Comic-Con 2024: Transformers One Panel Recap

The Transformers franchise has been enduring for several decades now, delighting fans with its high-octane action and lovable characters. This fall, the saga will return to the big screen with the animated film Transformers One, and the cast and crew of the film arrived to San Diego Comic-Con’s Hall H on Thursday, providing fans with the latest look at the upcoming animated film. Here’s what you need to know about the Transformers One panel, including new exclusive footage.

A Sizzle reel shows Optimus Prime and Megatron’s cinematic history, ending with footage of how their dynamic began.

Franchise producer Lorenzo Di Bonaventura and director Josh Cooley and stars Keegan-Michael Key, Brian Tyree Henry, and Chris Hemsworth join the panel. Di Bonaventura jokes the origin story would have cost 500 million in live action, confirms that there are no human characters. He says Cooley brought out the heart of the movie. Megatron and Optimus Prime’s future characterizations were bleeding through too early into D-16 and Orion Pax’s characterization.

Cooley says the original Transformers cartoon got him into animation. He was excited to explore how D-16 and Orion Pax become enemies. Cooley says Hasbro gave him the massive bible of Transformers history and was excited to play with all of it. He wanted to emulate the feeling of playing with toys as a kid.

Three clips are shown: first, a race in Icon 5000 (Cyberton’s Olympics), D-16 and Orion Pax have different views about entering the face. They watch the race from above the starting line, and see Sentinel Prime (Jon Hamm) address the population. Orion Pax attaches a pack to D-16’s back and they enter the race, inspiring people across Cybertron who are amazed that Miners are entering the race. Through an array of hijinks, they very narrowly make their way into the top three of the race. Each clip ends with an interstitial returning back to the panel.

Key was a diehard fan as a kid. Henry was a fan of Ratchet as a kid, and had a Megatron toy, so he was fascinated by the possibility of getting to explore the villain’s origin story. Hemsworth loved the toys as a kid, and loved the nostalgia around the franchise as a whole. Henry and Hemsworth joke they became best friends with bunk beds to prepare. They would see each other’s scenes and it would improve each other’s performances.

Henry wanted levity and precociousness, in order to make the villain turn even stronger. Like with his Spider-Man performance, he wanted to find the heart. Key’s B-127 is trying to wedge his way into their friendship. They wanted B-127 to speak a lot to make up for Bumblebee’s limited speech in the other media. 

In the second clip, the group are missing their T-cogs, which give them the ability to transform. They receive the T-cogs from Alpha Trion (Lawrence Fishburne) and outrun the bad guys. The crew describes Fishburne’s Alpha Trion as similar to Morpheus and Obi-Wan.

Hemsworth praises Peter Cullen, and wanted to do something original and more idealistic instead of mimic the established. 

In the third clip, Starscream (Steve Buscemi) and the High Guard kidnap the gang. Bumblebee talks way too much. Starscream argues that all bots need to fend for themselves. Megatron fights him and sways his army to his favor, to OP’s horror.

A new trailer also plays.

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Transformers One will be released exclusively in theaters on September 20th.