Post by Mark T. Locker

I loved Transformers when I was a kid. When I heard the first Transformers movie was being released, I was momentarily excited. After twenty minutes of watching it, I was no longer excited. My own kid is now the age that kids like Transformers. There’s certainly enough merchandising to keep him busy and an uncle or two who are more than happy to indulge him.

To round it out, we just watched the original animated series together. The first couple seasons were just as I remember it: pretty much every character had a toy you could buy of it. Autobots vs. Decepticons, Optimus Prime vs. Megatron. But I had no idea how weird and intense and complex the show got in the third season, which was released after the animated movie and set WAY in the future in 2005. There’s these five-faced plump-lipped floating teardrop-shaped things, lots of other planets, a pink Autobot whose only role seems to be that she’s a girl. It’s really bizarre. And when Optimus comes back to life (I didn’t know he died!) all wrong and loses an arm and finally explodes, it’s kind of horrifying.

My son still totally digs the Transformers; I think he was pretty confused the third season. I recommend the first two, but leave it there. The rest is just really surreal and at times kind of disturbing.