The first trailer for Transformers: The Last Knight debuted tonight, and…well, we can all pretty much agree it was bananapants, right?
The trailer featured, among other things, robot dragons, Nazis, and at least two different versions of Bumblebee — one of whom was going toe-to-toe in a losing battle with Optimus Prime.
Videos by ComicBook.com
…wait, what?
Yeah. And if that wasn’t enough, you had Anthony Hopkins narrating it all while appearently holed up someplace with a bunch of Knights Templar memorabilia?
…what in the world is going on with this movie?
In any event, a lot of it looked pretty awesome, and we wanted to take some time out to appreciate the Bayhem of it all with our five favorite moments from the trailer.
The cast of Transformers: The Last Knight features Mark Wahlberg (Planet of the Apes) as Cade Yeager, Isabela Moner (100 Things To Do Before High School) as Izabella, Josh Duhamel (Life as We Know It) as Lieutenant Colonel William Lennox, John Turturro (The Big Lebowski) as Seymour Simmons, and Tyrese Gibson (Furious 7) as Robert Epps, as well as Jerrod Carmichael (Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising), Anthony Hopkins (Thor: The Dark World). The voice cast includes Peter Cullen as Optimus Prime and John Goodman (10 Cloverfield Lane) as Hound.
More Transformers 5 news: Transformers: The Last Knight 360 Experience Video Is Explosive / Transformers: The Last Knight IMAX 3D Featurette / Transformers Bumblebee Spinoff Moving Forward With Harley Quinn Movie Writer / Transformers 5 Set Videos: Knights Fighting Decepticons?
Transformers: The Last Knight is set for release June 23, 2017.
OKAY, SO THERE’S A DRAGON
Okay.
So we’re sitting here, watching this trailer…
— and it’s weird, because it’s supposed to be a Transformers movie but so far it’s all full of medieval imagery and such —
…and suddenly, there’s a f—ing three-headed robot dragon just kind of looping lazily around a seaside cliff face.
Like…yep. That’s a thing that just happened. There’s a great f—ing robot dragon in the beginning of this trailer.
Excellent. Excellent. Moving on.
UNDERSEA EXPLORATION
Alright, so now that we’ve settled into things a little bit, we can kind of focus on what’s, at least marginally, more normal stuff. Like…
…whatever this thing is.
There’s an undersea expedition going on, and arguably the most interesting thing about it is that it’s clearly exploring something that’s very deep and therefore presumably very old.
And it kind of looks like something out of Unicron from Transformers: The Movie.
There’s been rumors that he might show up in this movie — just like every other movie since the third one — but the imagery here is hard to ignore and it’s such a tantalizing prospect that even if this turns out not to be Unicron, we want to know: what the hell is it?
OPTIMUS PRIME HAS LEFT US
Alright, so we’re recovered now from the madness of the knights and the Nazis and all that, and we’re settled into what’s a little bit more familiar territory for these movies. There’s some military equipment, some crazy alien tech.
Oh, look. We’re in space now, and…
…oh, for God’s sake, really?
Okay, so Optimus Prime is dead.
…we’ll admit this is kind of a heartbreaking visual, especially since they did manage to nail the dented-up, gray/discolored look that Optimus took on when he died in Transformers: The Movie (and a handful of other times, too; he dies more than you’d think).
Anyway, all joking about the craziness of this trailer aside, that’s a badass place to start with your franchise character, and a hell of a tease to hand to audiences. Of course, that’s not the last time we’ll see Prime. Or the last time he’ll leave us wondering what the writers are smoking and what the hell is going on…!
TWO WORLDS COLLIDE
…Ah, stability!
If this isn’t a pretty great moment for fans of the Transformers film franchise, we don’t know what is.
In a short bit near the end of the trailer, Josh Duhamel’s Lt. Col. Lennox shows back up — he was missing in action last movie, if you’ll remember, as it was ostensibly a soft restart of the franchise after the main human leads changed over — and literally joins hands with Marky Mark Wahlberg’s Cade Yaeger.
That’s it. Status quo! Feeling all warm and fuzzy now. This is the franchise we know and —
EVIL OPTIMUS
–Oh, for Pete [Cullen]’s sake. Of course he’s f—ing evil.
Of course, we don’t know exactly what’s up with Optimus yet — which is what makes this a great, shocking moment on which to end the trailer. It’s easy enough to assume that the blade doesn’t take out Cade, but that it does some serious damage to Bumblebee, perhaps leading to his messed-up look early in the trailer. But jeez, guys. What a way to go out.
It’s certainly worth noting that Optimus has blue eyes in the shots leading up to his anti-Bumblebee rampage, and that in the moment, while he’s beating on his old ally and asking for forgiveness, his eyes are purple — likely blue mixed with Decepticon red?
In any event, for every kinda-neat, kinda-cool, kinda-normal moment in this trailer, there were two that made you go “what in the name of Orson Welles is going on here?”
…which pretty much is what makes it such a great trailer.
