Optimus Prime (G1)/Generation 1 cartoon continuity
Come read the incredibly complex, convoluted, and competing accounts of Optimus Prime's massive amount of appearances in the Generation 1 cartoon continuity!
The Transformers cartoon
- Voice actors: Peter Cullen (Optimus Prime, English), Laurie Faso (Orion Pax, English), Tesshō Genda (Japanese), Francis Lax (French), Hubert Gagnon (French Canadian), Willi Röbke (German), Thomas Rau (German Generation 2), Diego Reggente (Italian, first season and part of second season), Giorgio Melazzi (Italian, third season), Celso de Vasconcelos (Brazil, episodes 4-27), Darcy Pedrosa (Brazil, episodes 28 onwards), Edgar Wald (Latin American dub), Vlastimir Đuza Stojiljković (Serbian)
Optimus Prime began his life as an Autobot named Orion Pax during the Golden Age of Cybertron nine million years ago. Together with his girlfriend Ariel and his best friend Dion, Orion was a dock-worker at a storage yard who had the simple job of unloading and storing shipments of energy that came from a power plant up-river. But the times in which Orion lived were strange ones: A new breed of robot had recently appeared on the planet, with strange robot-mode flight powers that led Orion and Dion to idolize them. Ariel wasn't so sure, having heard rumors that the flying robots' leader had recently perpetrated an attack on an outer city.
One day, Orion was going about work as usual when an unfamiliar group of five robots arrived on the docks, and Orion, wondering if they were new workers, introduced himself and his friends. At that moment, all attentions turned skyward as a group of the flying robots soared by overhead. Both Ariel and the newcomers urged caution in dealing with the fliers, but Orion waved off their concerns, and returned to work. Before long, Orion was shocked when he was approached by Megatron, leader of the flying robots, who claimed to be looking for a place to store his wares. Overcome, Orion showed Megatron around the warehouses and explained that they were used for storing energy... at which point Megatron ordered his followers, the Decepticons, to attack and steal it all! When Orion took a shot to the shoulder from the Decepticon leader, Ariel rushed to his defense, but was hit by another blast from Megatron. The enraged Orion lunged at Megatron, but was shot down by yet another blast from the Decepticon's cannon.
While Megatron and his troops set about pillaging the warehouses, the five robots Orion had met earlier carried his body away, in hopes of finding someone to repair him. They came upon the Cybertronian machinesmith Alpha Trion, who reluctantly decided to subject Orion to a new reconstruction process he had developed, which would rebuild the Autobots' frail bodies into battle-hardy configurations so that they could battle the Decepticons on even footing. Thus it was that Orion Pax became Optimus Prime, the new leader of the Autobots, and was given the Matrix of Leadership, which Alpha Trion had kept safe since Megatron had killed its previous holder. While Alpha Trion set to work on rebuilding Ariel into "Elita One" using Prime's schematics as a basis, Prime confronted Megatron, introducing himself as the Decepticon's "worst nightmare". A mighty battle ensued, which came to an end when the warehouse's fuel stockpiles were blown up by the five enigmatic Autobots, who disappeared. War Dawn
Over the following five million years, Optimus Prime led the Autobots in a steady war of attrition that gradually drained Cybertron of almost all of its energy. In order to continue the fight, Prime arranged for an interstellar expedition to search for energy on other planets. Loading his best and brightest aboard a huge spacecraft, Prime was the last to board, but was stopped by a cry from Elita One, who came running up to the launch platform. Prime told her that he would return for her as soon as he could, but Elita was intent on joining Prime on the mission. No debate was to be had, however, as a Decepticon attack on the platform caused an explosion that seemingly destroyed Elita. Crestfallen, Prime boarded the spacecraft and ordered a take-off, unaware that Elita had, in fact, survived. The Search for Alpha Trion
The Autobots' spacecraft had a troubled flight. After navigating a treacherous asteroid field, the ship was caught in a tractor beam from a Decepticon space cruiser that had been shadowing them, under the command of Megatron himself. Megatron's forces swarmed the Autobot ship, and the two leaders grappled until the G-force of the nearby planet Earth took hold of the craft, and dragged it down. Although Prime tried valiantly to pull the ship up, it collided with a mountain so violently that all the Autobots and Decepticons were knocked offline.
Four million years later, in 1984, a volcanic eruption jarred the ship's computer, Teletraan I, back online, and it set about reviving the Transformers indiscriminately, beginning with the Decepticons. The evil robots soon departed the Ark, but thanks to a tremor caused by a petty parting shot upon the ship from Starscream, the inactive form of Optimus Prime was jostled into the path of Teletraan I's restoration beam. Reconfigured by the computer to transform into a tractor trailer, Prime thanked Teletraan for its efforts with a thumbs-up, and quickly saw to the reactivation of all his fellow Autobots. Wasting no time, Prime led the Autobots in pursuing the Decepticons, who were in the process of attacking an oil rig. Prime and Megatron faced off, but Prime was promptly set upon by Laserbeak, allowing Megatron to break off the fight and collapse the oil rig with a few well-placed blasts. More than Meets the Eye, Part 1 Prime quickly rescued a pair of rig workers—Sparkplug Witwicky and his son Spike—and introduced himself and the Autobots to the two grateful humans, who volunteered to help the Autobots learn more about Earth.
