Did Hasbro come up with the idea to kill Optimus Prime or did Ron Friedman give it to them without meaning to?

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Starsaberdub
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Did Hasbro come up with the idea to kill Optimus Prime or did Ron Friedman give it to them without meaning to?

Post by Starsaberdub »

Ron Friedman said he wanted to kill characters and Hasbro let him but said he had to kill Optimus Prime.
When he asked did he give them that idea without meaning to?
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Denyer
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Re: Did Hasbro come up with the idea to kill Optimus Prime or did Ron Friedman give it to them without meaning to?

Post by Denyer »

Don't particularly recall from creator interviews, but if you look at the publishing timeline of eg Ladybird books the assumption was that Prime/Megatron were gone and Magnus/Galvatron were the new leaders (without clues to the fate of the previous ones) so it's a safe bet they wouldn't have appeared subsequently without a Hasbro diktat.

Plus robots are functionally immortal, there's a concept of backing up individuals, etc.
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Re: Did Hasbro come up with the idea to kill Optimus Prime or did Ron Friedman give it to them without meaning to?

Post by Warcry »

My recollection is that the production of the 80s Transformers movie was very intertwined with the production of the 80s G.I. Joe movie. If I'm remembering correctly, the Joe creative team came up with the idea of killing off Duke to make room for the new toys main characters. Hasbro really liked the idea, so they decided to do the same thing with Transformers as well -- kill off the old product so that kids would feel obliged to go out and buy the new heroes' toys.

The irony of it was that the Joe movie suffered production delays, and the reaction to Optimus being brutally killed on-screen was so negative that they wound up hastily editing Duke's death into just a serious injury that kept him out of the action for the rest of the movie.

This was the very beginning of the era where cartoons were allowed to advertise toys this directly, and I don't think the Hasbro execs comprehended that by putting the characters into media, they'd gotten kids to bond with them just as strongly as previous generations bonded with, say, Bugs Bunny or Yogi Bear. I don't think they understood at all that kids viewed Optimus any differently than a random Hot Wheels car.
Starsaberdub
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Re: Did Hasbro come up with the idea to kill Optimus Prime or did Ron Friedman give it to them without meaning to?

Post by Starsaberdub »

Warcry wrote: Fri Feb 03, 2023 5:18 pm My recollection is that the production of the 80s Transformers movie was very intertwined with the production of the 80s G.I. Joe movie. If I'm remembering correctly, the Joe creative team came up with the idea of killing off Duke to make room for the new toys main characters. Hasbro really liked the idea, so they decided to do the same thing with Transformers as well -- kill off the old product so that kids would feel obliged to go out and buy the new heroes' toys.

The irony of it was that the Joe movie suffered production delays, and the reaction to Optimus being brutally killed on-screen was so negative that they wound up hastily editing Duke's death into just a serious injury that kept him out of the action for the rest of the movie.

This was the very beginning of the era where cartoons were allowed to advertise toys this directly, and I don't think the Hasbro execs comprehended that by putting the characters into media, they'd gotten kids to bond with them just as strongly as previous generations bonded with, say, Bugs Bunny or Yogi Bear. I don't think they understood at all that kids viewed Optimus any differently than a random Hot Wheels car.
Would you please post a link to how the idea of killing Prime to be came to be?
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Re: Did Hasbro come up with the idea to kill Optimus Prime or did Ron Friedman give it to them without meaning to?

Post by Denyer »

In an interview with Buzz Dixon, apparently -- https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Duke_(G.I._Joe)
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