In all fairness, Optimus Prime was dealing with a lot in Rebirth. The Matrix was gone, Vector Sigma was putting visons in his head, Prime's closest friends were still dead, with the exception of Jazz and Goldbug. (Wonders where Jazz was). He was dealing with an insane Galvatron, more powerful than Megatron, and with Spike's help Optimus started a new Golden Age on Cybertron. Maybe he wasn't "Optimus" to you, but with all things considered, he was still Optimus Prime to me. I was also touched by the compassion he showed to Fortress. I think Rebirth made good closure for the three seasons. Even Hot Rod was happy as a Targetmaster.
Well you can sort of argue that Optimus Primal and Megatron "die" at the end of Beast Machines. What happened to them is certainly vague and ambiguous if it is not death and rejoining the All-Spark. There were quite a few characters killed of in the 1986 movie who didn't come back either. Prowl in Animated dies at the end as well, Blurr died two thirds through the show (sadly Derrick J. Wyatt's picture is not canon). There are a few deaths in Transformers but largely I think the problem is often the franchise is bad at dealing with it. Then there's the whole debate of that children are too young to understand the concept of death properly so you need to obscure it or bring people back. Neither are really healthy illusions to give though. But as a kind of show that's very much based outside of reality in a fantastic universe, death tends to be less of a barrier sadly. Comics often suffer from this as well.
I think it depends on your view of Transformers. I tend to view them as robotic superheroes since some of them have powers that the other robots do not share. So in the light of being a superhero cartoon with robots instead of organic heroes then back from the dead is just part of the story telling. Superman, Batman, Captain America just about every superhero and supervillain has died and come back at some point. Plus it's a nice card for a writer to have if they realize that killing off a character was not a good idea after all.
I see where you're coming from with this. However what is your take on the following? God Ginrai was killed in Transformers: Victory. He was later resurrected as Victory Leo, who possessed only bits and pieces of who/what God Ginrai used to be. This is essentially the same as Dinobot into Dinobot-2. Each one of them started life as one being, died, and then began a second "half-life" I guess as someone else. Does this constitute as reincarnation or recycling, because we ARE talking about machines here, and not organic life-forms. ~Z
Generation 1 Ironhide, Ratchet, Brawn, Windcharger, and the bots on the first planet Unicron ate in the 86 movie, as well as lots of Sharticons were destroyed. Cybertron Galvatron was destroyed. A few bots from the new movie didn't make it. Blurr, Starscream and Megs in Animated.
Generation 1 Ironhide, Ratchet, Brawn, Windcharger, and the bots on the first planet Unicron ate in the 86 movie, as well as lots of Sharticons were destroyed. Cybertron Galvatron was destroyed. A few bots from the new movie didn't make it. Blurr, Starscream and Megs in Animated.
dont get me wrong guys, i know people die for good, in transformer cartoons.... its just that alot more than necessary, dont
I loved the idea. But, I don't think Ginrai was dead.... he was dieing. Even if he had died, it's still a great idea. Reincarnation is an interesting way to go.... as long as it's a completely new character with just some traits of their former self. Now that you've brought it up, I wish they would do this for a character in Transformers.
yea, that was and still is my favorite episode of transformers ever. and was BECAUSE he died. bringing back dinobot 2 didnt take anything away from that.
It's a LOT easier to revive a machine than an organic being. I've brought "dead" cars back to life by replacing damaged/destroyed parts. As long as a Transformer's programming core is intact, I don't see why they couldn't be brought back. And really, a TON of characters die in Beast Wars: Scorponok, Terrorsaur, Inferno, Quickstrike, Rampage, Depth Charge, Ravage, Tigerhawk, Transmutate, Dinobot, Tarantulas... it's a pretty bloody show when you think about it.
I wish someone would grow a pair and kill someone important off. They could make it like Tree Trunks for Adventure Time, come to know and feel for a character and have them explode at the end.
Yeah, they just got "sent away." But in Beast Wars Tarantulas got obliterated (comics recton bullcrap notwithstanding) and Dinobot never truely came back. (the clone was just remembering the original, but wasn't actually Dinobot)
Haven't seen much of Clone Wars, so I can't debate that. But Inferno was completely vaporized at the end of BW Season 2, and then he's back at the beginning of Season 3 as if it hadn't happened. If there had been a Season 4, he probably would have come back again. And I don't mean to suggest that it's just because producers are reluctant to deal with death in children's cartoons. There's also the matter of creating fan-favorites. People loved Inferno, so why kill him off permanently? It doesn't make sense from a financial perspective. Hasbro intended to kill off Optimus permanently in the 86 movie simply because they weren't selling his toy anymore, and they were completely unprepared for the fan backlash, not realizing they had created an icon. They didn't just bring Optimus back because kids cried. They realized they could make more money off of the CHARACTER, not just the TOY. Enter Powermaster Optimus. How many people bought that toy because it was a new Transformer, and how many people bought that toy because it was a new OPTIMUS? These days, it's ridiculous to expect any major character to stay dead for long, and most minor characters will probably come back too at some point. Depending on how you view death, this is either an advantage or a drawback to popularity and longevity. Every character is somebody's fan-favorite. "Aw, I loved that guy! Hasbro bring him back!" Explain the excitement surrounding the upcoming Darkmount toy, based on a very minor character from two issues of a twenty-four-year-old comic book? A very succinct way of putting what I've taken many more words to get across. Writing a genre property is like a game of hot potato. As long as the music is playing/show is running, everybody's in play no matter how many times they touch the potato/die. The only time death is permanent is when the show ends/music stops.
I don't know, how many times have we heard, "Oh my god! They killed Kenny!" "YOU BASTARDS!" How many times has Kenny died on South Park, yet he's still in every episode! LOL!
I read/heard somewhere that Kenny has been killed 101 times in all of the seasons of the show. But no, Kenny has not been in every episode...most of season 6 Kenny was dead and did not appear on the show.
Death as a punchline. If you look at it a certain way, it's a meta comment on the death/resurrection cycle. Quite adroit, really.
I think every time a transformer comes back to life, they should be treated like Time Lords. New body, erratic transition period, then same basic bot with some new personality traits..
