Celebrating the 36th anniversary of "Transformers (1986)" 

This celebration obviously being in conjunction with the 36th anniversary of 1986, it is difficult to discern a celebration of the year featuring the film or a celebration of the film featuring the year. If ye claim to know which is dog and which is tail, come fight me. 

It's a memory, Transformers (1986) is. The film will always stand but to return to it more often than once a decade is to slowly erode that memory. 

I was pleasantly surprised when Optimus Prime was killed, and perhaps that isn't a powerful enough phrase to express the excitement and joy his death brought to me. People have asked me "why" I feel this way about Optimus' death and they have asked me "why" I felt the need to share the feelings I had at 6 years old watching Optimus Prime killed. To the latter, 'tis because there is nothing anyone can say that would interest me, ergo I have a regular behavior of dominating casual conversations with pop culture ranging from the obscure to the mainstream.  

 

I became a Rodimus Kid in a Levittown movie theater during the summer of 1986. This day, I remain a Rodimus Kid. And yet I operate a high-volume unit of business like so many other poor bastards that remember seeing Transformer (1986) in a movie theater. Likely they have shared their feelings as a child experiencing this film. I am mistaken, we are Rodimus Men. I am a Rodimus Man. 

I am a Rodimus Man because I dislike the status quo, yet I cherish stability. My working class, fellow middle-managers that were born with the end of Generation X and the advent of the Millennials will argue they wished for Optimus Prime to return from the dark shroud of robot death. And they may very well speak the truth, but for the dog day summer months of 1986, they were Rodimus Kids, whooping and cheering as Hot Rod revealed himself to be an adult and a leader via the matrix of leadership. 

Judd Nelson told the Autobots to transform and roll out. The Autobots listened. He led them, as cars, through the self-destructing giant robot body of Unicron. The Rodimus Kids realized that they were Rodimus Kids. Rodimus Prime's brilliant, albeit brief monologue to close the film was a metaphor for the forward progress Generation X and old man Millennials have brought to the churning, shredding machine of America. 

"This is the end of the line, Galvatron," Rodimus Prime had said. He said it. It was true for many years. 

But in this life, our previous life, and our next life, there is Michael Bay.