Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (film)

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So for now, let the battle be here, on this strange, primitive world. And let it be called... Beast Wars!

Transformers: Rise of the Beasts

Production info Production companies Skydance Media Entertainment One di Bonaventura Pictures New Republic Pictures Bay Films Distributor Paramount Pictures Release date June 9, 2023 Story by Joby Harold Screenplay by Joby Harold Darnell Metayer Josh Peters Erich Hoeber Jon Hoeber Directed by Steven Caple Jr. Edited by Stuart Levy Brett M. Reed Cinematography by Enrique Chediak Music by Jongnic Bontemps Executive producer(s) Steven Spielberg Brian Goldner Brian Oliver Bradley J. Fischer Valerii An David Ellison Dana Goldberg Don Granger Continuity Live-action film series Running time 127 minutes Budget $200 million

Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is the seventh film in the live-action film series, serving both as a sequel to Bumblebee and a tribute to Beast Wars. The film is directed by Steven Caple Jr. and written by Joby Harold, Darnell Metayer, Josh Peters, Erich Hoeber, and Jon Hoeber. Originally expected to be released on June 28, 2019, the film was delayed multiple times until finally being released on June 9, 2023.

Synopsis

Somewhere in time and space, the dark god Unicron and his minions invade a jungle world populated by Maximals. Unicron, seeking a more efficient means of crossing the universe, sends his Terrorcon herald Scourge to retrieve the Transwarp Key, an advanced device that can open portals in space-time. Although the Maximals attempt to fight back, their leader Apelinq entrusts Optimus Primal and a small group of Maximals—Airazor, Cheetor, and Rhinox—with the Transwarp Key and orders them to keep the artifact from Unicron. As Primal and his followers use the key to escape their doomed planet and flee to prehistoric Earth, Scourge kills Apelinq and takes his insignia as a trophy.

Thousands of years later, in the year 1994, ex-military electronics expert Noah Diaz attempts to find a job to support his sick brother Kris. However, after another failed interview, his friend Reek convinces him to steal a expensive car from a nearby hotel. However, the "car" turns out to be the Autobot Mirage in disguise, who takes the terrified Noah on a joyride through the streets of New York City. At the same time, a museum on Ellis Island comes into possession of an unusual stone falcon with a Maximal insignia. After closing hours, museum intern Elena Wallace investigates the statue and accidentally breaks it open to reveal half of the Transwarp Key. The artifact releases an energy pulse that attracts the attention of Optimus Prime and the other Autobots, who have been stranded on Earth since their evacuation of Cybertron seven years prior. Prime summons the nearest Autobots—Arcee, Bumblebee, and Mirage, who arrives at the meeting spot with Noah in tow. Although Optimus distrusts humans, he believes that they can use the Transwarp Key to return home and liberate their homeworld; eventually, Mirage hatches a scheme to sneak into the museum and have Noah steal the key for them.

Unbeknownst to the Autobots, the accidental activation of the Transwarp Key summons the Terrorcons to Earth. Noah meets Elena inside the museum, but can't convince her to turn over the relic before the Terrorcons attack; despite Prime's best efforts, Scourge successfully overpowers the Autobot leader, steals the Transwarp Key, and mortally injures Bumblebee before Airazor arrives to help drive the villains away. Airazor explains that the Maximals have been on Earth for millennia, and deliberately split the Transwarp Key in half to prevent Unicron or his followers from using it. The loss of Bumblebee only further galvanizes Optimus's resolve that they must reassemble the key and return home; Noah, fearful of Unicron's arrival, tells Elena that they must destroy the key to protect their own homeworld.

Elena deduces that the other half of the key is located in a hidden temple in Peru, and Prime recruits the airborne Autobot Stratosphere to take them there. Near the city of Cusco, the Autobot Wheeljack guides them to the temple, located beneath a local monastery. A festival prevents the Autobots from moving through the city inconspicuously; as a result, Noah and Elena must make the journey on foot. The pair discover a hidden mechanism that leads to a hidden temple with a stone sarcophogus but find that the other half of the key is no longer inside it. The Terrorcons attack again, and although the Autobots are able to evade the villains, the conflict ends with Scourge infecting Airazor with a portion of Unicron's dark energy. On the other side of the temple, Noah and Elena encounter Optimus Primal and the other two Maximals, who, after a brief standoff, agree to join forces with the Autobots. Optimus Primal explains that they entrusted the Transwarp Key to a tribe of humans who live near the energon-rich valley that Primal and his followers inhabit—while Optimus Prime distrusts humanity, Primal has lived among them for millennia, and has come to view them as friends and even allies.

