Prime! You can’t die!
Author: Penge | Date: June 13, 2008I’m man enough to admit that the clip above, provided courtesy of YouTube’s magical video delivery system (which must surely be powered by witchcraft), made me cry.
When I was a child, I watched the Transformers film. This was back in the day before spoilers and previews, so I really didn’t know what to expect. I remember watching on in horror and sorrow as Optimus Prime, the leader of my beloved Autobots, died. Like the light in Prime’s eyes, a little part of myself also died that day.
Optimus Prime was dead. I cried. I burst into tears, I openly wept, I wailed. To the young me, Optimus Prime was the very epitome of Hero. He was valiant, he was brave, he always had a useful moral message to give and, more importantly, he was a TRUCK that changed into a ROBOT. I recall being very sad and looking forlornly at my Optimus Prime toy, looking into the face of a dead, er… robot. The young me fared badly, but I pulled on through after a few bleak weeks.
I seriously don’t think that the makers of the Transformers movie realised what a profound effect the death of Prime had on millions of people. Did He-Man die? No. Lion-O? No. What if this had happened in a franchise of girls toys? Imagine the outrage if the lead pony (?) of My Little Pony was butchered and turned into glue. Mental scarring for life. But it didn’t happen, whereas the death of Prime did very much take place.
So when I stumbled across the clip above and watched it in it’s entirety, I did feel a twinge of sorrow. The memories came flooding back and I did, for a moment, feel quite sad. Seriously, they KILLED one of the great characters of 1980’s cartoons, and the repercussions of that are clearly still being felt by me now. However, I am glad to report that upon watching the clip, now, in 2008, my adult self didn’t cry.
Well, much. But it makes me vulnerable and sweet and lovely to admit it, right? It’s good that I’m in touch with my fragile, emotional side, right? Guys? Oh alright, let the mockery commence.
Incidentally, this is my first ’simulcast’ on both randomlinkage.com and teamteabag.com, so hello to everyone. I hope you can join me in my time of grief, or if not I hope you can humiliate me with amusing comments.
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Don’t worry about it too much – I cried at the end of The Snowman when the poor bastard melted
I was quite scarred as well. The wounds seemed to have healed now that I saw him in the movie. But still, it was life changing.
Especially since we grew up with him as a hero.
Right, back to life.
Don’t forget the final fight between Prime and Megatron (complete with The Touch by Stan Bush), and the cgi remake. I still get a shiver when I hear “one shall stand, and one shall fall.”
He came back to life at the end of Season Three.
You might like the “Transformers: The Movie” Radio Parody at http://knoledge.org/mormegil/rfc-tftm.php.
It was created by Radio Free Cybertron, a Transformers-based Internet radio station back in 2000-2001. It’s incomplete but it goes up through Prime’s death and the aftermath. It’s laugh-out-loud funny if you remember the movie at all well.
Perceptor: I’m afraid the wounds are… fatal.
Daniel: Prime, you can’t die!
Perceptor: Apparently you weren’t paying attention to the previous line of dialogue, Daniel…