There has been a lot of talk about what Transformers 5 will be like.  It was slated to have a film release sometime in 2016, but this has been pushed to 2017.  Part of the reason for the delay might have to do with having Michael Bay, director of the first four films, back on board.  Bay has a reputation from movie-goers that isn't the best, but this time, he has a team of very high-qualified writers behind him, following a storyline that is almost three decades old.  This is what we know about Transformers 5 with its Release Date, Spoilers, Update, and Cast.  

According to Parent Herald, actor Mark Ryan, voice actor for the character of "Jetfire", talks about how there will be some focus on the human characters, particularly Mark Whalberg, introduced as Cade Yeager in Transformers: Age of Extinction.  Apparently, the franchise is moving in a different direction than previous movies, focusing more on the robots than the human characters.   

Vine Report says that Transformers 5 will introduce Ultra Magnus, a second-in-command character that was introduced in another Transformers movie, the animated one from 1986.  In that film, he was a car carrier that took on the mantle of leader after the Autobots' usual leader, Optimus Prime, was killed by Megatron. Yes, the death of Optimus Prime could happen in this film. 

There are also reports that Unicron will appear, who also first appeared in the first Transformers animated movie.  The Day Herald reports that Unicron was a "Decepticon Leader", but in actuality, Unicron didn't take any side.  Unicron was a planet that would eat other planets, and he could transform himself into a massively gigantic robot. 

The true leader of the Decepticons is Galvatron, who was originally Megatron.  Megatron was finished off in Transformers: Dark of the Moon, but he was then brought back to life in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.  He didn't really have much of a role in that fourth Transformers film, but it was clear they were setting him up for a fifth film. 

Also set up for the fifth film was Optimus Prime going into space, presumably to meet the Quintessons, the original builders of the Autobots and Decepticons.  This race was also introduced in the 1986 animated movie, which is starting to become what is going to be the direction they are going with the fifth installment of the series.

Most remember the 1986 animated film as not only the death of Optimus Prime, but it took the current animated series in a different direction.  The show originally took place during present-day Earth, but the movie took the series into the year 2005, which, at the time, was twenty years in the future. 

It has been reported that Akiva Goldsman his heading a team of screenwriters to write the script for Transformers 5, which apparently doesn't have a subtitle as of now.  If you aren't familiar with Goldsman work, he has written many speculative fiction movies including two Batman films (Batman Forever and the now infamous Batman and Robin), Lost in Space, I, Robot, and won an Oscar and Golden Globe for his work on A Beautiful Mind screenplay. Also helping out with the script are Ken Nolan, Geneva Robertson-Dworet, Christina Hodson, Lindsey Beer, Andrew Barrer, Gabriel Ferrari, Robert Kirkman, Art Marcum, Matt Hollowy, Zak Penn, and Jeff Pinker.  All these writers have incredibly great marks on their resume.  Robert Kirkman is the creator of The Walking Dead, Art Marcum worked on Iron Man, and so on. 

In addition to adding elements from the original 1986 movie, Akiva Goldman talked about bringing in elements from Beast Wars as well.  Beast Wars was a computer-animated series in the 1990s which had the Autobots and Decepticons become the Maximals and Predacons, respectively.  Instead of robots turning into machines, they would turn into animals. 

It is pretty clear that they are still in the idea phase for a film that will begin shooting next year and expected for a 2017 release date.