The next morning, however, Scourge's corruption finally overtakes Airazor; in the ensuing battle, Primal is forced to kill her to save Elena. Amidst the chaos, Noah makes an attempt to destroy their half of the Transwarp Key until Optimus convinces him to stand down. However, amidst the chaos, Scourge and the Terrorcons steal the other half of the key and relocate to a nearby volcano, which they reshape into a massive portal that will summon Unicron to Earth. Having found some common ground between their two races, Optimus Prime and Noah agree to work together; while the Autobot-Maximal alliance battle Unicron's minions, Noah and Elena attempt to sneak into the Terrorcon base and deactivate the transwarp device with a manual shutdown code based on Elena's studies of the Maximal language. Mirage attempts to distract Scourge so that the humans can complete their mission, but the Terrorcon leader gravely injures him; with the last of his strength, Mirage reshapes his body into an exo-suit for Noah. As Unicron begins pushing his way through the portal to Earth, the energy pulses released by the key ignite the nearby energon deposits and restore Bumblebee to life. As Bumblebee joins the fight, Optimus Prime finally kills Scourge, but their battle damages the console and leaves the heroes unable to close the portal. With no other options, Prime destroys the key and triggers a devastating implosion, but Noah and Primal successfully rescue the Autobot leader from falling into the collapsing vortex.

In the aftermath, the surviving Maximals remain in Peru, while the Autobots return to America. Elena is recognized for her archeological discovery, while Noah applies for another security job—but discovers that the job opportunity is actually a front for a clandestine government organization codenamed "G.I. Joe."

Some time later, Noah has used spare Porsche parts to cobble together a new body for Mirage, and reveals his existence to a bewildered Reek.

Cast

Autobots / Maximals	Terrorcons / Predacons	Humans	Others
Autobots Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) Bumblebee Mirage (Pete Davidson) Arcee (Liza Koshy) Wheeljack (Cristo Fernández) Stratosphere (John DiMaggio) Maximals Optimus Primal (Ron Perlman) Airazor (Michelle Yeoh) Rhinox (David Sobolov) Cheetor (Tongayi Chirisa) Apelinq (David Sobolov)	Terrorcons Scourge (Peter Dinklage) Nightbird (Michaela Jaé Rodriguez) Battletrap (David Sobolov) Freezer Predacons Scorponok	Noah Diaz (Anthony Ramos) Elena Wallace (Dominique Fishback) Breanna Diaz (Luna Lauren Velez) Kris Diaz (Dean Scott Vasquez) Reek (Tobe Nwigwe) Jillian Robertson (Sarah Stiles) Bishop (Aidan Devine) Mrs. Greene (Leni Parker) Amaru (Lucas Huarancca) G.I. Joe Agent Burke (Michael Kelly)	Unicron (Colman Domingo)

Quotes

"You have such a beautiful world, filled with an abundance of life. Savor it."

—Scourge to Apelinq

"Okay, what are the rules?"
"Bros before Hos."

—Noah and Kris clarify the rules.

"I ain't breaking into a museum for some space robots."
"What about for friendship?"

-Noah and Mirage

”You can’t handle the truth!”
“I do not want you going to that drive-in theater anymore.”

- Bumblebee does his thing while Optimus Prime worries about him running into Knock Out.

“I’m going to take Scourge’s key, and then I’m going to take off his head.”

- Optimus Prime just loves doing that.

“Time to show you the real power of a Prime!”

- Optimus Prime vs Scourge. An ass kicker cometh.

“Don’t, Prime. I can give you everything you want.”
“Then DIE!”

- Unicron tries to tempt Optimus Prime to his side.

Continuity notes

Rise of the Beasts is a direct sequel to 2018's Bumblebee film, taking place seven years after its events, in 1994. The plot of the film has little impact on this one, beyond it being established that the Autobots have been stranded on Earth since arriving at its end. While waiting for Noah to infiltrate the museum, Optimus Prime and Bumblebee have a conversation that alludes Bee's time with Charlie Watson.

More notably, Rise of the Beasts serves to continue the heated debate among fans that Bumblebee began over whether or not the Transformers live-action film series has been rebooted, and is now ignoring the events of the five Michael Bay-directed movies. Promotion for the film has delivered a lot of fuzzy statements and mixed-messaging; for instance, director Steven Caple Jr. stated only that it "felt like" a reboot in a December 2022 interview, then later, in a May 2023 interview, called it a "reboot for sure," only to moments later backpedal and instead call it a "refresher" and a "new direction," adding that you "could call it a reboot" but that there were still aspects of it that could be tied to the existing films. Producer and professional fandom hate-magnet Lorenzo di Bonaventura has repeatedly denied that it is a reboot, stating that the film shows how Optimus Prime grows to become the character seen in the Bay films, and many reviews of and articles about the film have casually referred to it as a prequel. Some web outlets would even run articles commenting on Paramount's indistinct stance on the movie's (and Bumblebee's) place in continuity.

