I think most people on here, including fans of the Bay themselves, would have liked to have seen Transformers 5 delve more into the Creators teased in Transformers 4. I would count myself among those fans who thinks Transformers 5 should have gone more that route. With that said, what if we have already seen the origins of the Transformers on-screen, albeit with some different details of course? I have long maintained that Age of Extinction is ultimately a film about two major themes: a) attempts at absolute control will fail absolutely, and b) you gotta look at all the treasure and see the junk (a variation of the brand's "More than meets the eye!). The former fits the film's antagonists (Lockdown, Galvatron, Creators, Cemetery Wind, KSI) and even some protagonists (Cade) and their roles in the plot. The latter is the theme for which the protagonists, both Autobot and human, fit. However, I was thinking about the former of those two themes these last couple days, and the more I think about it, I think we actually HAVE seen the Creators story-line on screen. Why? Because the story of KSI building their own Transformers here on Earth IS the story of the Creators making the Cybertronian Transformers millions of years ago! KSI making their drones in the present day parallels the Quints/Creators making the eventual Autobots and Decepticons! Let us see how! 1. Transformium and the Seeds. Both Cybertronian's and KSI's prototypes are made of Transformium, which is a programmable metal shown to be able to be given instructions to move, transform, change colors, and more. In fact, the former were melted down to make the latter. Furthermore, while the Creators detonated the Seeds on thousands of worlds, KSI wanted to use a Seed from Lockdown to transform an area of the Gobi Desert into Transformium. They wanted to do that to make a large number of robots, just like the Creators cyberformed Earth and other planets to harvest the Transformium and make large numbers of robots. 2. Both the Creators and KSI built transforming robots that they sought to control. We see KSI's techs commanding Galvatron and Stinger on the highway. Lockdown even tells Prime, "They built you to do as you were told!" So the Transformers were built by the Creators to be controlled...much like KSI! 3. Both Cybertronians and KSI's Transformers became autonomous or rebelled. Now in the case of the Cybertronians, we never saw it on screen, but we know from the first film the Allspark is what gave them life. Now before he was captured by Lockdown, he didn't seem to know about his creators' existence. Even afterward, he didn't know their identity. This means he did not remember any time he might have been in service of the Creators. It's possible that, being a robot, he had his mind erased at some point, or that Cybertronians dump acquired, excess data from thousands or millions of years, but I think there's an even simpler and more likely answer. That answer is that Cybertronians were not originally living beings, but lifeless machines in the service of the Creators. THAT is why Optimus doesn't remember his Creators, because he was a lifeless machine when he was under their service! The Transformers originally being lifeless machines also fits with the Allspark Mutations originally being lifeless, mindless human-built machines. Does Blenderbot remember being a blender? Does Dispensor remember being a vending machine? No! And it also fits with the KSI Transformers not having Sparks. It's also interesting that the Allspark Mutations are initially feral Transformers, perhaps with rudimentary forms of a programmed language in some instance. Just like the Allspark Mutations made a mess of Sam's kitchen, a whole planet of giant robots must have caused destruction on a massive scale when they were first given life. After all, when Ironhide remarks how humans are a primitive and violent race, Optimus responds by saying, "Were we so different?" Now in KSI's case, Megatron uses his "chromosomes" to infect the Galvatron prototype, alter its appearance to his terrifying-to-the-humans visage, and take control of his body. Furthermore, the Decepticon overlord uses deception to feign being a drone initially to get what he wants: the Seed. The Seed which is attained by KSI after Lockdown captured Optimus...and it was Galvatron's battle with Optimus that allowed the Autobot leader to get captured by Lockdown, so the Seed deal could go down! It's not until Galvatron is shipped to the Guangzhou, China factory and the humans have the Seed that he openly declares his autonomy, infects the other prototypes, "frees" them from human control, and sends them forth, causing destruction in the factory. Just like Galvatron and the other prototypes broke free from human control, at some point Cybertronians must have broken free from Creator control, or lack thereof. So I would say that the story of KSI building their own Transformers, only for them to lose control of their creations, is the story of Cybertronian origins. In both instances, creators use a programmable metal to create robots that they control, only for those robots to become