Remember when studios LEARNED from their mistakes?
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Actually, there's TWO points to make.
The film's reception was so bad, the G.I.Joe film's ending was hastily re-written as they were also planning to "subvert expectations" by killing off the boss character. THAT'S THE CORRECT RESPONSE. They didn't "double down" like what they do today. Slamming the brakes after seeing the person in front of you fall into a sinkhole is the obvious SANE response.
Young boys need brave, towering, archetypal heroes. They DON'T need flawed, "relatable" main characters. I've never seen a young boy point at a gangly, weak, indecisive main character on big screen and excitedly tell his mom n' dad "He's like me!" Young boys need heroes to look UP to, not ones that reflect traits the audience should hope to grow out of.
TL;DR: https://i.imgur.com/JluPBgK.jpeg
It was G. I. Joe's fault in the first place.
They literally did the exact same thing with the second live action movie and killed off Duke [again]. Nothing was learned.
Because their only thought was how to sell more new toys.
I don’t get why that’s the first thought, though. Have a spin-off where Duke goes and trains GI JOE SPECIAL RECRUIT UNIT or whatever. Then you can even make crossover toys where the original characters get special “instructor” or “veteran” or “mentor” figures, or whatever you want to call them.
I saw the special commentaries on the 2006 Transformers movie DVD.
Hasbro didn't see it as a "mostly-serious with characters you can root for and want to be like" show.
It was a toy show.
It was meant to advertise toys.
That's all Hasbro saw it as then.
The reaction to this movie was exactly what made Hasbro change their views on this.
Yeah, but the problem is: that's still dumb. Imagine you're Hasbro. You must have some knowledge that your toy-commercial-as-TV-show is popular. You have the sales figures on the toys. You have the TV ratings. You've probably done some kind of market research. At the very least, you know enough to think it's worth making into a movie in the first place. Even if you think, quite understandably, "we should use this movie to introduce a bunch of new toys," or, a little less understandably (but I'll forgive it), "the kids don't actually care much about the characters specifically, it's enough that they fire guns and they're on screen so we can theoretically slop out new ones whenever," you still have to forget that parents and children might have a couple objections to seeing the hero of a kids' movie get stabbed and die on screen.
But even if you are misinformed about your products' popularity, and even if you do totally forget that killing the hero might not go down well, you still have to make the wrong choice here too: what will actually give you more opportunity to sell new toys? Killing Duke off and saying he's gone for good, or having him written off in a less permanent way? You can get you new line out either way, but option B lets you keep Duke in your back pocket for if the new guys aren't as popular or to make special edition guest cameo figurines or whatever.
It requires bad decision making on every level.
Yes, it WAS dumb. I completely agree with you.
But that's how they saw things in the 1980s.
TV shows meant solely to advertise toys and games had JUST been made legal at the start of the decade. That's how Rubik The Amazing Cube got made (I'm not making that up).
This was new territory, and they were businessmen--empty suits, bean-counters, not creators. They had no reason to see this as anything more than an advertising vehicle...no pun intended.
The views are different now, largely thanks to the reactions to this movie. Now we get Transformers shows that actually stand on their own as series, such as Animated and Prime did--I loved Transformers Prime.
Or at least, they used to stand on their own as series...I just remembered the they/them atrocity that was Transformers Earthspark. Yuck.
I was angry about the first G.I Movie doing it back in the 80s because -- despite my love for Don Johnson -- the character in that movie to replace Duke was an absolute douche bag; and even if he were supposed to be a secondary character, he was still an unlikable Douche Bag, basically Hotrod ramped up to 11.
I didn't mind them killing off Duke in the live-action sequel of G.I Joe because they gravely miscast him for the bisexual faggot Channing Tatum. They did manage to make him slightly more likable in the sequel with the little screen time he had with The Rock, but he was just so vastly miscast. He came across as more as a secondary character rather than as a leader. I probably would have been far angrier had they cast someone likable as Duke the first time.
This is disproven by your own image, which shows one of the most famous heroes of the last century in Han Solo who was flawed in many relatable ways at the outset.
The problem is Lefties champion flaws, instead of seeing them as something to fight and overcome. They see relatable as "is fucked up just like me and that's great!"
Heck to go with the Transformers examples in the OP. One of the most famous and popular characters in it was Dinobot from Beast Wars, whose flaws were so pronounced that he was constantly changing sides in the middle of a war.
But he was written to be holding strong to his principles instead of wavering in nuance and doubt, so each time he did so you believed he might have a point just like Optimus himself did. His flaws defined him, but also made him stronger and his entire character arc was still learning to hold true to them while also gaining some semblance of loyalty and trust.
That's something young boys need to see. Men dealing with men level issues and solving them like men do.
