cassettes clearly looking up to him as their dad. If Soundwave had died, I might have been traumatized too.

This also explains why I always liked Rodimus Prime a bit better than Op. An untested young leader was someone I could actually identify with. And like it or not, watching the whole cartoon reveals Rodimus having a slightly better track-record as far as not leading the Autobots to certain doom only to be saved by circumstances beyond his control. But I actually liked all the new characters better than the old ones who died, possibly because I didn't feel I was quite "there" for the very beginning of TF, but I was dang well there for the beginning of this new, more complicated era where things could actually change. And they struck me as more unique individuals than half of the original Ark crew.

It also occurs to me that when I first saw TF:TM, I didn't own toys of any of the movie's casualties. I got Windcharger from my grandma the following Christmas, but by then I'd forgotten Arcee dragging his corpse...and probably didn't even remember who he was on the show because his face was so different. (Was G.I.Joe firefighter Barbecue's helmet based on Windcharger's toy?) I got Scourge and Wheelie for my birthday right before the movie, which made me feel a certain loyalty to them over the other new guys, so maybe the cartoon-toy-commercial formula works in reverse as well. If I'd had toys of characters who died, I would've wanted to keep playing with those characters anyway, so my head-canon would've grated against the official story, and I'd have resented and resisted the events of TF:TM instead of fully embracing its epic scope.

While all fiction may be subservient to the toyline in economic terms, from a storytelling perspective, a toyline is technically another story medium equal to the corresponding cartoons and comics, each exerting its own influence on every other corner of the franchise in codependence. Play patterns can naturally assert themselves in ways that just jive with some official stories better than others, and I never quite got enough of the characters necessary to take my battles into a post-Movie era, so I think I eventually decided that Scourge and Rodimus Prime had time-jumped from the future, yet when I got Ultra Magnus second-hand from a middle-school friend, I decided he was leading Autobot resistance back on Cybertron. So imagine my shock when Titan published their Target: 2006 trade, allowing me to see that the UK comics I'd had negligible access to in Michigan just happened to have told the same story I was unwittingly playing out in my collection during those same years! Call it Furmanation synchronicity or a coincidence that means nothing outside of my mind, but I'll always call old Simon the greatest TF storyteller, even if he could never have gotten there without Transformers: The Movie to build off of.

I originally watched it on DVD (back in the early 2000s just as VHS was being phased out), I would have been less than 10 at the time. I actually didn't like it when I was a kid; even aside from the obvious "Prime dies" bit, I found Unicron absolutely terrifying and a lot of the deaths traumatic. Especially poor Prowl... But anyway, I didn't rewatch it for many years after as quite frankly I was too scared by it. That said, on rewatches I've enjoyed it a lot in all its cheesy 80s rock-opera goodness, even if I still dislike how callously it dispatches the no-longer-on-sale cast.

As a side note, my most recent rewatch was with my mum (who also loves Transformers) and her thoughts were quite interesting. Notably she definitely related to the kids who found the movie upsetting back on its original showing. She also thought the Quintessons were pretty sinister for a kid's movie, a sentiment I'd agree with.

It is a real pleasure to read your experiences. Unfortunately, I wasn't born yet at the time but I would have liked to live this moment.