Like with other awards ceremonies, Nickelodeon’s Kids Choice Awards sometimes feature a look at upcoming movies to draw in more viewers. This year’s get was a clip for Transformers One, Paramount’s upcoming CG prequel to the live-action movies and whatever’s next for the series’ big-screen dreams.
Transformers One’s big hook is that it introduces young versions of the robots we’ve come to know and love over the years. Set on Cybertron years before a civil war wrecks the planet, Optimus Prime (Chris Hemsworth) and Megatron (Brian Tyree Henry) still go by their original names, Orion Pax and D-16. As worker bots who accidentally make their way to the planet’s surface, the pair–along with Elita-One (Scarlett Johansson) and Bee (Keegan-Michael Key)–gain the ability to transform and do basically everything they can in the movies and cartoons. But new powers requires some stumbles, and that means some slapstick–a lot of it, going off the clip below.
Gags like Optimus stumbling around with his head compacted into his chest and Bumblebee scrambling across the floor with his wheel hands are no doubt gonna kill it with younger audiences. This is the first theatrical Transformers movie in nearly 40 years aimed more at those anyone younger than 12 years old, and it’s an interesting change of pace from the franchise constantly hitting the mid-teen demographic. It doesn’t hurt that the movie’s rendition of Cybertron looks really pretty and distinct while clearly influenced by the fan-favorite Generation 1 aesthetic. If nothing else, this movie may make clear how much the franchise could stand to do animated movies more often instead of once every decade or so.
Transformers One makes it to theaters on September 20.
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