Swirling suns flowing through space... music begins -- One of my fond childhood memories is of the little 5-minute video "Life Begins" in the Natural History Museum at the Smithsonian. It's still there, if you happen to be in DC and want to go see it. Anyway, when they get to the part about the earth's crust solidifying and volcanos spewing hot gasses into the atmosphere, the music sounds a bit like this.-- and we see a strange robotic planet-sized thing floating through space. It is orange, it is deadly, and it has a digestive system.

Cut to a planet full of peacefull robot people, their idyllic life suddenly torn asunder as their world is devoured by Unicron. --now is when I take a moment's break to write a hundred times on the blackboard "I will not type unicorn instead of unicron."-- It digs its tusks, which remind me of a kiddie science show I once saw on "The Mighty Dung Beetle," into the planet and sucks it into its oriface, dragging with it all the rubble and the ships attempting to escape.

Credits roll...

(video version only) Blue writing scrolls, starwars-like, along the screen. (though they didn't do the perspective as well) It is read aloud to us, as aparently we are not capable of reading for ourselves. The story so far: a new threat is encroaching on the galexy: the evil Unicron, speeding towards a planet where "a unique race of transforming robots" are still squabbling "to Earth and back" over which faction should rule their home planet of Cybertron. Currently the evil Decepticons are in charge, led by "the maniacal Megatron" but the autobots and courageous Optimus Prime are planning a final assault...

"It is the year 2005..."

The little jet powered pteradon/audio tape Laserbeak observes autobot Moon Base 1 as Optimus Prime sums up their plans and weaknesses for the spies. They are sending a shuttle to Earth for suppies ("We don't have enough energon cubes to launch an attack...") and our token human, Spike, sends his love to his son. Everyone else clunks about enthusiastically, and the spy & shuttle depart in opposite directions.

Megatron, in gray with a purple logo, (remember this, it's important later) plays back Laserbeak's observations and steams off with his minions to intercept the shuttle. They blow a hole in the side of it, and all the autobots are killed. We learn two important lessons from this scene: first, autobots are pathetic. The have not yet mastered the art of ducking when shot at, and they can usually be killed by a shoulder wound. Secondly, Decipticons seem to reproduce by the art of spontaneous generation. Five of them enter the shuttle. Six or seven of them fight the autobots. By the time they get to Earth, there are more like twenty or thirty, enough to outnumber the autobots holding the Earth base. Go figure.

Cut to idyllic Earth. Our young hero, Hotrod, and the boy Daniel are fishing. Daniel is missing his father, when suddenly his pocket starts beeping. It is not a cell phone; it is a locater telling him that the shuttle is coming. He runs off and in a tribute to the 80s hops on his rocket-powered skateboard, which is working fine until a rather large rock gets in his way. Hotrod scoops him up & transforms into a sports car, and they drive up to Lookout Mountain. Daniel makes use of the telescope mounted there to discover the hole in the side of the shuttle, and Hotrod sees the decpeticons & starts shooting at them. They flood from the shuttle shooting back, and aparently leaving it to go its merry way. At least, we never see it again. We have to assume that it eventually crashed in some random cornfield in Iowa and started raging fires or something.

Many battle scenes. Flashing lights & explosions. Quick introductions to characters under field conditions... Kup, old war hero (Obiwan??) and Hotrod's companion; he's sort of a gray-green pickup truck. Ultramagnus, aparently Optimus's #2 man, and leader at Earthbase. Arcee, who when she's not being a pink sportscar, looks like a cross between Princess Leia (complete with the hair) and R2-D2 and snaps at Hotrod like Leia at Han Solo. Aren't they cute...

A last minute message is sent out to Optimus Prime asking for backup, but it's cut short when the decepticons tear out the radio antenna. This is followed by a battle between the two opposing tape players and their audio tapes.

"Do you think you got through to Prime?"

