"It's time to show them that we are more than meets the eye."
| “ | And now we stand here, together as one, proving we all have the power to transform. To become who we were destined to be. To right wrongs, to make our world better. Because here, freedom and autonomy are the rights of all sentient beings. Here, all are truly Autobots. This message is a warning to all Quintessons: if you dare return to Cybertron, the Autobots will be waiting. I will be waiting. I am Optimus Prime! | „ |
| ~ A touching yet heartwarming ending speech of the movie. |
It's been two weeks since the release of Transformers One and I've been waiting for me to watch this latest masterpiece! Now with the two of them finally got their chance of proposing the two main villains from the movie on the Villains Wiki, it's my time to shine as I will be proposing the Big Good of the movie, the one we all knew and love is none other than Optimus Prime!
Anyways, it's been a month ever since all Transformers fans (especially Pro and myself) are celebrating the 40th anniversary of the franchise and the toyline brand as well.
What's the work?
Transformers One is a 2024 CGI-animated sci-fi action film based on Transformers toyline franchise by Hasbro that was theatrically released September 20, 2024. It was directed by Josh Cooley and screenplayed by Eric Pearson, Andrew Barrer and Gabriel Ferrari. Since the film was released by the year of 2024, it was to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the franchise.
The film follows the origin story of both leaders of two feuding factions from Cybertron called Optimus Prime and Megatron, who were originally known as Orion Pax and D-16, and it tells about how their friendship has fractured throughout the movie which led to become sworn enemies as they were. In the film, Orion and D-16 have came from their humbled origins as they're working as energon miners who wished of proving themselves worthy in the eyes of Cybertron, even if it means sneaking in to the Iacon 5000 to join the race which eventually got themselves into trouble by getting sent to a sublevel of 50 where they first met B-127 and discover Alpha Trion's distress signal that gives them the location to the surface, believing this would help them find the Matrix of Leadership to bring Cybertron back to its former glory.
With Elita-1 joins in their quest, Orion and his friends eventually discover Alpha Trion in the cave and reactivate him where they're horrified of learning the dark truth about their "beloved protector" Sentinel Prime and were given T-cogs in order for them to change Cybertron. However, this eventually led to Orion and D-16's friendships to grew slowly fractured over the course of the movie. Since the death of Sentinel, Cybertron goes back to its former glory but the battle wasn't over since it was the beginning of the Autobots and the Decepticons.
Who is he?
Optimus Prime, originally known as Orion Pax, is a main protagonist of 2024 CGI-animated film Transformers One. He is a former energon miner who eventually became the leader of the heroic Autobots and D-16's former best friend-turned-archenemy.
What he has done?
Orion Pax is a cogless Cybertronian who worked as an energon miner and became friends with D-16 when they first worked here. Unlike his other fellow miners, Orion is the only one who remained courageous, determined and free-spirited individual who dreams of proving his and other miners' worth and changing Cybertron for the better future. Whenever he would sneak into the archives to watch archival recordings of the history of Cybetron like the planet, the Primes and the Matrix of Leadership, he would often get himself caught red-handed with two guards which led to a chase until D-16 had to pull him out of trouble. After they get to a train, he presented a sticker of Megatronus to D-16 as a gift.
While mining for energon, the disaster happens when Wheeljack accidentally hits the veins of dangerous and unstable energon, putting the rest of miners in danger. Even though it will break the protocol, Orion and D-16 wasn't hesitant to help Jazz getting out from being stuck under the rockfall with the former using the jetpack to make it quicker, but only to make it worse as the mine starting to collapsed which almost got them all killed. As result, Elita-1 was fired by Darkwing and is demoted to a waste management duty. Despite Orion's attempts to defend Elita, Darkwing attempts to punch him and D-16 tried to pardoned him by apologized on his behalf, but only to get knocked out instead. Despite getting punched in the face, Orion wasn't upset to D-16 about it and thanking him for always sticking up for him. When Sentinel returns to Iacon empty-handed without the Matrix of Leadership and announced that tomorrow will be Iacon 5000, Orion believed this would be his and D-16's chance to prove their worth, but D-16 wanted nothing to do with it.
The next morning, Orion brings D-16 to sneak inside the maintenance area and they watch the Iacon 5000 inside the giant starting signal, but in reality he was actually tricking him into joining the race together, much to D-16's annoyance and dismay of this. Despite their struggles of facing the obstacles and horde of racing bots such as Darkwing, they managed to win the second place through jetpacks and quick thinking after they lost to Chromia as the winner of the race. While they're recovering from the race, Orion and D-16 would eventually visited by Sentinel Prime who is very impressed of their wild and insane stunts they did just back there and invited them to his personal service facilities for a treat, but only for them to get sent down to a trash incinerator of sublevel of 50 for causing Darkwing to lose the race. There, they met a cheerful and talkative B-127 who works at a waste management as well. After watching the Primes' battle against the Quintessons and discovering the coordinates of the location to the surface, Orion, D-16 and B believed it will led them to the Matrix of Leadership.
