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Transformers: Age of Extinction - Peter Cullen Talks About Optimus Prime

Discuss anything and everything related to the Transformers Live Action Films franchise, which are directed by Michael Bay. Join us to discuss the movies and stuff up to date with news for the 2017 release of Transformers 5. Check out our Live Action Film section here.

Re: Transformers: Age of Extinction - Peter Cullen Talks About Optimus Prime

Postby Dr. Caelus » Mon Apr 28, 2014 3:17 am

I'm trying to imagine myself in Prime's shoes, regarding the Demolisher thing, and appreciating that a lot depends on where you're fighting your battle. Fighting Decepticons on Cybertron, where you are the boss, is very different from fighting a war in diaspora. See, this is how I'm imagining it:

I'm stranded on a planet of sentient hamsters, who've cautiously agreed to cooperate with me provided we round up all of our mutual enemies, kill them, and dump them in the deepest, darkest part of their ocean. They haven't offered space or resources for holding enemies captive - the agreement is, kill them, or don't work with us.

So then we corner one of our mutual enemies...

Prime weighs roughly 15,000 lbs as a Peterbilt 379, while Demolisher would come in at 1,778,000 lbs as a Bucyrus RH400 mining excavator. So Demolisher is roughly 120 times larger than Prime. Relatively speaking, this would be like me holding a monstrosity that weighs over 30,000 lbs at gun point - a beast *twice* the size of a Tyrannosaurus Rex.

So, I'm standing here, staring down a Super-T-Rex with my shotgun, surrounded by clamoring blood thirsty hamsters, and I have to consider - that Super-T-Rex has God only knows what else hidden inside him - a concealed machine gun? Probably. Hidden blades? Almost certainly. A swarm of hamster-sized death bots? Not unheard of. A slightly less intimidating, slightly smaller version of himself? My best friends got one of those, so why not? A spacebridge that can teleport the entire Decepticon army to his location? Stretching credibility, but it's happened. A wireless communication device housed deep in his brain? Don't we all?

So I'm thinking, I /could/ drag this super-T-Rex back to the tiny, squishy yet surprisingly vicious hamsters' secret labs, where they can vivisect him, crawl inside him, and /then/ find out what nasty things are inside him. Or I can shoot him, once in the face, and be done with it.

I'll admit, I'd be leaning towards the lesser of two evils... especially if I were Demolisher.
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Re: Transformers: Age of Extinction - Peter Cullen Talks About Optimus Prime

Postby Fires_Of_Inferno » Mon Apr 28, 2014 3:21 am

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Caelus wrote:I'm trying to imagine myself in Prime's shoes, regarding the Demolisher thing, and appreciating that a lot depends on where you're fighting your battle. Fighting Decepticons on Cybertron, where you are the boss, is very different from fighting a war in diaspora. See, this is how I'm imagining it:

I'm stranded on a planet of sentient hamsters, who've cautiously agreed to cooperate with me provided we round up all of our mutual enemies, kill them, and dump them in the deepest, darkest part of their ocean. They haven't offered space or resources for holding enemies captive - the agreement is, kill them, or don't work with us.

So then we corner one of our mutual enemies...

Prime weighs roughly 15,000 lbs as a Peterbilt 379, while Demolisher would come in at 1,778,000 lbs as a Bucyrus RH400 mining excavator. So Demolisher is roughly 120 times larger than Prime. Relatively speaking, this would be like me holding a monstrosity that weighs over 30,000 lbs at gun point - a beast *twice* the size of a Tyrannosaurus Rex.

So, I'm standing here, staring down a Super-T-Rex with my shotgun, surrounded by clamoring blood thirsty hamsters, and I have to consider - that Super-T-Rex has God only knows what else hidden inside him - a concealed machine gun? Probably. Hidden blades? Almost certainly. A swarm of hamster-sized death bots? Not unheard of. A slightly less intimidating, slightly smaller version of himself? My best friends got one of those, so why not? A spacebridge that can teleport the entire Decepticon army to his location? Stretching credibility, but it's happened. A wireless communication device housed deep in his brain? Don't we all?

