Predating the MCU before we were getting excited about Rocket Raccoon getting a big screen treatment Hasbro had designs on establishing a Transformers Universe on the big screen. Six films and one reboot later is the Transformers universe as dead as a Battleship sequel or is there more than meets the eye?
It has been a long decade and a bit for Transformers fans since we first got our Michael Bayformers on the big screen. One of the biggest film franchises of the early 2000s with Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox, it was one of the most ambitious films when it came to CGI forgoing the original cartoon designs for redesigned Autobots and Decepticons to provide ‘realistic’ transformations. But after 5 films fans of the original cartoon got the adaption they wanted with the (really good) Bumblebee.
If you skipped Bumblebee you may have missed out on the best Transformers film since a Transformers film had a Stan Bush soundtrack. Bumblebee acted as a reboot for the series (yet still making it possible to be a prequel for the Bayformers) not attempting to continue from the previous films and taking us back to 1987 with a squad of Autoboots leaving Cybertron during the war to regroup.
As the Autobots get split up, the scout Bumblebee was sent to Earth to establish a base but was hunted down where after meeting John Cena he was injured and lost his memory. He was then found by Kate Bishop who forms a bond with him until he retrieves his memories and a showdown with a pair of Decepticons ensues. Basically it is E.T. except with a giant yellow robot that transforms into a car and Gwen Stacy.
Bumblebee was only the latest instalment of the series which already has had multiple adaptions as cartoons both in the original 80s and multiple editions featuring computer animation the first being in the 90s with Beast Wars which featured the descendants of the first generation (G1) of Transformers that we knew who used a space bridge with a transwarp key to travel to earth but inadvertently travelled back in time to a more prehistoric age. These futuristic/prehistoric Autobots aka Maximals fought their enemies the Decepticons aka Predacons.
The latest film Rise of the Beasts continues with the Autobots on earth story where Bumblebee left off. Reunited and hiding in plain sight the Autobots are living in New York of 1993. Cut off from Cybertron and their civil war the Autobots are effectively living in carparks until an down on his luck veteran attempts to steal a Porche 911 which just happens to be the autoboot Mirage just as a Transwarp key is discovered on earth.
Following a smaller cast than the previous live action films Rise of the Beasts does return to the more globe trotting formula than the smaller story of Bumblebee as it adapts beats from both Beast Wars and the 1986 film with the big bad of Unicorn (a giant robot who can transform into a planet the size of Cybertron’s twin and eats planets – yes like Galactus) taking on a more Thanos like role as the impending world ending threat. Except a lot more clear and present danger than he was in the final of the Bayformers.
As a film the latest does require you to be a bit invested in the Transformers as it is less of a introduction than Bumblebee was but a basic understanding of the transformers and accept that Jazz transformed into a Porsche and not Mirage, will do fine. Much like all the Transformers films that came before the plot does use the ‘Humans’ as the main characters with the Transformers existing around them but the smaller cast with a large amount of the action sequences being robot on robot action, but if you really want to see a Transformers movie you know what you are in for.
So should you go see it? That is a tricky one because on one hand this does go a different route to Bumblebee which does stand as the best film in the entire series outside of the first animated one. The latest film nearly returns to the story roots of the previous films but does so with a nicer coat of nostalgia with cartoon accurate Autobots + a heaping of Maximals for anyone who grew up on Beast Wars instead. Coming out at a time with SO MANY other blockbusters if you are in the need of knowing how the Transformers-verse is becoming the Hasbro-verse this will definitely tick that box.
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is in cinemas from today
