Transformers One director Josh Cooley clarified the movie’s place within the Transformers cinematic timeline. The computer-animated movie explores the origin of Optimus Prime and Megatron, showing how they went from lowly worker bots and best friends to being rivals leading warring factions in a civil war. Transformers One is the ninth Transformers film and the eighth released by Paramount Pictures. Despite the film’s distinct visual style, many producers were selling that the film was a prequel to the live-action movies taking place three billion years before the live-action feature films.
While speaking with Variety, director Josh Cooley clarified the film’s place in the Transformers timeline. He said the movie is a reboot, one with its own continuity separate from the prior films or animated series, which allowed them to forge their own story, determining characters would be in it that best served the story. He details how the film’s decision to explore the origin of Optimus Prime and Megatron going from friends to enemies sets up the status quo fans know from the original series and movies but gives them plenty of room to explore in future projects. Cooley said:
“Everybody knew from the very beginning that this was a reboot
… a different continuity of what’s been done before. So we had our four main characters that we all knew had to be in it. And then I got a whole bunch of lore from Hasbro about different versions of what’s happened in the past. I also did my own research on the lore, but at the same time,
it was all about not getting too caught up in the weeds,
because the last thing you want is a history lesson just being told to you if it’s not emotional. So knowing that the relationship between Optimus and Megatron was going to be the emotional thing, it was like, what can we use to support that?
Cooley continued, “The cool thing about this being an origin story is we were able to go back further than anything that’s ever been seen on film before. And so knowing that these two were going to be “breaking up” at the end, that means there’s a lot of story before they end up on Earth.”
Transformers One Can’t Connect with the Live-Action Films
Anyone who watched Transformers One would tell you it would be impossible for the film to line up with the live-action films, at least the original five Michael Bay movies. Sentinel’s Prime role in Transformers One and his status by the end of the film contradicts what happens to the character in Transformers: Dark of the Moon. At the same time, Megatronus Prime/The Fallen has an entirely different backstory in Transformers One than he did in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. The film’s depiction of The Matrix of Leadership also doesn’t match what was established in the Michael Bay-directed Transformers films. It is clear within the first half of Transformers One that this is a different continuity.
Theoretically, Transformers One could align with the continuity in both Bumblebee and Transformers: Rise of the Beast as they seem to break away from the continuity of Michael Bay’s directed movies. However, even when Rise of the Beasts was coming out, they were still selling it as a prequel instead of a reboot despite the movie contradicting the prior films. Rise of the Beasts also set up the upcoming Transformers/G.I. Joe’s crossover movie, which also would not align with the Michael Bay-directed movies, takes place in a separate continuity from the G.I. Joe films, and no such organization exists. Instead, those films have N.E.S.T (Non-Biological Extraterrestrials Species Treaty), a special military unit that operates alongside the Autobots.
Why are the producers so quick to sell movies like Bumblebee, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, and Transformers One as part of the original movie continuity despite the movies not aligning? Despite the five Michael Bay-directed Transformers movies receiving terrible reviews from fans and critics alike, they were rather profitable, and likely the version of the franchise most general audiences are associated with. They likely want to recapture audiences’ excitement in the Transformers films as Transformers, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, and Transformers: Age of Extinction were all the highest-grossing movies of their respective years.