So I'm thinking, I /could/ drag this super-T-Rex back to the tiny, squishy yet surprisingly vicious hamsters' secret labs, where they can vivisect him, crawl inside him, and /then/ find out what nasty things are inside him. Or I can shoot him, once in the face, and be done with it.

I'll admit, I'd be leaning towards the lesser of two evils... especially if I were Demolisher.


Very well put.
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Re: Transformers: Age of Extinction - Peter Cullen Talks About Optimus Prime

Postby megatronus » Mon Apr 28, 2014 9:12 am

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Re: Transformers: Age of Extinction - Peter Cullen Talks About Optimus Prime

Postby Manterax Prime » Mon Apr 28, 2014 10:33 am

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Hey, Seibertron, you might want to either enforce some sense or close this thread before it spirals out of control even more. They closed it over on TFW because everyone started the whole "Movie Prime is a murderous psychopath" argument again.
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Re: Transformers: Age of Extinction - Peter Cullen Talks About Optimus Prime

Postby xRotorstormx » Mon Apr 28, 2014 1:21 pm

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I think my brain just exploded by reading all these comments :michaelbay: :BANG_HEAD:
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Re: Transformers: Age of Extinction - Peter Cullen Talks About Optimus Prime

Postby EunuchRon » Mon Apr 28, 2014 4:30 pm

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You know... this whole talk about "war crimes" is a completely human thing. Transformers fight on their own rules, right?

Oh, and in the 80's movie, Optimus was about to blow away Megatron and Megatron feigned to beg for mercy. Optimus was remarking on how unlike ol' Megs that was while Megs was going for a gun.

Speaking of killin' bots.... how about Heavy Metal War, you know, end of Season 1? They pushed all the 'Cons into the lava. Seems like that was tryin' to kill 'em all to me.

All this talk over movie Prime not acting like Prime... it's what, a several million year old war? Anyone fightin' for that long and still kickin' is going to have to be a stone cold killer. Optimus may be a good guy and moral and all that, but some bots just need shootin' in the head.
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Re: Transformers: Age of Extinction - Peter Cullen Talks About Optimus Prime

Postby Counterpunch » Mon Apr 28, 2014 6:32 pm

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War crimes? On my Earth?

Prime didn't kill enough of those genocidal Decepticons imho.
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Re: Transformers: Age of Extinction - Peter Cullen Talks About Optimus Prime

Postby Rodimus2006 » Fri May 02, 2014 12:28 am

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Optimus Prime in AOE seems way different than any version of Prime in series & in the Shia Trilogy.

In this version in AOE, Prime seems to have lost all hope, he doesn't know who to trust, so he seems to be at his breaking point.

What do I do, when those I protect become my enemy & my greatest threat.

Breaking is what I would call Prime Directive "Never Attack Humans". But seen in AOE Trailer Optimus was cleary attacking the Government Agents.

But I would also do the same, if I had my back against the wall, the Allies I thought were my Allies turned on me, I would fight with everything I have no matter the cost.

I also would have already been attacking the humans anyways for previous actions such as in DOTM the Humans keeping secrets & lying to the Transformers I wouldn't appreciate that very much.

Now you have the Transformers up againt the wall, with the Humans wanting their Extinction. So if I was Optimus Prime, I would protect my Family & Friends "NO MATTER THE COST"

I would attack anything in my path, why you would consider this a Darker in Tone Optimus Prime, I would consider this a Dangerous & Desperate Optimus Prime.

Also this is so much like X-Men in X-Men they do not like the Mutants, but they will not hesitate to use Mutant Powers or Make a Mutant Drug from it. Yet they will kill the mutant with the Sentinels.

Now in AOE you have The Humans they Hate Transformers but they are making their own Transformers such as Galvatron.

Seems Humans are Hypicrits in both AOE & IN DOFP.

They will Kill but they Will Use their powers.
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Transformers: Age of Extinction - More Peter Cullen on Optimus Prime

Postby Va'al » Fri May 16, 2014 10:24 am

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We heard from voice actor Peter Cullen not too long ago, about his portrayal of Optimus Prime in the past and in the upcoming Transformers: Age of Extinction movie. Thanks to LA Times' Hero Complex, we now get even more insight into the voice of Optimus Prime and his approach to the character. Check it out here, and a snippet below!