"I hope so, 'cause if I didn't we're all going to look like burnt-out toaster ovens."

The battle rages through the night, with stop-action photography and interesting scale difficulties for everyone --especially Arcee, who keeps shrinking. I think she's having problems because part of her programming reminds her that Carrie Fisher is only five feet tall-- and as the sun rises, Megatron announces, "Their defenses are broken. Let the slaughter begin."

But he is too soon in his rejoicing, for the autobot reinforcements have finally arrived. Optimus Prime looks out from his shuttle and says grimly, "Megatron must be stopped, no matter the cost." He sends the dinobots to deal with the bright green 5-robot Destructor, and summoning his trailer out of the 4th dimensional pocket in which he keeps it, he steams off towards single combat with Megatron. But we know he isn't a real truck. There isn't any huge cloud of noxious-smelling fumes trailing behind him.

Now we get the single combat bit. "One shall stand, one shall fall," Optimus announces, and aparently this seems like an ok trade. (They take themselves so seriously...) Of course, as it happens (partly due to Hotrod's well-meaning attempt to keep Megatron from cheating) they both fall, Optimus from a shot after Megatron has claimed to surrender, and then Megatron gets pushed off a cliff. Well, actually two of them.

Routed for this time, the decepticons flee to Astrotrain. --I like Astrotrain; he's purple and turns into a train and a space shuttle. More importantly, I had the toy when I was little, one of a small collection of space shuttle toys that I collected, though I can't at this remove remember whether this was because I actually liked them or my parents thought I should.-- Five of them board, plus the dying Megatron who's carried in by Soundwave (the tape player). Shortly thereafter Astrotrain starts complaining about the weight; they've gotten up to perhaps thirty robots, a good quarter of whom are damaged and dying. Starscream, #2 guy --I think he's either female or gay. At least, he's awfully girly...-- leads the movement to jettison the wounded, including Megatron, and then starts a fight over who should be the new leader.

The Constructicons --they are all bright green (nastier than this color) construction vehicles: backhoe, cement mixer, & further large machines that I've forgotten the names of. At the age of three I could have told you all of them without hesitation, but like most people my fascination with construction equipment didn't last past early childhood.-- think they should rule, because together they form Devastator, the most powerful of them all. Soundwave thinks he should rule. I'm not sure why.

"No way," says the Constructicon spokesman, "Nobody would follow an uncharismatic bore like you!"

"Nobody calls Soundwave unchresimatic!" exclaims one of the little tape-bots, coming to his defense.

And at this point I still say Astrotrain would be entirely justified in sending them all out into oblivion and taking over himself. But he doesn't; I guess he's just nice that way.

Meanwhile, back on Earth, Optimus Prime is dying. --Short rant here on death of robots: So you total the body. But what's to stop you taking out the memory chips & puting them into a new body? There's no explanation of what these robots have that keeps them from doing something like that (Optimus didn't have any head wounds that I saw) and in fact later on Ultramagnus is reassembled and brought back to life after being killed. But Optimus, who we are supposed to believe is a much better leader and person in general, just dies. It's sort of like Obiwan, only he doesn't get to come back afterwards.-- He prepares to pass the "Autobot Matrix of Leadership" on to Ultramagnus, telling them that it has been prophecied that it will light their darkest hour. Only he drops it, and our young hero catches it instead. It glows blue, but for some reason nobody understands... Anyway, Hotrod passes it on to Ultramagnus, and the four heart monitors on Optimus Prime slowly stop beating. Daniel cries over the corpse.

Out in the cold dark vastness of space, voices speak to the dying Megatron. It is Unicron, and he has picked up the transfer of the matrix on his video screens, and is less than happy. He finds himself in need of a slave to go destroy it for him, as it has also --can't you just see the pieces come together-- been prophecied that this is the only thing that can stand in his way, and here, conveniently, is a potential minion. "You belong to me now," he tells Megatron, who after throwing fits about not belonging to anyone, reconsiders and agrees that slavery doing what he was going to do anyway is probably better than death in the vacuum of space.

