What happens when you throw a bunch of transforming cars, transforming animals,
and a planet-eating world-ender into the same
movie? A whole lot of confusing moments. Let's dig into them.
"Transformers: Rise of the Beasts" opens with a scene set on the Maximals' home planet. We're
introduced to Optimus Primal and his gang, and we also meet the vicious Terrorcons. The villains are
sent by the malicious planet-sized Transformer Unicron, who desires the Maximals' powerful
Transwarp Key. His plan? To use its space-time portal powers to journey across the universe
and feed on even more planets. Unfortunately for Unicron,
his plans are thwarted. Now trapped in his current galaxy, Unicron sends Scourge
out into the cosmos to track it down for him. The big question here that might come to mind
is why Scourge and the Terrorcons can transverse the universe without the Transwarp Key but Unicron
can't. He's supposedly more powerful than all of them combined. Couldn't he theoretically visit and
feed on any planet Scourge searches for the Key? "Rise of the Beasts" doesn't directly address this
quandary, but the most likely explanation is that Unicron's power is more limited than it seems.
Perhaps moving through space requires too much energy without guaranteed energon awaiting him.
When we first meet Noah Diaz in "Transformers: Rise of the Beasts," he's en route to interview
for a security job. However, his interview is canceled after the man in charge checks Noah's
military record and speaks with his former CO, who claims that he was unreliable in the Army.
Noah protests, claiming that he had a lot going on at home because of his little brother's health
condition. However, we don't ever get any more explanation than that. Did he go AWOL to help
Chris at some point? You'd think that if he did, his old CO would have had a lot more bad to say
about him. So…what then? Was he just distracted? Always calling home to check in on his brother?
It's hard to imagine how such behavior would stick in a commander's mind so negatively.
Regardless, Noah's Army experience clearly comes in handy. He handles himself impressively well
during the final battle, and his tech savviness is a big boon to his new robotic friends.
Noah gets swept up into the Autobots' crusade when he tries his hand at grand theft auto and
unintentionally picks Mirage as the car to steal. It's actually Noah's friend Reek who
chooses the target, and if you stopped to think about the robbery, it doesn't
really make all that much sense. From the dialogue we do get, it seems that Reek
was tipped off by another contact that the Porsche was ripe for the picking. But as Noah enters
the garage to jack it, he passes by a number of equally fancy cars. Why are they targeting Mirage
specifically? It's never really explained, but there are a few possible explanations.
First and foremost, the Porsche is probably the fastest car in the garage and therefore
the easiest one to get away in. Reek also has a line about how long it's been sitting there,
which could indicate that no one would miss it for some time.
Last and most fun, it could be destiny. If you're a longtime "Transformers" fan, you'll know that
Optimus Prime and crew put a lot of faith in fate and divine duty. Maybe Noah was simply called to
be exactly where he was supposed to go. "I'm here because I got in a car."
The timeline of the "Transformers" movies is, in a word, messy. "Bumblebee" and "Rise
of the Beasts" ostensibly take place in the same continuity as the Michael Bay films,
but there are a lot of plot holes that confuse that chronology. In "Rise of the Beasts," the
Autobots are stranded on Earth following the events of "Bumblebee," and Optimus Prime blames
himself. The discovery of the Transwarp Key gives him hope that they can return home to Cybertron,
but that plan ultimately falls through. There are a few confusing things here.
For starters, the Autobots arrive on Earth from space during the 2007 film,
so if all seven movies are indeed in the same timeline, they'd have to leave and return
somewhere between 1994 and then. Second, Optimus' desire to return home, while understandable,
seems a bit strange. The whole reason they left Cybertron in the first place is because
they lost the war to the Decepticons. Going home would surely be dangerous, as there's no reason
to think their enemies wouldn't still be there. The simple explanation for these discrepancies is,
well, plot holes. But that's not too satisfying, so what else could explain it? We know that the
Transwarp Key allows for travel through both space and time, so maybe Optimus wants to go back to an
earlier version of Cybertron before the war. That still doesn't explain them all being gone
at the start of the original "Transformers," but hey, continuities were made to be broken, right?
Noah, Elena, and the Autobots travel to Peru in search of the other half of the Transwarp
Key. After discovering that it's no longer in its original resting place, the group is
attacked by Scourge and the Terrorcons. They battle it out on a winding mountain road,
but the fight is disrupted by Airazor, who destroys the bridge between Optimus
and Scourge to allow the Autobots to escape. Your first time through, it might seem like a bit
of a plot hole that Scourge doesn't immediately just jump the gap and continue chasing Optimus.
After all, he's a giant robot, so a little fire surely isn't enough to scare him off.
In retrospect, though, it's pretty obvious that Scourge lets the Autobots get away.
Since they don't have the Key, he has no reason to kill them yet. Instead,
his plan is to corrupt Airazor and use her as a beacon so that he can track the group
down to the Key's real location. And to his credit, that plan works perfectly.
What's more confusing is why Airazor doesn't do something about her infection before it
consumes her. When Elena asks about her injury, Airazor says that Scourge "leaves
a mark" when he hurts you, suggesting that she understands the nature of the wound. And yet,
she simply waits until the corruption takes hold of her mind, thus jeopardizing the entire mission.
