I was a bit late to the game, with this film - I saw it about 3 years after it was in the theaters and on public tv. (At the time it was on the air, I was dealing with things and was "why do I have to pay to see a cartoon I see for free?" Little did I know that after the movie, the next season of Transformers jumped to AFTER the movie. So, I had to play catch up for the first few weeks).
What I remember (other than the casting) from that first viewing was Stan Bush's "You Got the Power" theme song. One that I would record and would get A LOT of pay time in both my tape player, and later, my Ipods (and even made into my ring tone).

Flash forward 15 yrs later - I get the DVD and watch it, only to discover that >gasp< they said SHIT in the movie.
Yes, a cartoon made for kids dropped a S-Bomb. How did I miss that?! (Mind you, this was during an era where my brother and I LOVE to quote the art display dialogue from Beverly Hills Cop around our Mom). But to see a curse word in a kids movie - WOW.

Anyway, this is possibly the BEST of the Transformer films. While Bay's first film was able to give us an idea of what a Transformer would look like in the real world, it sort of pales when compared to similar effects used in the Iron Man CGI. But this one - it gave us so many elements of what we would see in other Bay films. (Including surprise casting).