The Optimus Problem of Robots in Disguise (2015)

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As someone who grew up with Transformers Prime, "Look how they massacred my boy."

I personally believe that they should've reincarnated Optimus instead of just bringing him back from the dead. Imagine if we get introduced to a new and inexperienced character like an Orion Pax 2.0 but we slowly over the episodes of the show discover he was Optimus in his past life and watch him accept the title/name. I hope this isn't too confusing or weird.

A cybertronian being possessive of the team and pushing himself as leader is something youd expect from starscream

Imagine if they took the idea of making Smokescreen the next Prime, and he being trained by the Primes instead of Optimus, then strugling with Bee's team, to become a great leader

that scene where Sideswipe insults Optimus and his stories, and calls him Pops bother me so much, not because sideswipe disrespected him, that's fine, but for Optimus's answer to him. He angrily says ''You may call me Optimus Prime, or Optimus, those are your only two options'' and leaves, an irritated old man asking for respect but failing at being respectful. While I feel Optimus would have understood Sideswipe and gave him a valuable lesson, like ''I understand old stories can be meaningless and boring to young bots, but knowing about the past is important for your generation to not make the same mistakes we did, with our knowledge you can be better than us.'' That would have let Sideswipe with nothing to complain about, and would be a wise answer of someone who knows he comes from an older time.

The kids screaming outside my house right now are more pleasant to listen to than watching Robots in Disguise

Almost every Transformer in TFP are survivors of war. They should NOT be treating the leader of their faction as a JOKE and neither should the writers

I honestly feel bad for Peter Cullen and his time on this project. I can't imagine the pain and frustration he must've felt when he had to witness Optimus being character assassinated and went from the wise, respectful leader in TF:P to a rookie who acts like an old man and acts immature at times.

I’m an awful writer but one rule I know for sure is you should never bring back a beloved character of a franchise and bring down his character to build the new characters up

Hearing Optimus say “Please help me!” That pathetically AND it being Peter Cullen just hurts. Never is the PRIME meant to ask for help in such a stupid setting. It’s sad, after rewatching TFP lately and seeing him in the supposed ‘sequel’ make him look this pathetic…

What I personally believe is that the writers behind TFRID shouldn’t have changed parts of characters from TFP just to make the story more convenient for them to write. That’s not how a sequel works, you can’t just retcon half of the thing you’re making a sequel of, you’re meant to write around the events of it!

I feel by far the worst sin of this depiction is making Optimus too prideful to admit his mistakes. Prime always made a point of showing that Optimus was as fallible as anyone else and could make mistakes, but he would always admit to such things and they clearly weighed heavily upon him. If they had just tweaked it as Optimus feeling like he had to live up his image as a great leader so that the others wouldn't despair, it would have been much improved.

Tfp: Optimus literally had a sad sacrifice with a happy ending. Literally almost killed Megatron in the end of Transformers prime season 1. Rid: Optimus literally just gets brought back alive and doesn’t have a reason why he returned. Literally gets blasted and needed to be trained. (Look at how they massacred my prime)

Transformers prime is one of the few times Optimus Prime’s death actually meant something, Optimus Prime is my favourite transformers character, but because of how much the fans grew attached to G1 prime and how his death affected people, so (pretty much, but not all) deaths are just to recreate that iconic moment, but he mainly just dies for “shock” value, then he’s back, most of the time he gets brought back very soon after his death, but Prime Optimus and another incarnation (who I won’t spoil because it’s not relevant to the continuity and video and others might not know) are some of the few who’s death has meaning and half of which were permanent, and that made me love those incarnations, those primes have a fully concluded character arc, with a beginning, middle and end, but RID just robs Aligned prime of his sacrifice and the end of his character arc, it just does not sit well with me I will say, the initial concept of a aging Optimus Prime who isn’t in his Prime (budum tish) is a interesting concept for the character, hell, I’m even interested in the concept of Optimus not being the leader and being more of the wise sage / moral centre of the group, but the handling of the concept isn’t done well at all

A good way to still show Bee as being a better leader than Optimus is for it to be because the teams are different. Have Optimus trying to have the Bee team fill the same roles as the Prime team and failing as Optimus isn't used to their dynamic. Like he has Bumblebee do his scouting thing which goes well, but then have Strongarm try to do something Arcee or Rachet would have done. Have Bee be hesitant to speak up as he's never had to question Optimus' tactics before. Have it be a arc where both actually learn something. Optimus would learn that he needs to put more trust into Bee as he is no longer just his scout, but a honorable leader. Bee can learn that he needs to speak up for both himself and others even if the other person has good intentions. This could even lead into the Future of Cybertron arc (aka Deception Council) as before that Bee would just think that they probably had a good reason for the things they did. It could have been done so much better and have been actually good!

Optimus prime is supposed to be 9 million years old. And even if he had a 1000 years of battle experience he should be able to pass the test fairly easily. This issue has been addressed very nicely in this video.

I feel like Prime's training arc COULD'VE worked. The idea of a long dead warrior / hero having to re-learn or train to return to their peak after years or even eons of drifting around in the afterlife making them rusty sounds like an interesting concept to me. It's just that they did prime so dirty that it hurts

There was an easy way to solve this: Don't show Prime that often, have him come in every once in a while to give some advice or something, and then go away to fight some bigger foe we don't know about. It could even be a minor character in the mythos, like Devil Z.

Optimus in TFP was literally about to relinquish leadership and the Matrix of Leadership to Smokescreen. In RID, he’s incapable of accepting anyone besides himself as being the leader.