Transformers: Age of Extinction

Transformers: Age of Extinction poster has Mark Wahlberg holding some serious fire power

The Rules Have Changed.” The upcoming release of Transformers: Age of Extinction will usher in a new era in the Transformers film series. While the first three movies featured Shia “I’m Not Famous Anymore” LaBeouf, the next three will presumably follow Mark Wahlberg’s Cade Yeager and his daughter Tessa, played by Nicola Peltz. Now Paramount Pictures has put Wahlberg front and center in a new poster featuring what may be a big clue to the film’s story.

The poster above features Mark Wahlberg as Cade, an inventor who stumbles across the Autobots during their civil war with the Decepticons. The poster looks good, and it’s rare that a Transformers highlights one of its human stars rather than its giant Transformers. Nevertheless, with Mark Wahlberg and Michael Bay’s star power, Transformers: Age of Extinction should be a bigger box office draw than any of the previous movies.

The most intriguing part of the poster is the weapon that Wahlberg’s Cade is holding. There is speculation that it might be the Star-Saber, a Cybertronian weapon which played a major role in the Transformers canon. Rumors that the Star-Saber would play a role in Age of Extinction first broke several months back. The Star Saber is a very powerful weapon that has the ability to “snuff out stars and crumble the stuff of planets into dust.” It was shattered into five pieces that one of the original 13 Transformers, Nexus Prime, along with Vector Prime and Alpha Trion, carved into five new Transformers: Heatwave, Skyfall, Landquake, Topspin, and Breakaway, all of whom were later scattered across the Transformers multiverse.

According to leaked video footage, it is believed that Mark Wahlberg’s Cade comes into possession of one of these sword shards and that Optimus Prime and the Autobots have to protect him from the Decepticons, who want this ultimate weapon. If the Star-Saber is being introduced into the film series, it could open the door for a bigger storyline that might also feature the planet-sized Unicron further down the line. I can easily see the Star-Saber becoming the “MacGuffin” the Allspark was in the original Transformers trilogy.

New footage recently teased the release of Age of Extinction‘s first full trailer. The trailer is due to be released today and will feature more of the film’s overall story and high-paced action. It also might feature more footage of the Dinobots, who were teased in Age of Extinction‘s Super Bowl spot.

Age of Extinction takes place in Chicago, four years after the last film. The movie centers on Cade and his family as they “discover a buried Transformer which sets the stage for the return of the rest of the Transformers.” The plot also includes the U.S. Government building their own Transformers based on technology found in the rubble from Dark of the Moon.

The film stars Jack Reynor, Stanley Tucci, Sophia Myles, T.J. Miller, Victoria Summer, Li Bingbing, Titus Welliver, Kelsey Grammer, and Peter Cullen, and opens everywhere on June 27, 2014, in 3D and IMAX.