autonomous and rebel. Now with that said, in AoE, the Creators came to Earth and other worlds to crate and harvest Transformium 66 million years ago...but in The Last Knight, all of a sudden Earth is Unicron. Furthermore, it's stated that the random positioning of Unicron's horns is due to plate tectonics and drifting continents since the time of Pangaea. Now Pangaea existed in the Permian and Triassic periods and was breaking up in the Jurassic...over a hundred million years before the dinosaurs' extinction when that started happening. Obviously, Unicron existed before the Creators made the Transformers...but Unicron is a Transformer, so obviously A Transformer existed before the Creators' actions. I think it's possible that, just like the humans used existing Transformers for their designs and other aspects of their Transformers, so too did the Creators use an existing Transformer in Unicron or another ancient Transformer as inspiration! And just like the humans are motivated by past Transformers' excursions and devastation on Earth, perhaps the Creators had been devastated by the existence or actions of primeval Transformers like Unicron, and in the process built their own Transformers in an attempt to create a universe where they controlled things. Or perhaps they merely found Earth by accident, and discovered it was home to a giant Transformer of awesome size and power, and then returned later to make smaller robots inspired by Unicron's abilities. Taking the Unicron connections further, in Age of Extinction, Galvatron and the other KSI Decepticons transform by breaking up into small cubes and coming back together as their alternate mode rather than more complex Cybertronian transformations where parts rearrange mechanically. Since Unicron in Transformers is often know as the Chaos Bringer, perhaps Unicron and/or his minions could transform in a similarly chaotic way to Galvatron and company! Even the drifting of his horns with the continents is reminiscent of chaos! Either way, if it turned out Cybertronians were inspired by more primeval Transformers like Unicron, it would make the parallels between KSI making their own Transformers and the Creators making Prime, the Knights, and other Cybertronians all the more fascinating! Personally, I think the story of KSI is a modern day version of the Creators story, regardless of how much TLK might have tried to minimize the Creators thread. Do you think it's possible? Or is this something you might be interested in seeing, either as a sequel or in a rebooted universe?
That's a very cohesive theory. I find it absolutely interesting. I've never thought about these parallels!
But if Optimus was built by the Creators, was he built when TFs as a whole were lifeless machines? What about the era of the Primes? They seemed autonomous during a time where Optimus was likely not born/built yet.
I happen to really like AoE and think it has a lot more going for it in terms of story, character, and theme than given credit. I think that if Kruger had been involved in TLK, I think we likely would have at least gotten more the Creators than with the Writers' Room writers, regardless of how the movie itself turned out. Yes, I think so. As for the Primes, it's certainly possible the Dynasty of Primes were given life via the Allspark before the other Transformers, and certainly before Optimus Prime. Who says all Transformers were given life at the same time? Who says the Allspark's life-giving was this instantaneous, planetery-scale event? After all, in the present day, Galvatron is autonomous for a time before taking control of the other prototypes. The 2007 Allspark Mutations were exposed to the Allspark before the Appliancebots in RotF....they weren't all exposed to the Allspark at the same time. I think that in ages past, it's possible the Allspark was taken to different locations: factories, space ships, repair bays, etc., and whatever robots were nearby happened to become alive. Or perhaps the Allspark was in a single location, and robots working nearby or moving within a certain radius suddenly gained life. If the former is the case though, I suspect there was some sabotage effort going on. Maybe from someone within the Creator ranks. Maybe from someone of another race who was enemies with the Creators. And if that were true, that would be another parallel. Just like KSI had an alien mind corrupting things from within, a rebellious Creator or alien sabotaging the Creators' attempts at controlling their machines would fit very well. Thanks. I have long held that the Creators and KSI stories were meant to parallel each other. What spurred me to write it down last night was thinking more about how Unicron fits in, because at first, it seems like he doesn't. After all, it seems odd how we go from the Creators bombing thousands of planets and perhaps satellites as well to make the Transformers to Earth itself being a Transformer. And then it hit me: that just like the humans were inspired by Cybertronians to make their own Transformers, so too were the Creators inspired by Unicron and perhaps other more ancient Transformers to make Cybertronians.
