Reliving The Transformers: The Movie (1986, De Laurentiis Entertainment Group) in 4K in the comfort of your home is clearly the best thing to happen for fans, but it will not bring you back to ’86. It’s just not the same as watching it with a bunch of like-minded folks in the theaters.
Having said that, there’s actually good news. The Transformers: The Movie is returning to theaters for the 40th anniversary of the first Transformers animated feature film—not to be confused (I did, and I apologize) with the 40th anniversary of the cartoon series. Yes, I still call it a cartoon because that’s what it is.
Hasbro wants you to experience the animated epic that changed Transformers forever. Translation: the toy company wants you to relive the trauma once more. Hopefully, as grown-ups, you are better equipped to handle the on-screen loss.
The Transformers: The Movie will hit theaters for its 40th anniversary starting September 17, 2026, presented in glorious, eye-popping 4K. OK, maybe “eye-popping” is an exaggeration, but you get the idea.
However, it appears to have a twist. As hinted by the 1-minute-50-second trailer—and by Hasbro’s own words, “This time, the story doesn’t end when the credits roll. Get your first look at a new chapter of the Transformers story”—death may not actually mean death this time. If that makes any sense.
At around the 1:27 mark, we see the gray Optimus Prime floating in space, and for a while, it all seems set in stone. There’s no coming back, even after 40 years. Never mind that Optimus Prime was revived in Season 3 following the backlash. This is not about the poor effort to bring him back. This is about now. About being shown the moment he died all over again.
The mourning may come rushing back, but then it happened. The words “AND EXPERIENCE A NEW CHAPTER” appeared as the camera pulled away from the lifeless body of the Autobot leader floating freely in space.
Strange. I don’t recall them ejecting Optimus Prime’s corpse into space, but anyhoo, as the camera continues to pull away from the grey Optimus, we see his hand…and then it twitches! It happens around the 1:44 or 1:45 mark. So, is he not dead?
What happens next is anybody’s guess. My take is that there could be a whole new series dedicated to the G1 Transformers, which I am going boldly suggest, split into a different timeline as Season 2 and beyond. But that’s purely my speculation.
You can keep abreast of The Transformers: The Movie: The Apology Tour 40th Anniversary Screenings by keeping your eyes peeled on the Fathom Entertainment website. The screenings run from September 17 through September 21, 2026.
Image: Hasbro/Fathom Entertainment.