Transformers: the best and worst moments from the movies

Ash Walker • 24 Sep 2024 Features

More than meets the eye?

The Transformers franchise has been going strong for 40 years, from its humble beginnings as a toyline (and associated cartoon series) to a blockbuster movie series that has grossed, to date, almost $6 billion.

With the release of Transformers One, there have now been nine Transformers films across various continuities… and of varying quality. There have been towering highs and thundering lows.

Now we’re looking back at the franchise as a whole, celebrating the most awesome moments, and the very worst.

The Best Moments

Blackout attacks (Transformers, 2007)

Michael Bay’s first Transformers film opens in typically bombastic fashion: an American military base is infiltrated by a highly suspicious helicopter, complete with holographic pilot, and surprise, surprise, it turns out to be an alien robot in disguise.

The soldiers are astonished when the helicopter begins to shift and change form, transforming into a gigantic robotic monster - the Decepticon Blackout - and even more astonished when the thing opens fire and a giant scorpion bursts out of its chest.

This is our first glimpse of a live action Transformer, and it’s suitably impressive. The transformation is ridiculously intricate, all spinning and clanking and folding parts, and the subsequent destruction really shows how much of a threat these things can be.

Special shout-out to the sound design in this scene, too - especially the use of the iconic transformation sound effect from the original ‘80s cartoon. A great opening scene.

Optimus Prime rides a dinosaur (Transformers: Age of Extinction, 2014)

The Dinobots - Autobot allies that transform into mechanical dinosaurs - have long been fan favourite characters, and their introduction to the live action universe was cause for some excitement. These versions turned out pretty awesome, too: huge and imposing, all spikes and teeth and jagged edges.

Freed from a prison ship, Optimus Prime wins their allegiance by beating Dinobot leader Grimlock in a trial by combat. They then team up to beat the bad guys, and Optimus rides Grimlock, in his alternate form - a gigantic, fire-breathing Tyrannosaurus - into battle.

Age of Extinction, the fourth of Michael Bay’s blockbuster Transformers films, is a long, exhausting watch. The characters are insufferable, the action is loud and confusing, but the sight of Optimus Prime astride a huge, robotic dinosaur is almost worth it.

Almost.

The Autobots arrive (Transformers, 2007)

We’ve already become acquainted with a few bots by the time the rest of the Autobot team arrives on earth in Michael Bay’s first Transformers film - namely fan favourite Bumblebee and a few pesky Decepticons - but this is where things really get going.

Framed like a mini Armageddon - which an extra clumsily makes reference to - the Autobots, signalled by Bee, fall to earth like a shower of meteorites, with explosive results. Accompanied by Steve Jablonsky’s rousing score, the moment feels truly epic.

We also get our first glimpse of some iconic characters, like Ratchet, Jazz and everyone’s favourite truck-shaped leader, Optimus Prime. True, none of them look like the characters they’re supposed to be - Ironhide is black instead of red, Optimus looks like an energy drink - but it’s hard to deny how cool this moment is.

The death of Optimus Prime (The Transformers: The Movie, 1986)

Throughout the first two seasons of the monumentally popular cartoon series, the war between the Autobots and Deceptions had been largely bloodless - it was a show for kids, after all. But then came the 1986 movie, and all of a sudden the Decepticons had discovered their kill mode.

Bots fell left and right, on both sides, clearing out most of the original cast to make way for a new generation of characters. And, most importantly, new toys.

But of all the character deaths - and there were many - none were as impactful as the death of Autobot dad and all-around good egg Optimus Prime. Fatally injured in an epic battle with arch-nemesis Megatron, Optimus stays alive long enough to bid his fellow Autobots an emotional farewell, and pass on the Matrix of Leadership to Ultra Magnus.

It’s a seriously dark, upsetting moment in an otherwise light, fairly silly adventure film, but it’s surprisingly well-handled and establishes real stakes for the surviving Autobots as they face off against the evil, godlike Unicron.

Of course, the death was quickly retconned in subsequent episodes of the series - you can’t keep a good bot down - but that doesn’t lessen its impact. Truly, this is the moment that traumatised an entire generation of young Transformers fans.

The Cybertron prologue (Bumblebee, 2018)

Honestly, all of Travis Knight’s wonderful ‘80s-set prequel/reboot could have made this list - it’s easily the best big screen Transformers film ever made - but if we had to settle for a single moment, and we do, it’s definitely the first few minutes.

Opening on a war-ravaged Cybertron, we’re quickly introduced to a host of fantastically redesigned bots, all of which have been given a bit of a modern update but, crucially, look and sound just like they did in the original cartoon. It’s a dream come true for any fan of the original Generation 1 cartoon.

It’s also a fantastic action sequence. Our favourite Autobots - Wheeljack! Arcee! Ratchet! - are thrown into battle against a horde of murderous Decepticons - Soundwave! Ravage! Shockwave! - and before long it becomes a desperate scramble for survival as Optimus Prime sends plucky young warrior Bumblebee into space.

Poor Bee can only watch, helpless, as his mentor is overcome and his home seemingly goes up in flames. 

With this one scene, Knight manages to perfectly distil the central concept of Transformers into a punchy 3 minutes, filled with eye-popping spectacle and lovingly faithful character depictions. It’s a great setup for a great movie, and hands-down the best Transformers has ever been on screen.