Perhaps the infection begins influencing her behavior the second it hit her in the sky.
Perhaps the most confusing thing in all of "Transformers: Rise of the Beasts" is the actual
chronology of the Maximals and the Autobots. The Maximals are hunted by Unicron to their
home planet, which the evil god quickly devours as they make their escape. Using the Transwarp Key,
they arrive on Earth and befriend a human tribe in Peru. There they remain in hiding until 1994.
But then we learn that Optimus Primal is named after Optimus Prime, meaning that the Maximals are
successors, not predecessors, to the Autobots. How does that work? Well, it isn't exactly explained,
but in essence, it means that the Maximals traveled back through time. Since the Transwarp
Key is said to possess time-travel capabilities, it makes sense that their voyage to Earth could
have also launched them deep into the past. "I am a Maximal, a warrior from
both your past and future." This also fits with the story
of the original "Beast Wars: Transformers" cartoon and toy line. In that timeline, the Maximals were
descendants of the Autobots who journeyed from Cybertron to a prehistoric Earth via
transwarp travel in pursuit of the evil Predacons. There are still some confusing bits, however. How
were Scourge and the Terrorcons able to travel from the future to 1994 Earth without a Transwarp
Key of their own? And does all this temporal meddling mean that we're now officially in a
different timeline than the Michael Bay films, thus explaining some of the other plot holes?
The first big battle in "Transformers: Rise of the Beasts" takes place at night around
the museum where Elena works. The Autobots face off against the Terrorcons and get
their metallic rears handed to them, with Bumblebee even temporarily biting
the dust. Despite all the explosions and the length of the fight, however,
no one seems to notice. This is a recurring issue in the film, and unfortunately,
not every instance can be explained away. Why doesn't anyone else wake up and see
Mirage at Chris and Noah's window? This is the Big Apple, after all -- the City that Never
Sleeps. It's one of those confusing moments that we probably just aren't supposed to think about.
While we're at it, it's equally curious that no one seems to notice the portal opened by Elena's
half of the Transwarp Key. The device seems to be activated by her museum scanner technology,
but its energy apparently can't be seen by humans, and it shuts off as soon as the Terrorcons attack.
If you've seen any of the Michael Bay "Transformers" movies, you were probably
confused after seeing Bumblebee get brutally murdered by Scourge in "Rise of the Beasts."
You also probably saw his final-act resurrection coming a mile away. Optimus Primal shows Optimus
Prime a bed of rich, latent energon near the human village where the Maximals
live. They rest Bumblebee there, but Primal explains that since the energon isn't active,
it won't be enough to revive him. Only a massive amount of energy could energize the energon.
Of course, that's what ends up happening. After Scourge uses the Transwarp Key to open a portal,
Unicron begins to pass through into Earth's atmosphere. As he does,
he blasts the planet with some kind of scanning ray, presumably to prepare the energon for his
consumption. This move has the unintended side effect of juicing Bee back to life.
This chain of events poses some other questions about how "life" for a Transformer actually
works. We know that every Cybertronian has a spark powered in part by energon.
"We call it a spark. It contains our life force and our memories."
"I would call it a soul." But if one of them can be
fully dead for days and still get revived, anything seems possible.
During the final battle of "Transformers: Rise of the Beasts," Mirage tries to take Scourge on
by himself to allow Noah and Elena to get to the Key. Mirage fights valiantly but ultimately loses,
sacrificing himself in the end to protect Noah. Mirage takes blast after blast from Scourge's
cannon until it seems that all the life has drained out of him. But in a strange twist,
he has just enough power left to turn himself into an exosuit for Noah to pilot.
Is it very cool? Yes. Does every kid who loves Transformers want
exactly that thing to happen to them? Hell yeah. But how does it actually,
you know...work? Mirage isn't quite dead, because he's fixed later in the "Rise of
the Beasts" mid-credits scene without the use of powered-up energon. However,
he clearly doesn't have enough strength to do much on his own. The film foreshadows that he
can turn himself into a weapon for humans when he gives Noah a piece of himself as a blaster.
When you think about it, his Power Rangers form is just a more dramatic version of that.
Okay, let's talk about that thing that happens at the end. After helping the Autobots and
Maximals save Earth from Unicron, Noah returns to Brooklyn and goes for another security job
interview. This time, however, things aren't what they seem. The man who interviews him,
Agent Burke, is actually an operative and recruiter for G.I. Joe. Yes, that G.I. Joe.
"Yoooo Joe!" The implication seems clear:
Paramount and Hasbro are intending to finally make a "Transformers" and "G.I. Joe" crossover movie.
Talks of a crossover -- something that has happened numerous times in the animated series
and comics -- have circulated for years. However, now seems like a weird time to
make good on them. The last attempt at rebooting the "G.I. Joe" film franchise was 2021's "Snake
Eyes," which received poor reviews overall. The Michael Bay "Transformers" movies also
assert that humans and Autobots didn't form a proper relationship until the 2010s or so.
So what does all this mean? We'll have to wait and see. But with multiverses and
crossovers all the rage in Hollywood right now, there's no doubt that Paramount can
find a way to throw these two huge brands together on the big screen.