Holy hell it’s finally happening! The thing that got me into transforming robots in the first place is coming to the big screen in live action! The Maximals and Predacons are to be the latest addition to the lore in the upcoming film Transformers: Rise of the Beasts.
As a kid I can’t stress enough how much I loved Beast Wars, I religiously watched the CG show and had a pretty respectable collection of the toys, with a particular fondness for my “Optimal Optimus” which could turn into 4, count em, 4 different modes! What a time to be alive. I really must hand it to my parents for investing so much of their hard-earned money in random lumps of foldable plastic shaped like animals, I was lucky kid who grew into a childish and excitable adult who lost his shit when he saw even the suggestion of a film based around something in his childhood.
Director Steven Caple Jr., who directed another fantastic movie tapping into nostalgia with Creed 2, is helming the project. Apparently a fan of the 1990’s cartoon he’s looking to bring a bit of that love and passion to the new film “There are different breeds of Transformers,” said Caple. “In our particular film, they are prehistoric animals who travel through time and space, and we find them here on Earth.” Caple also shared that the film is set in the 1990s in Brooklyn, New York and Peru. “You are going to feel hip-hop culture,” said Caple. “You are going to feel Brooklyn.”
Word is that the film will feature classic semi-truck Optimus Prime alongside leader of the Maximals, Optimus Primal, of course that will confuse absolutely no one I’m sure. The duo will work together to take down the trophy hunting Scourge. Of course, it wouldn’t be a Transformers film without the iconic villains the Decepticons, who seem to be bolstering their ranks with the Predacons. This is only good news since really the war between Autobots and Decepticons has been used more times than your Mum on a Butlins holiday. A sentiment, minus Mum joke, that is shared by the producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura “We had somewhat exhausted the battle between the Decepticons and the Autobots. How do we find a new set of villains and a new set of priorities?”
Everything about this film seems to be adding up to give me the most engorged of nerd boners, I cannot wait to see how these transforming animals translate to live action. However, I do need to go in with a little bit of salt on my plate, obviously we’ve been burned before with the last 2 Bay controlled films being agonizing tales in mediocrity. Luckily, the success of Bumblebee gives me faith that away from the explosion fetishist Bay, there is plenty to be done with the robots in disguise that is actually fantastic and scratches that nostalgia itch.