Fandom is a difficult force to manage. Massive franchises likeTransformerslive and die on the cultural impact they have made over the last 40 years. Its never-ending march of animated series and films ensures an influx of new fans, but the adult devotees who fell in love withTransformersdecades ago remain integral. Many fans want their favorite franchises to grow up with them, prompting them to become enraged at material likeTransformers One.
Thelive-actionTransformersmoviesmade an absurd amount of money at the box office. The franchise is a cultural institution, though for unfortunate reasons. It’s interesting to wonder what the defaultTransformersimage is in fans' heads. Is it the action figures on every store shelf? One of the many animated series that have run over the past few decades? It could be the Michael Bay movies, but new cinematic steps forward could change that.
Andrew Barrer, Gabriel Ferrari, and Bobby Rubio
Release Date
June 26, 2025
The trailer forTransformers Onehas more jokes than action beats. It depicts the tales of Orion Pax and D-16, the young Cybertronian workers who will eventually become Optimus Prime and Megatron. While the premise seems to take after several prequel novels set in the same early era, the film’s tone is less intense. It’s very comedic, though most jokes feel pulled directly from the scripts of other kid-friendly movies. The heroes, portrayed by starsChris Hemsworth and Brian Tyree Henry, have a familiar odd-couple chemistry. The plot seems to follow the group’s desire to prove themselves and earn their ability to transform, a strikingly common narrative structure for any child-based follow-up project. This suggests a target audience somewhere between six and eleven years of age. Fans well above that demographic aren’t pleased.
Fans wanted something more likeBumblebee
It’s fair to say thelive-actionTransformersmoviesaimed their broad action comedy tone at pre-teen boys first and foremost. Those movies featured dull, straightforward stories with blatant heroes and villains. Nuance never entered the conversation, but the bizarre adult-oriented sense of humor and offputting sexuality of those projects allowed some to pretend adults were welcome to the party. The live-action franchise’s apex remainsTravis Knight’sBumblebee. That project opened with a colorful recreation of the war that sent the Autobots to Earth. Many fans believe Knight intended to expand that concept to a feature, creating the firstTransformersfilm without human characters. Those fans would come to expect that idea inTransformers One, which sells itself on its prequel status and animated presentation. Sure enough, the film disappoints those devotees.Transformers Onelooks much closer to one of the animated series than the modern live-action films. This is, however, not necessarily a bad thing.
Transformers Animatedis a Perfect Source Material
The Transformersis the starting point for mostTransformersfans. It’s a classicSaturday morning cartoondesigned primarily to sell children the iconic toys by any means necessary. This is a rough starting point for a massive international media franchise, but this concept underpins almost all mass-market entertainment in the modern era. It’s a bit of a cliché to point out the distasteful origins of a concept likeTransformers, but that doesn’t make it any less accurate an observation.Transformers, Star Wars,superhero comics, and many other tentpole blockbusters emerged from entertainment aimed at young people. Some examples transcend their origins, but theTransformersfranchise has failed that challenge on the big screen.
The Transformers: The Moviehas a fascinating blend of tones. It depicts the heroic Autobots working to defeat the all-consuming evil god Unicron. The stakes are comically high, but Nelson Shin and Ron Friedman weren’t messing around with the presentation. Unicron is an existential threat, and the consequences of its endless hunger appear as nightmarish eldritch horror. Conversely, the film is awash in the silliest comedy that has ever graced a theatrical screen. It’s kid stuff, yet the stakes, drama, and antagonists appear with the weight they deserve. This would be the ideal presentation for aTransformersproject. It’s an inherently immature idea motivated by the kind of thinking that sells toys, but children innately understand the drama ofbig science fiction ideas. This juxtaposition was once integral to the franchise, andTransformers Onecan bring it back.
Transformersmay one day have its version ofThe Dark KnightorInto the Spider-Verse, butTransformers Onedoesn’t seem to be it. A deeper exploration of theRobots in Disguiseand what they mean as an idea could be fascinating, but it isn’t on the docket at the moment.Transformers Oneis a silly, kid-friendly action comedy about machines finding their destiny. That’s all it needs to be, and no amount of intergalactic war policy or gross Michael Bay humor will fix that.
