| “ | Optimus Prime, you destroyed your home. Do you seek redemption? | „ |
| ~ Quintessa to Optimus Prime. |
Quintessa also known by the Guardian Knights as The Great Deceiver, is the main antagonist of Transformers: The Last Knight, the fifth installment of the original continuity of the Transformers live-action film series.
She is an alien sorceress who claims to be the creator of the Cybertronian race, proclaiming herself as the Prime of Life. Upon Revealing herself to be the creator of the heroic autobot Optimus Prime, she planned to use him to restore Cybertron by destroying the Earth as believing it to be Cybertron's greatest enemy, Unicron.
She was portrayed by Gemma Chan, who also played Minn-Erva in Captain Marvel and Namaari in Raya and the Last Dragon.
Personality[]
Quintessa started off as cool, collected, imperturbable and benevolent, as she considers Optimus Prime to be one of her finest creations and revered by much of the Cybertronians. However, she turns out to be extremely cold-hearted, uncompromising, opprobrious, wrathful, diabolical, delusional and manipulative, as she has no qualms in draining the Earth's energies to restore Cybertron, even at the cost of killing life on Earth.
Being a powerful sorceress in general, Quintessa is shown to be deluded, sarcastic and treacherous, as she believes that her actions are at best for the survival of Cybertron. She also blames Optimus for the war between the Autobots formally led by Sentinel Prime and Decepticons that ravaged much of Cybertron; even when a furious Optimus pointed out that Megatron (the former apprentice of the Fallen and current leader of the Decepticons) is the one responsible for causing the war in the first place, Quintessa angrily disagrees and proceeds to pin the blame for Cybertron's destruction on Optimus before brainwashing the latter into doing her bidding. After Optimus break free from her control, Quintessa is willing to kill him before calling a traitor.
Her true goal is to destroy Cybertron's ancient enemy, Unicron, which she believes to be the Earth's true form. She will do anything to kill him.
History[]
Early life[]
Quintessa's origins remain in mystery, but she is believed to be the creator of the Cybertronians. Quintessa built herself up to become a seemingly benevolent figure for the Cybetronians and that she plans to destroy their ancient enemy, the notorious giant planet eater Unicron. However, twelve Cybertronian Knights learn that she is not what they seemed to be and that she plans to drain energy from Earth to restore Cybertron with a machine utilized by a powerful staff, as Quintessa believes that the Earth is nothing more than the dormant body of Unicron. Unwilling to let the life on Earth suffer from the Creators' wrath, the Cybertronian Knights rebelled against Quintessa. They stole the technology before hiding it away on Earth and branded her as a deceiver for her delusional beliefs, much to Quintessa's fury.
Transformers: The Last Knight[]
Quintessa made her first appearance in the film after hearing of Lockdown's death. Deciding to take matters into her own hands, Quintessa uses the space bridge technology to transport herself, her soldiers (known as the Infernocons), and the dead planet Cybertron to Earth. Upon Cybertron's arrival on the Earth's orbit, a comatose Optimus Prime crash-lands into Cybertron, awakening from his stasis. Awaiting Optimus' arrival, Quintessa has Optimus chained and berates him for his war against the Decepticons before using her magic to brainwash Optimus into doing her bidding. With that in mind, Quintessa dubs Optimus as "Nemesis Prime" and orders him to destroy the Earth, saying that it's the dormant body of Unicron.
As the plot goes, Cade Yeager and a young girl named Izabella (who was orphaned during the Battle of Chicago) learned of the ancient Cybertronian technology that existed on Earth ever since medieval times, and that it was located in the bottom of the ocean. They also learned that the ancient staff (hidden by the Cybertronian Knights during King Arthur's reign) can be used to activate the technology, and that Quintessa plans to use it to revive Cybertron by colliding it into the Earth. After the Autobots locate the staff before engaging into a fight with the Cybertronian Knights, Optimus (having followed them in secret) managed to steal the staff and fly off just as the machine arises from the ocean. During the battle on the machine, Optimus attempts to kill Bumblebee, who eventually managed to snap Optimus out of his trance. Unfortunately, Megatron managed to steal the staff from Optimus and formed a deal with Quintessa to revive Cybertron so that the Decepticons and Creators can rule it, as Quintessa anticipated that Optimus would break free from her control.
The Autobots then team up with the Cybertronian Knights to fight against the Decepticons and Infernocons, right before they used Lockdown's ship to stop the collision on Earth. Following the deaths of many Decepticons and Infernocons, Optimus was able to finish off Megatron by sending him off flying back to Earth, but Quintessa uses her magic to restrain Optimus, angrily swearing to kill him for ruining her plans. However, Quintessa is seemingly destroyed by Bumblebee while Viviane deactivates the machine by removing the staff from it, saving both Cybertron and the Earth from colliding with each other.
In the end, the Autobots return to rebuild Cybertron as it is now in orbit with the Earth, but they are unaware that Quintessa has survived her encounter with Bumblebee and has taken refuge in Earth. Disguised as a human, Quintessa meets with a group of scientists who have discovered a giant ancient spike (which happens to be a part of Unicron). She tells the scientists not to touch the spike, saying that he does not like it. Quintessa then says that she can tell them how to destroy the planet eater (Unicron). After that, she starts to show her true form. It is unknown what happened to her afterwards, though it's likely that she revealed who Unicron was, and possibly his past as well.
Quotes[]
| “ | I am Quintessa, the Prime of Life. | „ |
| ~ Quintessa introduces herself to Optimus Prime. |
| “ | You destroyed your world, YOU FOOL! | „ |
| ~ Quintessa blames Cybertron's destruction upon Optimus. |
| “ | YOU TRAITOR! | „ |
| ~ Quintessa foolishly accusing Optimus as a traitor even though he was never on her side, as she detains Optimus before attempting to kill him. |
| “ | No! NOOOOOOO!!!!! | „ |
| ~ Quintessa before being defeated by Bumblebee. |
| “ | (Scientist: Are you lost?) I wouldn't do that. Don't touch him. He doesn't like it. (Scientist: He doesn't like what?) Unicron? 'Cause I can show you how to kill him. | „ |
| ~ Quintessa (in her human disguise) talking to one of the scientists about Unicron. |
Gallery[]
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Trivia[]
- She is the first major villain in the Transformers film franchise to have female traits. The only female villains in the film series before Quintessa were Alice and the female human collaborators of Dylan Gould in Dark of the Moon. On another note, Quintessa is the second Transformers villain to disguise herself as a human (the first being Alice).
- She has a resemblance to Medusa from Greek mythology.
- Li BingBing, the actress who played Su Yueming in Age of Extinction, voice her for the Chinese dub of the film.
- In Age of Extinction, Lockdown mentioned that "We all work for someone". Someone who was mentioned by him is nothing more than Quintessa herself.
- It's entirely possible that they met and made deal with Quintessa at some point in the past, such as the Fallen, who willingly disgraced the Dynasty Primes' honor and became the mastermind behind various crimes. In Lockdown's case, he willingly worked for Quintessa and the Creators after they upgraded him.
External Links[]
- Quintessa on the Magnificent Baddie Wiki