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Auditioning with director Michael Bay for the role of Optimus Prime in 2007’s live-action movie adaptation of the beloved animated series “Transformers,” Canadian-born vocal artist Peter Cullen was aware that his previous accomplishments hardly guaranteed his place in a big-budget Hollywood movie.

“It’s kind of surreal to audition for a character that you basically created,” said Cullen, who originated the Autobot’s stentorian voice in TV performances from 1984 to ‘87. “But I didn’t expect Michael to know what I knew about ‘Transformers.’ I was ready for anything.”

[...]

Contractually obligated to continue voicing Optimus in at least two more “Transformers” sequels, Cullen has no plans to retire his robot-in-disguise alter ego anytime soon. Moreover, having based the characterization on his older brother, a decorated Marine Corps officer who served in Vietnam, the actor feels a sense of responsibility to the franchise’s faithful.

“My brother said, ‘Peter, be a real hero. Don’t do all the bravado stuff and pretend to be tough. Be strong enough to be gentle. Be understanding — and calm,’” Cullen said. “When I began the audition, his voice came right out. I read the lines the way I could hear my brother doing it.

“Now, maintaining those characteristics — courage, trustworthiness, integrity, loyalty — you’re responsible for something to the kids who watch Optimus Prime. I want to be a positive influence rather than just fighting and sock, bang, boom!”
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Re: Transformers: Age of Extinction - Peter Cullen Talks About Optimus Prime

Postby BumbleDouche » Fri May 16, 2014 8:39 pm

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I love this guy, his voice, his love of Transformers and his commitment to the character: he is a gift to the world in this respect. But somehow, I can't accept the Bay-verse Optimus Prime as the great role-model the G1 version was. In the movies he has, at various points, callously left people to die to pursue his own objectives; mercilessly destroyed beaten opponents; destroyed (or at least partially destroyed) his home planet and, by appearances from the trailers of this new movie, betrayed his own race in favour of cowering in fear, hiding out and wasting time as a beat-up old truck in some douchebag's barn while humanity hunt and destroy his fellow Cybertronians. Not quite the admirable, self-sacrificing protector of the universe we've seen in other continuities, in my opinion. Is this still the best way for Mr Cullen to honour his heroic, fallen brother?
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Re: Transformers: Age of Extinction - Peter Cullen Talks About Optimus Prime

Postby ishigoto » Sat May 17, 2014 12:04 am

I cant deny that the franchise as a whole has benefited greatly from Bay-formers but Michael Bay and Peter Cullen...Someone said it before me but I just really feel that Peter Cullen's Optimus is NOTHING like the way Michael Bay wants to portray Optimus.
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Re: Transformers: Age of Extinction - Peter Cullen Talks About Optimus Prime

Postby T-Macksimus » Sat May 17, 2014 9:35 am

How quaint that y'all seem to think that Optimus should be portrayed on a God-like level and that you think Cullen is doing his brother a disservice by giving voice to Bays version. The simple fact of the matter is that Bayverse Optimus is more like what a Marine would be but what some of you are failing to take into account is that you are projecting your idealized versions onto a being stuck in "real world" situations. You have the lives of your troops in your hands and the lives of billions of innocents hanging on the razors edge of your every decision AND you are outnumbered. The black and white decisions that you think Optimus should be making are no longer so "black and white", they carry the most dire of consequences. It's not about rushing in and kicking ass, you sometimes have to wait, pick your battles and carry the burden of having to decide what are "acceptable losses' and what or who must sacrificed in the short term to achieve your ultimate goal in the long term. That's a combat leaders role: Making the best you can of an absolutely f'd up situation.
Look at the motto on the original G1 Huffers' bio: "Nobody wins a war... somebody loses!" Leadership in a military situation, at least for a leader who is actually out there in the field watching his men fight and die, is like living in the first level of Hell itself, every decision torturing you, the whole world weighing down on you and you have to make choices at the speed of light, oftentimes with limited intel.
So please...tell me again how you think you boys have the right to dictate how Prime should be or whether or not you think Peter is doing a disservice to his brother. I'd really like to see the Generals Stars on any of your shoulders that tell me that you have a better perspective on the situation than myself, Cullen or any active duty military personnel who have been in combat situations.
The Movie Prime may not be the hyper-optimistic G1 version we enjoyed as children but at least this one is closer to reality than the original. It's a screwed up world we live in and instead of giving a kid an unrealistic perspective, this Prime is showing that the world is cruel, it hurts and it's out to kill you but be patient, don't lose hope or faith in yourself and you will overcome what it throws at you. For being a giant alien robot, this Prime is remarkably "human" and that's all thanks to what Peter has projected into the character.
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Re: Transformers: Age of Extinction - Peter Cullen Talks About Optimus Prime

