william-james88 wrote:There was also a severe lack of Optimus Prime in the SS movie line. Well now we see that there will be a voyager Optimus in the ROTB mainline. Plus, there will be a multipack in the Buzzworthy line.
I'm not the least bit surprised there are far fewer Optimus Prime toys here than for any previous live action film. It's a sound marketing decision on Hasbro's part, because the average casual fan simply doesn't understand that Optimus Prime and Optimus Primal are not the same character, and still won't get it even after seeing the two of them interact on the big screen.
I know I sound like an irredeemably snobbish "TRUE FAN" s#itting on others, since this is basic logic and common sense to every Seibertronian, but seriously, I learned this from my 14 years working at Toys'R'Us, even if I can't quite explain the psychology behind it. Please hear me out.
My first evidence of this came shortly before the first BayFormers came out, during a conversation with a coworker, a few years my junior, who seemed to be a big fan of the G1 toon, and whose older brother was a collector. When I mentioned Beast Wars, she immediately responded, "You can't make Optimus Prime no monkey!" So I naturally explained that Primal wasn't the same character, but before I could explain how they found the Ark in The Agenda, she just started laughing her ass off at me. "What's so funny? That's just the basic premise of Beast W--" She found this so funny that she couldn't stop laughing for at least half a minute. I certainly wasn't offended or anything, just confused. At least it happened before I bored her to death with my views on where Earth Force splintered off from the rest of Marvel continuity.
At the risk of getting off track, maybe "casual" isn't the right word here, because Transformers DID indeed mean a lot to her, as I learned the first time we spoke AFTER that first Bay film.
Sweet Primus To put this in perspective, I forced myself to watch all of Beast Machines that I might judge fairly its worthiness as a sequel to the series that saved the TF franchise in its darkest hour, and it felt like 2 seasons of watching half my favorite BW characters get brutally raped until their minds broke. I'm sorry that's offensive, and if I ever find a better analogy that more accurately describes how I felt watching it, I'll edit this post. I will never soften on that, BUT, I also never got half as pissed at BM as my coworker was at that first live action film. She was so mad that she couldn't articulate more than one sentence, just seething, like Bay had murdered her childhood pet and the cops had just laughed at her like she laughed about Primal. GEEZ. Never talked to her about TF again...well, until Combiner Wars.
Sorry, I just needed to provide context.
While I never met anyone that pissed about Transformers again, at least that incident was technically understandable, more than I can say for what happened after Dark of the Moon came out, which was just plain weird. IDR if this was opening weekend or the Saturday after because I don't rush to see movies opening day, something I still regret not doing for DotM, since being the store's resident TF expert, I was charged with manning an event table near the entrance where I was demonstrating a few Cyberverse toys, mostly Megatron with full trailer. Two little boys, genuinely concerned about the events of the film, came up and asked me: "Why did Optimus Prime turn evil?!?" In the rare moment when the youngest, most impressionable fans desperately needed my authoritative knowledge on TF, I had no idea what to tell them, couldn't even hazard a guess, and felt unworthy of my post for the rest of the day.
(Again this was DotM, not TLK)
Hours later, a different coworker than the one 4 years prior who'd also seen DotM verified what the boys had said by mentioning, "Y'know, it's funny, I had a dream once when I was a kid where it was the reverse, and I was running away from Optimus and trying to get to Megatron." I certainly didn't want spoilers, so I didn't ask her to elaborate, but went into the theater a few days later, looking forward to having all this confusion cleared up.
But as everyone reading this knows by now, it never will be. And I will forever kick myself for dragging my feet to see Bay's third #!&*ing masterpiece, and not being able to ask them exactly what they meant.
Now, as Shockwave would doubtlessly have told me if he'd had more dialogue, logically, all three of these people must have thought that Sentinel Prime was...
also Optimus Prime. That being two Primes who turned into largely red trucks meant they were both the same character, somehow.
I wonder what will happen if a DCCU movie has Superman fight Captain Marvel/SHAZAM: will filmgoers see them as both being Superman, despite all the character development the Big Red Cheese will have from two movies centered around him?
Maybe it's also the sheer number of toys Op has gotten over the years. Next to each other on store shelves, displayed in someone's collection, or on the floor as kids are playing with them, they are indeed different Optimus Primes coexisting, usually without the rationale of a Multiverse or clones that fiction should necessitate, so that gets one used to there simply being more than one Optimus Prime without any logical explanation. Hasbro's probably assuming most shoppers will see all the RotB Optimus Primal toys as just more toys of Optimus Prime, and be too overwhelmed and confused if there are very many toys that are actually RotB Optimus Prime. There'll be other Ops from other sublines next to them to boot, so they have no choice but to largely hold off on O.P. toys until after the movie's come and gone, ironic as it is.
Of course, I could be wrong, because it's still illogical in a way that I probably couldn't explain even if I had a masters in psychology.
Yet similarly, I've found most people who aren't fans of giant robot franchises don't understand the difference between giant sentient robots and piloted mechs. The distinction is surely common sense to everyone here, but apparently understanding something so simple makes you a total geek in the wider world...outside of Japan.
Perhaps what haunts me the most is knowing for a fact that of all the employees who came and went from the Westland Toys'R'Us, I'm not the one most likely to snap and make and attempt on Michael Bay's life, so maybe I never was the most obsessive TFan there.
Sorry this became an epic rant, but I really, really miss that job this time of year. And my theory surely seems strange enough that most Seibertronians wouldn't buy it without citing the aforementioned incidents. But yeah, even after the Beasts have risen and fallen, the majority of moviegoers are still going to consider the two Optimi, Prime and Primal, the same character, so they can't both have all the toys they deserve out at the same time.
