Optimus Primal, Cheetor, Rhinox, Airazor – for old fans of the Transformers series beast wars Animated series, these are well-known maximum names. Transformers: Rise of the Beasts He’s adapting her into live-action for the first time ever, but he also brings a fifth maximal, and his inclusion in this film is a pretty insane deep cut. Someone behind this film is clearly a serious Transformers expert – this particular maximal is a nod to the Transformers convention novels of the early millennium.
The gorilla-shaped Optimus Primal (Ron Perlman) leads the Maximals most of the time Rise of the Beasts, but in the opening scene he is a stand-in for a second metal gorill a named Apelinq. This Maximal is surprisingly distinctive, a different design from Optimus Primal’s gorilla model – he has a white mohican, metal tusks and intimidating blades in his forearms.
Voiced by David Sobolov (who also voiced Battletrap and Rhinox in this film as well as in the original). beast wars In the cartoon “Depth Charge”), Apelinq hands over the mantle of Maximal leadership to the smaller Optimus Primal, allowing Apelinq to stop the enemy Transformer Scourge (Peter Dinklage) and the other Maximals with the transwarp key that a McGuffin-Scourge has in his name planet eater master Unicron (Colman Domingo) can bring to safety.
Apelinq’s appearance is a shocking but welcome feature film debut for a character who first appeared as a toy exclusively at BotCon 2000. If Rise of the Beasts Five respected screenwriters felt that another gorilla character should precede Optimus Primal as the leader of the Maximals. Apelinq is an obvious but unclear choice. The Original Apelinq
Three hundred years in the future of the Transformers setting, when Maximals reign after the end of Cybertron big war, Apelinq was the commander of Cybertron’s legendary battle team, the Wreckers. (These characters appeared in live action in 2011 Transformers: The Darkness of the Moon.) But Apelinq’s true passion was scientific research and engineering. He is best known for his Transfer Interlink, an invention that enabled Apelinq to “download digital objects into reality”. This was admittedly a more formidable superpower before 3D printers became widespread, but it allowed Apelinq to essentially pull weapons out of thin air. In practice, this was mostly an attempt to explain the usable “virtual digiboard” of his toy.
Apelinq’s character history has been documented using several toys and additional Transformers Convention fiction. He was first transported from the future to the time of the Beast Wars, where he witnessed the Omega Point, an epic battle involving the Unicron-Powered Ones Predicon Shokaract. This fight, paradoxically, resolved itself and Apelinq was the only participant who remembered it having taken place.
He was transported back to his time where he landed on the Vehicon piloted Cybertron in 1999 beast wars sequel series, beast machines. But instead of joining Optimus Primal’s Maximals team in their 26-part attempt to liberate the planet vehicle After Apelinq took control, he was tasked by the Oracle with removing his wreckers from the planet to prevent the evil gangster Cryotek from possessing the Divine Light, an artifact that would allow the Predacon to take control of him to take over vector sigma self.
Along the way, Apelinq merged with Primal Prime (another Optimus Primal toy in different colors), causing it to transform from the beast and transform into a truck cab for the Matrix-powered sentinel Sentinel Maximus. Now renamed Hyperlinq, he and Sentinel Maximus were sent through various Transformers continuities on behalf of Transformers creator god Primus himself, which must have upset Apelinq/Hyperlinq – a magic-hating, die-hard atheist – a bit.
A variant of Apelinq returned to BotCon in 2014, with a new toy (another Optimus Primal in different colors) and a story to match. This time, the Maximal engineer was the science officer of the Cybertronian Knights, a Wreckers-like team led by Former Cheetor Alpha Trizer. He and the knights fought pirate transformers just like you. Despite not being the same Apelinq as before, he still had his Transfer Interlink, which he used to bring up his virtual Digiboard. The version of Apelinq from Rise of the Beasts As far as we know, he never became Hyperlinq – he appears to be dying in this film, although I wouldn’t discount him just yet in a franchise where characters are killed and resurrected so frequently.
In case you were wondering, yes, “Apelinq” was always just a cheesy pun on the word “uplink,” with Apelinq’s inventor, BotCon organizer Glen Hallit, only inserting the “Q” to give a name continuity, as he became “Hyperlinq”. And characters say that name out loud! Yet another blockbuster movie!
However, I am sorry to have to tell everyone Rise of the BeastsWhile Apelinq has transformed from an obscure convention exclusivist into a heroic maximal commander, at no point does he translate anything digital into reality. Not even a virtual digiboard.