Transformers One

''Transformers One'' is a 2024 American animated science fiction film based on Hasbro's ''Transformers'' toy line. It was directed by Josh Cooley from a screenplay by Eric Pearson, Andrew Barrer and Gabriel Ferrari, the latter two of whom also conceived the film's story. The film features voices of Chris Hemsworth, Brian Tyree Henry, Scarlett Johansson, Keegan-Michael Key, Steve Buscemi, Laurence Fishburne, and Jon Hamm. It is set on Cybertron, the home planet of the Transformers, and depicts the origins and early relationship of Optimus Prime and Megatron.

In March 2015, following the release of '' Transformers: Age of Extinction'' (2014), Paramount Pictures tasked Akiva Goldsman to set up a writers' room to create ideas for potential future ''Transformers'' films. By May 2015, Barrer and Ferrari had signed on as writers, and they came up with the idea of an animated prequel set on Cybertron. The film was announced in August 2017, and by April 2020, Cooley had been hired to direct. Animation services were provided by Industrial Light & Magic, and the design was primarily influenced by the '' Generation 1'' era and Art Deco. The score was composed by Brian Tyler.

''Transformers One'' premiered in Sydney, Australia, on September 11, 2024, and was released by Paramount Pictures in the United States on September 20. The film received positive reviews from critics, who praised the story, animation, screenplay, voice performances, action sequences, score, and humor. It underperformed at the box office, grossing $129.4 million worldwide on a budget of $75–147 million.

Plot

Cybertron is a technological planet inhabited by sentient robots fueled by a substance called Energon, many of whom have cogs that allow them to transform into vehicles. In the underground city of Iacon, Orion Pax, a mining robot without a cog, sneaks into an archive to watch a documentary on the Primes, the first Cybertronians made by their creator Primus. Security guards catch Orion, but his best friend D-16 helps him elude them. Later, a cave-in occurs in the Energon mine where the two work, trapping fellow miner Jazz. While Orion and D-16 save him, their callous overseer Darkwing blames the incident on their superior Elita-1 and demotes her to waste management.

Iacon's leader Sentinel Prime returns from an expedition to the surface to find the lost Matrix of Leadership, the absence of which caused Energon to stop flowing—thus forcing the miners to extract it. Though unable to find it, he reprieves the population with a race. To prove themselves as more than miners, Orion illicitly enters himself and D-16 using jet packs, but they narrowly lose. While Sentinel promises to reward them for boosting mining morale, an enraged Darkwing drags them to garbage incineration for upstaging him in the race where they meet the eccentric B-127. Among the garbage, they discover a distress message from a Prime named Alpha Trion with a set of coordinates on the surface. Orion convinces D-16 and B-127 to travel with him to the coordinates. They also persuade a begrudging Elita to join when she catches them sneaking out of Iacon.

Eventually, the group finds a deactivated Alpha Trion in a cave, alongside the corpses of the other Primes. Upon reactivation, he reveals that Sentinel betrayed the Primes to steal the Matrix only for it to disappear due to Primus deeming him unworthy. In truth, Sentinel has been giving Energon to Cybertron's enemies the Quintessons in exchange for letting him rule the planet. He also explains that all Cybertronians are born with transformation cogs, but Sentinel removed the miners' before activation to subjugate them. Trion gives the group the fallen Primes' cogs, allowing them to transform, and a chip carrying evidence of Sentinel's treason. Sentinel's forces then arrive, capturing Trion and bringing him to their leader who executes him.

Evading their pursuers, the group travels back to Iacon but is captured by the Primes' former warbots, the Cybertronian High Guard, who are rebelling against Sentinel. While D-16 wins the High Guard's loyalty by defeating their leader Starscream, Orion grows concerned over his friend's increasing aggression since learning the truth. Sentinel's forces find them, and in the ensuing battle, the evidence chip is destroyed while D-16, B-127, and Starscream are captured along with half of the High Guard. Taken before Sentinel, D-16 learns he stole the cog of his idol Megatronus Prime before being mockingly branded with the latter's face.

