The G1 franchise died years after the movie. You can't blame the movie.

 

I missed out on TF:TM in theatres. I remember PM Prime and Tommy presenting it to me as a miniseries in syndication. I remember crying when Optimus died. I remember moving on quickly and started buying Terrorcons. It meant a whole lot more to me when I was in high school and realized how brutally violent it actually was. Since then, I've been a Decepticon supporter through and through.

If it wasn't for Transformers: The Movie I might have been a doctor or something helpful to mankind. Instead, I strive to bring a little chaos to this corner of the universe.

 

I was OK with Prime dying, but I never understood why Ultra Magnus didn't wind up in charge.

 

Duke was meant to die in the GI Joe movie but it was changed because of the reaction to the death of Optimus Prime.

GI Joe was meant to come out in the cinema before TF the Movie but got delayed.

 

^Agreed. I'm a mid-90s guy, so I didn't see the movie when it premiered, but I did see for the first time a couple years back. Seeing Ironhide (my absolute favorite character) killed off so cold and violently by Megatron...   That was a bit disturbing for me.

 

Ugh, dude you're making me feel sick  

 

Shed a tear when Prime died. Thought Rodimus was kinda whiny. That was about it. Some of the cast was still there. I mean, Grimlock was still in the show. Bumblebee, here and there.

 

I thought it was awesome. I remember thinking "This cartoon has balls" but more to the wording of a five year old. Seeing a cartoon take risks, make things so epic scaled, and have things happen that caused overall consequences to the mythologies universe, that's what made me love Transformers so much as a child and continue to love them today. In comparison to the other cartoons I had been exposed to at that young point in my life - that was a pretty effing big deal.

Add the over the top quality animation, the superb DiCola score, and the fact that the cartoon characters were cursing. I was forever in love.

 

I was about 7 when I saw it in the theatre, and I cried when Prime died. Even back then I knew a marketing coup when I saw one though, and subsequently I pretty much resented all the post-movie TF's. I didn't think much of toys like Rodimus Prime, and much of the line turned to plastic shortly thereafter.

Although I kept collecting them, I was never as in love with the newer toys as the old ones. Thankfully I was all about the comics when I was younger anyway, so I could still see Prime and co kick ass in between occasional deaths and rebirths...

 

I don't remember it much The first time I saw it was on tape right around G2, I believe I was shocked that it happened, I wasn't even close to being fazed. Now there was this one time during one of the Power Ranger end of season cliffhangers were the Power Rangers lost that made me cry for 10 mins until I realized theres always next season. Transformers I never really thought that dead Transformers were going to be dead long, I guess I figured Wreak-Gar would fix Optimus and during G2 they never aired season 3 episodes, so I was happy with my imaginative resurrection of Optimus.

 

For some bizzare reason I saw the 86 movie years after it had been out when I was closing in on ten yrs old perhaps this is why I could not be moved to tears by the death of Prime, lol. My reaction to that death and all others were WOAH!!!!! I thought it was awesome and daring by the makers of the movie to just slaughter some of the most iconic characters in cartoon history that I used to watch every saturday morning in one master stroke, one that had several reprocussions, some irrevocable!

WOW, was all I could think, like someone said earlier this cartoon had balls! TFTM, for me, raised and set the bar for all cartoon movies based on a popular ongoing series. To date, I don't think it's daring, epicness and grittines have been topped by any other movie in cartoon series IMO (relatively speaking, of course)!

 

I was 9 when I saw the movie, loved Transformers at the time, and to see all the Autobots getting killed was kind of upsetting, when Prime died I thought, wait he's going to come back, he always comes back and he didn't. I did find it odd how basically most of the Decepticons didn't die in the film, Megatron, Skywarp, Thundercracker and the Insecticons all were reformated, so essentially didn't really die. Starscream did die, but became a spirit and got a new body.

 

I think I was more pissed than anything. Rodimus never did anything for me.

 

I was 11 when I saw it for the first time, I'm 17 now lol. I was pretty shocked and actually did not see it coming. I thought maybe on his deathbed scene he would be put out of action until the end of the movie where he'd come in and save the day and then...well, he died and I'll admit I cried. I got nightmares from the Space Shuttle attack scene afterwards. Seeing all my favourite characters go out like that, especially Prowl's death and Ironhide's stuck me with long after as haunting.

 

I didn't see the movie until years afterward, I watched season 3 and noticed robots missing and talk of them being killed.

I was shocked and fascinated at the same time. Up until then Transformers would get hit and walk away from it, or with other cartoons, whenever a plane got shot down, the pilots would always escape in parachutes.

The movie did show some balls. I just got through explaining, how on sites like YouTube they have entire clips devoted to those scenes, with discussions.