“Godzilla” is so last month. The fourth “Transformers” is about to stomp into theaters, but what if you can’t wait that long?
Let’s look at the rumors about what blockbustery wonders will arrive in “Transformers: Age of Extinction,” due June 27.
Warning: Spoilers!
Dinobots!
In its closing seconds, the final “payoff” trailer for the film shows that fanboy speculation about dinosaur Transformers was correct.
The trailer shows a Godzilla-like metal monster, Grimlock, roaring through the streets breathing fire. Hasbro has released images of several of the Dinobots, including Slash and Strafe.
A cynical new Transformer
“Lockdown,” an intergalactic bounty hunter who has the potential to turn his entire head into a machine-gun cannon (though when he’s chilling he’s a Lamborghini Aventador), is a new kind of Transformer. He seemingly doesn’t align neatly with either the evil Decepticons or the good Autobots. He just wants to get paid.
It sounds like he has the potential to sow duplicity a la Lando Calrissian in “The Empire Strikes Back.” Lockdown is rumored to be the pilot of the ship full of Dinobots that lands on Earth.
Saddle up those Dinobots!
Another rumor says good Transformers Optimus Prime and Bumblebee will, for a climactic Hong Kong street fight, actually ride the Dinobots like horses.
Galvatron replaces Megatron
Evil Transformer Megatron was reduced to scrap in “Dark of the Moon,” but he is said to be resurrected as Galvatron in much the same way that Galvatron replaced Megatron in the 1986 animated Transformers film.
But there’s a no-goofiness guarantee.
Director Michael Bay told Yahoo! that “we went a little too goofy on the last one” — that would be 2011’s “Tranformers: Dark of the Moon” — but said the fourth installment would be very cool and “cinematic,” not goofy.
An ocean liner on land
A samurai Decepticon joins the good guys
One potential new character is a fallen samurai figure working with the Decepticons who wants to redeem himself by going back to the good guys, the Autobots.
John Goodman joins the voice cast
Ordinarily the Transformers voices aren’t done by actors whose voices are instantly recognizable, but Goodman figures to be a big exception this summer. He provides the voice for the new Autobot named Hound.
Oh, yeah: humans
Considering the first three films as a trilogy, Bay has moved on in a different direction.
This one is set three years after the last film, with the main villain an evil Transformer designer played by Stanley Tucci, while Mark Wahlberg plays the humble mechanic and father of a teen girl (Nicola Peltz) who apparently becomes the unwitting owner of a Transformer truck.