Why Bumblebee Is Loved and Optimus Is Respected

One cannot talk. The other only gives speeches. Peter Cullen, the voice of Optimus Prime since 1984, died this August, and the mourning looked like love. But by every measure Hasbro talks about in public, the character people love is the yellow one. Respected and loved are different verbs, and the films wrote them in. A character essay on the five Michael Bay Transformers films (2007 to 2017), with the 2018 Bumblebee film and Transformers One as the franchise's own tests of the idea. One robot was written as a voice: Peter Cullen's Optimus Prime, an impression of his brother Larry, a Marine captain who told him to be strong enough to be gentle, given a two hundred part mouth, twenty four speeches and a closing message in every film. The other was written as a body: Bumblebee, whose vocal processors were damaged in battle, voiced by two sound editors and a film vault, animated on Michael J. Fox, and handed a voice in every film only to have it taken away. Why the mourning for Cullen was made of speeches, why Hasbro's money goes to the yellow one, and why respected and loved are two verbs, not two amounts. Every quoted line is from the films or a sourced interview. Chapters 0:00 One Cannot Talk 0:50 The Case Against 2:39 Everybody's Buddy 3:38 The Silence Was Written 4:44 The Radio 5:39 A Body by Reference 6:26 Who Speaks for Him 8:05 Seven Blinks 8:59 An Impression of Larry 10:38 Twenty Four Speeches 11:33 Two Verbs 12:34 Back to the Funeral 13:35 The One Larry Described 14:38 Sign Off