Encouraged by Elita, Orion rallies remaining High Guard captains Soundwave and Shockwave and returns to Iacon to rescue their comrades. Once there, Orion convinces the miners to revolt while Elita frees the captives, and they expose Sentinel by broadcasting memory recordings of his lieutenant Airachnid throughout the city. D-16 subdues Sentinel but gets into an argument with Orion over whether to execute him, resulting in D-16 accidentally shooting Orion before ultimately letting his friend fall to his death. D-16 then kills Sentinel, takes Megatronus' cog, renames himself Megatron, and sets off a riot with the High Guard.

Deeming Orion worthy, Primus and the spirits of the Primes bestow him with the Matrix, reviving him as Optimus Prime, who proceeds to duel and defeat Megatron before exiling him alongside the High Guard. As the Matrix restores the miners' cogs and makes Energon flow again, Optimus becomes Cybertron's new leader, christens his followers as Autobots, and sends a message to the Quintessons, warning them to stay away. Meanwhile, Megatron reforms the High Guard into the Decepticons, using Megatronus' face as their insignia, and declares war on the Autobots.

Voice cast

* Chris Hemsworth as Orion Pax / Optimus Prime, a miner who transforms into a red and blue truck
* Brian Tyree Henry as / Megatron, a miner and Orion's best friend who transforms into a silver tank
* Keegan-Michael Key as , a garbage sorter who transforms into a yellow car
* Scarlett Johansson as , a mining supervisor later demoted to waste management who transforms into a pink motorcycle
* Steve Buscemi as Starscream, the leader of the Cybertronian High Guard who transforms into a jet
* Laurence Fishburne as Alpha Trion, an ancient Prime who transforms into a robotic one-horned lion-like beast
* Jon Hamm as Sentinel Prime, the false ruler of Cybertron
* Vanessa Liguori as Airachnid, Sentinel's spider-themed consigliere who transforms into a drone
* Jon Bailey as Soundwave, the Cybertronian High Guard's communications officer
* Jason Konopisos-Alvarez as Shockwave, a one-eyed member of the Cybertronian High Guard
* Evan Michael Lee as Jazz, a miner and a colleague of Orion
* James Remar as Zeta Prime, a member of the Thirteen Primes and the former wielder of the Matrix of Leadership
* Isaac C. Singleton Jr. as Darkwing, a strict Cybertronian dockworker who is one of Sentinel's subordinates and oversees the mining and waste management workers

Production

Development

Following the release of '' Transformers: Age of Extinction'' (2014), Paramount Pictures tasked Akiva Goldsman in March 2015 to work with the film franchise's director Michael Bay, executive producer Steven Spielberg, and producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura to set up a writers' room to create ideas for future ''Transformers'' films. According to Goldsman, the writing team would look at various ''Transformers'' media created by Hasbro for inspiration; if they found one that interested them, they could submit a treatment, which would then be further developed by the whole team. In late May, the team of Andrew Barrer and Gabriel Ferrari signed on as writers. According to ''Deadline Hollywood'', one of the ideas from the writer's room had the working title ''Transformers One'' and would serve as an animated prequel focusing on the Autobot–Decepticon conflict that began on Cybertron.

In August 2017, it was reported that an animated ''Transformers'' film was officially in the works. Following the release of ''Bumblebee'' (2018), di Bonaventura discussed the animated film, clarifying that it was "in the works" and would "tell the whole Cybertron mythology". ''Bumblebee'' director Travis Knight additionally expressed interest in the film.

