Transformers One is a 2024 American animated science fiction action film based on Hasbro's Transformers toy line. Directed by Josh Cooley and written by Eric Pearson, Andrew Barrer and Gabriel Ferrari, the film features the voices of Chris Hemsworth, Brian Tyree Henry, Scarlett Johansson, Keegan-Michael Key, Steve Buscemi, Laurence Fishburne, and Jon Hamm. It depicts the origins of Optimus Prime and Megatron.
In March 2015, following the release of Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014), Paramount Pictures tasked Akiva Goldsman to set up a writers' room to create ideas for potential future Transformers films. By May 2015, Barrer and Ferrari had signed on as writers, and they came up with the idea of an animated prequel set on Cybertron. The film was announced in August 2017, and by April 2020, Cooley had been hired to direct. Animation services were provided by Industrial Light & Magic, and the design was primarily influenced by the Generation 1 era and Art Deco. The score was composed by Brian Tyler.
Transformers One premiered in Sydney, Australia, on September 11, 2024, and was released by Paramount Pictures in the United States on September 20. The film received positive reviews from critics but underperformed at the box office, grossing $129 million worldwide on a budget of $75–147 million.
Plot
Cybertron is a technological world formed by the body of the deity Primus and inhabited by sentient robots fueled by a substance called Energon, who live in a hierarchy based on whether they possess a 'transformation cog' that allows them to shapeshift into vehicles. In the underground city of Iacon, Orion Pax, a cogless mining robot, sneaks into an archive to learn about the first-generation Cybertronians, the Primes. Security guards spot and chase Orion, but his best friend, D-16, helps him escape. Later, during a cave-in at the Energon mine where they work, the two break protocol to save fellow miner Jazz. However, this worsens the disaster, and their superior, Elita-1, is blamed and demoted for it by their callous overseer, Darkwing.
Iacon's leader, Sentinel Prime, returns from an expedition to the surface to find the lost Matrix of Leadership; its absence caused Energon to stop flowing and forced miners to extract it. Though unable to find it, he reprieves the populace with a race. To prove themselves as more than miners, Orion enters himself and D-16 illegally using jetpacks, but they narrowly lose. While Sentinel promises to reward the two for inadvertently boosting mining morale, Darkwing drags them to garbage incineration, where they meet the eccentric B-127. Finding a distress message from the Prime Alpha Trion in the junk, Orion convinces D-16 and B-127 to travel with him to its coordinates on the surface; later persuading Elita to join as well when she catches them sneaking out of Iacon.
The group finds Alpha Trion in a cave, deactivated alongside the other Primes' corpses. Upon reactivation, he reveals that Sentinel is a pretender who killed the real Primes to steal the Matrix from them, only for it to disappear when Primus deemed him unworthy. In truth, Sentinel has been giving Energon to Cybertron's enemies, aliens called Quintessons, in exchange for allowing him to rule the planet, and he created the hierarchy by removing some Cybertronians' cogs before activation. Alpha Trion gives the group the fallen Primes' cogs, allowing them to transform, and a chip with evidence of Sentinel's treason. They are then ambushed by Sentinel's lieutenant, Airachnid, who captures Trion and brings him back to Iacon, where Sentinel executes him.
Evading pursuit, the group rushes back to Iacon but is captured by the Primes' former army, the Cybertronian High Guard, who are rebelling against Sentinel. D-16 takes command of the High Guard by defeating their leader, Starscream, but Orion grows concerned about his friend's newfound aggression after learning the truth. Sentinel's troops find them, and in the ensuing battle, the evidence chip is destroyed while D-16, B-127, and Starscream are captured along with most of the High Guard. Taken to Iacon, D-16 learns that Sentinel stole the cog of his idol, Megatronus Prime, whose face Sentinel mockingly brands onto him.
Encouraged by Elita, Orion rallies the remaining High Guard members and returns to Iacon to rescue their comrades. After subduing Darkwing, Orion enlists the miners' aid to assault Sentinel's headquarters, freeing the captives. As the High Guard battles Sentinel's forces, Orion, Elita, and B-127 expose the truth by capturing Airachnid and broadcasting her memory recordings throughout the city, causing the populace to turn on Sentinel. D-16 defeats Sentinel but gets into an argument with Orion over whether to kill him, resulting in D-16 accidentally shooting Orion before letting him fall to his death. D-16 then kills Sentinel, takes Megatronus' cog, renames himself Megatron, and begins destroying Iacon, with the High Guard siding with him.
Deeming Orion worthy, Primus and the spirits of the Primes bestow the Matrix onto him and revive him as Optimus Prime. Confronting Megatron, Optimus then defeats and exiles him from Iacon alongside the High Guard. Afterward, the Matrix restores the miners' cogs and makes Energon flow again as Optimus becomes Iacon's new leader, christens his followers as Autobots, and sends a message warning the Quintessons to stay away from Cybertron. Meanwhile, Megatron reforms the High Guard into the Decepticons, using Megatronus' face as their insignia, and declares war on the Autobots.
