TRANSFORMERS: RISE OF THE BEASTS "Big Game" TV Spot Introduces Mirage And Teases More Maximal Action

John liguizamo?

They forgot to market this movie's biggest selling point. The Beasts

This looks like it is returning to the ridiculous nature of the Bay movies. Bumblebee was a good step in the right direction, then they follow up with this cheese fest.

Loved the Beast Wars cartoon growing up. Can't wait.

They fix the scene where Primal splashes the humans twice and they just stand there and dodge getting wet?

So is this a sequel to Bumblebee, which I think acted like a ‘soft reboot’ or is it a sequel to original 5 movies?

*Ahem* Okay folks, if you've seen my previous posts on TF stuff here then you know that I'm a HUGE life-long TF fan going all the way back to the 80's (the OG Thundercracker was my first TF and I have an entire spare bedroom in my house full of them including that Robosen self-transforming OP and the 3-foot Unicron). And I visit more TF sites than I do CBM sites. Okay, creds hopefully established.

So I'm pretty up to speed with what is known about this movie so far and TFs in general don't get a whole lot of coverage on this site (which is understandable because it IS a CBM site after all), so I'm going to share what I know so far. And instead of addressing each comment above I'll just do kind of a group point address. And please understand that I'm just trying to share some knowledge and not be all like "I know everything about TFs, you know nothing" - it's just my jam (I seriously have a Deception symbol tattooed on my left shoulder). So here goes (likely SPOILERS follow):

- For those worried about the emphasis of this spot being on the Autobots and not the Maximals, worry not. This spot was promoted by Porsche (obviously), so the emphasis was going to naturally be on the cars, specifically Mirage (which if I may insert a personal note, considering that his original alt-mode was an F1 racer (which would be a little obvious driving around normal streets), making him a 90's Porsche was a pretty good choice (and they stuck to his original silver/blue/white) color scheme and didn't make him red or something). As an aside, I'll bet a nickel that Porsche is going to release a Mirage styled version of the 911 just like GM did with Bumblebee's Camero.

- From what I understand the second half of the movie is going to take place in Peru, which is where the Maximals come in. Here's a brief synopsis based on what I've read which may or not be accurate, but it all lines up (again SPOILERS!):
- In the first part of the movie there's a museum in NY where Dominique Fishback's character uncovers evidence of a TransWarp key (BW fans rejoice!) which is located down in Peru. The Autobots (which only include Prime, BB, Arcee, Mirage, and Wheeljack as far as I know) race down there the find it before the Terrorcons do.
- The Terrorcons are a subsection of the Decepticons and (sadly) NOT the G1 combiner team of monsters (although I think we kinda already been there and done that with "The Last Knight"). The team's leader is Scourge who seems to be kinda of an amalgam of both versions of "Scourge" in the TF lore, i.e. a minion of Unicron and the "evil OP" from the original "TF: Robots in Disguise" series (often confused for "Nemesis Prime"). Also are Battletrap and Nightbird, also G1 callbacks. The only other new TC so far is called "Freezer" and can turn into a weapon for the bigger TCs, kinda like a Targetmaster.
- I said that Scourge was an amalgam of those two characters because he looks like a Mad Max semi truck (RID Scourge was a semi) BUT seems to be associated with Unicron, as he is seeking the Transwarp Key to bring Unicron to Earth, which I find odd because the ending of "TLK" basically revealed that Unicron WAS Earth, but maybe this will actually explain how that's possible. Dunno.
- So the Autobots and Maximals will have to team up to stop Scourge. As far as I know so far, the Maximals only consist of Primal, Cheetor, Rhinox, and Airazor. I wouldn't be surprised if they're holding Rattrap back as a surprise, as he's a fan-favorite character, but don't get your hopes up about Dinobot.
- If you're wondering hw the TCs will be able to go up against the Autobots AND Maximals, from what I understand Scourge gets a hold of the TW Key and uses it to open a portal to summon a bunch of Predicons, specifically Scorponoks, but not the little ones from TF1 but BIG ASS ones, like the GI Headmaster-sized ones, hence how we end up with Predicons. There may be more Predicons involved, but so far all I've heard about is the Scorponoks.

- Hasbro is leaning HEAVILY into the "Beast" element of this movie and the associated toy line. Last week I saw official reveals of a bunch of the toys coming out associated with the movie and they all like "Beast Blasters" or "Beast Masters" or "Beast whatever", so for anyone fearing that the "BW" aspect will be downplayed, fear not. In fact as a collector I'm probably going to get sick of it after a while.
- Speaking of which, for you fellow collectors, there will be two different main toy lines going on simultaneously for this movie: the "standard" line (geared more toward kids) and the "Studio Series" line (which has been around for a couple of years and focuses on producing movie-accurate figures, even "TF-The Movie '86" figures). Interestingly enough, from What I've read both lines will be priced the same, so I don't know why collectors like myself would NOT go for the SS version.
- Also picking up on that last point and further addressing any concerns of the lack of emphasis on the beasts, of the figures that have been announced so far, Scourge and Primal will be Leader class size (which is the largest size for normal figures). Then Prime, Cheetor, Rattletrap, and Rhinox will be Voyagers, with the rest being Deluxes, except for Arcee who will be a Core class (because she turns into a motorcycle) along with Freezer.
- FWIW although I haven't seen any official confirmation from either Hasbro or Paramount, the overall thinking is that while the BB movie seemed like kind of a soft reboot, it wasn't. And both that movie and this new one are still considered to be in-canon along with the previous TF movies, and really serve as prequels (especially considering that BAY was a producer on "BB" and this new one). Which is why "BB" ended with BB in his Camero form and will have that in this one (although both he and OP will have "off-road" versions when they get to Peru).

FINALLY, and I want to make a special point of this based on some of the comments above, for anyone who (like myself) LOVED the opening animated sequence on Cybertron in "BB" and have said "Why can't we just get a whole movie of that?". Rejoice! It's coming to you next year! A fully animated, takes place on Cybertron movie is in the works (from what I've heard it's a prequel going back to the beginning of the war on Cybertron). And this was officially confirmed last week during a Hasbro Fan-fest live-stream event in which one of the Hasbro designers specifically mentioned that the design team that is currently working on the (non-SS) RotB toys and the Earthspark toys (the new animated series on Nickelodeon), is working on the toys for the 2024 animated movie.

Whew! I'm spent. Hopefully this SUPER LONG post helped to fill in some blanks for those fellow TF fans out there. If you have any other questions feel free to hit me up. Also, if you'd like links to my TF news sources s that you can check out this stuff for yourself also feel free to hit me up. And if you've made it this far, thanks!