If I recall in the G1 movie a interview with someone. One man said they were just killing of a toy line and the movie was nothing more then a huge commercial for the new toys. The producers and Hasbro had no idea how huge Prime was. That is why Duke did not die. The complaints from parents and kids was a surprise to them. Lesson learned.

 

Both of those are the product of a lack of communication between Hasbro and the Japanese studios. Scramble City barely fits in with the main show anyway thanks to the use of Metroplex and Trypticon, which then contradicts Five Faces of Darkness. They can be made to fit, though, by explaining it as repairs rather than reconstruction.
The fighting alongside on top of Metroplex counts for nothing since it too came from the miscommunication, nobody bothered telling the Japanese the Movie plot up front so they could keep their fiction straight.

My understanding of it was that Flint Dille wanted a character to die in GI Joe to drive home the realities of war and soldiers (he'd always written that series to be a shade more serious than Transformers). Hasbro supposedly pushed for Optimus getting killed after hearing this, on the logic "it's good enough for our number 2 franchise, so let's bring it in on the number 1 franchise too".
Maybe Optimus would have upgraded into Ultra Magnus originally. I know the original idea for the Movie was a lot different to the final version.

 

The Magnus armour could've just been used as a mobile repair suit for Optimus after the battle with Megatron, but in the end he decides that he'll never recover fully and has to step down as commander and the Matrix is passed on while he adopts the new name Ultra Magnus to make way for a new Prime.

Something I suggested to bring a form of Ultra Magnus to the second Bay movie would've been that Optimus gets so badly damaged in an early battle that he's sprayed white with a medical nanobot paint 'bandage' and then is covered in an exo-frame and helmet 'mobility harness' to help him keep up with things.
He could wear that for almost the entire movie while commanding from the Autobot base or a roadside in alt mode, and then near the end when all seems lost and he has no choice but to enter the fray, he busts out of it while roaring into combat and transforming and joins in the final battle with a new body (so Hasbro can sell a new Optimus toy  ).

Anyway, that's what I'd do...  

 

IMHO, G1 Optimus Prime never needed an EXO-suit to get the job done. That's why he never wanted to look like Ultra Magnus.

 

Eh, I like PM Prime better as an upgrade/new body for regular Prime. And while it may have been brief, I liked that we actually got to see somebody else leading the Autobots for a while; at the very least it made people appreciate having OP that much more.

 

Prime's Death was mocked and lessened when Ultra Magnus gets hosed by Galvatron and a fleet of seekers, only to be revived by a few Junkions and Turtle Wax. which makes me wonder...if it was that easy for them to raise the dead, then why couldn't OP be upgraded or saved as well?
and the horrors of war point had already been made with the shuttle massacre, and the bodies arcee was dragging to the rocket launcher.


i can see the point, considering that UM's truck is a clone of Prime to begin with and explanations would have been simple.

personally, i'd rather have Op upgrade to UM, than have Prime be slaved to something called Hi-Q.

 

quick question:
in that Diaclone Power Convoy commercial, did i see a red and yellow Tracks????

 

Miracle Max: Whoo-hoo-hoo, look who knows so much. It just so happens that your friend here is only MOSTLY dead. See, there's a big difference between mostly dead, and all dead. Now, mostly dead: he's slightly alive. All dead, well, with all dead, there's usually only one thing that you can do.
Inigo: What's that?
Miracle Max: Go through his clothes and look for loose change.

 

'Cause Ultra Magnus articulation and mobility are shit?

 

I think I read an interview somewhere as well or maybe it was a dvd where Hasbro later on admits that they made a mistake killing off Prime which is the reason why they brought him back at the end of the third season since sales were down. By that time it was too late in that kids were already alienating the show because Optimus Prime and most of thier favorite characters were now gone and replaced completely with new ones and no chance of them coming back. I personnaly would have loved to see Prime and others from G1 get some kind of upgrade and then slowly intergrate the new charcters into the mix. Win Win for both sides where kids get to watch thier favorite characters but still come to terms with new ones. Kind of like season 1 and two with the introduction of the Dinobots, Constructicons, Aerialbots, Combaticons, etc.... Mixing the old with the new instead of such an abrupt transition. JMO.

 

It's simple really. Optimus Prime turned grey and Ultra Magnus didn't. As you said, he just needed Turtle Wax, but to revive Optimus, they would have needed lots of paint, and paint aps are expensive!

 

To echo a friend's opinion, the writers may even have been trying to avoid the combination hi-jinks like super-modes. Perhaps they disliked that aspect of the other super-robot shows.

 

yeah that made him really stick out in g1...

 

Right Now, somewhere on the web there's a writer from the original 80's movie saying to himself... "Now why in the hell didn't we think of that?!?!"

That could have changed the coarse of the US TF market and kept them going for so much longer over here. I always considered the death of Prime the downfall of G1 here in the US.

 

Well, for one, the Junkions and their mad repair skillz weren't nearby when Prime died.

But even with the Junkion factor, it does seem a wee bit suspicious that Ultra Magnus got shot to pieces and then revived, whereas Prime just plain died.

 

Yeah, but if Dreamwave and the toy itself are our basis for UM's design, then Magnus was all safe and probably just stunned INSIDE the main torso of the suit of armour. The Junkions probably just repaired the "suit" and Magnus revived inside it.

 

i think the TF movie writers were just following the formula for an epic story - have the main character die so that a supporting character can realise his true potential and rise to become the savior.

 

IMO the G1 universe jumped the shark when that movie was released. The beginning of the end.

 

PM Prime seems to me like the better upgrade, since it uses his original colors and trailer. Just a bigger, faster, stronger Prime vs. a kibble suit. PM Prime's trailer in its battle staion mode was also in line with the original trailer's abilities. It was/is a bummer that Prime died in the movie, but he wasn't my favorite character anyways, so I like it the way it is, and really enjoyed the new characters, storylines and especially the toys...

 

yes but why wasnt he upgraded at the same time if magnus is in essence Dion and Prime Orion Pax why didnt alpha Trion build them both to be the same everyone knows extra armor against the depticon has to be a good thing it would allow you to take more damage and stay fighting