Transformers: Rise of the Beasts Director Talks Relationship With Franchise

During today’s Transformers: Rise of the Beasts press conference, director Steven Caple Jr. talked about his relationship with the Transformers universe, including Beast Wars, and what the franchise means to him as a fan and a filmmaker.

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“I was a kid when it first came out,” said Caple Jr. “So there’s that element, and so my very first experience living Transformers, I was a child and I was actually using my cousin’s VHS tape. That sounds weird saying it out loud. I feel like it’s prehistoric now. It was a VHS tape. I don’t know if everybody remembers what those were. I had to move backwards after seeing it. I was captivated by the world at the time, even the colors, because I’m really a color person. I was really hype about the colors, I remember that, and then the characters themselves.

“So then I started to work backwards and watch all the Transformers. By the time I was a teenager Beast Wars came out. I was a part of that interesting sort of gap where I was able to know the Transformers, know G1, know G2 even, but then on top of that, dive into Beast Wars. I remember they were trying something funky with the CGI and all that stuff. And we were all like, what is this? It was right on a break into like high school. I’m just excited. You can see the kid in me is like, that’s what brought me to the project. It’s a chance to imagine on a different level, right? And like, dream. So that’s what Transformers really means to me. Dealing with robots, dealing with humans, and creating that bond … it’s all about the emotion and it’s all about where we can take our new characters.

“What’s interesting about Transformers overall there’s different, I would say, breeds of Transformers if you will. You know what I mean? We have different insignias, different groups, and Beast Wars happens to be one of them. There were these animals that, I mean, these robots that their [disguises] were an animal form. So we have them here in our film. And again, I’m not going to give away plot. In our particular film, they’re these prehistoric [robots] that sort of travel through time and space and we find them here on Earth. And that’s all I’m going to say.”

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Returning to the action and spectacle that first captured moviegoers around the world 14 years ago with the original Transformers, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts will take audiences on a ‘90s globetrotting adventure and introduce the Maximals, Predacons, and Terrorcons to the existing battle on earth between Autobots and Decepticons

The seventh movie in the live-action franchise will be helmed by Caple Jr. from a screenplay by Joby Harold, starring Anthony Ramos (Hamilton, In the Heights) and Dominique Fishback (Judas the Black Messiah). Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is scheduled to arrive in theaters on June 24, 2022.