Paramount has revealed new details for Transformers 7, now officially subtitled Rise of the Beasts. After Transformers: The Last Knight fell short at the box office and got panned by critics, the franchise shifted to a slightly smaller-scale focus with 2018’s Bumblebee prequel, which earned high praise for its loyalty to the original Transformers cartoon. Now, Paramount is following up on Bumblebee’s success with a new movie in the same style. Here are the biggest details released so far.
As the name implies, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts will pull heavily from the 1990s Beast Wars: Transformers cartoon, which saw the eponymous Cybertronian robots turning into mechanical animals instead of cars and planes. Beast Wars was set on a prehistoric version of Earth, which the Maximals and Predacons – descendants of the Autobots and Decepticons – crash-landed on after travelling through a time portal. Rise of the Beasts will instead be set in 1994 – midway between Bumblebee and Michael Bay’s Transformers films – but the Maximals and Predacons will both still appear.
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts will also bring the Terrorcons to live-action, with their leader, Scourge, being the film’s main antagonist. Other classic Beast Wars characters have been promised as well, including Rhinox, Air-Razor, and the leader of the Maximals, Optimus Primal. As of now, it’s unclear how exactly the Beast Wars characters will enter the world of 1990s Earth, but it’s possible that a time-travel storyline will still be used. The official logo for Transformers 7 has also been released, seen below.
One of the most exciting details revealed about Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is that, like Bumblebee, it will feature a wide range of robot designs inspired by the original G1 Transformers cartoon. A new G1-loyal Optimus Prime design has already been confirmed, which will likely resemble his appearance in Bumblebee. Paramount has also stated that the new movie will dive deeper than ever before into the character of Optimus Prime and why he chooses to fight to defend humanity. Original voice actor Peter Cullen is confirmed to be reprising his role as the Autobot leader.
To say that the Transformers franchise has had its ups and downs would be an understatement, but it looks like the new movie is taking a lot of steps in the right direction. Keeping the G1-inspired story and designs of Bumblebee while expanding the action to include more classic characters is a great move, and it could make for the series’ best film yet. Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is scheduled to release on July 24, 2022.