The first trailer was recently-unveiled for Transformers: The Last Knight - both the fifth installment in the live-action Transformers movie franchise overall and the fifth Transformers film directed by Michael Bay. Those Transformers fans who were hoping that the movie's trailer would offer some answers rather than raise new questions might have been let down by the theatrical preview. The trailer instead provides little fresh insight on the narrative for The Last Knight and/or the return of human characters from Transformers films past; including, Mark Wahlberg as Cade Yeager and Josh Duhamel as (now Lt. Colonel) William Lennox.

Easily the biggest surprise in the trailer for The Last Knight was saved for the end of the preview - where Optimus Prime (once again voiced by Peter Cullen) is shown attacking his fellow Autobot Bumblebee, having turned 'evil' for reasons that have yet to be revealed. Paramount Pictures has now released a new poster for The Last Knight, further alluding to Optomis' mysterious turn to the dark side in the film with its tagline: "Rethink Your Heroes". By coincidence, this marketing campaign for The Last Knight is beginning just as marketing starts for another upcoming tentpole that features a beloved hero-turned bad, in the form of The Fate and the Furious.

The poster also alludes to Optimus' fight with Bumblebee in The Last Knight - as the latter appears to have been taken down by the (former?) Autobot leader, with either his arm or leg visible in the lower-right corner of the poster. For more, you should check out the new poster for Transformers: The Last Knight for yourself, below:

Transformers: The Last Knight - Poster

The trailer for The Last Knight also shows Optimus seemingly dead and adrift in space, suggesting that the film is borrowing a plot point from one of the previous Transformers animated TV shows in the aftermath of Prime's death in the 1986 animated The Transformers: The Movie - where Optimus was resurrected as a mindless zombie-like 'evil Optimus', so to speak. That might not be the only direct connection between The Last Knight and the 1980s animated Transformers film either, based on speculation that the trailer also features an appearance by The Transformers: The Movie's baddie Unicron.

Bay's The Last Knight is the first Transformers installment to be produced since Paramount put together a group of screenwriters to plot out ideas for future Transformers movie/spinoffs - known as, simply enough, the Transformers writing group. The expectation is that the Transformers movies that were plotted by the writing group will dive deeper into established Transformers lore and be more interconnected. If that holds true for The Last Knight, then the 'evil Optimus' from The Last Knight may turn out to be the live-action version of the evil incarnation of Optimus known as Nemesis Prime, from Transformers animated TV series past.

The Last Knight has certainly gotten an upgrade in the screenwriting department, with a screen story by Akiva Goldsman (I Am Legend) and screenplay co-written by Ken Nolan (Black Hawk Down), as well as Matt Holloway and Art Marcum (Iron Man). If the screenwriters have succeeded in putting together a cohesive mythology to go with the larger-than-ever spectacle and action sequences from Bay, then the fifth Transformers movie could prove to be one of the better ones (the best one?) yet.

NEXT: Transformers The Last Knight Trailer Analysis & Breakdown

Source: Paramount Pictures

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