Paramount Pictures has released the full, official trailer for Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, which features more action, more Beast Wars beast stuff, a surprisingly likable human protagonist (actor Anthony Ramos), and the threat of Unicron consuming the entire planet. The movie is set in 1994 in the cinematic timeline, but for the first time, a film is adapting characters seen in the ’90s CGI animated series Beast Wars, including the Maximals Optimus Primal (Ron Perlman), Airazor (Michelle Yeoh), Rhinox (David Sobolov), and Cheetor (Tongayi Chirisa). The Autobots are still here too though, including the likes of Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) and Mirage (Pete Davidson), among others.
Despite all of the characters (or maybe because of it), the story seems pretty straightforward: The larger-than-a-planet world-eating Unicron is coming to eat Earth. The Maximals, who have stayed in hiding on Earth till now, need to team up with the Transformers to stop it and also the Terrorcons and Predacons (the Beast Wars villains). That’s all the premise you need to sell more toys, so check out the official trailer for Transformers: Rise of the Beasts below.
The movie is directed by Steven Caple Jr., who directed Creed II, and Anthony Ramos, who stars as Noah Diaz, previously starred in In the Heights. His co-lead, Dominique Fishback, plays Elena Wallace and has previously appeared in works like Judas and the Black Messiah. The diversity here is appreciated, particularly as it’s rare for a Puerto Rican (Ramos) to lead any movie with a large budget. Between this and Blue Beetle, maybe blockbusters will learn that Latinos can star in big movies without being criminals. Maybe.
As the trailer reminds us, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts arrives in theaters on June 9.
