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
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) 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.
 * 3) He is a terrible leader. Even Unicron Trilogy Optimus at his dumbest was still a good leader.
 * 4) Speaking of leadership, he literally begs his Autobots to trust him. How pathetic.
 * 5) In the first episode, he was completely and pathetically weak as a fighter as he just got himself overpowered by Megatron.
 * 6) He never listens to his fellow Autobots, even to his lover Elita-1.
 * 7) He is extremely egotistical, as he constantly believes he is in the right and as said earlier, never listens to the other Autobots.
 * 8) He trusts Bumblebee way too quickly.
 * 9) He even willingly leaves some of his Allies, including Elita, to die on Cybertron, which was ultimately for nothing.
 * 10) He ultimately and irresponsibly dooms Cybertron by sending the AllSpark into space.
 * 11) *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.
 * 12) *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.''
 * 13) 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 a hopeless nitwit and Megatron being a responsible, smart, 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.
 * 14) He's the reason for Ultra Magnus's death and use as a host for Shockwave's virus.
 * 15) He got himself and the other 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.
 * 16) 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.
 * 17) He was at first in denial that he wasn't even Nemesis which makes him a complete idiot of not realizing it until he met his future self in the final episode. This shows just how narcissistic this version of Optimus Prime is.
 * 18) 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 existed which would cause a time paradox.
 * 19) 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
 * 20) 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.
 * 21) 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.
 * 22) His "do you forgive me?" scene is very cringeworthy.
 * 23) 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.
 * 24) His reason to continue his war 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.
 * 25) *Worse, we are supposed to not only root for him, but SYMPATHIZE with him because of that!
 * 26) *In other words, he was the one who started the war instead of Megatron!
 * 27) Jake Foushee tries too much trying to impersonate Peter Cullen.
 * 28) He can easily be compared to Superman from Supermans 3 and 4. Both are red and blue, both have been derailed, and both are complete idiots who destroyed what their original characters stood for.
 * 29) He was ultimately turned into a complete joke. While his Bayverse and Unicron Trilogy incarnations did a lot of stupid things, they were never incompetent nor irresponsible.
 * 30) Due to all the actions above, he's better off being the antagonist than the protagonist.
 * 31) 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 barely) 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 showm