All Sentient Beings

February is Transformers month! Honestly, if I had my way, 2011 would be Transformers year! I've been a fan of Transformers since I was old enough to self-identify as a fan of anything, and before that I watched the show religiously, often with my father, who was fascinated by my own growing fascination with the world and the things in it.

If I have any particular cognitive aptitude, it is for seeing how things could be disassembled and reassembled to create new things. I am obsessed with order and the philosophy of function. Transformers toys were a puzzle, first and foremost, and solving them gave me tremendous satisfaction. Add to this the fact that, when I had figured out how to change the vehicle into the robot, I now had more than just a toy - I had a character to play with. A lot of G1 Transformers toys were bricks. Knees and elbows were uncommon, as were individual legs. To play with them, you had to rely heavily on your imagination. Transformers were giant robot aliens that fought each other, which is cool enough, but the transforming gimmick and the story behind the toyline were precisely the kind of thing my analytical mind sought to latch onto while it developed. But there was another connection - something else about Transformers that burned a love for the franchise into my brain before I really knew what was so great about the characters. That has to do with my dad.

My mother left when I was 7 and my brother was 2. She was never very present, and treated me coldly. But my father took eagerly to dadhood, sharing in my constant discovery of the world with enthusiasm to match my own. On the rare occasion that I see him holding and interacting with my little cousins, his joy in watching them experiment and learn and be amazed simply shines out of him. My first experiences with Transformers are inextricable from early happy memories of spending time with my dad. Even now, he marvels at my ever-expanding collection of G1 figures, and if he is bored when I am showing him my newest acquisitions he certainly doesn't let it show. Optimus Prime was always my favorite, which is certainly nothing new. And I'm talking G1 Optimus here. He was noble and kind, and he reminded me of my father. While Megatron was an egotist, often berating his underlings, Prime treated every Autobot as an equal. He was flawed, he felt every failure deeply, but he never gave up. Even when he was beaten, wounded fatally and at Megatron's mercy, he gave the last of his power in a titanic act of defiance. I am not afraid to admit that, even at 30 years old, I still get a chill and a lump in my throat while watching that poignant exchange in the 1986 movie in which the Autobot leader refuses to cow before the Decepticon tyrant:

Megatron: "I would have waited an eternity for this - it's over, Prime."
Optimus Prime: "NEVER!"

In the prelude to this fight, Megatron asks Prime why he should throw away his life so recklessly. Prime responds with trash talk, but we know the real reason - he walks into one-on-one combat with Megatron without hesitation because it is the right thing to do to save the lives of hundreds of innocents. He isn't proud, but does not allow himself the luxury of fear.
This is my father. Prime was a mirror image of all the good things about my dad that inspired me to be a good person, too.

Transformers persists. The toys are far more complex. The stories are convoluted, ranging from dark and adult to childishly simple, and offer varying degrees of entertainment value. What is it that has given this franchise such longevity? I can't speak for anyone else, but I know what it is that keeps me loving Transformers. The characters Hasbro and Marvel developed for the G1 Transformers fired my young imagination, even while some of the episodes of that first TV series skirted the edge of ridiculousness, and positive associations with my father, who endured as a source of love and acceptance even through a childhood that would come to be marred by ridicule, emasculation, and intense abuse are why I have remained faithful through endlessly-branching continuities and why I will continue to love the core of what Transformers is long after I am "too old" to buy G1 figures off the wall at my local hobby shop without raising eyebrows.