Before Optimus Prime, before Megatron, before the Autobots and Decepticons, there was Transformers One. 

The latest film in the ever-shifting Transformers franchise switches gears, to show audiences a vision of Cybertron and its central characters before the civil conflict that would set the robots in disguise on opposing paths. In a bold move we haven’t seen before, this prequel will take fans back to the days when Optimus and Megatron, played by Chris Hemsworth and Brian Tyree-Henry respectively, were still friends! 

To discuss this narrative shakeup, the inspirations behind the new direction, and the challenges of taking Transformers back to its animated, human-less roots, we sat down for a chat with Oscar-winning director Josh Cooley as the film’s first trailer releases.

Were you a fan of ‘Transformers’ before you started working on this movie?

“I was always obsessed with Saturday morning cartoons, and Transformers was right there in my list of weekly shows. I loved the animated show, I actually saw the [1986] movie in the theatre when that came out, and I was just as confused as everybody else when Optimus died, so I’ve always been a fan of the franchise.”

This is a very unique vision for ‘Transformers’, the ‘buddy-cop’ style but with Optimus and Megatron, what was the thought process behind such a radical tone shift?

“The thing that really got me interested from the very beginning was this idea of it being an origin film for Optimus and Megatron, when they’re Orion Pax and D-16, and we get to see who they were before they became what we know. They are, at the beginning of this film, very tight brothers, they’re a duo, and I kept thinking of them as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, or even Han Solo and Chewbacca in a way, where you get these two that you love seeing together, but with the knowledge we all have, that they’re eventually gonna become enemies. In this first trailer we’re really playing up that brother feel to it, and so, knowing that they’re eventually gonna get torn apart, I really wanted the audience to fall in love with them together as a duo.”

It’s gonna be crushing when they have to start being enemies…

“It gets real, definitely.”

So we’re gonna get to see that ideological, political conflict that actually leads them down those paths?

“Absolutely. That for me is the entire story; something happens in their world, and we get to see two different worldviews grow out of that, and that eventually brings them to butting heads.”

What other aspects of the ‘Transformers’ lore were you most excited to expand on?

“First of all, Hasbro gave me this massive bible of lore, and I didn’t realise how deep it goes, it’s just huge, millions of years’ [worth]. The thing that I was really interested in when I first joined, an early version of the script had the characters not able to transform, and at first, I was like, ‘What? I’ve never heard of that before, what is this?’ And it was an idea that was brought up just for this film, and it was fascinating and I’d never seen it, and I want to see where this goes. We get to learn what it means to transform, and to be a transformer in this world that’s built for transformers, so it became a plot point, and a way for these characters to grow over the course of the film.”

This is the first ‘Transformers’ movie since the 1986 one to be fully animated, with no live-action integration, what was it like stripping back the series to its roots?

“It was great! When you have the human element, the robot part becomes this fish out of water story, they’re trying to blend into our world, or the humans are trying to blend them in – there’s always an ‘are they going to get caught?’ kind of thing. In a movie where there are no humans, our main characters are Orion and D-16, and that means there’s nothing to show off how big they are, because there’s nothing smaller than them, so we went the other direction: ‘Let’s make Cybertron enormous, now they’re the small ones in this world and everything else is larger than them,’ and then also give them someplace to go as they grow themselves. 

It was really exciting, but the story challenges and opportunities are different, you’re on Cybertron, there’s no Earth references, you can’t have them transform into a truck and then pull into a gas station, it’s gotta be about their world. We had to really expand on Cybertron and show off their society, so that you understand what it feels like to be a transformer in this world. We couldn’t lean on humanistic things at all, but at the same time, [had to] make our characters human and relatable.”

What are some of the challenges of directing for animation that filmmakers who work exclusively in live-action wouldn’t have to face?

“The thing that people don’t realise, and they shouldn’t while they’re watching the movie, is that nothing is for free. Every single thing in a CG movie is built, or created, or designed. Everything from how a character looks, the materials they’re made of, down to how many cracks are in the sidewalk, every single thing that’s CG is created. Whereas if you were to go shoot live-action, you’ve got a city behind you, you’ve got the street, that stuff all exists already, but obviously there’s some CG and constructed elements added into that anyway. But that’s the thing [about animation], from top to bottom you create every single frame of that film.”

I love that element of intentionality, nothing is taken for granted in animation, there’s no margin for random things just occurring.

“The trick is to make it not feel that way, because once you don’t have all those little details, like even if a tabletop doesn’t have little scratches on it or something like that, it’ll feel wrong. I love all those little details that help tell the story.”

What was a unique challenge that ‘Transformers One’ presented that you haven’t had to contend with in your previous films?

“This is the first movie I’ve worked on that has a lot of action, and I wanted to do action that could only be done in Transformers, and only specifically in this movie. I didn’t want it to feel like people in suits punching, it had to feel like moves that only transformers could do, and because our characters are not trying to be robots in disguise in this movie, it means they can partially transform while they’re fighting, and almost use their transformations like fighting moves, and that was really fun, trying to figure out different ways that a huge robot that can change into a truck can partially change in order to move out of the way, or attack, we almost treated it like John Wick.”

It reminds me of that ‘Transformers: Devastation’ game, where you transform mid-combo.

“Oh yeah, so cool. That game’s so fun.”

For this film, Paramount sent a rocket into the upper atmosphere where, at 125,000 feet, it opened, and the first trailer was revealed, with an introduction from Chris Hemsworth and Brian Tyree-Henry. What inspired this crazy idea?!

“I thought it was a great idea. When Paramount told me they wanted to launch it from space I thought it was hilarious. Thing is, this is a sci-fi film, we’re on Cybertron, this movie takes place millions of years before Earth even exists, so it just feels natural to get as close to Cybertron as we can get.”

We’re debuting the trailer for our new movie #TransformersOne in SPACE! 🚀Tune in this Thursday (4/18) at 9am ET as we count down to the trailer premiere LIVE on the @transformers channels. Roll out 👊 pic.twitter.com/Y9w1qlL1Jk

— Chris Hemsworth (@chrishemsworth) April 16, 2024

Why do you think ‘Transformers’ as a series has this longevity?

“There’s definitely this moralistic angle. Good vs. evil, it comes down to basic storytelling, or biblical, or mythical storytelling, these are huge characters that are like Greek gods. There’s a sense of right and wrong, which is why these guys are always gonna be fighting one another. This has been forty years now that this franchise has been going, and it all comes back to the basic storytelling of it; you’ve got these characters that stand up for something and they won’t back down from it, and that just never seems to go away.”

Lastly, what was something specific that you wanted to put in this film to put the Josh Cooley auteur stamp on it?

“One thing I did wanna do, was make a film the fans love, that I was proud of, that the crew’s proud of, but also one that’s accessible to everyone, and that was a challenge. Making it so that it honours the lore and the history of Transformers, but also is something that’s accessible for anybody who’s never seen it before, so they can come in from the very beginning and meet these characters and be on board for the entire ride, and I’m very proud of that, I think we did it.”

Transformers One is coming to cinemas this September! You can roll out and watch the trailer right now; packed with some blink-and-you’ll-miss-it references and characters, it’s certainly more than meets the eye!