This is it. We are now in the Beast Wars era of the live-action Transformers movies. And whether I knew it or not, I’ve been waiting for this, for years! With the trend of diminishing returns from the current slate of Transformers movies, this is absolutely the way to bring it things back on track! With the newly released Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts teaser trailer, we get the first glimpse of our favourite Beast Wars characters, in live action! Keep reading to find out what this could mean for the Transformers franchise.
Why This New Transformers Movie Is Important For The Franchise
Image via: Paramount Pictures.
The new Transformers movie has the daunting task of reinvigorating a franchise that most fans and critics wrote off. Besides fun summer blockbuster movies that are okay for a one-time watch (or hate-watch), the Transformers movies have lost their sheen. Not to mention all sense of logic and visual appeal. Similar to the animated franchise, Beast Wars was an iteration of the cartoon created at a time when audiences wanted more than car robots fighting each other. So it’s very apt that the live-action movies similarly look to the Beast Wars for a shot in the arm of this current franchise. And boy, does it look great!
Transformers: Rise Of The Bests Teaser Trailer Is Making Me Giddy!
Image via: Paramount Pictures.
Keep in mind that this is a teaser trailer only, it does everything just right. The Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts teaser introduces us to all the new Transformers in the movie, teases a threat, gives us an awesome car chase, and clearly sets up more to come. Perfection. At least as far as teaser trailers go. It opens with our regular Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) meeting a new Transformer threat in the jungle or, I want to say Peru? However, this new character, whom Beast Wars fans will recognize as Optimus Primal (Ron Perlman), warns Prime of a looking threat that they have to band together to fight.
What follows in the Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts teaser is a flurry of absolutely stunning sequences that introduce us to many of the humans, and more importantly, new Transformers characters. My mind nearly exploded seeing the live-action versions of Cheetor, Rhinox, Airazor (Michelle Yeoh) and Primal. However, there are clearly fan-favourite characters either missing or not included in the teaser. I mean, I don’t want to nitpick, but where are Rattrap and Dinobot?
Beast Wars In Live Action Looks Amazing!
The Beast Wars iteration of Transformers was almost a reboot of the franchise. It began with a group of future Transformers, the Maximals (descendants of Autobots) and Predacons (descended from Decepticons) crash land on a pre-historic planet. To prevent from shorting out in their robot forms, the Transformers had to scan and become robot versions of the local animal population. Or otherwise known as, beasts. As the series progressed, the story took a turn and revealed that the prehistoric planet is actually Earth, and the original Autobots and Decepticons also crash-landed here, and are in stasis, until they awake in the 1980s. As per the original Transformers canon. What followed is one of the best shows of fulfilling prophecies, time travel and so much more.
Which Franchise Is Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts In?
Image via: Paramount Pictures.
While the live-action Transformers movies struggled, a reboot/prequel came out in 2018, called Bumblebee, focusing on that solo character to positive critical and audience reactions. The movie loosely tied into the original franchise. Although for many of us, the further it stayed from the Michael Bay blurry metal explosion-fest, the better.
However, it looks like Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts might unite the two franchises in this. The Bumblebee in this teaser looks like the one from the 2018 movie. So Rise Of The Beasts looks to be a continuation of both franchises moving forward, especially seeing that it’s set in the 90s. So either branching off from the Bay movies into its own timeline or something else entirely. We’ll have to watch to find out. This is great because the tone, style and humour of this film look absolutely amazing. It reminds me of the original Transformers live-action movie before it started to continuously retcon itself into oblivion in each sequel.
Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts releases in theatres on June 9, 2023.
How excited are you for Rise Of The Beasts? Let me know in the comments below.
