A brand new Transformers live-action movie is on the way, and it’s something quite special. After a series of movies that weren’t exactly critically received, the new movie brings back an animated favorite. The Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts trailer features Beast Wars animated series characters.
Even more, the new trailer also seemingly explains how the series connects to this new movie. This new addition may just be that new spark the franchise needs to keep things interesting. Here’s the lowdown on how Beast Wars comes into play.
Here’s What The Rise Of The Beasts Trailer Gets Right
The new Transformers movie looks amazing, in all honesty. Especially for fans who’ve been completely turned off by previous Michael Bay movies. However, the Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts trailer revitalizes interest in the new franchise. The new movie is visually intriguing, and there’s a different director behind it.
Rise Of The Beasts acts as a sequel to 2018’s Bumblebee, which in itself was practically the prequel to the other live-action films. Set in 1994, the movie introduces a new set of characters, however, they’re already fan favorites. These characters originate from the hugely popular animated series Beast Wars.
The show featured Transformers who could turn into animals instead of vehicles. But what’s interesting is how the Beast Wars series ties into the original series. It turns out that the Maximals and Predacons are the next generation of Transformers after the Autobots and Decepticons, respectively. That’s one of the things the Transformers: Rise Of The Beast trailer goes into further detail.
How The Beast Wars Connects To The New Movie
In Beast Wars, the Transformers land on a prehistoric planet where it’s required that they transform into animals instead of vehicles. As the series progressed, the story reveals that the planet is actually a pre-historic Earth.
The original Transformers are in stasis and awaiting their revival, as per the origin story of the established franchise. Beast Wars ended with some of the characters returning to Cybertron — now the story continues. But it looks like the Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts trailer kind of retcons that ending. The opening lines of the new trailer have Optimus Primal (the Beast Wars version) proclaiming that they’ve been on Earth for a long time, in secret. So it seems that the story is implying how the Beast Wars characters remained on Earth after their crash landing. There have been there all along, which is interesting, but also begs the question of if they were also around in other Transformers stories.
Potential For Future Beast Wars Live-Action Movies
Considering that the Beast Wars characters existed from prehistoric times to the present day leaves room for additional stories to be told. If Optimus Primal, Rhinox, Cheetor, and others were on Earth for all that time, it probably means that they had adventures of their own that the larger population wasn’t aware of.
Imagine future spin-off prequels featuring the Beast Wars Maximals fighting Predacons. With the Transformers movies eventually getting stale, both at the box office and with audiences, the Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts trailer could change all that. While there is potential for the stories to continue from 1994 to the present day, there are also other options.
Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts Spin-Offs
The Beast Wars animated series lasted for 4 seasons. That gives any potential movies up to 4 seasons’ worth of stories to revisit and expand on in future films. The movies could start with how the characters landed on Earth. It could progress through the years and catch up to their debut in the Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts movie.
Needless to say, the Beast Wars franchise was huge for the Transformers series, with the stories even continuing in comic books afterward. If Rise Of The Beasts is a success, it would be a great way to take the franchise in a new direction while additional movies continue the story forward to the present day. In many ways, Rise Of The Beasts is going to be a convergence of two of the biggest Transformers franchise coming together in a new and innovative way.
