I am usually one among wanting to revere an original work as opposed to a rehash older one. But I felt that your article critiquing your love for the first movie versus your dissappointment for the second movie is a bit unfair.

First off, you neglect to express the reason why the movie was so pivotal as a childhood film. If none of us watched the cartoon series, none of us would have been as moved by the movie as we were. If you wanted to compare the animated movie's merit in terms of plot and special effects compared to the second. You would HAVE to give Bay his due. Because Micheal Bay's film was re-introducing the transformers. whereas the animated movie was a continuation of what we experienced in the series. Of course Bay couldn't capture Starscream's ambition (or how I felt his conniving underhandedness) because as kids, we had enough animated episodes to be fully aware of each of the main decepticon's and autobots motivations. Any attempt at giving more character development than needed would have bogged the movie down.

And I don't understand how you felt that Bay's movie didn't capture the same plot as the original series? THe only thing that was different from the original series compared to the update was the human influence, in the older movie you had maybe just two humans, a father and son..and to my opinion they seemed more of an annoyance than an additive to any of the original movies plot. On the other hand, the new movie, you couldn't take away the human element in the movie because, well it's on earth. How can you have an intergalatic battle with earth as a backdrop and not have any humans reacting towards these alien vistors.

And finally, the Transformers..you may have felt that they didn't meet up to your expectations in the original series, like for instance, bumblebee...Personally I liked Bumblebee's way of talking through the radio, for two reasons one, in the cartoon and in the movie, bumblebee, though I liked him, his voice was annoying, two, I thought you, being a fan of the original movie would have appreciated the re-imagining of bumblebee because you should have noticed that Bay combined two characters from the movie into the new character.

If you remember in the first movie, Bumblebee was a sub-character, someone you thought died, but didn't see untill the very end, where his role was taken place by Cavalier, wise-talking autobot by the name of hotrod. You can't deny that there was alot essence of both Bumblebee in the orignal series and HotRod. I actually thought the vehicle change made sense in the new movie because how believable would an 18year old be in trying to convince his father to buy him a Volkswagen Beetle?

Also, you do remember that alot of the other autobot's characters were consistent to the series..Optimus Prime was very Archaic in his speech and morals(they even included the same dialogue from both the show and the movie), Ironhide always,always, always was a bit too eager and vocal about his hatred for the decepticons and Jazz, needed an update if on the series he was known for talking "jive". The only one I cannot attest for, is your beloved Ratchet which I have a hard time remembering, for certain...but I'm sure for a medical robot, other than his role, I don't think there would be any difference.

So I really don't know why you didn't enjoy the movie as much as my other transformer's friends did. We actually came into the theatre with the absolute lowest expectations, mostly just anticipating Bay's well-known special effects and explosions ala car chases, but all of us came out, delightfully surprised. Maybe you should watch some of the old episodes again, before you mark Bay's film as a poorly rehash of an old franchise.

I found an article that may shed some light on this particular subject.

It seems to mirror the reasons why this film has been met with disaaproval by many a transformers fans

I couldn't have said it any better.

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Well for starters in the serise and in the movie there was the matrix in no mention in this movie. all there is is the all spark, woop de dooo. the matrix is and will be be apart of the original transformers. as for the new movie its the same old spin off of the true original. armada beast wars and cybertom all spin offs of the real deal transformers. i mean really armada was a cobination of tranformers meets power rangers. give me a beak!

as for Bumblebee the only reason he wasnt a vw bug in the movie is beacouse vw had such a big problem promoting one of there vehicles that promotes violence among other stupid reasons. thats why Bumbiebee isnt a vw bug, vw said no to giving permision to put there vehicle in the movie. u call urself a fan. how old are u 18? 20? 23?. sorry but im 30 and 7 years makes a diffrence heck even if u were 25 u still dont get it. even in G1 ep 1 more than meets they eye. there was more interaction and trust between autobots and humans then in the new movie. And im sorry to say there was more then 2 humans in the origanal seriese moron. there was spike and his father. and in later episodes there was the aradian prince. that had the aireal bots in it. then there was the episode of the girl who got her legs cruches at a science lab. the girls father and her and the other scientist found optimus's body and tried to bring him back to life to get back at the outobots. becouse they blamed the autobots for her legs not the decepticons. after the movie when optimus was brought back to life. optimus had to stop the spread of the spores when rodimus was infected. and again they used the matrix to stop the spores.

on top of that one of the conributing factors in that movie being a that as in the 2007 version is they got cullen to play optimus prime again. really do u have any idea how much they had to pay him vs other voice people in the movie. he said no to them 3 times till they gave him so much money for doing the movie he couldnt say no. like i said 2007 movie is just another spin off of the true and real transformers.

get ur facts right befor u try to defend a second rate producer that did what he wanted to do with a great movie and seriese and turn it into junk. just like armada, beast wars and cybertron.and theres a huge difference between the movies.like i said theres vw's stupidity, then theres no matrix vs the all spark, even between G1 ep. 1 and the new movie.
actually cybertron out of oll of the spin offs is the closest anyones got to the origanal. sorry for all the error word mistakes i was going fast and was pissed at the time i read the morons reply.

I definitely agree that the movie was a traumatic experience for many a young boys'. I was 11 years old in 1986. Like many others, I was expecting to watch a more exciting continuation of the cartoon, only to be dismayed and disheartened by the onslaught of so many beloved characters. I can even remember tearing up in the theater when Prime died. I was shocked. It never occurred to me until I read this article that the killing off of many of these characters was a marketing ploy. Regardless, it was a bad idea. Adolescent kids shouldn't have to watch their favorite transformer cartoon characters die just so someone can introduce a new line of toys that we would have bought anyway.

My interest in transformers has been rekindled in recent weeks on account of my 5 year old nephew who is now obsessed with them. Over the weekend my brother and I tore through the basement at our mom and dads house looking for all of our old transformers. I could only find a small fraction of the transformers that I used to have.

I'm not sure it's fair to compare the recent movie to the original animation, but in my opinion nothing compares to the original.