@Galvatross I feel like it makes more sense that the first Primes and their society were the ones that were built by Quintessons and not the latter ones. We know that the Creators aren't needed to build Transformers considering Decepticons were doing just that on their own in ROTF. If it as you describe, I feel like at least some of the TFs would realise they were built. I mean, I would have though that Optimus and his generation would have realised that they weren't literally born. With the Primes, I can kinda understand because they were from an era lost to current TF history, so the knowledge of the Creators history would be lost as well. This is why I assumed that Optimus wasn't literally built and that when the Creators said they built Optimus, it was the Creators's way of saying that they owned TFs as a whole (including Optimus) because the Creators made the first of the TFs. Going by your theory though: * Optimus and the other's memory would have probably been somehow altered or something to the point that their whole society doesn't know that TFs present on Cybertron was built by the Creators. * The Prime era society would probably be a different one than the one on Cybertron. * It could be that Optimus was one of the only ones of the current gen that was built by the Quintessons and so only he lost his memories of the past and not the whole Cybertron society because they weren't built. * Maybe there were even older TFs than the 7 Primes.
Keep in mind I'm not saying all Cybertronians were individually built by the Creators, BUT I do think it's clear Optimus Prime was individually built by the Creators. First, while Lockdown is talking about the Transformers having Creators in general, he is also specifically addressing Prime. "You were built, and your Creators want you back." Lockdown wasn't trying to capture Ratchet, or Leadfoot, or any of the other Earth-bound Autobots. He was specifically capturing Optimus to take back to the Creators! Furthermore, on the ship he tells Optimus how his ship was once built for knights and crusaders, and he uses the word "you" to describe those knights and crusaders, indicating Prime is one of them and also indicating that the ship was specifically built for that group of Transformers/alien beings. And Lockdown said he captured all of the knights but Prime, which suggests he hunted the other knights for the Creators, and that they, like Optimus were also built for a purpose. But here's the kicker: from behind-the-scenes commentary in the special features, the viewer learns that the Knightship doesn't come from Cybertron, but from another planet. So if that ship was built for Optimus and other knights, and it didn't come from Cybertron, who built it, and where was it built? I suppose it's possible Cybertronians, including the knights, built ships on worlds other than their own, but given the context, in which the ship belongs to someone who works for the Creators, and the ship's owner tells us that the ship was built for the knights' crusades, I think the implication is that the ship was built by the Creators for their creations! So Optimus Prime's creators specifically wanted him captured! And Lockdown uses a ship that did not originate from Cybertron, but from another world and was originally intended as a vessel for the group of knights to whom Prime belonged to.
@Galvatross I think that makes sense. I wasn't sure which one you meant. Then that would mean Optimus somehow lost his early memories. Perhaps the Creators built Optimus based on the Primes and that's why he is a descendant of them.
Well either he lost his memories, or he never had them to begin with, because he wasn't alive yet! At least that's what I think. As for being a Prime, I personally don't think Creators built robots to be members of some robot dynasty...a dynasty usually involves some sort of succession of power, and the Creators seem to want Prime and the knights back...BUT it is possible he was inspired by the earlier Primes when being built.... ...OR, and this would be my opinion, given the Primes seem to have some "supernatural" abilities and a consciousness after death, at least within the Matrix, and Optimus doesn't particularly look like the Primes from RotF, I think being a Prime is more of (for lack of a better term) "spiritual" characteristic or specific lifeforce. In other words, it may be that the Allspark gifts certain robots, like the Dynasty of Primes and Optimus Prime, with the lifeforce of a Prime, and thus such robots are "born" as Primes and into their family of sorts. After all, Jetfire, claims only a Prime can defeat The Fallen. This seems odd if you consider physical destruction, as, theoretically, there's nothing keeping The Fallen getting killed by Megatron or a rail gun or whatever if you're thinking purely physical damage. It makes more sense to me that this (admittedly questionable) attribute of the Fallen has a "spiritual" component. That is, he can only get killed by a being who has the lifeforce of a Prime like himself!
@Galvatross By lost memory, I meant the first time Optimus came online. I think he would have realised that he wasn't born but rather built if he had those memories.
I think I know what you mean. EDIT: But I also think that if he didn't remember being a lifeless slave to the Creators, his waking moments being zapped by the Allspark might have seemed like a "birth" to him.