Postby TurboMMaster » Sat May 17, 2014 10:45 am

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Even if Optimus Prime in Bay Movies is the propably the worst action movie her ever (Whimp with unlimited luck), but it's still really hard to consider him as a total failure, mostly due to the Peter's voice. And that's propably says all about how awesome Cullen really is. Even if there is a little to much of him today, Franchise wouldn't be the same without him.
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Re: Transformers: Age of Extinction - Peter Cullen Talks About Optimus Prime

Postby Hero Alpha » Sat May 17, 2014 1:29 pm

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T-Macksimus wrote:How quaint that y'all seem to think that Optimus should be portrayed on a God-like level and that you think Cullen is doing his brother a disservice by giving voice to Bays version. The simple fact of the matter is that Bayverse Optimus is more like what a Marine would be but what some of you are failing to take into account is that you are projecting your idealized versions onto a being stuck in "real world" situations. You have the lives of your troops in your hands and the lives of billions of innocents hanging on the razors edge of your every decision AND you are outnumbered. The black and white decisions that you think Optimus should be making are no longer so "black and white", they carry the most dire of consequences. It's not about rushing in and kicking ass, you sometimes have to wait, pick your battles and carry the burden of having to decide what are "acceptable losses' and what or who must sacrificed in the short term to achieve your ultimate goal in the long term. That's a combat leaders role: Making the best you can of an absolutely f'd up situation.
Look at the motto on the original G1 Huffers' bio: "Nobody wins a war... somebody loses!" Leadership in a military situation, at least for a leader who is actually out there in the field watching his men fight and die, is like living in the first level of Hell itself, every decision torturing you, the whole world weighing down on you and you have to make choices at the speed of light, oftentimes with limited intel.
So please...tell me again how you think you boys have the right to dictate how Prime should be or whether or not you think Peter is doing a disservice to his brother. I'd really like to see the Generals Stars on any of your shoulders that tell me that you have a better perspective on the situation than myself, Cullen or any active duty military personnel who have been in combat situations.
The Movie Prime may not be the hyper-optimistic G1 version we enjoyed as children but at least this one is closer to reality than the original. It's a screwed up world we live in and instead of giving a kid an unrealistic perspective, this Prime is showing that the world is cruel, it hurts and it's out to kill you but be patient, don't lose hope or faith in yourself and you will overcome what it throws at you. For being a giant alien robot, this Prime is remarkably "human" and that's all thanks to what Peter has projected into the character.


As a army veteran, original G1 fan and someone who enjoys the movies, I have to agree with everything you said, well put. :BOT:
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Re: Transformers: Age of Extinction - Peter Cullen Talks About Optimus Prime

