“How do two best friends become mortal enemies?” asked ‘Transformers One’ actor Chris Hemsworth at the film’s presentation at this year’s Comic-Con. It’s a question that fans have asked for years, we’ve watched battles between the AUTOBOTS and DECEPTICONS in cartoons & epic cinematic blockbusters, but there is one tale we’ve never seen on the big screen before, until now…
‘Transformers One’ from Oscar winning director Josh Cooley, is a new animated film that tells the origin story of the catastrophic events that turned the young robots, who will grow to become Optimus Prime & Megatron, from carefree best-friends to mortal adversaries.
The story takes place in the glory days of Cybertron. The Transformers metal planet is thriving and its people – or, rather, robots – live largely in harmony. Two young robots, Orion Pax and D-16, see nothing but great things in their future. But something dark is afoot deep in the heart of Cybertron. The quest to discover the planet’s secret will lead these two great pals on the adventure of a lifetime, but also take them down a path that will set them on opposing sides of an incendiary, infinite war.
Transformers lore is rich and goes far deeper than many might imagine. The characters were first introduced in 1984, when Hasbro created a line of robot toys that could turn into vehicles, weapons, and even tape decks (if you’re under 30, ask your parents what a tape deck is).
The toys were accompanied by an iconic cartoon series that told of the war between the noble Autobots and the evil Decepticons, which spread from their home planet of Cybertron to Earth. From there, the universe expanded through many more animated series, comic books, and then, starting in 2007, Michael Bay’s live-action films.
The idea that would become ‘Transformers One’ first started percolating 20 years ago, when producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura, who has worked on all eight of the modern ‘Transformers’ films, first set foot in this vast universe. “When I began to learn about the lore, in 2004, this story immediately stuck out,” di Bonaventura says. “It’s such a natural story and the truth is that a natural story is a really hard thing to find.”
As much as the original creative team loved the idea of an origin story set on Cybertron, they decided the first film in their new series should instead be set on Earth. But di Bonaventura never stopped thinking about the early days of the characters. “Then we made ‘Bumblebee’ [in 2018],” he says. The spin-off prequel chronicled the fan- favourite character’s arrival on Earth and was released to great acclaim, from both fans and critics. “That opened the door for all of us to go, ‘You know what, a different kind of movie is going to work.’ That’s when ‘Transformers One’ started to build a lot of momentum.”
The Transformers look has evolved over the years, eventually arriving at the complex design seen in the modern movies, where every cog and gear of a Transformer is visible. For this film, the aesthetic went back to basics & was influenced by Floro Dery’s incredible designs for the 1980s cartoon. “There’s a retro element to it” shared Lorenzo, “It’s a reflection of how much everyone cared. We set out to have a look that was different. But that’s very easy to say and really hard to do.”