I was there from the beginning, you know. I distinctly remember the first time I saw toys that could transform from vehicle to robot; it wasn’t actually in a cartoon, or in real life, but in an advert during a commercial break, on early evening television.

The next morning, everyone in the playground was talking about the transforming toys we’d seen in the advert. It blew our tiny little minds.

When the cartoon began, as part of the Saturday morning kids show, Wide Awake Club, all of us tuned in to every single episode, religiously, eager to keep up with the adventures of the Transformers.

I lived in a pretty deprived area, where only a few of us in our friend group could actually afford the Transformers toys (I wasn’t one of those more affluent kids, unfortunately!). So when we got to visit each other and actually play with the toys, it was truly exciting.

Never mind that the actual process of transforming the toys could often be incredibly convoluted and more difficult to solve than a Rubik’s Cube; they were just lovely toys to play with.

Anyway, the point is that I’m exactly the target audience for the big screen celebration of the Transformers, titled ‘Til All Are One: Transformers 40th Anniversary Event.

It’s a bit of an oddity, not because it isn’t good, or a fitting celebration of the massive milestone that the robots in disguise have reached, but because it’s not particularly cinematic, and would probably play better on a smaller screen.

It features a very brief introduction that leads into an odd, out of context preview of the new series of the current Transformers animated TV show, Earthspark.

The animation really doesn’t come across all that well on the big screen, unfortunately, though Earthspark does have a few neat stylistic touches such as deliberately 2D smoke effects, that add a comic book style flair to proceedings.

Next up, we’re introduced to the cast, old and new, who voice the classic Transformers characters. As many principal cast members have passed away in the years since the 1984 series first aired, it’s a necessity to have some roles recast for this particular event.

So, we have interviews with iconic voice actors such as Peter Cullen and Frank Welker (Optimus Prime and Megatron, respectively), alongside other members of the cast who were there at the beginning, and others who have taken on the mantle since.

Then we’re presented with the very first episode of the 1984 show, which is performed by the cast at a table read, in split screen so you see the cartoon itself on the left, and the actors on the right. All the while, this is framed by an image that makes everything seem to be playing on Teletraan-1, the Autobot’s semi-sentient computer.

Though just as with the clip of Earthspark, the ’84 episode doesn’t look great on the big screen, this was a wonderful way to experience the first ever episode of the show, which of course is one I was very familiar with, having seen it countless times over the last four decades.

This was followed by a genuinely amusing blooper sequence, in which the cast get the giggles and try to make each other laugh while recording; seeing their camaraderie in action, and to hear them talking about how they feel like a family, really does elevate it, taking us far beyond the usual criticism of Transformers only existing to be a toy advert.

After that, the next three episodes are shown back to back, again just in the Teletraan-1 frame but without a new voice recording session or the split screen; and we then get a PSA about running away (with Bumblebee stopping a stroppy teenager from leaving home) to end the event’s animated segments.

An In Memoriam title card is the final thing we see, reminding us of all of the wonderful voice talent we’ve lost since 1984, with an array of late actors named, each of whom provided their own distinctive voices to the show.

It’s a nice tribute to the Transformers as well as the actors who brought, and continue to bring, it to life; though it doesn’t really feel like a big screen experience, nor does it feel as if any effort was made to make it feel particularly cinematic. It’s very odd how it simply ends with the PSA and the silent In Memoriam card; the audience, me included, were expecting some sort of credit sequence or final piece of footage, but it simply ends and the lights go up.

That said, it was still enjoyable overall, to experience those cheesy, campy opening episodes that made me truly fall in love with the Transformers, all those years ago.

For an hour and a half, I was seven years old again. And how often do we get to experience anything like that?