"Now you listen to me, mister-zero-seconds-since-my-last-accident. I'll go on your little quest 'cause I don't have a choice. But I carry the map, I navigate, and if this leads to nothing, then I'm dragging you and those two idiot go-bots back to Iacon city, and to the first supervisor depot we see, at which point, you will explain everything that's happened using words that reflect me in a very POSITIVE LIGHT! Got it?!"
—Elita-1's zero tolerance for any idiocy.
Elita-1, better known as Elita, is one of the two tritagonists of the 2024 animated film Transformers One. She was a former captain of the underground Energon mines who accidentally joined Orion Pax (Optimus Prime), D-16 (Megatron) and B-127 (Bumblebee) in their crusade in search for the Matrix of the Leadership, encountering the Tomb of the Primes, where they met Alpha Trion and discovered Sentinel Prime's betrayal. Upon obtaining their cogs, the team sought to return to Iacon to reveal everything, along the way they met the Cybertron High Guard, but were attacked by Sentinel's army. Shortly after, Elita motivated Orion and they allied with the Guard, with whom they saved D-16 and Bee.
Elita eventually defeated Airachnid, and after the Battle of Iacon following the banishment of D-16 (now Megatron), she become the second in-command of the Autobots, under her now closest friend, Optimus Prime.
Biography[]
Elita-1 is the captain of the Energon mines, where she led and gave orders to the miners bots. It is shown that both Orion Pax and D-16 seemed to know her, and Orion tried to talk to her as a friend despite her disapproval. As captain of the group of cogless Energon miners, Elita maintained a spotless record and was determined to eventually be promoted to overseer. While leading the miners toward the Energon mine, the mine began to collapse due to the instability of Energon. To comply with the rules and minimize casualties, she ordered Orion to desist from saving Jazz, but Orion refused. With the help of D-16, they barely managed to make it out of the collapsed tunnel, damaging nearby mining equipment. Elita was subsequently blamed for the disaster, despite having followed protocol to the latter, and was unfairly fired by Darkwing and demoted from her rank to waste management, much to her chagrin. She blamed Orion for ruining her life, even if he didn't mean for it to happen, and he tried to stand up for himself against Darkwing for firing Elita.
While loading crates of toxic waste, Elita watched in disbelief as the monitors revealed Orion and D-16 participating in the Iacon 5000 race. Later, she later discovered the two, along with the overly-talkative B-127, trespassing on transport train in an attempt to reach the planet's surface. Still furious about her demotion, Elita tried to report it, but the train closes and she attempted to sabotage it while it departing. Despite this, Cybertron's shifting geology caused the four bots to be thrown from the train upon reaching the surface, with Elita crying out in fury. Orion explained they had discovered the possible location of the Matrix of Leadership and were on a quest to retrieve the lost artifact. Snatching the map from Orion, Elita demanded that she be in charge and that if the lead turned out to be a dead end, the other three would take full responsibility for going out of bounds and say she had tried to stop them.
The quartet eventually arrived at a cave after dodging a Quintesson ship, which sought and destroyed lifeforms, discovering the bodies of the Thirteen Primes. After searching the cave unsuccessfully for the Matrix, the four discovered Alpha Trion still with his spark active and they revived him with an Energon cube, who then revealed to them via a recording that their leader, Sentinel Prime, was a traitor who betrayed the Primes as part of a deal with the Quintessons to give them Energon, and had removed their cogs at birth to have them could mine Energon as tribute for the invaders. After discovering the truth, Trion to aid the four, granted them the Primes' cogs, with Elita receiving Alchemist Prime's cog. The group retreated as Trion held off the approaching Death Trackers so they could escape.
As they were going back to Iacon City to reveal the truth, the four were captured by the former Cybertron High Guard. The Guard's leader, Starscream, demanded intelligence on Sentinel but was beaten into submission by D-16 and defeated him, who seized control of the Guard and began to prepare for an assault on Sentinel's tower. Unfortunately, it was at that point that Sentinel's forces, led by his enforcer, Airachnid, tracked them down and attacked the High Guard's base, capturing half of the Guard along with D-16 and B-127. Elita then saved Orion from the rubble only to discover they had lost the evidence of Sentinel's betrayal, causing Orion to give up on his goals. However, Elita, despite still thinking she's smarter than him, takes pity on his doubts by encouraging him with a "pep talk" that his blind optimism and courageous hope help them come this far into finding the Matrix and stating he inspires others to be more than what they are.
Though the remaining members of the Guard displayed some reluctance to support them in thwarting Sentinel's reign, Elita silenced them by slugging Shockwave in his eye. Formulating a plan to use the remaining Guard members along with additional support from the miners, Orion commanded the Guard to roll out for Sentinel's tower to rescue their friends. Using one of the Energon trains to return to Iacon with Elita in command, she and the Guard attacked by surprise Sentinel's army and crashed the train into the tower while Soundwave freed the prisoners. While D-16 battled Sentinel, Orion decided to capture Airachnid to use her memory and reveal Sentinel's crimes to the entire city. Elita, who was led away by Airachnid, battles her and eventually manages to defeat her by tearing off her spider legs, and taking her to the broadcast room to broadcasting the truth.
