Review of TRANSFORMERS ONE: Foundations of the Franchise

September 18, 2024

The planet of Cybertron used to be led by a magnanimous group of robots called the Primes. One day, they were all killed in a great war with invading aliens called the Quintessons, and an important item called the Matrix of Leadership had gone missing. Since then, it had been a well-loved leader named Sentinel Prime who led the city in the search for the missing Matrix, without which the city's essential energy supply Energon had been very scarce.  

There were bots who did not have a cog which could enable them to transform. They became mine slaves whose main duty was to mine Energon out.  One day, an adventurous miner bot named Orion Pax was able to arrange things so that he and his best friend D-16 would be able to join the big Iacon 500 race. He did this to prove to their city that miner bots like them were capable of so much more than expected, even if they cannot transform. 

The Transformers franchise began from mecha robot toys to an animated TV series and comic books in 1984, and an animated feature film in 1987 (this present one being only the second of such released in cinemas). It also had a live-action feature film series starting from "The Transformers" (2007), and seven more, the latest one being "The Rise of the Beasts" (2023). Admittedly, my knowledge of the Transformers were mainly from these live action films, not the cartoons.

This new animated feature by Paramount Animation and Hasbro Entertainment reintroduced us to the younger, more foolish versions of Optimus Prime and Megatron before they had their iconic names. We also meet future Autobots like Elita One and B-127 (a.k.a. Bumblebee), and Decepticons like Starscream and Shockwave. It told the story how their epic rivalry began, but I personally thought it was a bit simplistic (unless more details will be revealed later). 

The superstar voice talents made this a very entertaining watch -- Chris Hemsworth as Orion Pax, Scarlet Johannson as Elita One, Brian Tyree-Henry as D-16, Keegan-Michael Key as B-127, and Jon Hamm as Sentinel Prime. Laurence Fishburne lent his deep voice to the elder Prime Alpha Trion, who held the key to the real story.  The artwork and animation of those complex, frenetic race and fight scenes were sleek, fluid and thrilling. 8/10.