Orion, D-16 and B went up to the waste disposal train where they meet up with Elita-1 again. While chasing Elita all over the train, Orion and his friends are immediately surprised of finding themselves at the surface. While convincing Elita to join him and his friends on their quest to find the Matrix of Leadership together, they're ended up facing the surface's violent shifting geology which causing them to fall off the train and missed it. After Elita reluctantly joins them on their quest, they have reached to a desolated city during their journey where they're almost got caught red-handed by the Quintessons.
Once they arrived at a cave, Orion and his friends are very shocked of witnessing the corpses of the Primes (including Megatronus) and found out the Matrix of Leadership is gone. However, they did found Alpha Trion who has been inactive for a long time and Orion reactivates him by giving him a small cube of energon. While the main four are explaining their mission to him, Alpha Trion began to reveal the truth about what happened to the Primes as well as Sentinel's true nature and intentions. Outside the cave, Orion and his friends are eventually horrified to discover that Sentinel has made an alliance with the Quintessons, but they're quickly caught by Sentinel's right-hand woman Airachnid who's with him during his meeting with the Quintessons. Now the main four are horrified of what they just heard and saw since the truth about Sentinel has come to light, Orion and D-16 are having an arguement over what they should do with Sentinel once they return back to Iacon. However, Alpha Trion believed there's still a hope to change Cybertron and gifted the main four the cogs of four fallen Primes and the recording of Sentinel's true nature and intentions as a proof to reveal it to Iacon. While the main four were escaping the cave as Sentinel's forces were about to come, Orion doesn't want to leave Alpha Trion behind but only to reluctantly insists. Despite having troubled with transforming into their alt modes initially, Orion and his friends were eventually succeeds of doing it which allowed them to escape from the group of Death Trackers. However, D-16 eventually snatched the evidence of Sentinel's treachery from Orion's arm and decide to take the lead, much to his friends' confusion.
On their way back to Iacon, Orion and D-16 are having an arguement again until the main four were captured by Starscream and the High Guards and were brought for an interrogation. Since the High Guards are also against Sentinel, Orion tried to convinced them to join with him and his friends on their quest to take down Sentinel, but D-16 already went to take down Starscream and rallied the other High Guards to follow him as their new leader, much to Orion's shock and horror of seeing this. However, Airachnid and her forces are ambushing on the main four and the High Guards before D-16, B and the half of the High Guard were taken away by them. Now it's just himself, Elita and the remaining half of the High Guard remained, Orion felt like it was hopeless to stop Sentinel since the evidence is already destroyed, but only for Elita to encouraged him that his actions makes him a true leader. With the help of Elita, he managed to rally the remaining half of High Guard to join them in the battle against Sentinel and rescue their allies, but not before cried out "Transform and roll out!" for the first time.
Back to Iacon, Orion return back to the miners and reunited with them after punching Darkwing away to save them from being enslaved. After telling his journey to the surface and revealing the truth about Sentinel, he convinced his fellow miners to fight back and join with him to rebel against Sentinel, which they eagerly accepts. When Elita and the High Guards are attacked by Airachnid and her forces, Orion and the rest of miners are leaping up to join the fight against them until he was brutally pinned down by Airachnid in front of the train before kicking her off. After the train crashed right down to Sentinel's tower, Orion released D-16 from being held captive. While fighting against Sentinel and his forces, he ordered Elita not to break Airachnid apart because they need to use her memory bank to reveal Sentinel's true colors all over the public broadcast. Now that Airachnid is defeated, Orion and B meet up with Elita at the broadcast station where the former opens up the broadcast and use Airachnid's memory back to reveal Sentinel's true colors to the public, which led to everyone turning against the false Prime. When D-16 brutally beat up Sentinel and attempt to kill him for his treachery, Orion later steps in to stop him and tried to convinced him that killing him isn't going to make him any better. Shocked over his friend's words, D-16 refused to listen and shoved Orion aside before he was about to deliver a finishing blow to Sentinel, but only for Orion to take the hit instead. Felt betrayed and heartbroken over this, D-16, now rebranded himself as Megatron, allows a mortally wounded Orion Pax to fall down to his death, leading him to plummet down into Cybertron's planetary core where he encounters with the spirits of the past Primes and was given the Matrix of Leadership for his noble and brave sacrifice.
