The “Transformers” movies have as streamlined a continuity as the “Fast and Furious” series, from the franchise’s inception (where the U.S. and Japan had different continuities) to the live-action movies retconning themselves with each new installment.
Now comes “ Transformers One ” (out September 24), a movie set before the live-action films or even the 1986 animated film , but don’t expect it to connect that directly to those titles. Instead, this is the beginning of a new, standalone (yet still connected) continuity that takes us back to the very beginning, before the destruction of Cybertron, before the civil war, and before there even were Megatron and Optimus Prime. This is a place of vast opportunity, the “Transformers” equivalent of the Old Republic era of “Star Wars.
” “I think of this as the beginning of a new continuity where eventually the kind of major set pieces that we come to know of ‘Transformers’ would still happen, but it might not be exactly the same way,” director Josh Cooley told IndieWire after a work-in-progress screening of “Transformers One” at the Annecy Animation Film Festival. “To think that this film can begin a story that could just keep going without me or with me, that feels right because it’s so much bigger than just this story.” “Transformers One” takes place at a time when Optimus Prime and Megatron were simply known as Orion Pax and D-16.
The film has an epic story about the rise of these two le.
