My mum took my brother and I to see it at a cinema in Perth. It must have been early 1987 as, in my mind, I'd always thought of it as a 1987 movie, not a 1986 movie. During the Optimus death scene, my brother sobbed and then bawled which set off a chain reaction of other kids crying too.

I found the darkness and weirdness (relative to the first two seasons of the cartoon) a bit unsettling and pretty much lost interest in the cartoon when season 3 started. It wasn't until I rewatched it on VHS in the late 90s that I appreciated it's edginess, beyond 2000 futurism, and near ridiculous embrace of 80s rock.