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If Optimus was "big daddy" then could another farther figure have worked better than the young Hot Rod who cased, along with Megatron, Optimus to go down in the first place?
What do YOU think?

Fans generally don't seem to like it when Autobot leaders are written as having a lot of self-doubts, whether it's Prime in the Marvel comics, Rodimus in the TV show or Magnus in the movie. IDW used the character as an overly-literal procedural obsessive with ASD traits. If memory serves, some of the Japanese manga was more positive and he got a fair amount of audience respect for the Marvel portrayal and taking on Galvatron albeit as a soldier (and one who didn't particularly want to throw his life away) before being sidelined.

Denyer wrote: ↑Thu Jan 05, 2023 9:20 pm Fans generally don't seem to like it when Autobot leaders are written as having a lot of self-doubts, whether it's Prime in the Marvel comics, Rodimus in the TV show or Magnus in the movie. IDW used the character as an overly-literal procedural obsessive with ASD traits. If memory serves, some of the Japanese manga was more positive and he got a fair amount of audience respect for the Marvel portrayal and taking on Galvatron albeit as a soldier (and one who didn't particularly want to throw his life away) before being sidelined.

What if Ultra Magnus was portrayed as not having a lot of self-doubts, Denyer?

The "I'm not worthy, Prime, I'm just a soldier" was arguably a big part of his characterisation.

Denyer wrote: ↑Sun Jan 08, 2023 1:42 pm The "I'm not worthy, Prime, I'm just a soldier" was arguably a big part of his characterisation.

What if Ultra Magnus was Optimus Prime changed like Megatron was changed into Galvatron in the movie?
Would that have been more acceptable for the fandom?

It would've been an interesting twist given the pre-movie publicity about "the new commanders being here!"

But it would mean a) Ultra Magnus didn't exist as a character, and b) the visual is significantly different. When Hasbro chose to bring Optimus back in the toyline (PM and G2) they focus a lot on the iconic red top / blue legs colour scheme.

Denyer wrote: ↑Mon Jan 09, 2023 7:25 pm It would've been an interesting twist given the pre-movie publicity about "the new commanders being here!"

But it would mean a) Ultra Magnus didn't exist as a character, and b) the visual is significantly different. When Hasbro chose to bring Optimus back in the toyline (PM and G2) they focus a lot on the iconic red top / blue legs colour scheme.

If they did the may cartoon may have gone on longer and how did the fandom view Galvatron being Megatron?

In the 80s there wasn't really much if any organised fandom either. As a kid in the UK, most of the exposure to the cartoon was on VHS but the Marvel UK comic was very popular at its height. I remember later on in primary school paying five quid for a Megatron with accs and the arms snapped off, and that person promptly redistributing that fiver to someone else for a Galvatron. Megatron was a fairly rubbish toy, and so was Galvatron, but I definitely had more interest in Megs.

As far as the movie itself went, Galvatron was pretty cool. Once he stopped being Leonard Nimoy the writing for the character was extremely variable. The writing in S3 isn't significantly worse than S1/S2 but the transition to mostly new characters and generally darker visuals/tone was less appealing, personally. Particularly the incidental background music and the particularly poor stories involving the Quintessons.

Starsaberdub wrote: ↑Tue Jan 10, 2023 3:30 am If they did the may cartoon may have gone on longer

I've wondered this myself! I was a bit younger than the franchise's original target audience -- I was born in 1984, so Rodimus was the Prime I grew up with as far as the cartoon goes. When I discovered the online fandom I realized that most fans were a fair bit older than me and had a very different perspective on things. A lot of people do say that the movie -- and killing off Optimus in particular -- killed the Transformers cartoon for them.

I've always wondered how much truth there is in that, though. I feel like a lot of those older fans would have stopped watching no matter what because they were aging out of the demographic for what was -- let's be honest -- a pretty dumbed-down kids TV show. I think a lot of those kids would have gotten bored of the show and stopped watching no matter what happened in the movie, and a lot of the anecdotes you hear nowadays are just people applying retroactive logic -- "I stopped watching after Optimus died, so that must be why I stopped watching" -- to the normal process of outgrowing stuff you liked as a little kid. I remember when I slowly lost interest in the TMNT and Batman and Power Rangers as a kid, but it's not like the shows got worse...I just grew up and wanted to do other things.

I think the movie's biggest failure wasn't killing off Optimus Prime, or alienating old fans. The failure was that it didn't do enough the generate new fans to replace the ones who were naturally outgrowing the show. Ironically, making it a movie in the first place probably doomed it. The only people who'd go see it in the theatre were the kids who were already fans, and season three of the cartoon started off with the assumption that kids had seen the movie and knew who all the new main characters were.

Had Rodimus been portrayed as more appealing to the audience as leader would they have still brought back Optimus Prime?

That's a good one! Rodimus probably had better characterisation in the old cartoon compared to Optimus, he seemed more rounded to me, having doubts everyone has about their ability to lead, whereas Optimus was a bit one-note. Rodimus being the leader "in the future" was a good proposition, but it takes the sheen off Optimus in the present knowing he's going to die. I think if Hasbro had handled things differently, we might be having a different conversation - they very quickly learnt that killing off valuable IP wasn't a good idea. Unlike Warcry, I was around at the beginning but the future cast always appealed more to me - I'm guessing it's because the focus was kept around a small group of new characters, which tended to resonate more. In both the Marvel UK comic and the cartoon show, that helped them stand out against a very crowded cast a bit more for me.