>>92370296....no? As someone who was alive back then, Optimus was universally beloved by kids and that's WHY his death hit so hard.
Unless you mean to Hasbro execs which yeah, that is true. And the writer of the movie has gone on record of saying he wanted to kill off characters not to remove the toys but rather just so that the film would have stakes and you'd feel like the characters are actually in danger. Then Hasbro said yeah, we should totally kill Optimus Prime even though the writer didn't want to kill HIM off.
