Transformers One

Transformers One is a 2024 American animated science fiction action film based on Hasbro's Transformers toy line. It was directed by Josh Cooley from a screenplay by Eric Pearson, Andrew Barrer and Gabriel Ferrari, the latter two of whom also conceived the film's story. The film features the voices of Chris Hemsworth, Brian Tyree Henry, Scarlett Johansson, Keegan-Michael Key, Steve Buscemi, Laurence Fishburne, and Jon Hamm. It is set on Cybertron, the home planet of the Transformers, and depicts the origins and early relationship of Optimus Prime (Hemsworth) and Megatron (Henry).

In March 2015, following the release of Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014), Paramount Pictures tasked Akiva Goldsman to set up a writers' room to create ideas for potential future Transformers films. By May 2015, Barrer and Ferrari had signed on as writers, and they came up with the idea of an animated prequel set on Cybertron. The film was announced in August 2017, and by April 2020, Cooley had been hired to direct. Animation services were provided by Industrial Light & Magic, and the design was primarily influenced by the Generation 1 era and Art Deco. The score was composed by Brian Tyler.

Transformers One premiered in Sydney, Australia, on September 11, 2024, and was released by Paramount Pictures in the United States on September 20. The film received positive reviews from critics, who praised the story, animation, screenplay, voice performances, action sequences, score, and humor. However, it underperformed at the box office, grossing only $129.4 million worldwide on a budget of $75–147 million.

Cybertron is a technological world formed by the body of the metal deity Primus and inhabited by sentient robots fueled by a substance called Energon, who live in a hierarchy based on whether they possess a 'transformation cog' that allows them to shapeshift into vehicles. In the underground city of Iacon, Orion Pax, a cogless mining robot, sneaks into an archive to learn about the first Cybertronians, the Thirteen Primes. Security guards spot and chase Orion, but his best friend, D-16, helps him escape. Later, during a cave-in at the Energon mine where they work, the two break protocol to save fellow miner Jazz. However, this worsens the disaster, and their superior, Elita-1, gets blamed for it and demoted by their callous overseer, Darkwing.

Iacon's leader, Sentinel Prime, returns from an expedition to the surface to find the lost Matrix of Leadership, the absence of which has caused Energon to stop flowing and forced the miners to extract it. Though unable to find it, he reprieves the population with a race. To prove themselves as more than just miners, Orion enters himself and D-16 illegally using jet packs, but they narrowly lose. While Sentinel promises to reward them for boosting mining morale, an enraged Darkwing drags the two to garbage incineration for sabotaging him in the race, where they meet the eccentric B-127. Finding a distress message from the Prime Alpha Trion in the garbage, Orion convinces D-16 and B-127 to travel with him to the message's coordinates on the surface; also persuading Elita to join when she catches them sneaking out of Iacon.

The group finds Alpha Trion in a cave, deactivated alongside the other Primes' corpses. Upon reactivation, he reveals that Sentinel is a pretender who betrayed the real Primes to steal the Matrix, only for it to disappear when Primus deemed him unworthy. In truth, Sentinel has been giving Energon to aliens called Quintessons in exchange for letting him rule Cybertron, and he created the current hierarchy by removing some Cybertronians' cogs before activation. Alpha Trion gives the group the fallen Primes' cogs—allowing them to transform—and a chip with evidence of Sentinel's treason. They are then ambushed by Sentinel's lieutenant, Airachnid, who captures Trion and brings him back to Iacon, where Sentinel executes him.

Evading pursuit, the group rushes back to Iacon but is captured by the Primes' former army, the Cybertronian High Guard, who are rebelling against Sentinel. While D-16 takes command of them by defeating their leader, Starscream, Orion grows concerned over his aggression since learning the truth. Sentinel's troops find them, and in the ensuing battle, the evidence chip is destroyed while D-16, B-127, and Starscream are captured along with most of the High Guard. Taken to Iacon, D-16 learns that Sentinel stole the cog of his idol, Megatronus Prime, whose face his captors mockingly brand onto him.

Encouraged by Elita, Orion rallies remaining High Guard members Soundwave and Shockwave, and returns to Iacon to rescue their comrades. After subduing Darkwing, Orion enlists the miners' aid to assault Sentinel's headquarters, freeing the captives. As the High Guard battles Sentinel's forces, Orion, Elita, and B-127 expose the truth by capturing Airachnid and broadcasting her memory recordings throughout the city. D-16 defeats Sentinel but gets into an argument with Orion over whether to kill him, resulting in D-16 accidentally shooting Orion before deliberately letting him fall to his death. D-16 then kills Sentinel, takes Megatronus' cog, renames himself Megatron, and leads the High Guard into a riot.