Oh yeah! I am excited for this, J1sters! Paramount Pictures has rolled out the first trailer for Transformers One, the upcoming film directed by Josh Cooley and produced by Michael Bay, Lorenzo di Bonaventura, Don Murphy and Mark Vahradian that will lay down the groundwork for new Transformers films. It is the first fully animated film in the franchise since 1986’s Transformers: The Movie. It stars Chris Hemsworth as Orion Pax/Optimus Prime, Brian Tyree Henry as D-16/Megatron, Scarlett Johansson as Alita-1, and Keegan-Michael Kay as B-127/Bumblebee. Lawrence Fishburne and John Hamm appear as Alpha Trion and Sentinel Prime, respectively.
Synopsis: Described as an “origin story” set on the planet Cybertron, the film will center on the relationship between Optimus Prime and Megatron going from brothers-in-arms to archenemies, and the foundations of the factions they will lead and come into conflict as Autobots and Decepticons.
Transformers One will roll out to theaters September 20, 2024.
So, right away, this is an origin story of how things were on Cybertron before the First Great War (Second Great War depending upon continuity) and what Optimus Prime and Megatron were like before they became the respected leaders of their warring factions. Fans were uneasy about Chris Hemsworth voicing Optimus Prime, but this is an origin story. Many of us longtime fans know about Orion Pax, but for those of you who do not, Orion Pax is Optimus Prime’s identity before he was chosen for leadership. Orion was first introduced in the original Transformers series where he was not voiced by Peter Cullen (voiced instead by Laurie Faso), so having him voiced by Chris Hemsworth makes sense since this is a younger version of the character. While I like Alita-1 and Bumblebee (who’s back to being fun and joyful), I’m not sold on Brian Tyree Henry as Megatron. Granted, this a young version of the future Deception leader, but I believe he could have roughed his voice a little bit to give that harshness to him we’re familiar with. It is nice to see a Transformers film taking place on Cybertron and it appears to have “War for Cybertron” and “Prime” feels to it with the robot designs reminiscent of War for Cybertron. Overall, this looks like a fun movie and we kinda need that right now – a fun Transformers movie. I could talk all day about this, but I’ll save it for when the movie comes out.