Postby Mindmaster » Sat May 17, 2014 1:32 pm

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Moonshot wrote:
T-Macksimus wrote:How quaint that y'all seem to think that Optimus should be portrayed on a God-like level and that you think Cullen is doing his brother a disservice by giving voice to Bays version. The simple fact of the matter is that Bayverse Optimus is more like what a Marine would be but what some of you are failing to take into account is that you are projecting your idealized versions onto a being stuck in "real world" situations. You have the lives of your troops in your hands and the lives of billions of innocents hanging on the razors edge of your every decision AND you are outnumbered. The black and white decisions that you think Optimus should be making are no longer so "black and white", they carry the most dire of consequences. It's not about rushing in and kicking ass, you sometimes have to wait, pick your battles and carry the burden of having to decide what are "acceptable losses' and what or who must sacrificed in the short term to achieve your ultimate goal in the long term. That's a combat leaders role: Making the best you can of an absolutely f'd up situation.
Look at the motto on the original G1 Huffers' bio: "Nobody wins a war... somebody loses!" Leadership in a military situation, at least for a leader who is actually out there in the field watching his men fight and die, is like living in the first level of Hell itself, every decision torturing you, the whole world weighing down on you and you have to make choices at the speed of light, oftentimes with limited intel.
So please...tell me again how you think you boys have the right to dictate how Prime should be or whether or not you think Peter is doing a disservice to his brother. I'd really like to see the Generals Stars on any of your shoulders that tell me that you have a better perspective on the situation than myself, Cullen or any active duty military personnel who have been in combat situations.
The Movie Prime may not be the hyper-optimistic G1 version we enjoyed as children but at least this one is closer to reality than the original. It's a screwed up world we live in and instead of giving a kid an unrealistic perspective, this Prime is showing that the world is cruel, it hurts and it's out to kill you but be patient, don't lose hope or faith in yourself and you will overcome what it throws at you. For being a giant alien robot, this Prime is remarkably "human" and that's all thanks to what Peter has projected into the character.


As a army veteran, original G1 fan and someone who enjoys the movies, I have to agree with everything you said, well put. :BOT:


As an aspiring Marine... I'm pretty much forced to agree.
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Re: Transformers: Age of Extinction - Peter Cullen Talks About Optimus Prime

Postby Omega-1 » Sat May 17, 2014 1:38 pm

Revenge of the Fallen Prime is still my favourite because he was the most badass.
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Re: Transformers: Age of Extinction - Peter Cullen Talks About Optimus Prime

Postby BLUDGEON » Sat May 17, 2014 8:24 pm

“My brother said, ‘Peter, be a real hero. Don’t do all the bravado stuff and pretend to be tough. Be strong enough to be gentle. Be understanding - and calm,'" Cullen said. “When I began the audition, his voice came right out. I read the lines the way I could hear my brother doing it.


Thats pretty much it.

Also...

“Now, maintaining those characteristics - courage, trustworthiness, integrity, loyalty - you’re responsible for something to the kids who watch Optimus Prime. I want to be a positive influence rather than just fighting and sock, bang, boom!"

The film is more real obviously than the cartoons but Prime is a bit off how he has been prtrayed for years. Macksimus, it doesn't matter what you think about how Peter voices it, he can't change the script, he reads the lines with maybe a bit of ad libbing. The writers and Bay are responsible for how Prime is shown to us, Peter 'just' does his amazing voice thing. Im not saying Prime shouldn't do what is necessary but you comparing him to a Marine is a fallacy. Hes in charge of his race on another planet.

The Marine thing was to honour his brother and that is good, but it doesnt reflect how Bay and the writers want to portray him. He still uses his voice to endow that character with what he has before. His brother only died recently but his inspiration was felt before (like in G1). A lot of Americans love the whole 'kill stuff with guns' thing. There was a case about a sergeant not so long ago in a war zone executing someone in a war zone....


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/cr ... 85102.html

I admire soldiers for the work they do but killing their own families? You're off your rocker fella. Don't make the whole Prime thing about being a Marine.

Unfortunately violence and the like sells in films; guns explosions and death, so it was inevitable Prime, the films main guy would end up doing something like this I guess. I just blame Bay. It doesnt necessarily make the films bad for that reason alone, I think they could have done something else, but then I always loved 80's Prime so go figure
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Re: Transformers: Age of Extinction - Peter Cullen Talks About Optimus Prime