Voice cast
Chris Hemsworth as Orion Pax / Optimus Prime, a rebellious but good-hearted miner Brian Tyree Henry as D-16 / Megatron, a miner and Orion's best friend Scarlett Johansson as , an arrogant mining supervisor later demoted to waste management Keegan-Michael Key as , a talkative garbage sorter Steve Buscemi as Starscream, the leader of the Cybertronian High Guard Laurence Fishburne as Alpha Trion, an ancient Prime Jon Hamm as Sentinel Prime, the ruler of Cybertron and a false Prime
Additional cast members include; Vanessa Liguori as Airachnid, Sentinel's spider-themed consigliere who transforms into a drone, Jon Bailey as Soundwave, the Cybertronian High Guard's communications officer, Jason Konopisos-Alvarez as Shockwave, a one-eyed member of the Cybertronian High Guard, Evan Michael Lee as Jazz, a miner and a colleague of Orion, and Isaac C. Singleton Jr. as Darkwing, a strict Cybertronian dockworker who is one of Sentinel's subordinates and oversees the mining and waste management workers. A green check mark indicates that a role has been confirmed using a screenshot (or collage of screenshots) of a title's list of voice actors and their respective characters found in its credits or other reliable sources of information.
Voice-related cameos include Steve Blum, who had contributed voice work throughout the franchise as the announcer for the Iacon-5000 speedway and James Remar, who previously voiced Sideswipe in Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011), as Zeta Prime, a member of the Thirteen Primes and the former wielder of the Matrix of Leadership.
Production Development Following the release of Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014), Paramount Pictures tasked Akiva Goldsman in March 2015 to work with the film franchise's director Michael Bay, executive producer Steven Spielberg, and producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura to set up a writers' room to create ideas for future Transformers films. According to Goldsman, the writing team would look at various Transformers media created by Hasbro for inspiration; if they found one that interested them, they could submit a treatment, which would then be further developed by the whole team. In late May, the team of Andrew Barrer and Gabriel Ferrari signed on as writers. According to Deadline Hollywood, one of the ideas from the writer's room had the working title Transformers One and would serve as an animated prequel focusing on the Autobot–Decepticon conflict that began on Cybertron.
In August 2017, it was reported that an animated Transformers film was officially in the works set in the same universe as the Bayverse films. Following the release of Bumblebee (2018), di Bonaventura discussed the animated film, clarifying that it was "in the works" and would "tell the whole Cybertron mythology". Bumblebee director Travis Knight additionally expressed interest in the film.
In April 2020, it was reported that former Pixar animator and filmmaker Josh Cooley had been hired to direct the film and was overseeing the script by Barrer and Ferrari. Hasbro Entertainment and Paramount Animation would produce the film. In February 2022, it emerged that the film would be computer-animated. In December 2022, the title was reported to be Transformers: A New Generation, though di Bonaventura later stated in April 2023 that the title had yet to be finalized. Later that month, at CinemaCon, the title was officially confirmed as Transformers One. di Bonaventura stated that the plot will center around the origins of the Transformers, and explore the events that lead Optimus and Megatron to go from being brothers-in-arms to becoming enemies. The budget was reportedly $75 million, although an Animation Magazine interview with Cooley and di Bonaventura put the cost of production as high as $147 million.
Writing Eric Pearson, Barrer, and Ferrari received screenplay credit, with Barrer and Ferrari receiving story credits. When Cooley joined the project, Hasbro gave him a bible that covered the lore for the entire franchise. Cooley wanted to capture an "epic quality" and grand scale for the film and used The Transformers: The Movie (1986) and Dune (1965) as points of reference. As there are no human characters in Transformers One as they are in previous films in the franchise, Cooley and the team aimed to "inject more comedy and humanity" into the Transformers themselves. They wanted to make sure that the characters had enough humor and emotion to carry the story on their own. The film depicts how the Transformers gained the ability to transform, an idea Cooley found appealing. He felt that there was fun in seeing the characters learn and adapt to their new powers.
The relationship between Optimus Prime and Megatron and the tragedy of their falling out is the emotional core of the film. For Cooley, it was important to show that Megatron was not just a villain. He wanted people who did not know Transformers to come into the film and not be able to immediately pick up who was going to be good or bad. He took inspiration from several famous brothers-turned-enemies stories from across pop culture when crafting the story arc. As a reference to his previous origin story, the film originally included a scene depicting Megatron as a gladiator, to have him and Optimus Prime come from completely different backgrounds. Due to runtime constraints, that idea was scrapped and they were both made to be coworkers in the mines instead.
Casting and voice recording
The voice cast of the film was announced at CinemaCon in April 2023, consisting of Chris Hemsworth and Brian Tyree Henry as younger versions of Optimus Prime and Megatron, alongside Scarlett Johansson, Keegan-Michael Key, Jon Hamm, and Laurence Fishburne headlining. In April 2024, Steve Buscemi, who had previously voiced Daytrader in Transformers: The Last Knight (2017), was cast as Starscream. Cooley desired to get a voice cast as impressive as that of The Transformers: The Movie.