Han Solo's character arc is that he starts as a disreputable, unsuccessful smuggler and criminal.
Han finds a cause bigger than himself and friends who he cares about. He stops being selfish and, eventually, realizes the cause of the rebellion and the life of his friends is worth more than his own selfish, empty existence.
By the end of the first movie, Han makes a sacrifice and takes action to help Luke.
In the third movie, Han is willing to die for his friends.
Exactly, he starts off very flawed and grows from it. He's not brave or towering, he is slimy and a trickster. And its him fighting those flaws that allows for not only his growth, but towards him becoming a truly heroic person. Its relatable, because many boys are falling into that listless, directionless existence and the idea of escaping through finding love, friends, or a cause is inspirational.
So while guys like Optimus are great examples in their own right, so too are the ones who need to grow into being one. Shit one of the War/Fall of Cybertron games outright calls out that Optimus is unwavering and powerful through conviction on his own, but lesser men under his command need morale and supplies to keep going.
Don't forget that those victories were retroactively only achievable by virtue of feminism and DEI.
The movie was pretty regal bling for its time. Orson Welles voiced Unicron. Leonard Nimoy was Galvatron and Eric Idle had a bit part. Judd Nelson was the RDJ of the time and taking on the relatively new role of Hot Rod/Rodimus Prime so the mass appeal was there for families across generations.
Personally I thought Robert Stack doing Ultra Magnus was awesome.
But the concepts were a bit too far into science fiction proper and younger minds at the time were wanting more pew pew and less reflections upon what it is to be a leader. They wanted "You've Got The Touch!" and for Starscream to betray Megatron at the last second (Again).
I think it's aged quite well and is probably a movie for men now to look back upon as oppose to the target audience of young boys seeing it for the first time.
But if we're talking making bank, it didn't work in the classic sense of having good returns at the time. The 2007 Michael Bay movie might have restarted the franchise but the OG crew who bought the toys and witnessed Grimlock becoming smart and sacrificing that for his creations have different memories of how it all started.
And that's before we bring Voltron, Gobots and Gatchaman into the mix to muddy the loyalties of certain children.
But the entire merch and fandom community probably started around that time and has only grown into a different beast now. Without any Atticus Finch's or Tex Avery's frameworks to guide young minds we have truly ended up with sexual deviants trying to ascribe perverted moral messages and failing at a ridiculous level.
But if this isn't your grandfather's [X], it certainly isn't anyone elses.
I think death of Optimus and growth of hotrod by itself is fine if it was intended to be the last chapter of the g1 transformers story (the execution was poor, but death of a father figure and young guy growing up to fill the role is just another hero's journey) and if transformers were just a traditional ip (like comic book super heroes) that happened to have occasional toys and merchs instead of an ip built up intended to be toy commercials. I imagine the anger from fans wasn't necessarily because they killed off Optimus, but the cynical reason behind such action
Love the movie - yes the whole thing was basically an ad for the new toy line which sucked compared to gen1.
Karen Professional Associations (moms) du jour hated the series to begin with because it was “just an ad to sell toys” then ran with the “it’s too traumatizing for kids” in the movie because that was a better narrative.
Yeah - Hasbro kinda killed the franchise there but did it with one glorious bang.
Season 3 being written and animated like shit didn't help anything.
And let's not forget Transformers is far from dead. Probably the best selling action figure line out there year after year.
The comics still do well. More Than Meets The Eye from the 2005 IDW series alongside Robots In Disguise was a very well written and long series. The end of the run does turn into a bit of a mess when it starts bringing in every other IP owned by Hasbro at the time such as M.A.S.K. [the woke version], Rom and the Spaceknights, G.I. Joe, Visionaries, and whatever else there was.
The Lost Light sequel/followup has some very good moments in it but also goes far harder on woke inserts like several previously male transformers now identifying as female, far too anthropomorphic relationship interactions for a millions year old robot race, and blatant woke talking points such as "Tough lady 'bots for the win" from the ending Unicron series. Personally I stop any re-reads of the 2005 IDW collections once Lost Light ends since the Unicron story is just shit.
I was going to read Lost Light until I heard about the woke shit, they just can't help themselves.
Did they really kill it when it kept going on strong in Japan
I liked the movie and I think I watched it in cinemas
I'm sorry but I wouldn't change the movie for anything. If they took kids feelings into account, we would have gotten some watered-down neutered family bullshit. Instead, we got what Transformers is actually about: giant robots fucking killing each other in a never ending civil war.
Fuck anyone who talks shit on this movie
And now it's considered a ballsy move.
That's the thing about risk.
Sometimes you lose
HOLY SHIT!!!!
Megatron: Prime.
Prime: One shall stand, one shall fall.
Megatron: Why throw away your life so recklessly?
Optimus: Thats a question you should ask yourself Megatron.