In April 2020, it was reported that former Pixar animator and filmmaker Josh Cooley had been hired to direct the film and was overseeing the script by Barrer and Ferrari. Hasbro Entertainment and Paramount Animation would produce the film. In February 2022, it emerged that the film would be computer-animated. In December 2022, the title was reported to be ''Transformers: A New Generation'', though di Bonaventura later stated in April 2023 that the title had yet to be finalized. Later that month, at CinemaCon, the title was officially confirmed as ''Transformers One''. di Bonaventura stated that the plot will center around the origins of the Transformers, and explore the events that lead Optimus and Megatron to go from being brothers-in-arms to becoming enemies. The budget was reportedly $75 million, although an ''Animation Magazine'' interview with Cooley and di Bonaventura put the cost of production as high as $147 million.

Writing

Eric Pearson, Barrer, and Ferrari received screenplay credit, with Barrer and Ferrari receiving story credits. When Cooley joined the project, Hasbro gave him a bible that covered the lore for the entire franchise. Cooley wanted to capture an "epic quality" and grand scale for the film and used '' The Transformers: The Movie'' (1986) and ''Dune'' (1965) as points of reference. As there are no human characters in ''Transformers One'' as they are in previous films in the franchise, Cooley and the team aimed to "inject more comedy and humanity" into the Transformers themselves. They wanted to make sure that the characters had enough humor and emotion to carry the story on their own. The film depicts how the Transformers gained the ability to transform, an idea Cooley found appealing. He felt that there was fun in seeing the characters learn and adapt to their new powers.

The relationship between Optimus Prime and Megatron and the tragedy of their falling out is the emotional core of the film. For Cooley, it was important to show that Megatron was not just a villain. He wanted people who did not know ''Transformers'' to come into the film and not be able to immediately pick up who was going to be good or bad. He took inspiration from several famous brothers-turned-enemies stories from across pop culture when crafting the arc. As a reference to his previous origin story, the film originally included a scene depicting Megatron as a gladiator, to have him and Optimus Prime come from completely different backgrounds. Due to runtime constraints, that idea was scrapped and they were both made to be coworkers in the mines instead.

Casting and voice recording

The voice cast of the film was announced at CinemaCon in April 2023, consisting of Chris Hemsworth and Brian Tyree Henry as younger versions of Optimus Prime and Megatron, alongside Scarlett Johansson, Keegan-Michael Key, Jon Hamm, and Laurence Fishburne headlining. In April 2024, Steve Buscemi, who had previously voiced Daytrader in '' Transformers: The Last Knight'' (2017), was cast as Starscream. Cooley desired to get a voice cast as impressive as that of ''The Transformers: The Movie''.

''Transformers One'' was Hemsworth's first animated feature film. He joined the project after being impressed with the screenplay. Hemsworth made efforts to not use his regular speaking voice for Optimus Prime. Many of Hemsworth's lines in the film were "riff offs" from what the filmmakers wrote, bringing his charisma and comedy to them. From a fan's point of view, di Bonaventura felt important to respect longtime Optimus Prime actor Peter Cullen's performance while not bringing him back to ensure the audience felt Prime's youth, leading to Hemsworth's casting, who surprised di Bonaventura with his "very strong sense of story".

Cooley's desire to harken back to the chattier version of Bumblebee seen in other ''Transformers'' media influenced Key's casting, who he had worked with before when directing Pixar's ''Toy Story 4'' (2019). Cooley requested that Key stay close to his regular speaking voice for Bumblebee. Johansson was approached to voice Elita by Hemsworth, who texted her upon joining the project himself. The two had previously worked together in several Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) films.

Around before the film's release in August 2024, more additional cast members were announced for the film which included voice actor and longtime fan Jon Bailey reprising his role as Soundwave from ''Bumblebee'' (2018) and Isaac C. Singleton Jr., who previously voiced Soundwave in several ''Transformers'' video games developed by High Moon Studios as Darkwing.

Animation and design

Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), who had provided the visual effects for the first six live-action ''Transformers'' installments, returned to provide the animation for the film. Rob Coleman served as animation supervisor, and Frazier Churchill served as VFX supervisor. Cooley directed the studio to create a visual style for the film that was realistic enough to be believable while still looking like it was crafted by human hands.

