Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts Ending And Mid-Credits Scene Explained

With Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, the live-action Transformers franchise certainly isn't getting less complicated. It introduces two brand-new-to-live-action factions of space robots--the Maximals and the Terrorcons--while also doing more stuff with Unicron and setting up some other things I can't talk about until after I've given you a spoiler warning.

So without further ado…

Warning: This article contains major spoilers for Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, including all the details of the ending.

Rise of the Beasts picks up the story in 1994, seven years after the events of Bumblebee. Optimus Prime and the other Autobots are still hiding on Earth, refugees from the war on Cybertron. And a completely unrelated conflict is brewing: Unicron, the planet-sized world-eater, needs the franchise's latest Macguffin, a Transformer relic called the transwarp key, so it can resume its world-eating journey across the universe. And, of course, the key is on Earth. Why would a Transformer relic be anywhere else?

The key is on Earth because one of those new Transformer factions, the Maximals, brought it here a long time ago to safeguard it from Unicron's forces. But those forces, led by the Terrorcon called Scourge, are now on Earth too, and they've caught the scent. And we know they mean business, because they manage to kill Bumblebee during their first fight against the Autobots. You read that right: Bumblebee died.

There's a lot of back-and-forth throughout the film, but eventually Scourge does get the key and starts the process of bringing Unicron to Earth. And it's up to the Autobots, Maximals and their new human pals Noah and Elena to somehow prevent that from happening--because if Unicron gets to Earth, everybody dies.

The good guys do eventually win, of course, keeping Unicron stuck out in deep space and killing Scourge. But there were two major plot developments during the battle that are worth noting. First: When Scourge activates the transwarp key it fired off a pulse that activated a massive deposit of energon beneath the surface of the planet--and this, in turn, brought Bumblebee back to life. Second: during the climax of the battle, Noah wears the Autobot called Mirage as an exo-suit and fightsalongside Optimus to defeat Scourge.

Naturally, there were some folks who found that to be pretty impressive. After the battle, in the last scene of the film before the credits, we see Noah heading to another job interview--a continuation of his quest from the beginning of the movie. But something's off about this one. The person doing the interview knows more about Noah than he should. And there's a very good reason for that: this guy works for the government, and he wants to recruit Noah for a "war" he says they're fighting. Noah is reluctant, so the man gives him his card and tells him to think about it.

The card reveals that Noah is being recruited to join G.I. Joe.

What the hell does this Transformers/G.I. Joe tease mean?

What does this mean? Are we getting G.I. Joe vs. Transformers? A mostly separate G.I. Joe reboot that happens to take place inside the Transformers continuity? I have no answers for you, because Paramount and Hasbro haven't locked down any firm plans for this franchise right now. What happens next will depend on how much money Transformers: Rise of the Beasts makes and what the audience scores look like, and how many toys they sell. Think of it like this: the G.I. Joe tease opens a door that they could walk through, but they also have a lot of other open doors right they might walk through instead.

But I'd give pretty good odds that, at the very least, if and when they make another Transformers movie, we'll see G.I. Joe characters in place of the usual government types that are in these movies.

Does Transformers: Rise of the Beasts have a Mid-Credits or Post-Credits scene?

There's one mid-credits scene, and nothing at the end of the credits. In the mid-credits we get a brief check-in with Noah, who's working on a car--it's Mirage, and Noah has successfully gotten him back in working order. In case you were worried we might lose the Pete Davidson Transformer. (I wasn't--I knew he'd be fine.)