Here's How Rise Of The Beasts Fits In The Transformers Timeline
Today at South By Southwest, /Film's Ryan Scott was in attendance at a panel for the upcoming "Transformers" sequel, "Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts." The film's producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura, director Steven Caple Jr., screenwriter Jon Hoeber, and stars Anthony Ramos, Dominique Fishback, and Tobe Nwigwe were all in attendance for the event, during which Caple spilled some plot details about the new movie.
Namely, the panel confirmed that "Transformers: Rise of the Beasts" will take place in 1994 New York, roughly seven years after Charlie Watson (Hailee Steinfeld) met B-127 in 2018's "Bumblebee." Caple also explained how the era's music and automotive styles will play into the new movie, which is technically the seventh installment in the franchise Michael Bay began in 2007. "I was born in the '80s so I was a kid in the '90s," Caple says. "It's the era I grew up [with], you know, and as I grew up, you start to appreciate the nostalgia and where you grew up and who you were with, and you start to remember the music."
Caple calls the movie almost like "a time capsule" for him, referencing '80s and '90s pop culture that came up during the course of shooting the movie. "We had to go back through time and open it up and be like, wow, I remember this game," he shared. "I remember having that poster on the wall. I remember these types of clothes — and [the] '90s was very specific." Bay's "Transformers" films largely took place in the present day, although flashbacks revealing ancient Transformers lore often opened the films. "Transformers: Dark of the Moon" took a pit stop in the '60s, while "Transformers: The Last Night" detoured to the year 484 for a cameo from Merlin — yes, that Merlin.
'It was such a culture shift'
No "Transformers" film has taken place in the '90s yet, though, and Caple thinks it's a great fit for the movie. "We are after 'Bumblebee,' which takes place in 1987," he says, "So on the timeline, 1994 just fit perfectly." Caple, who calls himself "a little bit of a '90s baby," says that he was able to "incorporate what I grew up and watched and learned." He continued:
"It was such a culture shift at the time through music, through hip hop. Like the type of rap. When you start to really do your research, you realize that the early '90s, it's still a little bit like the late '80s. When you get to '94, everything started to change — from the wardrobe, again, from the culture, from the music, from the cars. We start to step away from square, boxy cars, we start to say, 'Hello, curves,' right?' So it was just a different era and I feel like we really captured that in the movie."
Speaking of curvy cars, Caple also revealed at today's panel that Mirage, a new Transformer who will be played by Pete Davidson, will be made from a 1993 Porsche. Davidson is just one new cast member in a movie that also stars Ramos, Fishback, Ron Perlman, Michelle Yeoh, Peter Dinklage, MJ Rodriguez, and more. You can relive the '90s when "Transformers: Rise of the Beasts" hits theaters on June 9, 2023.