Whichever approach you subscribe to, it's pretty clear the decision to set the film in 1994 was one primarily made to avoid having to directly deal with the timeframe of the Bay movies in any capacity, and tell a new story free of their immediate baggage. For what it's worth, the film takes some steps to preserve the broad continuity of at least the first Bay film; the Transwarp Key's energy is explicitly stated to operate on a frequency that humans cannot perceive, meaning that they literally cannot see the huge sky-beam or the portal. As such, the film ends with the general population of Earth (beyond secret forces within the US government) still entirely unaware of the Transformers' existence, as was the case when the 2007 film began. As the time-gap between these "prequels" and the first movie narrows, though, it becomes increasingly difficult to imagine them fitting together without a lot of hand-waving away of specific details, unless future movies actually start making active attempts to address this.

In terms of active contradictions to established continuity, Rise of the Beasts appears to take the same approach as Bumblebee and ignores the events of the final Bay film, 2017's The Last Knight, by depicting Unicron as a separate planet, rather than the Earth itself, as he appeared in that film. However, it's probably important to note that the film lightly implies that the Maximals are time-travellers from the future (see "Transformers references" for more details), which would mean that the Unicron who appears in this film is also from the future. Thus it could be argued that his appearance here doesn't technically contradict The Last Knight—but of course, that would mean he was trying to eat his own past self.

Transformers references

• The Maximals are broadly depicted the same as they were in the Beast Wars cartoon: as a "highly-advanced race" of beast-mode Transformers who use transwarp technology to travel to other planets and interact with their native species, whose travels bring them to ancient Earth. Steven Caple Jr. has noted that earlier drafts of the screenplay explicitly depicted the Maximals as time-travellers from the future, as they were in the cartoon, and while the concept is so toned down for the finished movie that it probably won't even occur to general audiences, several references to the idea are still made on-screen. Transwarp technology is stated to open portals in time as well as space; Airazor states that the Maximals are "from both [the Autobots'] past and future"; and Optimus Primal says that he is named after the "legendary" Optimus Prime, which all combine to suggest that the Maximals originate from the future.
• The idea of the Maximals hailing from a jungle planet originates in IDW Publishing's comic books, which depicted many Beast Wars characters as the residents of the planet Eukaris. The planet is implied to be one of many colonised by Transformers in ages past using space bridges generated by the Transwarp Key, before the planets became separated and the key "lost." This concept of a great era of Cybertronian expansion that led to the foundation of lost colonies on other planets where Cybertronian life evolved in new and different directions dates back to 2005's Cybertron cartoon, and became a recurring element in Transformers series in the 2010s and beyond after it was incorporated into the lore of the Aligned continuity.
• Unicron's armies being named the "Terrorcons" hearkens back to both 2004's Energon and 2010's Prime, which both featured the power of Unicron being used to create armies of warriors known as Terrorcons.
• Though not identified by name onscreen, Unicron's army includes multiple generic duplicates of a robotic scorpion identified by the movie toyline as "Scorponok." Though not necessarily a reference, the idea of "Scorponok" being a kind of mass-produced "species" of robots has recently been seen in the War for Cybertron cartoon, where both Generation 1 Scorponok and Beast Wars Scorponok were treated this way.
• Scourge combines aspects of both Generation 1 Scourge and Robots in Disguise Scourge; he's a herald of Unicron like G1 Scourge, and transforms into a black truck like RID Scourge. The various insignia he wears as trophies include the symbols of the Decepticons, Autobots, Maximals, Predacons, Terrorcons, Mercenaries and Wreckers.
• The symbols Elena studies are Maximal Cybertronix, from the Beast Wars cartoon. They don't translate to anything specific; the access code Elena assembles simply reads "XQB."
• When proposing different alternate modes to Noah, Mirage briefly turns into an F1 car, a reference to his Generation 1 counterpart's alternate mode. He also turns into a Laborghini Countach, which was just a really cool, sexy car, but also famous in Transformers lore for being the alternate mode of Generation 1 Sideswipe.
• Mirage is incredulous over the news that musician Mark Wahlberg is leaving his band, the Funky Bunch, and going into acting—a good-natured jab at the actor's leading role in the earlier Transformers movies, Age of Extinction and The Last Knight.
• Scourge name-drops Primus as he taunts Optimus Prime, the first reference to the Transformers' creator god in any of the live-action movies.
• Airazor explains that Unicron imbues his heralds with a "dark energy," which increases his power, but also has a corrupting effect—almost certainly a reference to Dark Energon, the life-energy of Unicron introduced in the