Optimus Prime (War for Cybertron trilogy)

undefined Optimus Prime is the main protagonist of the Transformers franchise. Sadly, he was butchered badly in Netflix's Transformers: War for Cybertron trilogy. He is voiced by Jake Foushee, who also voiced Nemesis Prime in the same series.

Why Cybertron Doesn't Need What He Views to Be Freedom, Nor Does He Deserve the Touch, and Should Have Died Instead of Elita-1
This will only apply to his War for Cybertron trilogy counterpart, as the original G1 Optimus Prime is likable.
 * 1) For starters, this version of Optimus Prime can't make up his mind about anything.
 * 2) Supposedly he is meant to be "a desperate leader" kind of protagonist. However, because of the poor writing and characterization said below, he comes off as incredibly unsympathetic.
 * 3) *If anything, many of his actions will make the audience root against him instead.
 * 4) Optimus Prime suffers from a prime (pun intended) example of character derailment. He was derailed from a noble, selfless, responsible, competent, and likable leader who cared deeply for others into an egotistical, selfish, incompetent, irresponsible and extremely unlikable leader who couldn't care less about his own Autobots, even Elita-1.
 * 5) He is a terrible leader. Even Unicron Trilogy Optimus at his dumbest was still a good leader.
 * 6) His infamous line, "We are not the Decepticons!", due to how hypocritical and pointless it is.
 * 7) Speaking of poor leadership, he literally begs his Autobots to trust him. How pathetic.
 * 8) In the first episode, he was completely and pathetically weak as a fighter as he just got himself overpowered by Megatron.
 * 9) He never listens to his fellow Autobots, even to his lover Elita-1.
 * 10) He is extremely egotistical, as he constantly believes he is in the right and as said earlier, never listens to the other Autobots.
 * 11) He trusts Bumblebee way too quickly.
 * 12) He even willingly leaves some of his Allies, including Elita, to die on Cybertron, which was ultimately for nothing.
 * 13) He ultimately and irresponsibly dooms Cybertron by sending the AllSpark into space.
 * 14) *While his Transformers Prime counterpart did send the AllSpark into space, it was justified since he and Alpha Trion created a vessel for it and have it ejected to be in a distant sector to be kept safe from Megatron's hands and after Cybertron was poisoned by Dark Energon and forced to shut down to purge the effects for millions of years until its restoration by the Cyber-Lock and Optimus risked his life to reunite the AllSpark with the core to restore life of Cybertron. However, the difference is that this act by Optimus in the War of Cybertron trilogy proves to get Cybertron in a worse condition which would have been used to restore Cybertron, yet he just sends it off into space, showing how he is too incompetent and delusional to even save his homeworld.
 * 15) * While his Bayverse counterpart also did it too, he felt extreme remorse for it, and after the AllSpark's destruction, he considered and wanted Earth to be a new home for his people, which War for Cybertron trilogy Optimus didn't and essentially doomed all Cybertronians as shown in the bad future. This shows he's too selfish and delusional to even save his own species.
 * 16) Viewers are supposed to root for Prime and root against Megatron, but his actions make him come off as an incompetent, unsympathetic, and delusional egotist who is practically and nothing more than a hopeless nitwit and Megatron being a responsible, smart, competent, and honorable leader. In fact, Megatron even says to Elita that she'd be a better leader than Prime. Long story short, we are rooting against Prime and admiring Megatron instead of the other way around.
 * 17) He's the reason for Ultra Magnus's death and use as a host for Shockwave's virus.
 * 18) He's the other reason why Megatron was forced to shut down Sector 12 and forced to sacrifice his own minions and even other Autobots to depend on Cybertron's survival as another result of sending the AllSpark to deep space.
 * 19) He got himself and the other surviving Autobots, including Bumblebee, captured by Deseeus and in so putting himself and his allies he brought with him on the Ark in danger when he arrogantly drove Deseeus insane.
 * 20) He stupidly almost got some of his Autobots and himself including Megatron and some of the Decepticons killed when he shoots at an explosion charge on Scorponok which would have destroyed them all.
 * 21) During Earthrise, he questions Megatron what happened to Elita-1. When Megatron tells Prime she died, Optimus tries to kill him. The audience is supposed to see the pain he has gone through, but then again, he brought it onto himself, as he was the one who left her to die.
 * 22) For some reason in the future after failing to retrieve the Allspark and got himself killed, he was reincarnated into Nemesis Prime and just committed treason by betraying the Autobots and every single Cybertronian and teams up with Galvatron who was Megatron and his archenemy. From this pointer, this makes him even worse as a villain than who he was before.
 * 23) *While one could make the argument that he was reincarnated/reformatted by Unicron, characters who have been reformatted by Unicron still do have some free will in them. For example, in the 1986 film, Galvatron turned on Unicron because he was about to destroy Cybertron. Another example is that Galvatron in Predacons Rising redeemed himself even though he was controlled by Unicron. Both of these examples show that Future!Optimus joined Unicron and became Nemesis Prime not because he was corrupted by him, but out of his own free will.
