#lil technical note regarding my theater experience: i wanted to see it in an xd theater bc the video quality is higher

[tachyon-omlette]

okay before I lose my thought (MASSIVE Rise of the Beasts spoilers re: Unicron)

in my opinion rotb handled Unicron perfectly.

when I first watched the full trailer & saw Unicron my second thought was "oh no" (my first being "YOOOOOO") because in the bumblebee-rotb timeline it seemed extremely early to be involving him. I went into the movie almost resigning myself to the thought that it would end with Unicron being destroyed & never seen again, because he was advertised as the main Big Bad.

but the truth is, Scourge was the main Big Bad. and while Unicron made several appearances and had more than one line, the primary thing he did was loom over the narrative like the slow approach of death - he did more than haunting the narrative, I think, but aside from his interactions with the Terrorcons and his arrival at the final scene, he was largely uninvolved in the main conflict, and was in the end defeated momentarily rather than destroyed.

what we did see of him was always displays of power: the destruction of the Maximals' homeworld, his ability to supply the battlefield with endless Terrorcon footsoldiers, his mindscape-meeting with Scourge wherein he tortured Scourge for failing him from Primus knows how far away. hell, even Scourge, Battletrap, and Nightbird themselves were living proof of Unicron's power - ruthless, near-invincible supersoldiers who've killed enough Cybertronians and Cybertronian-adjacent lifeforms to steal and wear their badges like a bounty hunter collects trophies. on-screen all of this is done through Unicron's power, the extension of his will - and not, notably, by Unicron himself.

this wasn't Unicron's moment to shine, only to be destroyed so early in the narrative.

this was the moment that painted a target on Earth, and on Optimus Prime. this was the moment that established how Unicron is accustomed to taking thralls from other worlds while also killing off the ones he already had, laying the potential groundwork for Galvatron or even Sideways. this was the moment that showed off just how powerful Unicron and his allies are without cramming it into the first fifteen minutes of another movie down the line, and when he appears again we'll already know just how fucked the protagonists are.

this was the setup to Unicron's moment to shine. though I'd hoped Unicron would get more screentime, rotb ultimately handled Unicron with the severity he deserves; for that, it was perfect.

sidenote: I got very big "then perish" vibes at the end of the movie, when Unicron said smth like "think about this, Prime. I could give you anything you want." and Optimus responded with "then DIE!!". it was dramatic in the moment but remembering it got me a good laugh

#rotb spoilers #lil technical note regarding my theater experience: i wanted to see it in an xd theater bc the video quality is higher #but the only xd theater showing it for the next several days is the one with d-box seats #if you don't know what d-box seats are they're supposed to provide a 4d experience by shaking you around #but in doing so they inevitably vibrate the entire rest of the theater #which also makes the audio extremely bass-y #one of the given windows when the d-box seats would go off was ANY TIME unicron talked or was at all onscreen #so my movie experience was a lot like [Unicron: appear] [PERMEATING VIBRATION] [IMPOSSIBLY LOUD BASS RUMBLE] #i wanna watch it in a non d-box theater so i can better enjoy the soundtrack bc i caught in credits they used unicron's og theme from '86 #but overall this is not a complaint. bc it did make me feel like i was up close to unicron in real #and i sure hope it didnt awaken anything in me (it did i already know it did. im aroace but i would unironically seduce unicron /gen) #transformers #rotb #rise of the beasts spoilers #rise of the beasts #extra tags so i can find this later