The Transformers brand is so ubiquitous in pop culture that even if you’re not a superfan, and even if you haven’t seen any of the movies, you basically know what’s going on. Giant shape-shifting alien robot Optimus Prime turns into a truck to fight a bad guy named Megatron, and for some reason Earth is involved in this and is usually in peril.

But that’s kind of it, unless you’re deep enough in to have read the comics and watched the tie-in TV shows that have been going for decades. We’re like the humans in the Michael Bay movies, so overwhelmed by the sheer size and power of these characters that there’s just no time to get acquainted with how they got that way.

The animated prequel movie Transformers One hopes to rectify this, presenting the Transformers’ heart-shattering backstory in as much detail as can fit in a kids’ movie under two hours. Boy does it deliver. This is high art. This is Shakespearean drama. This is Greek tragedy.

Many moons before they ever encounter the Earth, the Transformers live in a rigorously structured society on the planet........

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