WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for director Travis Knight's Bumblebee, in theaters now.
After moving progressively forward in time from 2007 to 2017, Paramount and Hasbro's live-action Transformers films are finally taking a trip back to the past with the Bumblebee origin movie. After the events of Transformers: The Last Knight had us wondering what would become of Earth and Unicron, Bumblebee takes us back to the year 1987 to reveal the yellow Autobot's origin story.
Having no choice but to leave the war-torn Cybertron behind, Bumblebee makes his way to the cradle of humanity, Earth, where he is ordered to wait for the arrival of Optimus Prime and the rest of the Autobots. As he waits, we find out how Bee lost the ability to speak, how he learned to communicate through the radio, how he developed a bond with humanity and how, eventually, he would take on the appearance of an old Camaro.
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However, the connections to the previous Transformers movies don't end there. There is also John Cena's character, Agent Burns, who works for Sector 7, the super-secret military organization tasked with keeping the Transformers a secret from mankind. And it's in Sector 7 that you can find an incredibly easy to miss cameo appearance by none other than Agent Simmons.
Seymour Simmons first appeared in the first Transformers film, where he was played by John Turturro. Although he appeared as somewhat of an antagonist at first, it wasn't long before he became a friend of the Autobots and joined the fight against the Decepticons. Simmons would go on to appear in nearly every film, with main roles in Revenge of the Fallen and Dark of the Moon, and an appearance in The Last Knight -- making the fourth installment in the series, Age of Extinction, the only film in which he didn't appear. And now, we can add Bumblebee to his list of appearances.
Agent Simmons' cameo in Bumblebee is quite brief and easy to miss. The character appears in a scene set inside Sector 7, where a seemingly random agent delivers a message to John Cena's Agent Burns. However, this is no random agent, as eagle-eyed viewers will notice that the nametag on the agent's vest reads Simmons. Upon closer inspection, the hairstyle of the agent now makes it clear that this is a younger version of the character played by Turturro.
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From the brief appearance, it's obvious Simmons is nowhere near the agent he will become. He appears to be low on the Sector 7 food chain, but we know that, one day, he will move up to occupy the spot held by Cena's Burns -- or one very close to it.
While it's another actor who plays Simmons, the cameo further cements the character as part of the Transformers' cinematic universe. What's more, it shows that the Transformer expert was around when the Autobots and the Decepticons first took their war to Earth -- something that would send him on a path to find and detain Bumblebee decades later, in the original film.
Directed by Travis Knight from a script by Christina Hodson, Bumblebee stars Hailee Steinfeld, John Cena, Jorge Lendeborg Jr., Pamela Adlon, Jason Drucker, Abby Quinn, Rachel Crow, Ricardo Hoyos and Gracie Dzienny.