don't blame Hot Rod

what the hell was their problem? I was ten years old for christ's sake. just a boy. i BELIEVED in him. he was real. we played together everyday. when he wasn't flying around my house or helping me wrangle ants in my driveway, he was the guardian posed on my dresser. the kind of badass pose that only a robot disguised as an 18-wheeler can pull off. more badass than any Joe, furry-underpants-wearing-Greyskull-guy, cat or shelled reptile. and certainly more badass than any of the characters on other deception based shows. check out the other guys in action:




wow. anyway.

fundamentally, Optimus Prime anchored the show. He was the leader of the good guys. His character was obviously the father figure, watching over his troops and his fans. to this day, his image is the most widely used Transformer image.

so, the question remains. what the hell was their problem? you make a movie of a really popular kids TV show and then kill the main character during the first act. 10-year old fanboys were not prepared for this:




are you kidding me? you don't make a My Little Pony movie and kill the fucking pony. and i'm pretty sure Kermit survived The Muppets take Manhattan.

I was devastated. after the movie my friends and I took advantage of the arcade games in the lobby of the theater. under normal circumstances, the arcade gave me great joy. but this was PPD, Post-Prime-Death. i tried to play Tron, but it was no use. i had lost my will to live...in the virtual world. LightCycles went in straight lines, tanks refused to fire and i could only sit and watch my character inch up towards the multicolored MCP blocks.

it's funny now, but I went home and cried while I held my Optimus Prime toy. my buddy was dead, man. it was sad. through tears i spoke to him like it was the last time we were going to talk. i'm not being dramatic here, this was genuine mourning.

things just weren't the same after that. he was the only Transformers toy I owed. i no longer felt connected to the show. innocence was lost. the magic was exposed. without Prime, they were just a bunch of delusional appliances with personality disorders and violent tendencies.

now i know his death was motivated by greed. consumerism killed the O.P. gotta make way for new toys. I'm not going to get into all that. but I kid you not, if I ever meet the guy who wrote that movie, or the toy executives that thought it would be a good idea to kill Optimus Prime, I'll speak for that ten year old kid. then again, i hope such a confrontation doesn't occur. there's a good chance i'd start crying again and that would only make things awkward.