Before reading, please note that the following review contains spoilers for “Transformers One.”
“Transformers One,” directed by Josh Cooley, is a movie with crisp and detailed animation, a heart-stoppingly beautiful score and two protagonists whose friendship will capture your heart, and, ultimately, whose breakdown into enemies will shatter your soul.
But it’s also a movie that, despite taking inspiration from a series of children’s toys, also deals with politics. In fact, I believe that the film’s political themes help build the movie’s emotional bedrock and engage the viewer in thinking about our own world — two points that bump up the movie for me. But to explain why, I have to explain the film’s mythology.
The Transformers live on a planet called Cybertron, which was created when a being named Primus transformed into it (yes, the planet is essentially a big robot; it still shocks me writing it out).
Primus created an artifact called the Matrix of Leadership, which allowed energon —the Transformers’ sustenance —to flow across Cybertron. However, the Matrix was lost when the Primes —the Transformers’ leaders —died in a battle against the Transformers’ enemies, the Quintessons. As a result, the Transformers now live beneath the planet in Iacon City, and some of the Transformers serve as miners, searching for energon that the Matrix can no longer supply. Sentinel Prime, the current leader, goes on missions to the surface to locate the Matrix; he has not found it yet.
The miners face a hopeless future of toil and frustration. They don’t know when the Matrix will return, meaning they do not know if they have a chance to live an easier and happier life. They also face mistreatment and minimization from other Transformers because they have been denied transformation cogs, meaning they cannot actually transform, only mine.
But a miner on Cybertron named Orion Pax refuses pessimism or passivity. He sneaks off to the archives of Iacon to try to find the Matrix. He stands up to the oppressive attitude of his supervisor, Darkwing, and disobeys orders to retreat from a collapsing mine in order to save another miner, Jazz.
He also upholds and honors his friendship with D-16, a fellow miner who acts more complacent and less assertive, to the point where, when Darkwing punches him, he makes excuses for the abuse. D-16 has another side, however. When Orion sneaks the two of them into the Iacon 5000 race, hoping to prove the worth of the miners, D-16 goes from angry to excited to win, showing he is not solely passive.
The movie presents a mirror to our politics because of the dichotomy between D-16 and Orion. One wants to rebel, while the other wants to remain quiet. Both of them, however, share the same goal of trying to obtain a better life. Similarly, people of our generation face similar problems and questions to these characters. Can we overcome climate change’s impacts on our lives — is it even possible? Is war inevitable, or preventable? Beyond these questions lies an essential choice between activity or passivity — do we try, or do we give up — that Orion and D-16 represent. This representation adds emotional stakes to the film by connecting those stakes to what we face in our own lives.
Later on, Orion Pax and D-16 venture out, alongside two other miners named Elita-1 and B-127, to find the Matrix on Cybertron’s surface. The four find the gravesite of the Primes and are able to revive one of them, named Alpha Trion.
Alpha Trion reveals that Sentinel, the current leader, is not a prime; he betrayed the actual primes by leading them into a Quintesson ambush and killing them. Sentinel did so to obtain the Matrix of Leadership for himself. However, the Matrix vanished because Sentinel was not deemed worthy by Primus. Alpha Trion then gives the group transformation cogs so they can reveal Sentinel’s lies to the Cybertronians and stop the ruler, who is delivering energon to the Quintessons in order to avoid more conflict.
Orion Pax and D-16 see the huge stakes of this moment. They can free their people and halt the rule of a dictator. Both have moved firmly into the stage of “trying” to fix a problem instead of “giving up.” However, the film provides more for the audience to chew on by presenting a new problem: democracy versus authoritarianism.
Orion believes that the Transformers will reject and rebel against Sentinel if they see the truth; he places power in the people and has faith that their power will be enough. In contrast, D-16 believes the people’s brainwashing under Sentinel will render them unable to rebel, and so D-16 himself must take control to stop Sentinel. In fact, when Orion asks, “Don’t you want to stop him?” D-16 responds, “No, I want to kill him!”
D-16’s rage, combined with his belief in the power of the individual, leads him to rip Sentinel in two, declare himself “Megatron” and call for the destruction of Iacon, putting the citizens of the city in danger as he and his followers shoot at the buildings. On the other hand, the first action Orion takes to overthrow Sentinel is speaking to the miners —not yelling at them or forcing them to act, but persuading them to rebel. He ends up with the Matrix of Leadership and becomes Optimus Prime, who fights Megatron and tells him and his followers to leave Iacon.
D-16, or Megatron, represents how, when faced with a horrific situation of unjust authoritarianism, people can become authoritarians and perpetuate violence and suffering; after all, D-16 acts as judge, jury and executioner of Sentinel, and had previously expressed a lack of faith in the people’s power to enact change. Orion Pax, on the other hand, has a compassionate approach focused on the citizens’ power, and he ends up as the leader who creates peace, safety and prosperity for Cybertron — not D-16.
These events make the film a powerful one by demonstrating the necessity of democratic action in response to the problems we face in our world, including suppression of people’s human rights. The film also rejects the idea that democracy is not enough in the face of the problems we face; the movie urges caution in trusting one person to fix what ails us.
This message may not be what one expects from a Transformers movie, but that very message has never made me more proud to be a Transformers fan. Hopefully, Transformers films, and animated films in general, will continue to have this depth and heart in the future.
Although Transformers One is not in theaters, you can buy it on Paramount Plus, Apple TV and a few other platforms.