Director Michael Bay teases how Transformers: The Last Knight will act as a "launching board" for the franchise. And indeed, the fifth installment in the live-action Transformers series feels like the end of an era for the franchise, in more ways than one. Firstly, Bay himself has confirmed that it'll be his last Transformers film as director, while star Mark Wahlberg also recently announced that The Last Knight would be his last time playing around in the cinematic universe, as several previous rumors and reports had already hinted at.

But while the film is the farewell tour for many of its creative team members, The Last Knight also promises to blow open the mythology and history of the Transformers franchise in a way it never quite has been before. And by going back in history to the medieval times with King Arthur and the Knights of the Roundtable, it looks as though Transformers: The Last Knight will be shedding new light on the true history behind humanity's long-lasting relationship with the Autobots and Decepticons.

During a recent interview with Fandango for the film, Michael Bay talked about what separates The Last Knight from all four of the previous films in the franchise, before teasing how exactly it sets up what may be yet to come in future installments and spinoffs:

"This one's much more about mythology and in terms of storyline, it's kind of the deeper of all five of them. This movie is much more of an adventure. There are two very strong female heroes in this movie that I like very much and it's kind of got a different bent on it than we've normally done on other Transformers movies. If you watch it closely, there are a lot of ways that this movie can go from here. So it's basically like a launching board for wherever the series will continue."

Now, it's been clear for awhile that The Last Knight was going to be a noticeably different film than any of Bay's previous four Transformers films, really ever since Paramount began developing it with their now infamous writer's room several years back. So while it's still unclear if Transformers: The Last Knight will really be the resurgence in quality that many fans and critics have been hoping for, there's no denying that Bay, Paramount, and everyone else involved behind-the-scenes on the film have been taking a much different approach to crafting the film's story this time around.

But even if The Last Knight doesn't wind up being the critical success that Paramount is likely hoping for, the studio has some big plans in motion already for the Transformers cinematic universe, beginning with next year's 1980s-set Bumblebee spin-off film. That solo movie will be helmed by Kubo & The Two Strings director, Travis Knight, and as the Transformers franchise continues to move away from the first five Michael Bay-directed outings, it'll be interesting to see what new tones and styles it begins to play around with moving forwards.

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Source: Fandango