Transformers Onekicked off San Diego Comic-Con with a big Hall H panel. Following a screening two months before the film opened withhighly positive word of mouth, the upcoming animated Transformers film has certainly built up a lot of buzz following the mixed reaction to the first trailer. Paramount Pictures released a new trailer forTransformers One, and during the Hall H panel, the filmmakers confirmed that despite being animated, it could tie into the live-action films.
At Hall H, viaDiscussingFilm, it was revealed thatTransformers Oneis in fact a prequel to the live-actionTransformersfilms. How many years in the past is the film set? According to the filmmakers,Transformers Onetakes place three billion years before the live-action feature films. This certainly breaks from the previous reports that saidTransformers Onewas a standalone animated film looking to forge its own continuity and story.
Transformers One
The Complicated Transformers Timeline
MakingTransformers Onea prequel to the live-action films presents plenty of complications in terms of the timeline.The live-actionTransformersfilms already have a confusing timelineasBumblebeeandTransformers: Rise of the Beastshave both been described as prequels and reboots of the five live-action Michael Bay-directed films. Events inBumblebeeandTransformers: Rise of the Beastcontradict story elements in the five Michael Bay Transformers films, particularly around Bumblebee’s origins and Unicron so things are already a little messy.
From what audiences have seen from the trailers forTransformers: One, it appears that there are plenty of story elements that don’t line up with either the five Michael BayTransformersfilms or the two latest films. It feels like the Transformers films have a more confusing timeline than the 20th Century FoxX-Menfilms. It also creates a potentially odd bit of casting, as Chris Hemsworth, the voice actor of Optimus Prime inTransformers One,is set to play the lead human character in theplannedTransformersandG.I. Joecrossover film. Maybe this means one of the characters can note how Hemsworth human character sounds like young Optimus Prime.
Transformers One Director Explains Why Megatron’s Origin Was Changed
Transformers One director Josh Cooley explains why the film has dropped Megatron’s backstory as a gladiator on Cybertron.
Fans might also be reading too much into this. With three billion years as the time difference, animated films are free to do their own thing with continuity. After all,Transformers: Rise of the Beasts has alreadyestablished the strange time travel rules whereOptimus Prime meets Optimus Primal, someone born and named after Optimus Prime and knows legendary stories about him but has been on Earth far longer thanks to having traveled through space and time. That three billion-year comment could be a fun exaggeration, so the filmmakers don’t need to worry about the live-action films, and the live-action movies do not need to worry about the animated film series Paramount likely has planned.Transformers: Onecould be a Schrödinger’s cat situation in terms of continuity, where it is and isn’t continuity at the same time; it just depends on how you look at it or what you want it to be.
Transformers: Oneopens in theaters on August 06, 2025.
