So why has it taken nearly 20 years for Transformers One to reach our screens? As Bonaventura explained to Zavvi, the fact this story couldn’t be told in live action made it difficult to get the greenlight when Michael Bay’s blockbuster series was performing so well.
He explained: “I think when you’re finding success with something, as we were with the live action movies, it’s hard to get a corporation on board to switch up that formula. As we progressed with those, we kept feeling that we needed a palate cleanser – not in a negative sense, but to truly break the mold and offer audiences something new, so we fought again, and eventually we succeeded.
“However, Michael was the one who brought Transformers to life on the big screen, and the tone he found affects this movie. He was always going to be a part of this - whether his name was on there or not, it will feel like him in spirit.”
Taking place a whopping 3 billion years before the live action movies, we’re introduced to Optimus Prime and Megatron when they were Orion Pax (Chris Hemsworth) and D-16 (Brian Tyree Henry); lowly mining bots who don’t possess the cogs needed to transform. After a stunt to prove themselves as more than worker bots goes wrong, they’re demoted to work in the incinerator, where they find a secret message which leads them on a dangerous mission to Cybertron’s surface.
It goes without saying that the mission tests their loyalties as much as it helps them find their identities, with Bonaventura describing the rift between the pair as “biblical” in its scale.
“There’s a lot of Cain and Abel in this story, although I think this is much more relatable in a strange way. We all have had family or close friends who we’ve fallen out with over something, so there’s more personal experience that you can bring to this compared to other Transformers movies.
“I certainly have lost a couple of friends along the way, and I know that you don’t immediately look back at it and wonder how that happened. Here, we’re just blowing up that conflict onto a planet-sized canvas.”
To bring this epic tale to life, Bonaventura hired Josh Cooley – fresh off winning the Best Animated Feature Oscar for Toy Story 4 – to direct, making it clear that if you want to direct a cartoon blockbuster about unruly toys, he’s your go-to man.
Explaining the niche he’s found himself in, Cooley told Zavvi: “My parents had a toy store for years, and I still have all my original Transformers toys I grew up with. I’d watch the animated series every Saturday morning alongside G.I. Joe and He-Man, all of which made me want to become an animator.
“I went to school for animation directly off the back of that, so in a way, the Transformers are responsible for everything in my career and directing a Transformers movie is a full circle moment I could only have dreamed of.
“But of course, even though they’re a toy brand, I could never think of them as toys whilst working on this – they're the most human characters we have, because we don’t have humans in the movie! That aspect really excited me, but at the same time, when I was first offered the chance to direct it, I did think: “Am I really going to make another movie about toys?””
This isn’t the first Transformers animated movie, of course, with the iconic 1986 film transforming robot battles into something borderline Shakespearean, complete with Orson Welles (in his final role!) as the voice of Unicron. Cooley, like most kids of his generation, grew up with that movie, and knew his perfect voice cast would be one that shared his passion for it.
“We needed a cast worthy of these characters, who could bring a piece of themselves into it as much as they could show a love for Transformers as well. Every time I'd meet with one of them for the first time, I'd want to know their history with the franchise, and they all had an incredible story about it, from just watching the show on a Saturday morning, to stealing toys from their siblings!
“I can't think of another franchise besides Star Wars which has that kind of resonance and staying power.”
Cooley wanted to show off his love for the franchise with a plethora of Easter Eggs nodding back to its Saturday morning cartoon origins. However, there was one which sounded great on paper, but proved much less successful when he saw it play out.
“We’re influenced by the original series, so I wanted to end with the original theme song; it kicked in right after the final line of dialogue. We didn’t have a score when we first put that together, but when we did and I heard it, I realised the tone was completely wrong – it was better to keep the score and not just try to coast by on people’s nostalgia by adding the out of place theme at the end.”
He’s not the first person to attempt to bring the theme back into the movies, but as Bonaventura points out, every time this is attempted, it’s doomed to fail.
“Personally, I’m not the biggest fan of that theme tune at all”, he laughed. “We’ve tried to update it several times, and it never sounds right, and we’ve never been able to figure out how to make it fit neatly.
“Here, we didn’t want to let our nostalgia into the story, as we were trying to make this as standalone as we could. This is a pure story which has never been told in the franchise before, and it wouldn’t have felt right to include that nod elsewhere.”
So don’t expect the theme to appear in any future story, but thanks to the expansive Transformers mythology, we do have a vague roadmap of where a potential sequel could take us. Whilst stressing that conversations haven’t taken place, as the focus was on making “the most awesome origin story possible”, Cooley does know what a second film would focus on.
“There’s always more story to tell with these characters, and we know that eventually, the war breaks out and they go to Earth. We’ll see if that’s on the cards if people go to see this one...”
As for what Bonaventura would want from a sequel to Transformers One, there’s only one thing.
“I hope it’s not called Transformers Two”.
Transformers One is released in UK cinemas on Friday, 11th October.Shop our Transformers merch