The Worst Moments

“Give me your face!” (Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, 2009)

Optimus Prime is the noble, wise and peace-loving leader of the heroic Autobots - a being who hates war, is always willing to give his enemies another chance and regularly says things like ‘freedom is the right of all sentient beings’.

At least, he was. Until Michael Bay got a hold of him.

While still ostensibly the good guy, Optimus in Bay’s live action movies looks like Guy Fieri and acts like the Terminator, violently dispatching Decepticons with no remorse and no restraint.

We could point to the moment in Dark of the Moon where he executes his former mentor-turned-enemy, Sentinel Prime, gangland style, or the bit in Age of Extinction where he unceremoniously blasts Kelsey Grammar into atoms. But his most eyebrow-raising act has to be at the end of Revenge of the Fallen, when Optimus, in a fit of rage, drops this infamous one-liner before, well, ripping off the Fallen’s face.

Optimus has never been less Optimus than in that moment.

The endless product placement (Transformers: Age of Extinction, 2014… but really, all of them)

Let’s be real, most movies these days have a little product placement in them. Most of the time it goes unnoticed - a laptop here, a can of Coke there - and, if we’re being generous, a bit of ‘promotional consideration’ is unavoidable in a film series about robots that turn into real, actual cars.

But Michael Bay’s series of Transformers films somehow manage to take product placement to the next level. Even in the very first movie, there are extended scenes of transforming Nokias and Xbox 360s - not to mention a murderous Mountain Dew vending machine.

It’s the fourth film though, Age of Extinction, where Bay really ups the ante and takes things almost to the point of parody. Shouty protagonist Cade (Mark Wahlberg) aggressively downs a Bud Light in the middle of a climactic battle. Sleazy CEO Joyce (Stanley Tucci) demonstrates his new transforming nanotech by having it turn into a Beats Pill - and you better believe there are long, lingering close-ups.

It’s all utterly shameless, and so distracting it makes you want to just turn off the movie in anger and go get an ice cold Bud…

Huh, maybe product placement does work after all.

Devastator’s wrecking balls (Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, 2009)

“I am directly beneath enemy scrotum!”

So screams John Turturro’s maniacal Agent Simmons at the climax of this overstuffed, but pretty fun, sequel. If there’s one thing Michael Bay can be relied on for - other than explosions, of course - it’s bringing down the tone.

It’s an epic, dramatic moment, filled with tension: the Decepticons are close to victory and our heroes are on the back foot. Not least because those dastardly ‘Cons have just unleashed their greatest weapon yet - Devastator, a behemoth of a bot, formed of six huge construction vehicles. It’s a monster of a machine, sucking up pyramids and people alike with its vacuum cleaner mouth.

Devastator is a legitimate threat… at least until the reveal that between his gargantuan legs swing two clanging wrecking balls. In the moment it’s a jarring tonal shift, and as a joke it’s more likely to make you cringe than laugh.

Poor old Devastator deserved better.

All of The Last Knight (Transformers: The Last Knight, 2017)

After Age of Extinction, Michael Bay put together a writers’ room filled with talented creators, intending to figure out where the franchise could go next. The writers dove deep into Transformers lore and came up with a bevy of ideas, all of which were unceremoniously mashed together into a single script.

This is Transformers: The Last Knight, Bay’s fifth - and, for now at least, final - entry in the Transformers movie series. A film that slaps together Arthurian legend, Nazis and grand cosmic spectacle.

Optimus Prime is a bad guy now, for a bit. Mark Wahlberg is the reincarnated soul of a knight. There’s Anothony Hopkins, for some reason, and a robot dragon and a magic staff… oh, and somehow Earth itself is now a robot in disguise, too.

Worst of all for a Transformers film, there’s barely any actual transforming in The Last Knight; instead, the Autobots and Decepticons switch modes off screen, or behind strategically placed shipping containers. An absolute mess.

The ‘Romeo and Juliet’ law card (Transformers: Age of Extinction, 2014)

By far the ickiest moment in any Transformers movie - or any movie, for that matter - is this truly bizarre scene from Michael Bay’s fourth entry in the franchise. It boggles the mind what the filmmakers were thinking here.

Let’s break it down: preposterously-named protagonist Cade Yaeger (Mark Wahlberg) is upset that his 17-year-old daughter, Tessa (Nicola Peltz), is dating 20-year old racing driver Shane (Jack Reynor). Tessa and Shane say it’s love, and the age difference shouldn’t matter, while Cade insists that his daughter is too young.

Cade thinks he’s struck the winning blow in the argument when he says that his daughter is underage, and therefore the relationship is illegal. At which point Shane opens his wallet and whips out a laminated card - laminated - printed with the Texas law that specifically allows for underage relationships if the age difference between the two parties is three years or less.

Cade, and the audience, is stunned into silence.

First of all, let’s remember that this is a Transformers film; it’s supposed to be about giant robots beating each other up, not… whatever this is. Second, just why?

Why does Shane know about this law, to the point where he’s got a copy of it printed out. Why does he keep it in his wallet at all times, and why is it laminated? Why did someone think this scene was a good idea?

It’s beyond creepy, it’s utterly bewildering, and it has no place in a movie about alien robots that turn into cars and dinosaurs. Baffling.