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Hey, 1980s kids: Transformers: The Movie returns to theaters

Can you believe the animated adventure marked Orson Welles' final voice role?

Gael Cooper
CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
Expertise Breaking news, entertainment, lifestyle, travel, food, shopping and deals, product reviews, money and finance, video games, pets, history, books, technology history, and generational studies Credentials
  • Co-author of two Gen X pop-culture encyclopedia for Penguin Books. Won "Headline Writer of the Year"​ award for 2017, 2014 and 2013 from the American Copy Editors Society. Won first place in headline writing from the 2013 Society for Features Journalism.
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Gael Cooper
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More than meets the, well, you know.

 Shout Factory/Hasbro

Dig out your legwarmers, the 1986 animated film Transformers : The Movie is returning to theaters for one night in September.

The remastered and restored film has been transferred to HD, and will show at more than 500 U.S. cinemas on Sept. 27 at 7 p.m. Tickets go on sale Aug. 3 and can be purchased online or at participating theater box offices.

It'll include a sneak peek at the upcoming Bumblebee feature film and an interview with singer-songwriter Stan Bush including recent performances of the theme songs The Touch and Dare. 

The film features a pretty astounding voice cast, including Peter Cullen, Eric Idle, Casey Kasem, Judd Nelson, Leonard Nimoy, Robert Stack and Frank Welker. But perhaps the most notable name on the cast list is Orson Welles as Unicron, the legendary director's final voice-acting role. Welles died in 1985, shortly after completing his work on the film.

Some fans were eager to return to the neon-soaked decade and their childhood memories of those robots in disguise. Wrote one parent, "THANK YOU! I was quite emotional when I got the news. I'm so excited to relive one of my favorite films in the theater alongside my son."

Some non-American Nostalgia-Bots were hoping the film would spread over the U.S. borders and play Canada and the U.K.