Next, the Decepticons targeted Sherman Dam, and Prime led the Autobots in an attempt to stop them, battling Megatron atop the dam with his retractable energon-axe. Distracted by a cry for help from Spike, Prime was knocked off the dam by Megatron, and the Decepticons escaped to carry out their next raid, this time on the ruby crystal mines of Burma. When the Autobots arrived at the mines, Sparkplug and Bumblebee were sent in to plant an explosive charge that would entomb the Decepticons. When the pair did not return, Prime drove up to the mineshaft and deployed Roller to investigate. No sooner had Roller entered the mine, however, than the charge went off, and Prime was caught in the blast and hurled off the cliff. More than Meets the Eye, Part 2 Prime and Roller both survived the explosion, but unfortunately, so did the Decepticons, who blasted their way free of the collapsed mine and took to the air. Prime tried to stop Ironhide from pursuing the villains, but his old friend would not listen and was shot down. Prime was happy that Ironhide was okay, but reminded him that there was a thin line between being a hero, and being a memory.
After the Autobots' attempt to use a phony holographic rocket base to dupe the Decepticons failed, Megatron stood poised to return to Cybertron. Prime called for volunteers for the dangerous mission to stop the Decepticons' blasting off in their new space cruiser, and all the Autobots stepped forward, including Spike and Sparkplug. With all his soldiers behind him, Prime led the Autobots into battle once more, and once again faced off with Megatron, this time using the additional firepower of his Combat Deck against his enemy. When the combat shifted to hand-to-hand, however, Prime was blindsided by Ravage, affording Megatron the opportunity to call off the fight and instruct the Decepticons to board the cruiser. As the craft took off, emotion got the better of Prime, and in a rare display of short-temperedness and anger, he roared at Sideswipe to hand over his rocket pack. With the pack's additional boost, Prime achieved escape velocity and followed the cruiser into space, but a blast from its artillery hatch sent him plummeting back to Earth. His anger fading to despair, Prime declared that the Decepticons had won... before noticing that Mirage was missing. In fact, the invisible Autobot had stowed away aboard the Decepticons' cruiser and sabotaged it from within, causing it to crash back to Earth, into the ocean. Believing the Decepticons aboard destroyed, Prime ordered the Autobots back to the ship, so that they could continue rebuilding it and return to Cybertron themselves. More than Meets the Eye, Part 3
One night, months later, before rebuilding was complete, Prime and Ironhide stood looking out at the ocean, and Prime confessed he was not entirely convinced that the Decepticons were gone for good. And he was right: before long, Teletraan I reported an emergency at a solar power plant, and Optimus discovered to his horror that Megatron still lived. Prime led a team of Autobots to drive the villains off, and while they were successful, the Decepticons escaped with a large quantity of energy to send to Cybertron with their new intergalactic "space bridge" transport system. Spike was captured and nearly sent across the bridge with the energy, but at the last moment, Prime blasted him free of the transport pod and then hurled Megatron into the bridge in his place. Transport to Oblivion Megatron was not gone for long, however, and when Prime next faced his eternal enemy, it was for possession of an antimatter energy formula. Roll for It
While searching for any trace of where the Decepticons' space bridge would next materialize, Prime received word of a Decepticon attack on a weapons factory and sped to the scene. In the battle that followed, Prime was badly injured by an exploding computer bank when he shielded the human workers with his body, and was taken back to Autobot Headquarters for repair. Alas, Laserbeak followed the Autobots back to their base, and while Prime was lying on a medical table with his internal mechanisms exposed, the crooked cassette struck, destroying Prime's vital cosmitron component. A team of Autobots were dispatched to Cybertron to recover a replacement cosmitron, but in their absence, the Decepticons initiated an all-out attack on the Autobots. At the last moment, the cosmitron arrived, and the repaired Prime made a dramatic entrance onto the battlefield, challenging Megatron to one-on-one combat and soundly defeating him. Divide and Conquer
After leading the Autobots on a mission to the Arctic to stop the Decepticons from draining the energy of the Earth's core, Fire in the Sky Optimus Prime okayed Wheeljack and Ratchet's project to create robotic dinosaurs to bolster their forces. Unfortunately, when the three "Dinobots" turned out to be dangerous, simple-minded monsters, Prime ordered them destroyed. Wheeljack was able to talk him down to merely deactivating the Dinobots and sealing them in a cavern in their volcano headquarters... and a good thing, too, since soon after, when Prime and the Autobots were defeated in battle with the Decepticons at the Great Falls, Wheeljack was able to bring the Dinobots back online to save the day. Realizing that "even the wisest of men and machines can be in error", Prime overruled his previous order, and allowed the Dinobots to remain part of the Autobot ranks. S.O.S. Dinobots
Following a mission to Peru, Fire on the Mountain Prime was so impressed with the Dinobot trio's improved performance that he ordered the creation of two more. Unfortunately, Prime would soon learn that the Dinobots were not perfect; left alone to guard a strange energy-rich meteorite, the Dinobots were approached by Megatron, who exploited their simple brains to turn them against Optimus Prime. Soon after, when Prime discovered that the meteorite was unstable and set to explode, he rushed out to warn the Dinobots, only to be attacked by Megatron
TRANSFORMERS 3 DARK OF THE MOON:
Transformers dark of the moon is based on Sentinal Prime and The pillars taking over the world. (Bring Cybertron to Earth). Optumis Prime Has a trailer with a flight deck