Unicron re-makes him into the classy new version, this time called Galvatron, mostly in purple with gray trim and transforming into a laser cannon instead of just a gun, who is very sleek and classy except for the one slight difficulty that he is also subject to red strobing fits of madness every time he tries to disobey Unicron. The defunct minions are transformed into shiny new minions, and they're given a classy purple ship to go back and reclaim leadership of the Decepticons.

They arrive just in time for Starscream's coronation. The Constructicons, fitted out with matching bright green valveless trumpets, do their best to delay the ceremony by playing repetative fanfares, but Starscream puts an end to this by shooting the ends off the instruments, and has just been crowned when Galvatron shows up and blows him into dust. The other Decepticons take the hint and declare Galvatron their leader.

Meanwhile, Unicron devours Moon Base 1, and most of our friends with it... Moon Base 2 is rightfully concerned. [Uncensored version: "Oh shit!" says Spike, which may be a fairly realistic response, but as the only instance of profanity within the movie, it's a bit random and unprovoked.] Spike and Bumblebee attempt to contact Earth, then rig up a huge charge of explosives as Unicron comes after them. "If this doesn't stop it, nothing will!" exclaimes Spike, as he and Bumblebee (who aparently changes into a bright yellow punch-buggy) run for the escape ship. Unfortunately, they have failed to notice that we are only about half an hour into the movie... the explosives look pretty impressive, but this does not bother Unicron. It happily swallows explosives, moon base, and escape ship.

Galvatron experiences his first red strobing fit when he tries to tell Unicron (with whom he can aparently speak from the planet's surface) that the moon bases were his prey, no fair gobbling them up! He decides instead to take his classy (& loyal) minions off to Earth to have another go at the last autobots there.

Back on Earth, our heros are moving the rubble around when they pick up faint signals from Moon Base 2... Realizing they're the only backup that's likely to be on the way from anywhere, they rush to their transports. Besides, suggests Ultramagnus, maybe this matrix thingy can help somehow. "You're right! It can!" chimes in Hotrod, though when questioned he has no idea why or how. But as they start to pack, in rush the Decepticon raiders. Thus more battle scenes, and Arcee is nearly left behind as the second transport leaves.

We have a few moments of calm space scenes playing around; the dinobots want to hear Kup's war stories, while Hotrod is in favor of lightsaber practice with the training droid (oh, sorry-- I meant robot) and in the other shuttle everyone starts to relax until suddenly they realize-- Oops! The Decepticons are still shooting at them!

The first transport goes down, and we lose it for a time. The second one is in terrible trouble, but Ultramagnus (who doesn't seem to be such a bad guy, really) disconnects the command module from the other three quarters of the ship and allows the Decpticons to detonate that. They then steer the remaining piece to a rather rocky landing on the Planet of Junk. (no, I didn't make up this name... It looks a little like a cross between Degoba and the trash compactor on the Death Star) There's a moment where Ultramagnus thinks everyone else is dead, but then they all perk up and go out to fix the shuttle. Daniel joins in after being given his father's exosuit, making him look like a little baby transformer with a bubble for a head. He has some difficulties controling it at first, but eventually catches on. Somewhere in the distance, hidden amongst the junk, the transformer version of the Mongol hoardes watches them through narrowed eyes.

On the far side of the planet, the dinobots are looking for their friends. Grimlock, a tyranosaurid with a rather strange grasp of grammer, --my housemate swears he looks like robot Barney with teeth-- is leading them astray, but a little pixie of a robot shows up to correct their error. (His name is Wheely, and he speaks in a high voice and rhymed couplets. It's kind of cute.)

