Is Transformers One a Prequel?

Transformers finally has a feature film in the animated realm, and by all accounts, it is the best movie the franchise has seen in years. If you plan to head out to theaters and experience it yourself, you might be thinking prequel, but here’s the truth.

Is Transformers One Set Before the Live-Action Transformers Movies?

Transformers One might seem like a prequel to the live-action movies, however, it is not. Lorenzo di Bonaventura, producer on Transformers One said at SDCC that the movie takes place 3 billion years prior to when the movies were set, but later confirmed that the two were separate.

Transformers One follows Optimus Prime, Megatron, and our other favorites during their life on Cybertron, and as you can tell from the trailers there is a very different dynamic between our two leads than we’re used to seeing. Given the distance between the projects, it does mean that you could consider it canon if you choose to, as the events won’t impact each other in any major way, but it wasn’t made for that purpose.

When speaking to Comicbook, Lorenzo di Bonaventura explained that there won’t be a clear connection between animated and live-action movies, but fans should expect to see some influence between future projects on both sides.

“You want to do something different, and you also see where it can be successful. I think that’s where the two universes help each other. You can see what works, and you can do that in either one. The fun of it for me, as a filmmaker, is keeping them separate.”

The future of live-action Transformers movies seems to be headed into the GI Joe universe, not back into the past, so we can see how this animated film would be easily kept separate from its own continuity while Bumblebee and his friends keep stomping around in CGI.

Whether you want to accept this animated film as part of your own Transformers movie headcanon or disregard it entirely is 100 percent up to you, and it shouldn’t play any factor in your enjoyment at all. With this being the case, we suggest watching the film when it arrives in theaters and deciding yourself.

Transformers One will be available to see in theaters around the globe when it arrives on Sept. 20, 2024. Tickets are available now in all of the usual places. If you’re looking for a Transformers fix in the meantime all of the movies are available on Paramount Plus now.