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The eighth Transformers film since 2007 and the first animated feature film since Transformers: The Movie, Transformers One is an Origins Episode for Optimus Prime and Megatron, showing their early friendship and subsequent falling out.
Set three billion years before the present day, Cybertron is a dying planet, energon reaching a premium following the loss of the Matrix of Leadership when the Quintessons were defeated. To combat the resource shortage, the perpetually under-appreciated mining class is forced into dangerous conditions to extract the resource from Cybertron's underground. Two such miners, Orion Pax and D-16 yearn for something better and take a trip to Cybertron's forbidden surface, discovering that their world isn't quite what they believed it to be.
Directed by Josh Cooley. Produced by Paramount Animation, Hasbro Entertainment, New Republic Pictures, di Bonaventura Pictures and Bayhem Films. Distributed by Paramount Pictures.
Tropes used in Transformers One include:
- A Child Shall Lead Them: In most continuities, Megatron is one of the older Decepticons, having duped impressionable young bots into following him. Here, he's the youngest of the initial batch of Decepticons.
- Adaptation Deviation:
- Traditionally most future Autobots don't come from Cybertron's mining classes. Here Orion, Eita, B-127 and many A-list Autobots are shown as miners.
- In most depictions, Cybertron's Fantastic Caste System is based on what its people can transform into. Here the has-nots are those who literally can't transform.
- While the Primes' lineup is based on the Transformers Aligned Universe, Zeta Prime is the thirteenth member of the Primes (and the holder of the Matrix instead of Prima) rather than Optimus Prime. Megatronus and Liege Maximo are also shown as having been heroic, Sentinel being the one who betrayed the Primes.
- Adaptation Dye Job: The Thirteen have their colours shifted to more standardly heroic ones. The standout is probably Liege Maximo going from green and black to silver and gold.
- Adaptation Name Change: Prima is now "Prima Prime".
- Adaptational Badass:
- Megatron's fusion cannon can shift to a rapid-fire mode in addition to its heavy rounds at a slow rate of fire.
- Optimus' energon-axe is usually just a shiny orange axe. Here it can shoot out Sword Beams like the Star Saber from Prime.
- When going up against Megatron, Sentinel usually reveals himself to be a Paper Tiger. Here he's clearly the stronger of the two, D-16 only winning because Sentinel was distracted from delivering the killing blow.
- The Quintessons. Their original selves were weak enough to be overpowered by even a human, winning through Zerg Rush more than anything else. These Quintessons managed to stalemate thirteen Physical Gods (though it is suggested that if not for Sentinel betraying them, the Primes would have won) and their commander is strong enough to physically restrain Sentinel Prime.
- This Starscream can thrown down with Megatron. And while his tenure as leader couldn't be called a success, it also can't be called a failure, contrasting where he usually drives the Decepticons into the ground.
- Zeta Prime is usually a Prime between the Thirteen and Optimus and dies pretty easily when Megatron rises. This Zeta Prime, while still dying, is a member of the Thirteen Primes.
- Adaptational Disabilities:
- The mining class lacks T-Cogs, because Sentinel cut them out.
- Starscream's shrill voice is the result of D-16 damaging his voice box during their brawl.
- Adaptational Heroism:
- Megatronus Prime, Liege Maximo and Zeta Prime are all firmly established as heroic Primes. In most depictions, they're amoral bastards.
- The Decepticons as a whole. Usually they're Evil Reactionaries - or devolved into such - but here they're framed as Fallen Heroes, reacting to what an amoral bastard Sentinel Prime truly is.
- Adaptational Villainy: Most incarnations of Sentinel Prime, however much they may be a bastard, are usually Well-Intentioned Extremists (or frame themselves as such), genuinely wanting what they think is best for Cybertron. This one is a self-aggrandizing coward who betrayed his race and world for personal power.
- Alternate Continuity: Confirmed by Word of God to have no connection to the Bayverse or Bumblebee.
- Ambiguous Situation: Quintus is counted among the ranks of the Thirteen but any connection between him and the Quintessons is not left up to the imagination.
- And There Was Much Rejoicing: Aside from a horrified B-127 and Elita-1, the crowd goes wild when Megatron rips Sentinel Prime in two.
- Appropriated Appellation: Megatron turns the brand that Sentinel mockingly scribbled on his chest into the Decepticon emblem. He also cribs Sentinel's mocking "rise up" as a genuine battle cry.
- The Big Race: The Iacon 5000.
- Bigger Bad: The Quintessons. Their actions and villainy directly led to the plot but they have little bearing on the action.
