Look I’ll be honest: I always thought Optimus Prime and Optimus Primal were the same guy. They’re not the same guy? Are they brothers? Cousins? Is it a sheer coincidence? I played with Transformers toys as a kid, but I was sort of out by the time Optimus Primal showed up and Beast Wars was a thing on television.
Maybe this will all be clarified in the new movie, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, which is coming to theaters in a little over a month. A new clip from the movie shows a first confrontation between Optimus Prime and Optimus Primal and their assorted allies. The source of the conflict is not revealed, so I am going to assume that they are both angry that their names are so similar, and they’re going to fight over who gets to keep the “Optimus” name.
Take a look at the clip below.
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That’s Ron Perlman as the voice of Optimus Primal and Peter Cullen returning yet again as Optimus Prime. (That’s also Pete Davidson as the voice of Mirage, who seems to be the Autobot who gets the key role in Rise of the Beasts, in much the same way Bumblebee was the focus in the early Shia LaBeouf Transformers, and then in Bumblebee.)
Here is the film’s official synopsis:
Returning to the action and spectacle that have captured moviegoers around the world, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts will take audiences on a ‘90s globetrotting adventure with the Autobots and introduce a whole new faction of Transformers – the Maximals – to join them as allies in the existing battle for earth.
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is scheduled to open in theaters on June 9.
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