The designs of the Transformers were heavily influenced by those of '' Generation 1''. Cooley said, "They’re really clear and have these great silhouettes. It was important to hit that." The team began by looking at the work of original ''Transformers'' character designer, Floro Dery. Art Deco was a big influence on the film's production and character design, with Cooley describing the style as being all about post-depression. He felt it to be relevant to the film as it takes place before the planet of Cybertron falls apart and while things are still going well. In order to make the Transformers feel more human and for the audiences to better connect, the team at ILM was instructed to make them more emotive with their faces and character animation. Measures applied to ensure this included making sure their faces were not covered all of the time and making their eyes more expressive. Cooley felt a grand sense of scale was essential to the ''Transformers'' brand. As there are no humans in the film to use as a scale reference, the team looked to Cybertron instead and aimed to make it feel larger than life.

Music

In May 2024, it was announced that Brian Tyler, who had previously provided the score for the animated television series '' Transformers: Prime'' (2010–2013), would compose the score for ''Transformers One''. The soundtrack album features the score and was released by Sony Classical Records and Milan Records on September 20, 2024. An original song for the film, "If I Fall", written by Tyler and performed by Quavo and Ty Dolla Sign, was released as a single on September 6, 2024. A second original song, "Together As One", by DJ and producer Excision, was released on September 12, 2024.

Release

''Transformers One'' screened as a work-in-progress at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival on June 10, 2024; audience and social media reactions were reportedly positive. The film premiered in Sydney, Australia on September 11, 2024, and was theatrically released in the United States on September 20, 2024. It was screened in various formats, including RealD 3D, IMAX, Dolby Cinema, and 4DX. It was originally scheduled to be released on July 19, 2024, but was initially delayed to September 13, before shifting a week later to avoid competition with ''Beetlejuice Beetlejuice''.

Marketing

The first trailer for ''Transformers One'' was released online on April 18, 2024 to positive response. It featured a custom introduction from Hemsworth and Henry, and incorporated the song "Start Me Up" by the Rolling Stones. It made its debut via a spacecraft that was launched 125,000 feet above the Earth. Brian Welk of ''IndieWire'' felt that the film looked to have appeal for both younger audiences and longtime ''Transformers'' fans. Alex Billington of ''FirstShowing.net'' found the trailer amusing and felt that the film had promise, though he opined that it seemed to be more geared towards younger audiences than compared to previous ''Transformers'' films. Eric Diaz of ''Nerdist'' commented that the incorporation of "Start Me Up" gave the film "a very 2000s DreamWorks Animation vibe." A second trailer debuted at San Diego Comic-Con on July 25, 2024.

Home media

''Transformers One'' was released on premium video-on-demand services on October 22, 2024, with Ultra HD Blu-ray, Blu-ray, and DVD copies distributed by Paramount Home Entertainment released on December 17, 2024. It was released on the Paramount+ streaming service on November 15, 2024.

Reception

Box office

''Transformers One'' grossed $59.1 million in the United States and Canada, and $70.3 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $129.4 million.

In the United States and Canada, ''Transformers One'' was released alongside ''The Substance'' and ''Never Let Go'', and was projected to gross $30–40 million from 3,978 theaters in its opening weekend. The film made $9.6 million on its first day, including $3.4 million from Wednesday and Thursday night previews. It went on to debut to $24.6 million, finishing second behind holdover ''Beetlejuice Beetlejuice''. The opening weekend gross was deemed disappointing, but there was optimism that the film would do well over time. In its second weekend, the film had a 62.8% drop, making only $9.2 million and finishing in third. This was attributed to the lack of marketing and interest from families, as well as facing competition from '' The Wild Robot'', which took over in premium format screens.

Internationally, the film was released on dates ranging from September 11, 2024 (in Indonesia), to October 24, 2024 (in Israel). In the United Kingdom and Ireland region, where it released on October 11, 2024, the film opened to £1.6 million, ranking it above DC Comics holdover '' Joker: Folie à Deux''.

