Optimus Prime Wields a Sword

There’s been plenty of speculation as to what the title of Michael Bay’s upcoming fifth installment of the Transformers franchise refers to. 

A new banner for Transformers: The Last Knight plays off the medieval imagery suggested by the title, with Optimus Prime wielding an ornate sword truly worthy of a knight. To make the image complete, he’s going up against dragons (or at least, robots in the shape of dragons).

The new film features a redesigned Megatron, the villainous robot from the first three installments of the film, as the antagonist. The inclusion of dragons in the banner raises some interesting questions about the film — and its villain. In Transformers lore, Megatron has been a dragon in some incarnations (such as the Beast Wars cartoon, which ran from 1996-1999). The villain Scourge is a three-headed dragon in the Transformers: Cybertron cartoon (2005-2007), so that’s also a possibility for who or what the dragon is

The film sees Mark Wahlberg return as Cade Yeager, the disgraced scientist turned hero. Josh Duhamel, who sat out 2014’s Transformers: Age of Extinction, will return as vigilant Lt. Colonel Lennox. And series newcomer Anthony Hopkins is also on board in an unspecified role. 

Transformers: The Last Knight will open June 23, 2017.