The Ending of the New Transformers Really Goes for the Joe

This article was originally published in June. We are recirculating it now timed to Transformers: Rise of the Beasts digital release. Like an 80s kid mashing action figures together, the Transformers franchise is in its crossover era. With its final scene, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts officially introduces the special-forces organization G.I. Joe to the

This article was originally published in June. We are recirculating it now timed to Transformers: Rise of the Beasts’ digital release.

Like an ’80s kid mashing action figures together, the Transformers franchise is in its crossover era. With its final scene, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts officially introduces the special-forces organization G.I. Joe to the Autobots’ world. That’s right: G.I. Joe is back again, and it is handing out business cards. Welcome to the Hasbro Cinematic Universe.

We leave Rise of the Beasts with the threat of the Terrorcons, a group of evil Transformers, and their leader, the world-devouring Unicron, defeated for now. The space- and time-portal-opening Transwarp Key has been destroyed, and our heroes — the Autobots (the alien robots who turn into cars), the Maximals (the alien robots who turn into animals), and human protagonists Noah (Anthony Ramos) and Elena (Dominique Fishback) — stand united in their efforts to protect earth. Noah also walks away with a sweet new battle suit made from parts of his Autobot pal Mirage (Pete Davidson), which he used to join Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) and Optimus Primal (Ron Perlman) in the final battle against Unicron and his servant, Scourge (Peter Dinklage), who meets his end with a face full of molten lava in Peru

Noah’s world-saving efforts land him on the radar of Agent Burke (Michael Kelly), who invites him to what seems like a normal job interview for a security position at a warehouse. There, he reveals that the organization he works for knows all about the Autobots and Noah’s role in saving the world. Turns out Burke has been keeping tabs on Unicron, and he tells Noah that the organization he works for would like to enlist his and the Autobots’ services for a global peacekeeping mission. Then he enters a secret bunker in the warehouse and hands Noah his business card, which identifies said organization as “G.I. Joe.”

Transformers and G.I. Joe dominated kids’ media in the ’80s, first as a line of Hasbro action figures and then as popular (but separate) Saturday-morning cartoons. The two properties have never crossed over onscreen until now, though they’ve done so in comic books as early as 1986’s G.I. Joe and the Transformers, in which the two teams joined forces, and as recently as 2017’s Transformers vs. G.I. Joe, in which the Joes travel to the Transformers’ home world of Cybertron and team up with the Autobots against Cobra and the Decepticons. Noah is a new character written for Rise of the Beasts, but the battle suit he wears for the film’s climax appeared in U.K.-exclusive pages of the 1984–1991 Marvel Comics series The Transformers, where it was referred to as a G.I. Joe project. It would appear that the Transformers franchise is positioning Noah as a bridging character between the two properties.

Director Steven Caple Jr. has said that Rise of the Beasts is planned as the first film in a new trilogy, though no one has confirmed whether the next entry will be the crossover event the ending teases. We do know that another stand-alone G.I. Joe film feels unlikely after the box-office failure of 2021’s Snake Eyes, Paramount’s last attempt at leveraging the Joes into a global blockbuster series. (The studio’s first G.I. Joe film series, which never included any references to the Transformers, also fizzled after two installments, 2009’s G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra and its 2013 sequel, G.I. Joe: Retaliation.)

But a clean start for the Joes that brings familiar characters like Duke, Scarlett, Snake Eyes, and Roadblock into Noah and the Autobots’ orbit could be just the trick to getting them back in action. At the very least, it fulfills the Transformers’ sacred mission statement: ’Til all are one.

More Endings to Talk About

See All The Ending of the New Transformers Really Goes for the Joe

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