More than meets the eye?
*Transformers* was animated by Toei for Hasbro and Marvel. All the characters in the film were based on toys that Hasbro and Marvel wanted to sell, and the film was released at the nadir of the "animated commerical" movement that virtually killed off entertaining children's programming and represented toy companies and television studios at their greediest.
Why does *Transformers* evoke nostalgia while *He-Man* or *Thundarr the Barbarian* do not?
To find the answer, we can't look at the film's plot, which is weird and totally incomprehensible. We also can't look to the soundtrack, which almost entirely contains Journey impersonations. The voice talent, aside from the late Orson Welles, doesn't inspire confidence either. And the amount of violence in the film is appalling.
*Transformers* contains fantastic animation featuring the high-tech designs of Takara Toys, the same folks who brought you Microman/Micronauts. (Yes, there's a reason why so many Transformers resemble the Acroyears and Biotrons of the Micronauts series) The mecha animation of the film is truly amazing, and is in the vein of *Macross* or *Gundam.* Boldly colored geometrically shaped robots twist and turn in space, combining and recombining in different forms. The result is psychedelic in a way few mecha series are, and the sophisticated designs of the robots put the androids in the *Heavy Metal* comic to shame.
Normally, good character design is not enough for me to recommend a film. After all, *Darkstalkers* has great designs! But with *Transformers* the motion is so dizzyingly constant and the animation style so relentless that it's difficult not to respect this film from a technical standpoint.
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