“Transformers One” director reveals how infamous 1986 animated movie influenced new prequel film

"That one scarred me — and a whole generation," director Josh Cooley tells Entertainment Weekly.

It’s been almost 40 years since The Transformers: The Movie came out in theaters, but Transformers One director Josh Cooley will never forget the first time he saw it. "That one scarred me — and a whole generation," he tells Entertainment Weekly. The animated feature was the sequel to the popular 1980s TV series, and it infamously killed Autobot leader Optimus Prime (voiced by Peter Cullen) early on at the hands of Decepticon villain Megatron (Frank Welker). Cooley says the trauma of that shocking death heavily influenced him as he made his new Transformers movie — the first animated one in the franchise since that 1986 film — and he has no plans to scar a new generation of fans.

Transformers One (in theaters Sept. 20) is an origin story predating all other animated and live-action movies and TV shows based on the Hasbro franchise. The film will reveal that Optimus Prime and Megatron were actually brothers-in-arms who knew each other as Orion Pax and D-16, respectively, before they became bitter adversaries warring over the fate of their planet, Cybertron.

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In addition to making sure he didn't traumatize another era of young Transformers fans, Cooley also wanted to make sure Transformers One boasted a voice cast just as impressive as the one in the 1986 movie. "There's some amazing voice work done on that movie," the director says. "That was one thing I'm still blown away by — they got Orson Welles to voice a character in that film, for his last performance, too. So I knew that we needed to have some heavyweight cast in this film as well."

Cooley assembled his own mini Marvel team-up with a voice cast including two Avengers — Chris Hemsworth plays Orion Pax and Scarlett Johansson plays Elita-1 — and one Eternals alum — Brian Tyree Henry plays D-16. "It was not intentional," the director admits with a laugh. "All of them just nailed it." Joining them to voice these characters who are more than meets the eye are Keegan-Michael Key as B-127 a.k.a. Bumblebee, Jon Hamm as Sentinel Prime, Laurence Fishburne as Alpha Trion, and Steve Buscemi as a mysteriously unidentified villain.

Casting the future Optimus Prime was not an easy task, and Cooley reveals he was nervous to introduce a new version of such an iconic character. "The one thing that stressed me out from the minute I signed on was, Peter Cullen is Optimus Prime and is Transformers — that's what my Optimus Prime was growing up," he says. "I was concerned. How do we [follow that]? And when I really listened to Chris, he had this power to his voice. He took the lines and just pushed even further. He wasn't trying to imitate Peter Cullen, but he was doing the cadence and the rhythm of Optimus Prime, and I froze and I got goosebumps."

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When it came to debuting young Megatron, a.k.a. D-16, Cooley wanted to do something different with the well-known villain. "Megatron is always known as the bad guy," he says. "There's just good versus evil, and he's always after power, and that's kind of it. We don't know the backstory behind this."

Cooley says the relationship between Orion Pax and D-16 "is the core of this film," and he wants fans to understand the "heartbreak" of what causes D-16 to ultimately become a ruthless villain obsessed with power. "The thing that starts to drive a wedge between him and Orion Pax is that the world is not what they thought it was, and they then start to form two different views on how to solve the problem," he explains. “And these two versions just naturally butt heads against each other. They're really trying not to get pulled apart, and that's where the friction comes in during the second part of the movie where things get real and scary choices are made that really will affect everything."

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Cooley drew inspiration from many other beloved brothers-turned-enemies stories from all across pop culture while crafting Orion Pax and D-16's ultimately tragic arc. "I thought about [X-Men's] Professor X and Magneto, Spartacus, Ben-Hur, and Ten Commandments,” he says. “I was going to real deep, epic ideas, because when I originally thought of this, it felt like a Cain and Abel story, getting down to the basics of good vs. evil."

Fans already know where this story is heading, but Cooley teases the way they get there will be powerful. "They eventually become enemies, and people know that," he says. "That's what's engaging about it, letting the audience fall in love with them knowing that they're going to break up." Hopefully without causing lifelong trauma this time.

A version of this story appears in EW's complimentary Comic-Con 2024 Preview print edition, being passed out in San Diego throughout the convention.

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly.