In Transformers: The Last Knight, Quintessa, an enigmatic foe with horrifying plans for Earth and Cybertron, captures Optimus Prime’s consciousness. But why does this Quintessa sound familiar, and who is she? Despite having traits and a history that is similar to many Transformers characters, Quintessa the Sorceress does not exist in the canon of comic books.
Quintessa is a perplexing character, but given her evident significance to the franchise’s future, we should learn more about her identity and motivations. We do not yet know the entire narrative, which is unfortunate, but based on what we learned in The Last Knight, we might infer that Quintessa might be a member of the Creators and may be attempting to either murder or enslave the Transformers race.
The mysterious origins of Quintessa
Quintessa, also known as The Great Deceiver by the Guardian Knights, is a significant foe in the Transformers Cinematic Universe and, along with Megatron, one of the film’s main antagonists in Transformers: The Last Knight. She is an alien sorceress who identifies herself as the Prime of Life and asserts that she created the Cybertronian race, revealing herself to be Optimus Prime’s mother. She meant to use him to obliterate Earth and bring back Cybertron. This part was played by Gemma Chan, who also played Minn-Erva in Captain Marvel.
She is regarded as the first main antagonist in the Transformers movie series to have female characteristics. After Alice, Quintessa is only the second Transformers antagonist to mask herself as a human. She resembles the monstrous Medusa from Greek mythology.
Quintessa is modeled on the Quintessons from Generation 1 legend, and her name is derived from their home planet. She also shares similarities with Quintus Prime, the founder of the Aligned continuity family’s Quintesson race. She is never truly revealed to be one of the “Creators” referenced in Age of Extinction, as the only visible Creator in that film is an organic hand.
Quintessa’s origins are unknown, although she is thought to be the originator of the Cybertronians. Quintessa positioned herself as a supposedly friendly character for the Cybertronians, stating she intends to defeat their old foe, the infamous gigantic planet-eater Unicron. Unfortunately, twelve Cybertronian Knights discover that she is not who she appears to be and that she intends to drain energy from Earth using a contraption controlled by a strong staff in order to rebuild Cybertron.
Quintessa thinks that the Earth is nothing other than Unicron’s unconscious body. The Cybertronian Knights revolted against Quintessa, refusing to let Earth suffer as a result of their Creators’ anger. To Quintessa’s chagrin, they seized the technology and concealed it on Earth, labeling her a liar.
Quintessa in The Last Knight movie
Transformers: The Last Knight is an action film of the science fiction genre released in 2017 set on the Transformers toy brand. It is the 6th live-action Transformers film and the follow-up to the Age of Extinction movie, which was released in 2014. Barricade, Bumblebee, Crosshairs, Drift, Hound, Megatron, Optimus Prime, and Wheelie are among a few of the returning Transformers. The film, like its predecessors, is directed by Michael Bay. It is also starring Mark Wahlberg, who reprises his character from the Age of Extinction Film. Quintessa is played by Gemma Chan in this film.
After learning of Lockdown’s death, Quintessa makes her first entry in the film. She decides to take things into her own hands and utilizes space bridge technology to transmit herself, her Infernocons, and the barren planet Cybertron to Earth. When Cybertron arrives in Earth’s orbit, an unconscious Optimus Prime crash-lands on Cybertron, waking him up. Quintessa chains Optimus and chastises him for his fight against the Decepticons and then uses her sorcery to manipulate him into doing her bidding. Quintessa renames Optimus “Nemesis Prime” and tells him to demolish Earth, alleging it to be Unicron’s hibernating corpse.
As the narrative progresses, the film’s main protagonists discover an old Cybertronian technology that has lived on Earth since medieval times and is located at the bottom of the ocean. They also find that the ancient staff hidden by the Cybertronian Knights under King Arthur’s reign may be used to unlock the technology, and Quintessa intends to use it to resurrect Cybertron by clashing it with Earth.
After the Autobots find the staff before fighting the Cybertronian Knights, Optimus Prime, who has been following them in secret, manages to take the staff and fly away just as the machine emerges from the water. During the confrontation upon that machine, Optimus Prime tries to murder Bumblebee, who finally breaks Optimus’ hypnosis.