Meanwhile the friends they are searching for are undergoing a series of strange adventures... Hotrod saves himself from robotic attack-seaweed, and Kup from being dismembered by a giant mechanical octopus. They find their way ashore, where Kup is reparied just in time to face a hoard of mysterious aquatic-looking robot men. Kup approaches them with the "universal greeting" --which sounds incredibly stupid, by the way-- and a handful of energy goodies, but when the goodies run out they are captured instead of being befriended.

In "chains" --How do you chain a robot? with bands of light that look kind of like the glo-stick necklaces you see around the 4th of July, we discover-- they are led into a huge chamber inside a huge fortress, where strange tentacled robot beings preside over a mockery of justice. It goes something like this:

"Has the magistrate reached a verdict?" asks the guard. "Yes," says head #1 of the multi-faced god at the top of the steps. "Guilty or Innocent?" The god rotates around to head #2, which is particularly skull-faced. "Innocent." "Throw him to the sharkticons!" yells the guard, and drops the prisoner off the plank and into the boiling pit full of sharkticons. The god spins so that each of its six faces can observe this and laugh.

It's a pretty good show, really, if you happen to be into that sort of thing. Clearly the rulers of this word are. Just as clearly our heroes (being on the receiving end and all) aren't.

In the cell next to theirs they meet the last of the happy robot people whose planet (the name of which I'm afraid I did not catch) was devoured in scene 1, and finally learn Unicron's name. Took them long enough... Anyway, he is then hauled off and devoured for his innocence. Then our heros are up next. They put up a pretty good fight, first with words ("I have nothing but contempt for this court," says Hotrod) then with the sharkticons. They run them about in circles in car form, and then are about to start bashing them about the heads with their comrades's splintered bodyparts when the dinobots finally arive. Grimolck stamps his feet a couple times, and the sharkticons pause for a moment. Their god shouts at them to execute the invaders, but then Grimlock, ever reasonable, puts in his word. "Me Grimlock say execute them." As they swarm over themselves to do just this, Kup reflects, "I think the problems on this planet are about to be solved."

Unfortunately, Galvatron has tried to boast his success in destroying the matrix, and Unicron has (with further use of red strobe lights) convinced him otherwise and sent him off to the Planet of Junk. They arrive just in time to destroy the newly repaired shuttle, and Galvatron actually catches and dismembers Ultramagnus, stealing the matrix which he has died trying to use. --Hm, this must not be their darkest hour...

Before the others can start mourning, they are attacked by the Mongol hoardes we saw earlier, who (so far as I can tell) come in pairs-- one is the rider & one is the dirt bike, and if they get shot down, they switch places. But before anyone is seriously harmed, Hotrod and friends drop down in the middle of the fight in the strange new shuttle they've picked up. It's kind of swirly, and extremely non-aerodynamic. Hotrod and Kup get out and this time our young hero tries the universal greeting. For him it works, and there is an ewok-esque festival. Ultramagnus is revived, and it is discovered that the natives talk TV, and thus at least Kup is able to communicate with them.

But they have a problem still. "The matrix is gone," Ultramagnus tells them.

"And with it all hope."

"No!" says (who else) Hotrod, "Galvatron has it."

And since Galvatron has gone off towards Unicron, they once again decide to go back and destroy it. You knew we'd get back on track eventually... Their new friends join them, in a splintery ship they've kept hiding under the junk.

Galvatron has been displaying mixed parts genius and extreme stupidity. He knows that Unicron can be destoyed with the matrix, and in an attempt to break free of his slavery, he tries to threaten Unicron with it. Which is a good idea and all, but he hasn't experimented and realized that he doesn't know how to use it. He does the same thing that Ultramagnus did earlier, yelling at the silly sparkly thing telling it to open. All he accomplishes is to make Unicron angry, and the planet decides to transform into its robot mode. --This scared me. I looked at it, and I thought, "Super Maid. This is where they got Super Maid," and I was greatly disturbed. There's a reason not to watch the spin-offs first...-- Unicron's robot mode is smaller and less effective than his planet mode, but it has fiery green eyes, a pseudo-viking helmet, and skeletal wings. Almost as classy as Astrotrain...

