Entertainment

'Transformers: The Last Knight' Trailer Looks Post-Apocalyptic

Why are Optimus Prime and Bumblebee fighting!?

Paramount Pictures

The trailer for Transformers: The Last Knight, the fifth film in Michael Bay’s hectic action franchise, dropped on Monday night, and things look pretty dark. The days of Shia Labeouf panicking in high school are long, long gone, ‘cause things are seeming pretty post-apocalyptic in the new spot.

It looks like the film is going to take it’s title pretty literally, since the trailer opens in medieval times complete with knights in armor, and we see a really cool robot dragon. From there, we skip ahead in history, making a few brief pit stops along the way, until we reach the present day. It looks dark. Lots of the Earth appears to be in ruins, and there’s talk of open war between humans and Transformers.

“Optimus Prime has left us,” explains Anthony Hopkins in a voiceover as the Autobot leader’s frozen body floats through space. Hopkins, fresh off of his role on Westworld can still monolog with the best of ‘em.

Then we see Mark Wahlberg’s character from the previous movie, Cade Yeager, looking concerned. He should be, because it seems like there’s some sort of diseased robot moon that’s about to eat our moon.

Paramount Pictures

After a couple more quick cuts of high-octane action, the trailer closes with an unlikely fight. Optimus (who I guess comes back from outer space at some point), is fighting Bumblebee — and winning. “Forgive me,” he says, and the camera cuts away before he delivers what could be a killing blow.

Why are they fighting? What did all that historical action at the beginning have to do with anything? Who is the Last Knight? We’ll find out, probably, when this chrome explosion of a movie hits theaters on June 23, 2017.

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