Transformers: Rise of the Beasts official trailer reaction
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts received its second trailer during Cinecon showing that this film will be a return to the Michael Bay era of films, and that’s mostly not a good thing. But damn does it look cool, so at least it has that going for it.
The opening shots are of Optimus Primal, the Apebot, who claims that he and the other Maximals have lived on Earth in secret for centuries. This is very confusing, as they’re quite easy to notice, but maybe the movie will provide some context for this.
There is then a very prominent shot of the Twin Towers in New York, signalling both the location and the time period (before 2001). The film does give an exact date of 1994, leaving a lot of room for the other films coming in this trilogy.
During the meeting of the two Optimuses (Optimi?), Primal implores Prime to help against the Transformers god of Unicron, a planet-eating monster of destruction. He looks like he will be the main enemy for this new trilogy of films, with his introduction here.
Primal is here alongside the eagle-eyed eagle bot Airazor, clearly voiced by Michelle Yeoh, who is having a post Everything Everywhere All At Once bump in interest by studios. There is a lot of aerial action to be had here, and not just the boring plane fights that Megatron and Starscream gave.
There is another look at Mirage (Pete Davidson) kidnapping Anthony Ramos’ Noah, though that segment is mostly shots already released. Optimus isn’t too happy about a human being present, again something that will need to be given more context.
A brief bit of action is shown off, with a cement truck (which I assume is a Terrorcron) fighting a car (who must be an Autobot). There is a plea from Airazor for the Autobots to help, which eventually they must accept. Unicron now comes onto the screen, and he is massive, unsurprising if he’s to devour Earth.
There is an amazing clank from Bumblebee as he whacks on his faceguard, and here audiences get another look at Scourge, who spews a typical bad guy line about consuming everything, at least he’s distinguishable from Megatron.
The final part of the trailer is the most concerning. Yes it does tease a lot of cool robot action, open robot warfare even, with scorpion bots being crushed, and other Transformers being used as mounts. Hopefully in the film there it’s handled with focus, and not just a mess like other Transformers action has been.
Strangely enough, as cool as this sequence is, it’s also the most worrying. It’s a vast departure from what Bumblebee was, and that film worked because of its smaller scope. The terrifyingly huge battles in the other films got confusing because of their size.
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts comes out June 9, 2023.