Postby Joshimus » Sat May 17, 2014 9:22 pm

I have never been involved in any military situation, I know very little about it, I have never fired a gun. All I can say is that Bayverse Prime, while can come across to others as "violent", especially before his battle with Sentinel. However, as the Leader, he has to make the tough choices, the ones that Sentinel couldn't make. His adopted planet told them to go home and basically allowed Decepticons to take over. Prime did what he had to all in service of protecting life, even if that means killing his own kind and sacrificing his home planet.
I remember reading how angry fans were that the Wreckers tore apart that Decepticon so violently, completely forgetting that this Decepticon just murdered innocent people, without hesitation, and somehow the Autobots are the bad guys.
What Bayverse Prime does seems pretty fair for the situation, one in which I myself have never been in but can at least appreciate. Choose your battles cause the wrong move could destroy a lot more than just yourself, like the entire adopted planet and all life on it.
Also, the forest battle in ROTF was still one of my favorites scenes.
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Re: Transformers: Age of Extinction - Peter Cullen Talks About Optimus Prime

Postby Sabrblade » Sun May 18, 2014 7:01 pm

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The movies attempt to portray realistic warfare scenarios that, up until TF: Prime, had never really been reflected in most of the TF cartoons. There had been shades of it here and there in some of the cartoons, but the movies were really the first motion pictures of the brand to really hit home with the concept. While the cartoons did speak of the conflict being a war, it was mostly depicted in the style of what superhero genre stories had come to be like, rather than really taking the concepts of war and warfare to heart, for the sake of appealing to young children without bringing down the wrath of unhappy parents and/or other authorities.

Since the movies were really the first really big and really mainstream TF thing to strive for actual war genre levels of violence and situations, they also went with a portrayal of Optimus that's more evocative of a real life soldier leader over the more child-friendly superhero commander that he had come to be known to be like in all the years before. In real life, the "good guys" don't just let the enemy get away to keep fighting another day after some harebrained scheme of there's was foiled; they fight to the bitter end. Thus, Optimus takes far less prisoners in the movies and has a much smaller conscience about killing his enemies in general (not just about killing them when they're defenseless, but even about killing them in battle as well, which itself rarely happened at all in many of the pre-movie cartoons).

Lots of people point to the season finale of Animated as an example of how Optimus should act in the movies, in which he chose to take a defenseless Megatron prisoner rather than killing him since "That would be the easy way out." In a perfect world, yes, this would be a more ideal way to depict Optimus in the films. But since the threats portrayed by the movies have come to be on the levels of Kryptonian invasion in Man of Steel, it is relatively impossible for Movie Optimus to simply disable and capture every onscreen Decepticon without killing them since the movies made the Cons so inhuman and monstrous that they're all too dangerous to be kept alive, and the Movie Autobots likewise lack the means to properly incarcerate all of them. So the movies have purposely written themselves into a corner that prevents Optimus and the Autobots from going with any less violent methods short of killing all their foes. And since many viewers were evidently turned off by seeing their childhood icons be portrayed like violent soldiers involved in these scenarios that more resemble real life combat rather than classic superhero combat, Movie Optimus is thus looked down upon as "less noble" and "less heroic" than several of his more superhero-esque pre-2007 fiction counterparts.

Whether this is actually true or not is and has been a subject of debate since the 2007 movie, and will likely continue to be for debates yet to come, as there is simply no right or wrong answer here since everybody views heroism, nobility, and ethical nature of each in different lights and often tend to find very few common grounds of agreement, as there are those who prefer the more realistic take that the movies went with while others prefer the more child friendly classic superhero take that had been in effect since 1984.


And after having said all that, there's now the elephant in the room that is the "realistic superhero stories" like the Nolan Batman trilogy, the aforementioned Man of Steel film, and other examples that the TF movies do resemble, which helps to make the whole above explanation bare less weight. But if one considers my occasional use of the phrase "classic superhero" to refer specifically to the more child friendly iterations over the more realistic ones, then that might let this argument prove more fruitful. :)
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Re: Transformers: Age of Extinction - Peter Cullen Talks About Optimus Prime

Postby TurboMMaster » Mon May 19, 2014 10:16 am

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Sabrblade wrote:
Lots of people point to the season finale of Animated as an example of how Optimus should act in the movies, in which he chose to take a defenseless Megatron prisoner rather than killing him since "That would be the easy way out." In a perfect world, yes, this would be a more ideal way to depict Optimus in the films.
I Belive that Megatron in Animated was exequted shortly after series finale. Why? It is simple, For Autobots he is nothing more than a common thug. He is maybe powerfull and cunning, but he is'nt a real threat for Autobots. There is no army ready to follow him, and he can't be portrayed as a martyr. So there is no reason to spare him....

