Having crammed enough ’80s nostalgia down the throat of Bumblebee like the producers were trying to make some sort of pate, the Transformers franchise has decided to move forward into the ’90s for the next picture in the series. Self-identified ’90s kids, you might want to be sitting down while you read this one. At a live-streamed panel earlier on Tuesday, Paramount revealed a bunch of brand-new details about the seventh Transformers movie, as well as the Steven Caple Jr.-directed film’s title: Transformers: Rise of the Beasts. Bad title, but, then again, has a Transformers film ever had a good subtitle?
Among the information revealed was exactly what roles franchise newcomers Anthony Ramos (who you can currently see in In the Heights in theaters) and Dominique Fishback (who was great in Judas and the Black Messiah) will be playing — Ramos is an ex-military dude living in Brooklyn, who crosses paths with Fishback’s character, a scientist/historian looking to study some ancient artifacts — but you’re probably more concerned with the setting and if the plot is what you think it is from that title. Here’s Deadline with some more information:
“The new ‘Transformers’ film will be set in 1994. While its central characters are based in Brooklyn, the feature will move between New York and Machu Pichu.”
Notably, that was the last year you could get beaten up by a jock for openly admitting that you liked the Transformers cartoon in Elementary School, so it holds some nostalgic significance for all of us nerds. But, before we get weepy-eyed over wedgies and Dunkaroos or whatever, let’s continue on and savor just how Deadline describes the film’s plot.
“Our main hero, on the side of the Transformers, will once again be Optimus Prime. But ‘Rise of the Beasts’ will also look to expand the big-screen world of ‘Transformers,’ beyond the familiar, presenting a clash between different tribes of alien robots. One of those breeds, referenced in the titled, is known as Beast Wars. ‘In their disguise they [take on] animal form,” said Caple. “So…in our film, they’re these prehistoric animals that travel through time and space, and we find them here on Earth.‘ In the upcoming film, we’ll see the Beast War robots go to war with their natural enemies, the Predacons. The Terracons will present another ‘new threat;’ saving the world will be left up to the Autobots and the Maximals.”
Okay, now that that’s done with, the reason we decided to spotlight this particular plot summary is that it’s just a shining example of how entertainment journalism used to be, before the rise of the Nerd Blog, where information about the ins-and-outs of the Beast Wars cartoon would be held in the valuable mind of at least one person on staff. But the confusion and good-natured befuddlement is surprisingly endearing here, and we wanted to share with you how much joy it brought us.
So, yes, if you’re an elder millennial nerd reading this, you’re probably feeling some sort of crazy emotions here: they’re bringing the beloved Beast Wars cartoon to the screen (seriously, it was actually a pretty solid kids show)! That’s why there have been so many Beast Wars toys on the shelves at your local department store! You’re also probably feeling some warm fuzzies, perhaps, or maybe some general exasperation about the fact that there’s now seven of these films out there, as you sigh over your afternoon latte and type into the search bar on the freshly-opened Safari tab “pulitzer prize winners 2021 best book club picks,” pausing briefly to adjust your glasses given that they’re sliding down the bridge of your nose.
Anyway, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts will arrive in theaters on June 22, 2022, so you’ve got a full year to get your ’90s nostalgia tolerance up. It’s like how competitive eaters eat a shitload of boiled cabbage in the days before they have to choke down dozens of hot dogs or whatever — you’re gonna need the extra room in order to cram all those Pogs, baseball labor disputes, Magic School Bus episodes and White Bronco into whatever unpolluted bits of grey matter you have left in your brain.