Is Transformers One Canon to the Live-Action Timeline?

The Transformers films are boldly going where the Transformers started: into animation. Transformers One is the first animated feature film for the series since The Transformers: The Movie, but how is it connected to the canon of the live-action films, if at all?

Does Transformers One Connect to the Live-Action Films?

Transformers One is an animated film that tells the story of Optimus Prime and Megatron before they came to Earth, as best friends on the Transformers’ homeworld of Cybertron. For all intents and purposes, it is an origin story for the Transformers and the feud between Optimus Prime and Megatron that eventually comes to earth. And apparently, it is a prequel to the live-action films — in a very loose sense.

This franchise is obviously no stranger to animation, as it was birthed as a Saturday morning cartoon in the ’80s and has spent most of its life in the animated realm. However, Paramount launched it into live-action in 2007 and hasn’t looked back, creating a cinematic universe of transforming robots, which Transformers One will expand on.

According to the film’s producer, Lorenzo di Bonaventura, it is indeed part of the same universe — or at least the same multiverse. At SDCC this year, di Bonaventura said that the movie is set 3 billion years before the live-action films, suggesting that Transformers One is indeed within the timeline of the live-action movies. It’s just so far removed from them that its story (or any sequel stories) will have little impact on the canon of the live-action films.

Of course a producer’s off-the-cuff remarks at SDCC don’t officially make Transformers One part of the same universe as the live-action films, so take it all with a grain of salt. While 3 billion years may seem like a lot of time, in the endless expanse of the universe it isn’t so that’s not that big a leap to imagine. Given that gap in time, however, it doesn’t seem like we’ll ever truly have an answer to this question but we can continue hoping Paramount gives us some firm response on this at some point.