In an interview with Black Girl Nerds, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts director Steven Caple Jr. and lead Anthony Ramos briefly discussed the film and Beast Wars influence. Video below but here are the highlights. Ramos also did a brief tour on the Rise of the Beasts set that they posted on Instagram.
- Optimus Primal's backstory is at hinted at in the film as "know a little of his backstory from Beast Wars."
- At this point in the story Optimus Prime's focus is on getting home rather then protecting Earth and humans.
- While trying to avoid plot specifics, Caple said part of the story is the Autobots and Maximals working together against the larger threat of the Terrorcons, which he said if "fans know where the Terracons come from they know what to expect."
- Caple describes the film as a "true reboot of the franchise" with a big universe to play with beyond just Autobots vs Decepticons.
At one point, Caple mentioned that Transformers is more about good vs evil, "especially when you dive into the deep story of Megatron and how he came about and ... the true origin stories of the Decepticons" which indicates that the writer and director did take a deep dive into Transformers beyond just watching a few cartoons as the origin of Megatron and the Decepticons has only really been explored in the IDW comics.
As for the Terrorcons, in Generation 1 (G1) they are not a faction of Transformers but combiners of six Transformers that merge into a single large robot named Abominus. Their alt modes are fantasy beasts like a landshark and hydra. In Transformers: Energon, they are a sub-class of Decepticons with various beast alt breeds like Insecticons, Piranhacons and so forth. Guess we will see what likely mix of versions the film uses and if we might have a real combiner on screen instead of the mess that Bay made of Devastator.
As for "true reboot", at this point its clear that Michael Bay's Transformers continuity is no longer part of events. The Bumblebee movie pretty much ignored the Bay-verse but because Bee still strongly used the Bay design, Paramount marketing left the door open just in case. I would take Caple's response to say that door is now officially closed and he has no interest in telling a story that ties in to Bay's interpretation of Transformers.
Steve C did call it a reboot but both Lorenzo dB and the executives at Paramount stated in the press conference for ROTB that the film IS NOT a reboot. As for the specifics, it's almost funny to say there is no connection to the Bay films when Michael Bay himself was not only heavily involved in ROTB from start to finish (confirm by the studio) but was physically on-set in Peru. This film is set 13 years before MB's first film so, of course, there wouldn't be mention yet of what did come in 2007 and afterwards.
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ReplyDeleteMichael Bay himself was not only heavily involved in ROTB from start to finish (as confirmed by the studio), but was also physically on set in Peru, so it has nothing to do with the Bay movie. It's almost comical to say that. . This movie takes place 13 years before MB's first movie, so of course there is no mention of anything after 2007.
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