 * 24) Again for some other reason as Nemesis Prime, not only does he and Galvatron choose to betray Unicron by finding and using the AllSpark for themselves against Unicron which is a petty move from the fact that he is their creator. Their motive of betraying Unicron is not very fleshed out at all either. This further shows that Future!Optimus chose to join Unicron and become his Herald.
 * 25) *Plot-hole:If they wanted to betray Unicron that badly, why didn't they just use the Matrix of Leadership? The Matrix of Leadership is the only thing that can kill Unicron and Megatron already had it on his chest, and it would've been far more easier for them to use the Matrix instead of trying to find the AllSpark.
 * 26) He was at first in denial that he wasn't even Nemesis which makes him a complete idiot of not realizing it until he finally met his future self in the final episode. This shows just how narcissistic this version of Optimus Prime is.
 * 27) Idiotic Move: As his future self, Nemesis Prime, he chose to destroy his past counterpart which is an idiotic movie because if he does kill his past self, he would have never even existed in the first place, which would have caused a time paradox.
 * 28) At the end of Kingdom, he ultimately gets completely scot-free for everything he'd done up to that point, thus making him a huge Karma Houdini
 * 29) Also, he didn't even use the AllSpark to bring any deceased Autobot and Decepticon back to life.
 * 30) Somehow the Maximals and the Predacons still existed which is obvious that he hasn't fully saved the future because the Maximals and the Predacons, including his future self, were an example of his poor leadership and petty betrayal and when the AllSpark is used to restore Cybertron, somehow they continue to exist.
 * 31) As Nemesis Prime, he and Galvatron still somehow exist even after Cybertron was restored and both of them ended up being reformatted by Unicron which ends the trilogy on a massive cliffhanger.
 * 32) WHS#25 and WHS#26 also cause two massive plotholes within the story.
 * 33) His motive of "Cybertron needs freedom" is an extremely shallow excuse, as he dooms Cybertron, and gets many of his own troops killed, all of which are his fault. Let's not forget that this is a sign of his hypocrisy.
 * 34) He wouldn't offer peace with Megatron, who is supposedly the villian, and would rather get himself and the other Autobots killed in their darkest hour. This shows he is SO egotistical to the point he couldn't care less for his fellow Autobots. Worse, we are expected to sympathize with him because of that.
 * 35) *While his Bayverse counterpart killed Megatron even when he was offering a truce at the end of Dark of The Moon, the difference is that the Autobots had basically won up to that point, while War for Cybertron Trilogy Optimus refused the truce even when his Autobots were about to lose, showing that he is too delusional, egotistical, and selfish to even care for others.
 * 36) And the other worst result of his defiance of peace, he's also the reason why the entire Autobot race would have been reprogrammed into Decepticons.
 * 37) His "do you forgive me?" scene is very cringeworthy.
 * 38) He is extremely selfish to the point of refusing to accept responsibility for his actions, as he told the Maximals, who were rightfully upset at him, that he threw the AllSpark into space just because he thought he did what he had to do.
 * 39) He is the one who causes all the conflict in the story.
 * 40) His reason to continue his war against the Decepticons was so petty that it was all literally just because of Alpha Trion's death by Megatron. While it is sad that Alpha Trion died by Megatron's hands but Optimus took it way too far. This makes him a complete psychopath who only wanted revenge, making him similar to his Michael Bay counterpart, but much worse.
 * 41) *Worse, we are supposed to not only root for him, but sympathize with him because of that!
 * 42) *In other words, he was the one who started the war instead of Megatron!
 * 43) Jake Foushee tries too much trying to impersonate Peter Cullen.
 * 44) He can easily be compared to Superman from the third and fourth films. Both are red and blue, both are the main protagonists of their series, both have been derailed, and both are complete idiots who went against every single thing that their original characters stood for.
 * 45) He was ultimately turned into a complete joke and then into a generic doomsday villain as his future self. While his Bayverse and Unicron trilogy incarnations did a lot of stupid things, they were never incompetent nor irresponsible.
 * 46) Due to all the actions above, he's better off being the antagonist than the protagonist.
 * 47) Overall, this Optimus Prime destroyed everything that the original Optimus Prime stood for.

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) His design is cool and somewhat faithful to G1.
 * 2) His toy counterparts are quite good.
 * 3) He does get some character development.
 * 4) He still genuinely (though extremely slightly) cares about Elita-1 and many of his Autobots.
 * 5) Perhaps this is the best example on how not to write Optimus Prime.
 * 6) Despite WCDNWHVTBF#23, his voice actor did a decent job and can be tolerable, depending on your view.

Trivia

 * 1) Nemesis Prime in the trilogy is actually an evil Optimus Prime from a bad future where the AllSpark never returned to Cybertron
 * 2) Jake Foushee previously voiced Optimus Prime in Cyberverse, who is a much better Optimus Prime and Foushee's voice acting is much better in that show.