Why Transformers 2 was so horrible (Spoiler Alert!)

I’ve had two conversations lately about Transformers 2, easily the worst Transformers movie since the animated original. The DVD just came out and one of my friends saw it, and the other discussion took place when a girl complimented my Autobots T-shirt the other day. That’s right, baby! Instead of proposing, I launched into this diatribe.

Transformers: The Movie, not to be confused with Transformers, was the animated film that, in 1986, destroyed my childhood. Why? Because they killed all the freaking Autobots to make way for a new line of toys. (They killed a bunch of Decepticons, too, but honestly, who cares? The Decepticon logo is cool. The concept of Decepticons is cool. But they’re either whiny (Starscream), weak leaders (Megatron) or really unoriginal (Thundercracker, Skywarp, etc.). Soundwave is awesome and I still try to do his voice, but overall it’s a weak crop.)

Anyway, the worst death was Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots and a red-white-and-blue symbol of all that was good in the Cold War ’80s. Optimus Prime was like the John Elway of my childhood. Actually John Elway was the John Elway of my childhood, so call him more of a Robot John Elway, which sounds awesome and like he could probably play forever. Like I was saying, anyway, they just up and killed Prime and broke my heart but good. Well, actually it didn’t break my heart at all, I just thought it made the movie suck. When you’re a kid, no one cares if you spoil the movie, and by the time we got around to renting it I already knew a) Optimus was gonna die and b) Ultra Magnus was gonna cuss. But why kill O-Prime? He’s the hero. Does Peter Parker die during the opening scene of Spider-Man 3? Lots of people in my generation look back on this movie fondly and all of them are, without exception, complete idiots. The movie’s garbage, I hate the kids’ movie storyline about some brash young pup (Hot Rod) becoming the next leader, and anyone who disagrees with me is a communist.

Well, I’m already tired of building up to this pile of suck, so for those of you I warned never to see 2, here’s the problem with it: they killed Optimus again. Seriously. Halfway through the movie he finds himself in a huge forest battle with a bunch of Decepticons, and he’s rocking, and beating the crap out of evil space robots left and right. And then one of them stabs him through the back and he’s dead. That’s it.

Well, that’s not it, because they keep dropping hints that only a Prime can defeat this enemy, and for some reason they keep alluding to the location of Optimus’ body, and eventually you’re like, hmmm, I wonder if he comes back to life. Well, I’d really love to spoil it for you, and he does come back. Stupid! Stupid! Don’t make me sit there shaking in rage for several minutes, wondering how I could have been so foolish as to waste my money on a ticket.

Also, like how Mike Shanahan would script the first fifteen plays of any Broncos game, it feels like Michael Bay scripts the first fifteen minutes of the movie and then lets his cast of wunderkinds take over. There are tons of lame scenes and characters, but really the death of Optimus is all you need to know about to avoid this forever.