Edmund Burton

Edmund Burton is an Autobot-allied human from The Last Knight portion of the live-action film series continuity family.

This is season 2 of West World, right?

Last of the Order of the Witwiccans and twelfth Earl of Folgan, Sir Edmund Burton knows all about the Transformers and the history of their kind on Earth. Using his considerable political and financial influence, he's dedicated to keeping this history a secret and is aided in doing so by a myriad of hidden Cybertronians across the planet.

He is everything you hope to be when you grow old and everything you probably won't be.

Fiction

The Last Knight film

Actor: Anthony Hopkins

Voice actor: Michihiro Ikemizu (Japanese dub), Li Lihong (Mandarin dub), Jean-Pierre Moulin (European French dub), Jean-Marie Moncelet (Canadian French dub), Reinaldo Pimenta (Portuguese dub)

Descended from a long line of complete and utter lunatics who committed suicide in a variety of inventive ways, Edmund Burton was a boy when World War II broke out where he met Hot Rod and Bumblebee. Though Hot Rod would remain on Earth and become close friends with Burton, Bumblebee left after the War and would not remember the conflict as a particularly noteworthy event decades later. He was partly raised by Cogman, a sociopathic Headmaster who was in service to the Burton family.

Over the years, Edmund Burton would be inducted into the Order of the Witwiccans, meet (and become greatly annoyed by) Seymour Simmons and receive a knighthood. He was friends with the father of Viviane Wembly and watched over her from afar sending Hot Rod to masquerade as her car. He also acquired a Cybertronian firearm which he concealed as a cane.

When six mysterious horns burst out of the crust of the Earth, Sir Edmund realized the apocalypse was coming and visited one of the horns in Africa. Realizing what he had to do, Sir Edmund sent Cogman to collect Cade Yeager and had Hot Rod bring him Viviane.

To Sir Edmund's great joy, Cade had been accompanied by Bumblebee. Just as Cade was about to take his leave, Hot Rod bringing a panicking Viviane convinced Yeager to stay and hear out Sir Edmund. After introducing himself and the watch that killed Hitler, he showed the two to the Round Table (itself a Cybertronian artifact) and explained that the exoplanet approaching Earth was in fact Cybertron itself, that Cade was the foretold "Last Knight" and Viviane the last descendant of Merlin himself. As such, only together could the two save Earth from destruction at Cybertron's hand.

Some believe that before the universe, there was nothing. They're wrong. There was darkness…and it has survived.

The discussion was halted when the TRF and MI6 arrived on the grounds to arrest them. Sending Cade and Viviane to find a clue to the location of the Staff of Merlin, Sir Edmund and Cogman lead the authorities on a supercar chase throughout London. While the two were busy searching for a clue that pointed them to the HMS Alliance, Burton was contacted by Simmons, who directed him towards a book in the Trinity Library that told the truth of Earth. After inducting Simmons into the Order of the Witwiccans, Sir Edmund learned from the book that Earth had formed around Unicron and the horns were the Chaos Bringer's reaction to Cybertron's approach. Arriving at the naval museum, Sir Edmund slipped a paper to the ticket booth and declared the museum closed "for an eternity". Forcing everyone off, Sir Edmund left the two in Cogman's company and saw them and Bumblebee off while he went to rally a defence.

Arriving at 10 Downing Street, Burton asked to see the Prime Minister but was turned down by a "dickhead". Undeterred, he used the secret entrance to emerge directly into the Prime Minister's office. When several guards tried to arrest him, Sir Edmund flashed the watch that killed Hitler, threatening to unleash the psychotic Cybertronian who would have little issue killing everyone in the room. After flashing his credentials (and repeatedly telling the Prime Minister to shut up), Sir Edmund ordered him to mobilize all the British military forces to Stonehenge.

Being deposited at Stonehenge by the British military, Sir Edmund witnessed Megatron, Barricade, and Nitro Zeus gloat about killing Unicron and opened fire on the Decepticon leader with his firearm, the signal for the military to open fire. While the three Decepticons were unable to take cover, they still proved able to best the military with Megatron being able to activate Stonehenge to prepare for the energy transference. Megatron then glimpsed Sir Edmund and cursed him before firing a blast from his fusion cannon that sent the human flying.

Cogman then ran to Sir Edmund, who claimed he'd had his moment by fighting Megatron before dying contentedly. Cogman mourned his master, declaring him the coolest Burton he'd served. The Last Knight

Notes

• The film's 2019 prop auction reveals that a headstone was made for Burton's grave, which is never seen in the movie. It also states that the events of The Last Knight take place in the year 2017, seemingly at odds with the movie timeline.

Foreign names

• Japanese: Edmund Burton (エドモンド・バートン Edomondo Bāton)
• Mandarin: Edmund Burton (Taiwan, 艾德蒙·柏頓 Àidéméng Bǎidùn), (China, 艾德蒙·伯顿 Àidéméng Bódùn)
• Korean: Edmund Burton (에드먼드 버턴 Edeumeondeu Beoteon)