The movie is set in 2005, twenty years after the television series, and chronicles the efforts of the heroic Autobots to defend their homeworld Cybertron from the evil Decepticons. Both factions are seething with anger, and that hatred has blinded them to a hideous menace headed their way. That menace is the colossal planet named Unicron, who's ready to consume anything that stands in its way. The only thing that can stop Unicron is the Autobot Matrix of Leadership, which is possessed by the Autobots and which the Decepticons, through Unicron's orders, plan to take away from them.