Hasbro and Paramount released the first trailer for their upcoming animated film, Transformers One, and it’s already being roasted for its immature dialogue and childish MCU tone.
A screenshot from Transformers One (2024), Paramount Pictures
According to Hasbro and Paramount, the film tells the “untold origin story of Optimus Prime and Megatron etter known as sworn enemies, but once were friends bonded like brothers who changed the fate of Cybertron forever. In the first-ever fully CG-animated Transformers movie, TRANSFORMERS ONE features a star-studded voice cast, including Chris Hemsworth, Brian Tyree Henry, Scarlett Johansson, Keegan-Michael Key, Steve Buscemi with Laurence Fishburne and Jon Hamm.”
In an interview last April with Collider, the film’s producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura said as much, “This is something we were trying to do; we debated a lot about it in live action, and it just was financially impossible to do, which is, the origin story of young Megatron and young Optimus. If you know the origin, they started as friends, and over time things devolved for them and they ended up on two sides. So we’re telling the young Optimus and the young Megatron story. We really are telling the origin story of all Transformers, both what they were at the beginning of it, to how they grow, to how they grow apart.”
He went on to share his hopes that the film would spawn a trilogy, “We’re hoping that there is enough emotional construct to that, that would lead to a trilogy of it because, personally, I think there’s a natural trilogy. I’m not always looking to do multiple movies, but there’s a natural trilogy around their relationship.”
“So, you’re going to see Cybertron in a way you’ve never seen it, that no one’s ever seen it before,” he relayed. “Because we’re doing an animation, we’re allowed to really go all out. If you tried to make this live-action, it would probably be a billion-dollar movie or something.”
Given initial reactions to the trailer, the film might be lucky to make a profit let alone spawn a trilogy. That Park Place YouTube host Jonas J. Campbell noted the film was an instant pass for him and his family.
He wrote on X, “Trailer has cursing in it. Bewildering for a kids movie. Automatic pass for me on theatrical.”
Trailer has cursing in it. Bewildering for a kids movie. Automatic pass for me on theatrical. https://t.co/BErI3qWjk7
— Jonas J. Campbell (@JonasJCampbell) April 18, 2024
The Black Crown novelist John A. Douglas torched the trailer writing, “No one wants Transformers that sound like knock off Guardians of the Galaxy characters. These movies just miss the mark over and over and over.”
He added, “AND it’s a prequel.”
No one wants Transformers that sound like knock off Guardians of the Galaxy characters. These movies just miss the mark over and over and over.
AND it’s a prequel. 🫠 https://t.co/MnBTtqbYTj
— Author John A. Douglas (@BlkCrownAuthor) April 18, 2024
This sentiment was echoed by others. “They turned prime into a mcu character im done,” wrote SimoNuType on X.
SimoNuType on X
ThatGuyYouKnowF questioned, “Why is every long running franchise turning into the same tonal mush? When was the last time you didn’t see a movie that had a bunch of ragtag incompetent main characters? They ruined TMNT the same way.”
ThatGuyYouKnowF on X
MotherworldKid posted, “Wow this is aggressively mediocre and unfunny. Did AI write thos script?”
MotherworldKid on X
Kaiza_Tenbu wrote, “>Earthspark tier faces >MCU level dialogue and banter >Looks like another Mcguffin plot >Overhyped animation (it’s pretty, but I do not get why it got so much praise last week saying it’s ‘unique’ and ‘revolutionary’) …I’m not disappointed, but also not interested.”
Kaiza_Tenbu on X
On YouTube, a number of the top comments are similar. One writes, “I didn’t think this would be a comedy.”
Another posted, “Like they frankensteined the scripts of every Pixar and Lego movie, and filtered it through a Transformers wiki.
A screenshot of the comment section for the Transformers One trailer on the Hasbro Pulse channel
Another wrote, “It feels like the same movie we’ve been seeing the past 10 years reskinned with ‘Transformers’.”
“A Transformer movie without humans wherein all the Transformers are portrayed as stupidly as the humans in the live action movies,” wrote another.
Another commented, “A part of me died inside watching this trailer.”
A screenshot of the comment section for the Transformers One trailer on the Hasbro Pulse channel
What do you make of the Transformers One trailer? What do you make of the criticism that it is receiving?
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