However, after the broadcast, Elita, Bee, and the others watched as D-16 betrayed and turned on Orion after sacrificed himself by attempting to prevent Sentinel's execution, dropping his former friend into Cybertron's core. Elita, horrified over Orion's death, attempts to save him from falling into the core, only to be held back by Bee. She watched in horror as D-16 killed Sentinel, and declared himself "Megatron" before commanding the High Guard to ransack the city. Though Elita and Bee attempted to stop Megatron's rampage, they were no match for his new, more powerful form. Luckily for them, Orion was reborn as Optimus Prime after the Primes and Primus deemed him worthy of the Matrix of Leadership. He returned to the surface, battled Megatron, and defeated him, banishing him from Iacon City along with the High Guard.
Afterward, Elita volunteered to be become Prime's second-in-command after she is freed from waste management as Optimus Prime restored Cybertron's Energon flow with the power of the Matrix of Leadership, granting all the transformation cogs to the miners. United as "Autobots", they vowed to defend Cybertron from the Quintessons and any future threats.
Personality[]
Elita-1 is first introduced as a strict, self-serving, and no-nonsense robot who always sticks by the rules at all costs and is very egotistical, prideful, and extremely arrogant, as she claims she is "better" than everyone else in "everyway" and thinks she's superior to them in terms of leadership. In fact, she takes her job so seriously to the point of following protocol all the way through, including to let others die when they are in trouble due to Sentinel's corrupted influence, such as when she refuses to let Orion and D-16 save a trapped Jazz from the collapsing mine which ultimately gets her fired by Darkwing and puts the blame on Orion for doing so (although Orion does try to accept the blame too).
She is also very short-tempered and expresses violent outbursts towards anyone who wronged her, as shown when she brutally beats up the trio when they attempt to sneak into the Energon Train and throws a tantrum after they get flown off of it, additionally calling the male bots insulting names like "Gobots" and "incompetent," regardless if their mistakes didn't warrant such harsh derision or even when they don't do anything wrong at all. Upon learning that Sentinel Prime was a corrupt fraud, she became deeply disillusioned like the others, although she kept a calmer head, considering pragmatic options, rather than falling into doubt like Orion, fear like Bumblebee, or blind rage like D-16.
Despite her demanding and egotistical nature, Elita does eventually show a kinder side towards Orion despite her major flaws with him, as seen when she digs him out of the rubble after the fight between the High Guard and Sentinel's forces when Orion saved her from being shot by one of the Death Trackers. Later on, she takes pity on Orion's insecurities when he believed that their plan of searching for the Matrix of Leadership and to foil Sentinel's lies was a failure by trying to give him a pep talk that, despite his antics and taunting him that she's "better than him in every way", she admires him for his hope and courageous optimism to how they came this close to finding the Matrix, inspiring those to be more than what they are while breaking protocol, and believing his leadership could build a better future that no one else can. Afterwards, she helps Orion take down Sentinel Prime by rallying up half of the High Guard to join him in his plan and defeating Airachnid for information (even though the way she did it was a bit demanding and violent).
Her immense care for Orion is further showcased near the end of the movie, as seen as when their former friend, D-16, accidentally kills and betrays the optimistic bot, Elita is shown in horror and distraught to the point she attempts to save him from falling to his death into the Allspark, only for her to be stopped by Bee to prevent her needless risk, showing that she has fully grown to care for Orion's well-being to become willing to risk her "superior" life for him. Additionally, after D-16/Megatron finally kills Sentinel and attempts to destroy Iacon City, both she and Bee tried to stop him after realizing he was going too far with his goals, which further showcasing her growing to care and being concerned about others and not just herself. After Orion becomes Optimus Prime and banished Megatron from Iacon City, she further praises him for his leadership and gladly accepts the offer of becoming Prime's second-in-command woman of the newly minted Autobots after he frees her from Waste Management, finally giving him the respect he earned from her and putting her hatred towards him to rest.
Gallery[]
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Trivia[]
- This version of Elita doesn't appear as the romantic love interest of Orion Pax/Optimus Prime, since the movie is mostly focusing on the fallen friendship of Optimus Prime and Megatron due to being an origin story. However, the chemistry between her and Prime is a hint at that.
- In an interview with the director, Josh Cooley, he stated that they really wanted Scarlett Johansson's character of Elita-1 to be important to the growth of Orion Pax becoming Optimus Prime and not just a character off to the side. With him being aware that in some of the continuities of the franchise, they are indeed a couple.
- This is the second version of Elita-One to appear in the film series and the second version to transform into a motorcycle, the first being her live-action counterpart.
- The cog that Elita got from Alpha Trion in the cave is Alchemist Prime's cog.