Anyway, our heros show up in their peculiar shuttle to find Unicron starting to dismember their planet, having consumed Galvatron as an appetizer. Even Kup, great repository of experience and war anecdotes, has never seen anything like it before. So they pause to marvel before joining the fray...

Hotrod steers the shuttle in through Unicron's eye, smashing both eye and shuttle. As our friends drop down Unicron's esophagus, Hotrod gets separated from the rest... they (Arcee, Kup, Ultramagnus and Daniel) run off with the digestive system in hot pursuit, while Hotrod stumbles upon Galvatron with, you guessed it, the matrix chained around his neck.

Galvatron starts to say something about, "We are allies now against a common enemy," but is cut short by another red strobing fit which prompts him to try to kill Hotrod.

Outside of Unicron, the dinobots are doing their best... "Me Grimlock kick butt," says the autobarney, and does so, leaving footprints. Unfortunately, this doesn't do much... "Me Grimlock need new strategy," decides the barneybot, but whether he comes up with one we never find out.

In the battle with the digestive system, things are not going so smoothly. Daniel is almost caught by the metal crab claws on cables that have been chasing them, and Arcee, in shooting the cabling, manages to trigger a flood which washes Daniel astray from the rest of the party. He ends up in a room where a giant hanging conveyor belt is dropping helpless transformers into what appears to be a vat of molten cotton candy. Next up is daddy dear... (do you remember Spike?) Fortunatley Daniel discovers how to use the gun in his exosuit to close the vat cover just in time, and so Spike and Bumblebee are saved. (At least, I think he was saved... there was somebody yellow who fell into the vat before the lid got closed...)

And in another act of pointless and senseless destruction, Unicron closes his fist over the junkicon ship, killing the Mongol hoardes.

Back to our young hero (who, we are glad to see, is not being told that he has a sister...) and Galvatron, who is aparently under the impression that the best way of killing an Autobot is strangulation. Disturbingly enough, he seems to be right. "It's a pity you Autobots die so easily," he complains, but once again he has spoken a moment too soon. Hotrod grabs the matrix and blinds Galvatron with the blue glow. Once he has broken the strangle-hold, he puts the matrix down long enough to kick Galvatron down a hole & out through Unicron's side to continue on his interrupted way to oblivion. Then he turns back to the matrix and puts his fingers into the holes along the side of the handles, thereby enabling him to pull open the case and set free the glowing blue ball contained within.

Something about this whole operation has turned Hotrod from a classy sportscar into a sport-minivan with a name to match... he is now Rodimus Prime, leader of the Autobots. And if that doesn't sound about as stupid as the universal greeting, I don't know what does. But anyway, he leads his remaining companions to safety by smashing their way out Unicron's remaining eye as Unicron slowly conbusts from within, gasping out his dying words: "You cannot destroy destiny." --hm, maybe he should have read a couple greek plays earlier in life and he'd have known that before...

So despite being stomped upon, Cybertron seems still to be in good shape, and aparently the rest of the Decepticons have all gotten lost somewhere. Everyone stands about happily as Rodimus Prime declares something along the lines of: "Let this mark the end of the Cybertronian wars and the beginning of a new age where we work together 'till all are one."

"'Till all are one," the masses repeat.

(video version only:) and then the narrator cuts in telling us how one day Optimus Prime will return... Don't ask me how this relates to anything, or why we really care. Personally, I'd rather have Hotrod back, instead of this stupid-looking minivan thing. It's worse than the Lexus SUVs with the 8 round eyes at the back instead of tail lights...

And then the credits roll, complete with exciting thematic music, summing up the battle we have just witnessed. "He said evil unicorn," says my housemate. "I heard him!"

...or so says Thanate.

Hotrod, in another life...
See for yourself.