How critical was the first death of Optimus Prime?

[Sinnertwin]

As a child watching the movie, I was more frustrated with Hot Rod. Megatron has absolutely no qualms in slaughtering a shuttle full of Autobots, yet he just casually tosses Hot Rod aside.

Yet here we are almost 30 years later discussing it. Safe to say Prime's first death has made quite an impact

[GoktimusPrime]

Note: I haven't seen the Ron Friedman interview yet. Following comments are based on my own personal experience and observation.

In 1986 I had the plot of TFTM spoiled for me before I watched it. At that age I didn't care about spoilers, and another kid at school had seen the film before me -- and in the playground I listened eagerly as he told me what happened. So I knew that Optimus Prime would die and that Hot Rod would become Rodimus Prime to replace him etc., and when I first heard about it my thought was, "Cool!", because to me it suddenly "matured" the story. Because as a maturing audience member, that's what you want from your story. You want it to "grow up" as you do, rather than continually appealing to that little child in you when you started. And this is clearly a direction that Sunbow writers took with the G1 cartoon after Season 2, not only by killing off a lot of characters, but also by setting it in the future and taking the story off Earth in Season 3.

As for the franchise itself, as Sky Shadow said, I'd look at the toy line. Another thing they did w/ the toys was to start introducing more fantasy alt modes instead of licensed vehicles (i.e. the core of the "robots in disguise" element). e.g. Bluestreak transforms into a Datsun (Nissan) Fairlady Z, a recognisable vehicle that you can see on the streets. Hot Rod transforms into a fictitious sports car with Michael Bay lovin' chopper flames and massive pipes on the sides, plus a huge spoiler on the back that puts modern aviation to shame. Then he becomes upgraded into Rodimus Prime transforms into a Space Winnebago(TM). The Decepticon jets were F-15 Eagles, or at least a modification of that... I honestly thought that Scourge was a boat when I first saw him. I didn't realise that he was meant to be an aircraft until after I watched TFTM! Then as G1 progressed they kept on making more fantasy alt modes (re: Targetmasters, Headmasters etc.). However by 1988 they went back to making more licensed vehicles; e.g. Porsche 959 (Nightbeat), AH-64 Apache helicopter (Spinister), Leopard 2 tank (Quake), Porsche 962 Le Mans racing car (Backstreet), B-1B Lancer bomber (Windsweeper) et al., but of course, the Anglophone G1 cartoon had already been cancelled the year before then, although the comics did continue for a good couple of years after that.

G2's attempt to revive the franchise in 1993-95 didn't work well. I think a large part of that problem was that it was too much like G1 -- bringing back old toys in weird colours? Okay. G2 did produce some good toys later on, and maybe if they'd just _started_ G2 with those kinds of toys it might've fared better, but sadly that wasn't the case. Market research in the mid 90s indicated that animal toys were more popular than vehicles with kids, and so Hasbro (via Kenner) released Beast Wars, which as we all know was incredibly successful (it became the third best selling boys' toyline in the US behind Toy Story and Star Wars). So when I look at the "fall and rise" of the Transformers franchise with G1, G2 and BW, it all boils down to the quality of the toys. And this is what displeases me with Hasbro's current direction in making Transformers a "screen first" franchise, allowing animators instead of engineers dictate the design of toys.

As a child watching the movie, I was more frustrated with Hot Rod. Megatron has absolutely no qualms in slaughtering a shuttle full of Autobots, yet he just casually tosses Hot Rod aside.

Answer: Because the Autobots in the shuttle were no longer in production, whereas Hot Rod was a new toy that had to be marketed. Oh wait, you mean an in-canon explanation? A wizard did it.

[Gofigure]

I was a hardcore fan as a kid until 1986 when two things happened

1. Hasbro Aus sent me a catalog in the post showcasing the 86 series of G.i.joe figures and vehicles. I assumed that was a message that TF figs were not going to be a priority for them. So I 'moved on' to modern military soldiers' like a good little consumer

2. The 86 movie poster had none of my favourite characters. I'm not going to see a movie without prowl or bumblebee or ratchet. Who were these weird looking autobots? And where was optimus prime? As a 9 year old I knew something was amiss. So yeah for me personally the death of optimus really impacted me and my interest ie collecting

We'll done 80s hasbro

[liegeprime]

As the Friedman ( tempura anyone ) interview said.... when executives signing the checks behave in a way of thinking they are doing something creative then things go wrong...Hasbro never knew what they had with Optimus, they never realized that it's more than just a toy to their buyers. But this is basically a good description of how decision making and how the buyers are viewed in the Hasbro top brass' mind.

We are just but numbers anyways in their accounting sheets, piechart percentages which is why their decision to kill Prime got passed. Yup, we have a new toy, don't worry we'll back it up in the cartoon promotions, the kids will love it as it says here in our survey 88% will so on and so forth.....only in the end yeah, um big mistake.... The "salvage" efforts in the voice over - "he shall return" in the newly mastered versions is more of a lesson learned the hard way after negative media feedback.

