Seeing Prime die in the movie in a theater in 86 was shocking...and depressing.

 

I don't know ... I'd say flying into Unicron's maw to choke him with the Matrix's power is pretty badass, actually! (And yes, I know you mean his death over a video game.)

 

Only the first time in the 1986 movie and maybe the first time it happened in the old Marvel comics run issue #24. After that, it was more shocking to see Optimus go a whole series without dying.

 

His second death in he Marvel G1 Comic. That was pretty brutal.

 

Transformers: The Movie from 1986. The deaths of so many characters shocked me, especially Optimus. I was 11 at the time.

It was like seeing that 1987 GI Joe animated movie, and seeing "actual" injuries and blood after years of watching every laser pistol shot miss in the daily animated series.

 

Honestly I would only be shocked by an Optimus Prime death if they truly do kill him off in The Last Knight like so many people think will happen. Mainly because they had already killed him off once and I wouldn't have expected them to do it again. Also with it being a permenant death so Bumblebee or Hot Rod... just saying become the new leader of the Autobots would be total mind blowing considering the 1986 incident that made Hasbro paranoid about the subject for years. Though I'm not saying that's going to happen, in fact I'm pretty confident it won't. But it's that confidence that would end up creating the shock if the unlikely does indeed happen.