Unfortunately, Megatron steals Optimus’ staff and strikes a deal with Quintessa to resurrect Cybertron, because then the Decepticons and Creators could govern it, since Quintessa had already predicted that Optimus would throw off the shackles of her control.
The Autobots then join forces with the Cybertronian Knights to combat the Decepticons and Infernocons before using Lockdown’s spacecraft to prevent the crash on Earth. Optimus was able to destroy Megatron by blasting him back to Earth after many Decepticons and Infernocons were killed, but Quintessa uses her powers to bind Optimus, angrily promising to murder him for wrecking her plans. On the other hand, Quintessa seems to be annihilated by Bumblebee while the machine is deactivated by taking the staff from it, preventing Cybertron and Earth from colliding.
Finally, the Autobots return to reconstruct Cybertron, which is now in orbit around Earth, but they are clueless as to how Quintessa survived her fight with Bumblebee and has sought sanctuary on Earth. Quintessa, masquerading as a human, interacts with a team of scientists who’ve already uncovered a massive ancient spike that happens to be a component of Unicron.
She warns the scientists not to handle the spike because he dislikes it. Quintessa then claims that she knows how to eliminate the planet-eating Unicron and begins to reveal her proper form. It’s unclear what happens to her after that, but it’s probable that she exposes who Unicron was and maybe even his backstory.
Quintessa’s character began as calm, composed, undisturbed, and kind. She regards Optimus Prime as one of her greatest inventions and is beloved by many Cybertronians. She is, however, immensely cold-hearted, unyielding, opprobrious, wrathful, devilish, and deceptive, as she has no reservations about draining Earth’s energy to rebuild Cybertron, even if it means murdering all life on Earth.
Quintessa, as a strong sorceress in general, is revealed to be misguided, cynical, and deceitful, believing that her acts are best for Cybertron’s survival. She also blames Optimus for the war that ravaged much of Cybertron between the Autobots previously led by Sentinel Prime and the Decepticons.
Even when a furious Optimus points out that Megatron, the ex apprentice of The Fallen and leader of the Decepticons, is the one responsible for instigating the conflict in the first place, Quintessa harshly disagrees and proceeds to blame Optimus for Cybertron’s destruction before brainwashing him. Quintessa is prepared to murder Optimus when he escapes her control, caring only about her own goals. Her ultimate purpose is to defeat Cybertron’s old foe, Unicron, who she believes is Earth’s actual form… and she is willing to go to any length to eliminate him.
What makes her such a deadly opponent?
Quintessa can launch electrical energy balls and bolts at her opponents. She uses this to shock Optimus Prime when they first interact, and she uses it again to restrain him during their last confrontation. Quintessa uses her Staff of Power to transmit power from Earth’s core to Cybertron. She is visible levitating in the air at all times, except when she is in her human form. Quintessa has the ability to manipulate items with her thoughts.
When they meet, she employs this ability to detain Optimus Prime. Quintessa’s sorcery allows her to mentally enslave Cybertronians in order to reprogram them and make them obey her. With the power of creation, she can also change the physiology of Cybertronians in her favor, as she did when she reverted Galvatron to his Megatron form, drawing inspiration from her Guardian Knights for his new shape. She employed holograms to disguise herself as a human while stuck on Earth.
Conclusion
Even though Quintessa is the creator of the Cybertronians, her greed and complete disregard for the value of life ultimately turned them against her. With her powers, abilities, and ancient knowledge, Quintessa could have achieved so much, but she instead chose an easier, more selfish path that made her lose all her creations along the way. Because she believed that Earth was, in fact, the body of Unicron, Quintessa could have sought to evacuate the whole human population, as well as plants and animals, if conceivable, and then tested her idea to see whether it was correct.
However, she went too far, aiming to destroy Earth without even considering all of the people that live on it, indicating that her actions and thoughts were wicked to the core. Her horrible characteristics only make her an awful person but a terrific supervillain. Since she hasn’t been destroyed, we believe that many superfans are eagerly waiting for her to return with a bang in future Transformers films.