To the excitement of many a fan who grew up in the late 90s, the first trailer for Transformers: Rise of the Beasts has introduced the fan-favorite crew of Beast Wars to the world of live-action – and surprisingly, they don’t look half-bad.
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Debuted to the public on December 1st, the trailer comes out of the gate swinging, its opening moments see not only the introduction of the long-anticipated Optimus Primal (Ron Perlman), but also his confrontation by his heroic namesake, Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen).
“Stand down” orders a weapons-ready Prime, mistakenly believing that his beastly opponent to be attacking the film’s human protagonists Noah (Anthony Ramos) and Elena (Dominique Fishback).
“I’m not the one to fear, Prime,” replies Primal, prompting the Cybertronian leader to lower his weapon. “There is a darkness coming.”
From there, the trailer moves to introduce some of Rise of the Beasts key players, including Bumblebee, who is interestingly shown sporting his Michael Bay-series Camaro look rather than appearing as the lore accurate Volkswagen Bug form he took in his solo film):
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Mirage (Pete Davidson), the Autobots’ Porche 964-disguised stealth operative whose abilities include the power to create ‘phantom’ duplicates of himself:
Cheetor, whose running alongside Bumblebee reveals that the Maximals’ animalistic alt forms will be comparable in size to modern automobiles:
Airazor (Michelle Yeoh), a blast of energy radiating from her mouth as she attacks a bridge:
Arcee (Liza Koshy) and Wheeljack (Cristo Fernández), who are seen narrowly dodging a missle fired by Battletrap (David Sobolov):
The Terrorcon leader Scourge (Peter Dinklage), Bumblebee caught in his clutches:
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And last but not least Rhinox (David Sobolov on double duty), who closes out the character introductions with a mighty, energy-flaunting roar.
“Of all the threats,” Primal is then heard continuing his warning to Prime, “from both your past and future, you’ve never faced anything like this.”
Proving himself every bit as resilient as his furry friend, Prime responds to this threat with three simple words: “Let them come.”
Cut to the trailer’s climax, wherein the combined forces of the Autobots and Maximals are shown throwing themselves into an all-out melee against the Terrorcon.
(In a particularly notable instance of source material accuracy, during this brawl, Primal can be seen combining two individual swords into one singular blade à la his original Gorilla-form figure.)
Following the flashing of the film’s logo, the trailer ends on two brief stingers.
The first – previewing a moment ostensibly included in the script because Hollywood just cannot help themselves when it comes to tonally awful humor – sees a visibly freaked out Elena reassuring herself “This can’t be real”, only to receive an acknowledgement from Arcee, which prompts her to self-reply, “Okay, this is real.”
In the second, Noah can be seen driving up to a spot in Mirage, only to instead of stopping, keep walking as Mirage transforms into his robot form.
Directed by Steven Caple Jr. (Creed II) Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is set to role out into theaters on June 9th, 2023.
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