Critical response

Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale, while those surveyed by PostTrak gave it an average five out of five stars, with 75% saying they would definitely recommend it.

Todd Gilchrist of ''Variety'' praised the film's direction, animation, and screenplay. He felt the film boasted a level of complexity and described it as "the most sophisticated onscreen portrait" of the Transformers to date. G. Allen Johnson of the ''San Francisco Chronicle'' compared the film favorably to the live-action installments, applauding its screenplay, visuals, and resonant themes, and describing it as unapologetically made for "the inner child." Carlos Aguilar of the ''Los Angeles Times'' opined that the film benefitted from the quality standard set by prior ''Transformers'' films, but still commended it for its screenplay, themes, humor, animation, and emotional core. Adam Graham of ''The Detroit News'' awarded the film a B- rating, praising the animation, direction, screenplay, and humor, and comparing it favorably to the live-action installments.

Frank Scheck of ''The Hollywood Reporter'' praised the film for its direction, animation, screenplay, and emotional core and felt it to have revitalized the ''Transformers'' franchise. Leigh Monson of ''The A.V. Club'' awarded the film a B- rating. They commended the story, animation, and voice performances, though felt the film to be predictable and unambitious. Randy Myers of ''The Mercury News'' gave the film a 3 out of 4 rating and referred to it as the best of the Paramount ''Transformers'' films. They lauded the humor, voice performances, and animation.

Tom Jorgensen of ''IGN'' rated the film 5 out of 10, praising the voice cast and Brian Tyree Henry's performance, as well as the story of Orion Pax and . Overall he felt the film was underwhelming and was critical of it for being surface-level and featuring illegible action scenes. Soren Andersen of ''The Seattle Times'' gave the film a 2 out of 4 star rating. He commended Keegan-Michael Key's performance but felt the film to be overall an exhausting experience due to an overabundance of action scenes. Wilson Chapman of ''IndieWire'' gave the film a C grade and said: "It’s all executed competently but joylessly, with zero fun to be had as it labors across an hour and 40 minute runtime that feels both too short and painfully long."

Accolades

Future

In April 2023, di Bonaventura stated that there was discussion for ''Transformers One'' to become a trilogy of films. By June, he confirmed that the story was mapped out to progress over three movies, detailing the progression of the characters into their depiction in the live-action film series. The producer explained that Hemsworth's depiction of Optimus Prime would grow into the leader depicted in the previous installments, stating that the transition from Hemsworth's voice to Peter Cullen's would make sense within the story. In September 2024, di Bonaventura confirmed that they would make a ''Transformers One'' sequel if the film succeeded at the box office, with the filmmakers already devising ideas for a character-driven sequel like its predecessor.

On November 20, 2024, following the film's underperformance, Hasbro announced that they would no longer be co-financing film adaptations, instead leaving external studios to exclusively fund such projects. The following month, Tyree Henry expressed hopes of a sequel being officially confirmed.

References

External links

Official website
*

{{Authority control
2024 films
2020s children's adventure films
2020s children's animated films
2020s English-language films
2020s science fiction adventure films
2024 3D films
2024 action adventure films
2024 American animated films
2024 computer-animated films
2024 science fiction action films
3D animated films
4DX films
Allspark films
American 3D films
American action adventure films
American animated films about revenge
American children's animated action films
American children's animated adventure films
American children's animated science fiction films
American computer-animated films
American robot films
American science fiction action films
American science fiction adventure films
Animated films about friendship
Animated films about robots
Animated films based on animated series
Animated films set on fictional planets
Di Bonaventura Pictures films
English-language action adventure films
English-language science fiction action films
English-language science fiction adventure films
Films directed by Josh Cooley
Films produced by Don Murphy
Films produced by Lorenzo di Bonaventura
Films produced by Michael Bay
Films produced by Tom DeSanto
Films scored by Brian Tyler
Films with screenplays by Eric Pearson
Giant monster films
IMAX films
Paramount Animation films
Paramount Pictures animated films
Transformers (franchise) animated films