I HATED HATED HATED this movie. I was 10 when it came out and my friend and I saw it on opening day. When Optimus Prime was killed (at the beginning of the film, no less!) I kept waiting for him to come back. And waiting. And waiting. Then the movie ended and my friend & I went home & couldn't believe he was dead. It was a very emotionally-scarring experience easily on par with "Old Yeller". As a result I've never watched it again. Turns out I wasn't the only one with a bad reaction to that. I've read since that Mattel killed Prime off in the movie as a way to introduce the new toy line. They were planning to do the same thing to Duke in a "GI Joe" animated movie that same year for the same reason, but the reaction from kids & parents to Prime's death was so negative, they scrapped the idea of killing Duke and never released the GI Joe movie to theaters. They rewrote/animated it and released in a "made-for-TV" movie instead. Oh, if only they had figured that out before releasing Transformers! Did they not do ANY test screenings of this film with kids (their main target audience) beforehand?

(sigh). OK. I'm good now. I've been waiting almost 30 years to vent that.