As for me personally, I guess since Prime never was my favourite character, him dying in the movie was kinda a , oh... ok, so now what? moment only for me. I was more upset that they killed off Starscream. Really. I was more upset when Cobra Commander mutated into a snake and had a petulant spoiled brat like Serpentor lead Cobra unopposed (or so it seemed for a while).
I looked at Prime's death at the time and actually thought... all that equipment they have around and there's a guy there (Perceptor) who supposedly has fixed a whole lot of really broken stuff before and now he can't even fix a side cut on Prime.... what a weak death IMO. He was barely even damaged, no torn off limbs or anything sputtering and leaking and yet a side cut kills him... weak.

[GoktimusPrime]

As the Friedman ( tempura anyone )

Dude it's pronounced "Freedmun" - it a Franco-Germanic surname meaning "man of peace." So naturally a perfect name for a person writing stories about warring alien robots.
http://inogolo.com/pronunciation/Friedman

[liegeprime]

Dude it's pronounced "Freedmun" - it a Franco-Germanic surname meaning "man of peace." So naturally a perfect name for a person writing stories about warring alien robots.
http://inogolo.com/pronunciation/Friedman

I know, Gok, but couldn't pass it up coz after reading the interview, I watched something on youtube about how to make a good tempura and somehow his Surnames spelling was so coincidental. But I do know how his surname is pronounced - it's the spelling I'm having a go at being funny at.... unsuccessfully I guess coz it seems to have flown passed you... Im being an-10-year-old-bully-in-school-playing-with-someone's-surname-mindset- at that time okaaay?

[Paulbot]

The death of Optimus Prime showed Transformers was an ensemble concept. Most of the other cartoons at the time had one star. You couldn't kill off He-Man, Astroboy, Inspector Gadget, Marshall Bravestarr, etc. Transformers could go on without Prime. Battles could have big stakes. The status quo could change signiciantly. There could be new Autobots to takeover (and new Decepticons to battle). This wasn't something you saw in many US cartoons at the time. It made Transformers something different, a bit more special.

And although they backtracked a bit too quickly it was possible for Transformers to go on without Optimus Prime toys or appearances. (Something I wish new series would attempt too)

I looked at Prime's death at the time and actually thought... all that equipment they have around and there's a guy there (Perceptor) who supposedly has fixed a whole lot of really broken stuff before and now he can't even fix a side cut on Prime.... what a weak death IMO. He was barely even damaged, no torn off limbs or anything sputtering and leaking and yet a side cut kills him... weak.

Of course on rewatching you know it's more than a cut. First there's the barrage of weapon fire at his chest weakening the armour, then Megatron is pretty committed to hitting the same part of the body. First the spear, the cut to the same area, which exposes internal organs, and then Megatron shoots him in the same spot (twice). Whatever Cybertronian organs are there must be crucial.

[Deonasis]

[FONT="Century Gothic"][SIZE="3"]As a child watching the movie, I was more frustrated with Hot Rod. Megatron has absolutely no qualms in slaughtering a shuttle full of Autobots, yet he just casually tosses Hot Rod aside.

I love that they killed Optimus (and that he later came back). I think that Megatron letting this Hot Rod kid live with the pain that he aided Optimus's death is a fine piece of cruelty and shows how little Megatron thought of Hot Rod's ability (pretty big in-movie mistake) and how focused he was to finally seize the opportunity and kill Optimus Prime.

It was genius writing that paved the way for a doubting leader (which was handled badly in post-movie episodes).

Damn i love this movie

[GoktimusPrime]

Optimus Prime's deaths in the G1 comics were also pretty traumatic. The first time was when Prime allowed himself to be killed because - wait for it - Megatron had beaten him in a LAN game. Even though Megatron was exposed for having code-hacked the game and won by cheating. It's similar premise to "Heavy Metal War," only that in the G1 cartoon the penalty was exile, not death - and Optimus Prime agreed that Megatron's cheating voided the agreement. Whereas G1 comic Optimus Prime adamantly insisted on keeping his word and maintaining his honour, and that Megatron's hacking changes nothing. Snap. As much as I generally prefer the G1 comics over the cartoon, this wasn't one of the comics' more shining moments. Although Optimus Prime's second death in the comics, going Kamikaze into Unicron's maw while opening the Matrix, was pretty damn epic (arguably the most epic demise of Optimus Prime evah) . . . but of course, being bathed in Matrix energy during the explosion actually kept Optimus Prime alive (although shredded), allowing him to crash back on Cybertron and die a slow and painful death! It would've been more humane him to have just properly blown up and died from the explosion. Then of course Prime used his dying breath to whisper something to Prowl that he did not want to hear! Oh... if only he had a table to flip! Then Prime's death in G2 was just downright gruesome, with Optimus allowing the Swarm to consume him.

Prime's death in TFTM at least looked like a 'peaceful passing,' whereas his comic deaths were just painfully agonising!

[Paulbot]

Do you think they'd have let Marvel do a big death scene for Prime if he wasn't dying in the movie? I dont think so. It wasn't like they used his absence to sell Rodimus Prime or Ultra Magnus. Until #24 only Sunstreaker had been "killed off" and that was just an "unrepairable" state. (and I'm just talking toy characters in US Marvel of course, Marvel UK had a bit more loose Hasbro control). The big death in the movie was surely a driving point to do something similar in the books.