Is Transformers: Rise of the Beasts Setting Up Transformers: The Movie?

By Russ Burlingame

Set in 1987, Bumblebee starred Hailee Steinfeld as a teenager who befriended Bumblebee, an alien robot that transforms into a VW bug. The movie was kind of a soft reboot for the Transformers franchise, which launched in 2007, and featured five movies, all set in the present day and directed by Michael Bay, before Bumblebee came along with a prequel. This year's Tranformers: Rise of the Beasts was set in 1994, and sees a team of Autobots on Earth, led by Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) and squaring off against the Predacons and Scourge, whos serves more or less as the herald of something much, much worse: Unicron.

Most fans expected that Unicron, the world-devouring villain behind 1986's Transformers: The Movie, would serve as the primary antagonist for Rise of the Beasts. In a way, he did -- but Unicron did not directly confront the Autobots, or their "beastly" companions the Maximals. Instead, the movie built to a final battle between Optimus Prime and Scourge, with a transdimensional rift in the sky opening, and then closing, teasing the possibility that Unicron will try to destroy Earth, but stopping short of getting him in position.

At the end of the movie, though, Unicron remains very much alive, and basically just...inconvenienced...by the Autobots' plan. And while much of the focus since the movie premiered has been on the potential ties between the Transformers and GI Joe in future installments, another question keeps nagging in the back of our brains: was Transformers: Rise of the Beasts setting up a Bayverse/live-action adaptation of Transformers: The Movie?

The story of Transformers: The Movie takes place in the year 2005, as Unicron, a planet-sized Transformer with massive pincers that break down and consume other planets for fuel, destroys one planet and makes his way toward Earth. The Autobots and Decepticons have the most deadly and impactful battle in their years-long war, leaving both teams without a leader and licking their wounds. The Decepticons head to space to evaluate their next move, while Autobots get on shuttles to take the fight to Unicron. After some spacefaring shenanigans, a final showdown between Hot Rod (a new character created for the movie and voiced by Judd Nelson) and Galvatron (Leonard Nimoy channeling Frank Welker as a version of Megatron upgraded by Unicron) takes place within Unicron. The Autobots' Matrix of Leadership, an object of profound but unexplained powers, is at the center of the fight, as Unicron fears its power and want it for himself. Instead, Hot Rod manages to use it, transforming into "Rodimus Prime" and destroying Unicron on his way out into space.

That timeline, and general plot, could easily serve as a blueprint for a third film in the Transformers "prequel" series. Picking up in 2005, a few years before Transformers came out, a potential reinvention of Transformers: The Movie could substitute Maximals for Dinobots and leave out some of the elements of Transformers: The Movie that have already informed some of the Bay films, but the basic blueprint of an existential battle between all the Autobots and a group of upgraded baddies powered by Unicron could be very compelling. Traveling into space to try and stop them, while leaving allies (maybe GI Joe and company?) behind on Earth to be a last line of defense, would make a lot of sense and expand the mythology of the films, as well as giving Paramount a chance to explore other Transformers civilizations who could inform future installments. And while the Matrix of Leadership has already appeared in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and Dark of the Moon, they could retrofit its role to be some other artifact pretty easily. In fact, almost every live-action Transformers movie seems to have one all-powerful artifact or another, which turns out to be the source of most of the movie's conflict.

Obviously, this is just fun speculation, and it may just be that there's no immediate desire to pick up on the Unicron thread teased in Rise of the Beasts, but given the fact that the first two prequel movies happened in the '80s and '90s, and that Peter Cullen's booming "it is the year 2005" is a memorable part of the Transformers: The Movie opening, it certainly wouldn't be too surprising to see the story head in that direction.

What do you think? If Stephen Caple Jr. really does come back for another Transformers movie, will they incorporate elements of Transformers: The Movie into it? Sound off below.

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