Josh Cooley reveals emotional origin story of ‘brothers to enemies’ for ‘Transformers One’
From the moment that Josh Cooley read the script for “Transformers One,” he knew there was something truly special in the way it explored the relationship between Orion Pax and D-16 who would go on to become Optimus Prime and Megatron. “I saw that it was this idea of going from basically brothers to enemies and I loved the idea of seeing that on screen. It was something we’d never seen. There’s been like nine Transformers films and that’s never been talked about,” he reveals to Gold Derby as part of our Meet the Experts: Film Animation panel (watch the video interview above). He was especially eager to dive into this lore that had never really been explored before. “It meant that if we get them on the same page at the beginning, then by the end of the film it’ll actually be really tragic when it falls apart and so I thought that’s super emotional, and I would love to put real human emotion into these characters.”
“Transformers One,” from Paramount Pictures, sees Orion Pax and D-16 working as miners who work below the surface of Cybertron to extract Energon. After a mishap during a race, the pair are sent to the incineration department but soon find themselves on a journey that has them finding out that the leaders of the planet have been betraying the rest of them. The film stars Chris Hemsworth as Orion Pax/Optimus Prime and Brian Tyree Henry as D-16/Megatron. It also features the voice talents of Scarlett Johansson, Keegan-Michael Key, Steve Buscemi, Laurence Fishburne, and Jon Hamm.
In designing the look of robots’ home planet, Cybertron, Cooley knew the computer animation aspects could make it look incredible but also wanted to make sure that it was distinctive. “My production designer, Jason Scheier, and I collected a bunch of metals that we have here on Earth and just to see what they actually look like and they’re extremely colorful, reflexive, and beautiful.” These helped both of them get an idea of the beauty they could create for Cybertron. “That was the goal. I wanted to make a metal planet that transforms on its own and is just stunning color-wise and lighting and I’m really happy with what we’ve turned out with.”
Cooley is no stranger to the awards race. He won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature in 2019 for “Toy Story 4” and was nominated for Best Original Screenplay in 2016 for “Inside Out.”