- Broken Pedestal: D-16 was once Sentinel Prime's biggest fan. Learning the Awful Truth results in Megatron becoming Sentinel's killer.
- Composite Character:
- Orion Pax/Optimus Prime is largely cribbed from his depiction in the Transformers Aligned Universe (being a close friend of D-16, wanting to learn more about Cybertron's past and admiring the Primes of old before being mentored by Alpha Trion) with his appearance as Optimus Prime homaging his Transformers: Cyberverse counterpart. In terms of personality though, he ironically owes quite a bit to Hot Rod/Rodimus Prime.
- D-16's initial look is inspired by the Marvel comics and he shares his initial name and friendship with Orion from the Aligned continuity. Following becoming Megatron, his appearance takes on shades of his 1980s cartoon counterpart while his connection to Megatronus Prime - beyond just naming himself after the legendary figure - is from Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.
- Sentinel Prime has a body that's broadly similar to his Transformers: Dark of the Moon counterpart but his colouration is based on Transformers Animated. And like his IDW self, he's a false Prime who's a Puppet King to the Bigger Bad while also being a former servant of the Thirteen.
- Crapsaccharine World: Cybertron looks beautiful. Societally it's anything but.
- Death by Adaptation: The Thirteen Primes usually have a few survivors who lasted to the modern day or some members whose fate is ambiguous. With Trion's death, this iteration of the group is all deceased in no uncertain terms before the Great War starts.
- Didn't Think This Through: Though he mostly got what he wanted, Sentinel's betrayal of the Primes didn't seem to account for the fact that Only the Chosen May Wield when it comes to the Matrix, resulting in the talisman rejecting him and the energon drying up.
- Everyone Has Standards: When all of Cybertron learns the Awful Truth, even those living in luxury by the corrupt system are disgusted.
- Evil All Along: Sentinel Prime is really the Big Bad.
- Fatal Flaw: For both leads.
- For Orion, it's his Innocently Insensitive attitudes. Orion shows the seeds of Optimus Prime's eventual "Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right" attitude but he also shows a disregard for how that attitude affects others, namely them having to bear the punishments of his breaking the rules.
- D-16's is more subtle - at first - but it's a mixture of wrath and Never My Fault attitudes. He always reacts with anger to everything and denies any responsibility for his bad decisions, usually deflecting that Orion roped him into it, ignoring the fact that he could have easily stood up to his friend.
- Go Mad From the Isolation: Spending Primus know how long alone has not done B-127's sanity any favours.
- Go Mad from the Revelation: Essentially what turned D-16 into Megatron. He could handle being in the mines because he thought it was for the good of Cybertron. Learning that Sentinel Prime, his once-hero, made a deal with the Quintesson Empire to become a Puppet King was his Rage Breaking Point.
- Half the Man He Used To Be: Sentinel Prime.
- Humans Through Alien Eyes: Essentially what happens when the quartet reaches the surface and finds organic life growing on Cybertron.
- Hypocrite: Perhaps unsurprisingly given that they're the future Decepticons. The High Guard refused to serve Sentinel Prime on the basis that he wasn't a true Prime due to siding with the Quintessons and killing the Thirteen. When Orion gets the Matrix and becomes Optimus Prime, they remain loyal to Megatron.
- King Mook: Starscream with respect to the other Seekers. The main difference between he and them is that he's sitting on the throne.
- Light Is Good: The pre-Face Heel Turn D-16 has largely white armour. As he inches ever closer to becoming Megatron, his armor turns shades of dark grey.
- Meaningful Rename: D-16 christens himself Megatron after he claims the T-Cog of Megatronus Prime from Sentinel and has the Prime's facemask branded onto his chest.
- Never Trust a Trailer: The initial trailers framed the movie more as a light-hearted comedy in the vein of a mid-2000s DreamWorks Animation production. It is not.
- Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Every now and then, a trace of Chris Hemsworth's native Australian accent slips to Orion's voice.
- Planetville: For all intents and purposes, Iacon is Cybertron.
- Rage Breaking Point: Learning the truth about Sentinel Prime causes all of D-16's Suppressed Rage to snap and sets him on the path to becoming Megatron.
- Small Role, Big Impact:
- Jazz. Orion and D-16 staying back to save him from the mine collapse leads to Elita-1 being punished for their breaking protocol, setting her up to be there when they later try and hijack a train to the surface.
- Darkwing. He's a minor player in the grand scheme of things, but he had not banished Orion and D-16 to sub-level 50, they'd have never found Alpha Trion's message and unravelled the conspiracy.
- World's Strongest Man: Megatronus Prime was stated to have been this.