‘Transformers: Rise of the Beasts’ Final Trailer Drops Days Ahead of Movie Premiere

The final trailer for Transformers: Rise of the Beasts dropped on Tuesday, emphasizing the movie’s connection to the previous installments in the franchise. Rise of the Beasts represents a lot of big changes for the Transformers theatrical franchise, but it does not abandon its predecessors entirely. Fans will be able to see the movie for themselves on Thursday in theaters everywhere.

Transformers: Rise of the Beasts has a lot of fans excited because it is the second time a live-action movie in this franchise has been directed by someone other than Michael Bay. Many fans did not like the direction Bay and other producers and writers took the story over the course of the first five movies, but Rise of the Beasts doesn’t leave all that behind completely. Instead, it fits into the continuity between Bumblebee (2018) and Transformers (2007), and this new trailer hints at those connections more than ever. It opens with familiar characters like Optimus Prime and Bumblebee front and center, while the new character Optimus Primal warns: “You’ve never faced anything like this.”

Rise of the Beasts draws in characters and story elements from the Beast Wars storyline along with some new original ideas and remixes to the continuity. It was written by Joby Harold, Darnell Metayer, Josh Peters, Erich Hoeber, and Jon Hoeber and directed by Steven Caple Jr. It has an all-star cast including the live-action protagonists played by Anthony Ramos and Dominique Fishback, as well as the voice-over stars Ron Perlman, Peter Dinklage, Michelle Yeoh, Liza Koshy, Michaela Jaé Rodriguez, Pete Davidson, Colman Domingo, Cristo Fernández, and Tongayi Chirisa. Long-time voice-over stars Peter Cullen, John DiMaggio, and David Sobolov all return as well.

In addition to the Beast Wars factions Maximals and Terrorcons – who transform into animals, dinosaurs, and chimeras – the movie introduces Unicron, the massive planet-eating transformer that became a fan-favorite antagonist in the franchises’ 1986 animated movie. This movie is set in 1994, so it’s unclear how it will reconcile the worldwide impact of Transformers on the Earth when they were apparently discovered for the first time in the 2007 film.

Paramount is planning at least two more Transformers movies to follow this one, so hopefully it can recapture fans and draw in some new ones as well. Rise of the Beasts will be playing in theaters everywhere on Friday, June 9 in the U.S. The previous movies are spread across different streaming services, but several are available now on Paramount+.