Michael Bay's live-action Transformers franchise has endured its share of criticism over the years, especially from older fans of the 1980's animated saga. The chief complaint was that the heroic Autobots and evil Decepticons looked nothing like their first-generation counterparts. A new Transformers movie without Bay is currently filming, and this video of an original Optimus Prime as a red cab over rig suggests G1 fans have reason to celebrate.
We're given this glimpse courtesy of TikTok user arun09345. It's not the best video in terms of quality, but it allegedly comes from a dark street in Brooklyn during filming. Aside from the video overlay mentioning this, we hear a person with a prominent New York accent say as much. The red semi-truck certainly looks like the original Optimus Prime, though we don't see any Autobot symbols and the silver stripe angles up not unlike the Ford Torino from Starsky & Hutch. In short, there's no reason to think this video isn't legitimate.
As for the movie, an official synopsis at the Internet Movie Database (IMDB) doesn't exist yet but we know it's called Transformers: Rise of the Beasts. Beyond that, numerous reports say the film will take place during the mid-1990s and add Beast Wars: Transformers elements to the big screen. A successful follow-up to the original animated series, Beast Wars swapped transforming cars for transforming animals. Exactly how the two worlds will merge is unknown, but IMDB lists voice credits for both Optimus Prime, and his Beast Wars counterpart, Optimus Primal.
More movie cars:
The original Optimus Prime was based on the real-world Freightliner FLT cab-over truck that was in production as a mainstay rig for decades. This won't be the first big-screen, live-action appearance of Prime as G1-esque cab over, however. 2014's Transformers: Age Of Extinction saw the Autobot leader hiding as an old Freightliner-themed rig painted white. The end of Bumblebee revealed Prime in almost the exact form we see in this video, suggesting the new film will be a Bumblebee sequel.
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is currently slated to reach theatres sometime in 2022.
Source: arun09345 / TikTok