However, even if he wasn't exequted: Isn't he's final fate technically worse for him than death? He has been beaten by guy that is technically a civilan, and he couldn't even defeat a Space Repair Brigade. He was humiliated, and he will live long enough to be aware that anyone now about this...

Sabrblade wrote:The movies attempt to portray realistic warfare scenarios that
You called main protagonist killing anything (including things obvoiusly more powerfull than him) on sight just because he is main protagonist "realistic"? I quess Rambo is a historical documentary movie for you...
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Re: Transformers: Age of Extinction - Peter Cullen Talks About Optimus Prime

Postby Mindmaster » Mon May 19, 2014 12:34 pm

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TurboMMaster wrote:I Belive that Megatron in Animated was exequted shortly after series finale.


Actually, he was sentenced to spend jail-time at Trypticon Prison. In BotCon's story "The Stunti-Con Job", the Stunticons, disguised as a travelling circus troupe, attempted to break Megatron out of Trypticon Prison. ;)
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Re: Transformers: Age of Extinction - Peter Cullen Talks About Optimus Prime

Postby Sabrblade » Mon May 19, 2014 4:48 pm

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TurboMMaster wrote:
Sabrblade wrote:The movies attempt to portray realistic warfare scenarios that
You called main protagonist killing anything (including things obvoiusly more powerfull than him) on sight just because he is main protagonist "realistic"? I quess Rambo is a historical documentary movie for you...
You must have missed the keyword in that sentence I wrote: "]The movies attempt to portray realistic warfare scenarios..."

They TRY to make it realistic. I never said they succeed, but nor did I say that they fail to, either. All I said was that they try for realism, which is true.

Though, you are wrong to call Optimus the "main protagonist" of these movies. Sam Witwicky is the mian protagonist of the first three, while Cade Yeager will be the main protagonist of the fourth. No Transformer in any of these films has been the protagonist. They've been the heroes and villains, but not the protagonist. There IS a difference between a "hero" and a "protagonist".

At best, you could probably call Bumblebee or Optimus the "deuteragonist" of one of the first three movies, but Sam held the protagonist role for all three.
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Re: Transformers: Age of Extinction - Peter Cullen Talks About Optimus Prime

Postby TurboMMaster » Tue May 20, 2014 12:51 pm

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Main Optimus Prime is main protagonist in battle scenes - while Human Characters are the one witch perspective is portrayed in the movie, and they are the ones that saved the day, most fight scenes are builded (poorly) around Prime. It very similiar to Yu-gi-oh, when anyone knows that tactic and deck of good guy sucks, but since he is a good guy, he can win anyway. In this term, Bayformers Optimus Prime is exactly the same.

Sabrblade wrote:They TRY to make it realistic. I never said they succeed, but nor did I say that they fail to, either. All I said was that they try for realism, which is true.
Then they failed so miserably, that it is even hard to notice... But realism never was a strong part of Franchise: remember that this is all about giant robot from other planet.
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Re: Transformers: Age of Extinction - Peter Cullen Talks About Optimus Prime

Postby Sabrblade » Tue May 20, 2014 1:01 pm

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Dude, Sam is the protagonist, period, not Optimus. Focal presentation can change to observe other characters besides the protagonist without reassigning new roles to the characters per scene transition. Optimus is the hero, but by no means is he the protagonist in any of these films.
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Re: Transformers: Age of Extinction - Peter Cullen Talks About Optimus Prime

Postby TurboMMaster » Thu May 22, 2014 1:11 pm

Motto: ""Have a hig gun? Have a big fun!!!""
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Even if I must agree, that outside battles Sam is the main protagonist (and during fight, since he saved Autobots from disaster two or three times). My argument remains valid. Optimus won so many fights only because he is "The Hero" And that makes him boring and uninteresting character.
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