UPDATE 2: The Transformers: The Movie re-release has been extended into October at hundreds of theaters after topping $5 million.
UPDATE: Hasbro is now selling a Decepticon Bumblebee figure based on the short, with pre-orders open now.
The embargo is up. Time to talk about what actually happens in Optimus Prime: Awakening, and why I’m skipping the theatrical re-release over it. I also won’t be buying anything from Hasbro for a long time.
Full spoilers follow. If you want to go in blind, stop here.
The 12-minute animated short plays after select screenings of The Transformers: The Movie 4K re-release, in theaters through September 22.
It features the late Peter Cullen’s final performance as Optimus Prime, with Frank Welker returning as Megatron and Soundwave. It’s directed by Josh Wassung and written by Ryan Parrott.
Hasbro billed it as a love letter to the fans and to Cullen. It’s just the opposite. It’s a big FU.
It’s a bait-and-switch.
What Happens In Optimus Prime: Awakening
The short picks up where the 1986 movie left off: Optimus Prime is dead.
What follows is an out-of-body experience. Prime drifts in space, where he encounters some sort of “eternal being.”
The being shows him visions, and this is where the short earns its budget. Clips play out from across four decades of Transformers, different versions of Optimus Prime through the years, including footage from The Transformers: The Movie itself.
As a celebration of 40 years, the sequence is genuinely cool. And it hits hard because it’s Peter Cullen’s last time voicing Optimus, as the actor recently passed.
Then the short tells you what it means. The being’s message to Optimus: everything dies. Everything he has done, every battle, every sacrifice, has been completely worthless.
Cut to Cybertron. Megatron is about to kill Bumblebee, and Prime saves him.
Prime and Megatron fight, and it’s a good fight. Prime wins. He has Megatron beaten and is about to finish him.
Then he remembers what the being showed him, including that, according to this being, Bumblebee becomes a Decepticon. Everything dies. The Earth. Cybertron.
So Optimus Prime lets go of the Matrix of Leadership, turns around, and walks into the light.
Megatron picks up the Matrix. He laughs. Bumblee is still there, and much like my own reaction is left wondering what the f’k is going on.
That’s the ending. That’s Peter Cullen’s final scene as Optimus Prime.
He gives up, realizes that fighting the Decepticons for how many years wasn’t worth it. Quits on his best friend and leaves him to die.
The Bait-And-Switch
Here’s why the montage matters: the short uses 40 years of Optimus Prime to set up the message that those 40 years meant nothing.
You’re shown everything you love about the character so an eternal being can tell you it was all a waste of time.
It’s a middle finger to the creators who built this world, the voice actors who gave it life, and the fans who kept it alive for four decades.
I called this The Last Jedi of Transformers before the embargo lifted. Now you can see why.
Disney brought back Luke Skywalker so he could toss his lightsaber over his shoulder and tell everyone the Jedi were a mistake.
Hasbro brought back Optimus Prime so he could toss the Matrix and quit.
Both take a hero defined by never giving up and write him giving up. Both treat that as deep storytelling.
The writing thinks it’s profound: war is pointless, everything ends, let go. But the short disproves its own message in its final shot.
The second Prime stops fighting, Megatron is holding the Matrix and laughing.
That’s what the fighting was for. That’s what happens when Prime stops.
Megatron Gets The Last Laugh
In the 1986 movie, Optimus Prime died winning.
He beat Megatron. He saved Autobot City. He passed the Matrix to the future with “‘Til all are one.”
Fans hated the death, and Hasbro spent this entire year apologizing for it, but the death meant something. Prime went out a hero.
Awakening takes that away. Forty years later, the official follow-up is Prime concluding his sacrifice accomplished nothing, giving up the Matrix, and handing Megatron the win.
The 1986 movie killed Optimus Prime. Awakening erases him.
And it does it with Peter Cullen’s final performance. Cullen died August 26, and the last Optimus Prime dialogue he ever recorded is spent on a story where Optimus Prime quits.
Some fans are calling the short a beautiful farewell. Others are calling it “a travesty.” Count me with the travesty side.
Hasbro spent a year saying Optimus Prime deserved better than 1986.
He deserved better than this, too. The last image of the short is Megatron laughing with the Matrix in his hands.
That’s the send-off they chose. #FUHasbro
Rating: 0/10