Now revived and rebranded as Optimus Prime, he flied back up to the surface of Iacon to face Megatron and eventually defeated him. Since Megatron has fallen into darkness and is hard to be reasoned, Optimus had no other choice but to mercifully banished him and the High Guards from the Iacon for his actions and crimes against them, which his former friend resentfully and begrudgingly agrees to leave but not before declaring it wasn't over. After enlisting Elita and B for a help rebuild Cybertron, he used the Matrix of Leadership to bring Cybertron back to its former glory, thus finally bringing back the flow of energon and returning the cogs back to the miners, now rebranded themselves as "Autobots" who will protect Cybertron from any dangerous threats like the Quintessons and later the Decepticons in the future.
Admirable standards
If anyone think One connects to the reboot live-action films, but it's not. The film actually sets on their own continuity instead. Now let's all compare with other major characters (with an exception of D-16/Megatron) in the movie, like Elita-1 (who encouraged Orion to get back on his feet to continued to fight against Sentinel and liberate Cybertron from him, helping Orion rallying the half remaining of High Guard to join the fight, defeating Airachnid to help Orion use her memory banks to expose Sentinel's true colors and deception to Cybertron and attempt to stop Megatron's rampage around Iacon), Bumblebee (who helps Orion and his friends to fight against Sentinel and liberate Cybertron from him, helps break into the broadcast station to expose Sentinel's true colors and deception to Cybertron, and attempt to stop Megatron's rampage on Iacon), and Alpha Trion (who fought against the Quintessons along with his fellow Primes, reveals Sentinel's true nature and intentions to Orion and his friends, giving them hope to restore Cybertron back to its former glory by granting them their cogs and allowed the main four to escape from Sentinel's forces while dealing with them) as well. As for the miners and the half remaining of High Guards (like Shockwave and Soundwave), they did nothing to stand out since they only helped Orion and his friends to fight against Sentinel and liberate Cybertron from him and nothing else.
Orion Pax/Optimus Prime is the most admirable one on the other hand. Even as a miner without T-cogs, he is the only one who remained hopeful and determined since his ultimate goal was to change Cybertron for the better future. During the main four's journey to find the Matrix of Leadership, he is the one who have reactivate one of the most legendary Primes of Cybertron, the Alpha Trion, by giving him the small cube of energon, and it led to Alpha Trion letting him and his friends knew about the dark truth of Sentinel and granted them their own T-cogs as well. During Airachnid and her forces' ambush on the High Guard's base, he joins with the others for the fight and later saved Elita from getting shot by one of the Death Trackers. After D-16, B-127 and the half remaining High Guard (including Starscream) was captured, he rallied the half remaining of High Guard (including Shockwave and Starscream) and later the rest of his fellow miners to join him in fighting against Sentinel and liberate Cybertron from him, with encouraging the latter of them by giving the same advice the Alpha Trion gave to him and his friends.
| “ | What defines a Transformer is not the cog in its chest but the spark that resides in their core... a spark that gives you the will to make your world better, and that is something Sentinel can never take from us. | „ |
| ~ Looks like Orion has learned from the best. |
After rescuing D-16, B-127 and the half remaining High Guards from being held captive by Sentinel, Orion managed to reveal Sentinel's true colors and deception to Cybertron by using Airachnid's memory banks to broadcast it all over Iacon, resulting in everyone turning against the false Prime. However, it wasn't enough for him to stop D-16's madness as he tried to stop him from killing Sentinel because it doesn't make him better, but with no success as D-16 already turning himself into a power hungry and ruthless Decepticon leader he ever is, Megatron. After revived and rebranded as Optimus Prime, he returned back to the surface of Iacon to stop Megatron and the High Guard's rampage around Iacon by defeating their leader and banishing them from Iacon. Now with the Matrix of Leadership restored, he finally brings Cybertron back to its former glory by returning the flow of Energon back to the river and giving the cogs back to the rest of miners, which led to the creation of the heroic Autobots as result.
Mitigating factors
For starters, Optimus Prime/Orion Pax used to be very reckless, impulsive, and a bit selfish for an individual at the beginning of the film, which led to him always causing trouble around Iacon like sneaking into the archives and later the Iacon 5000 with to join the race with D-16 as well and slightly never considers about how others felt like his best friend-turned-archenemy D-16. He is very troublesome so much that none of the others like D-16 and Elita-1 cannot stand his antics at all, especially when the former having an arguement with him following to their discovery of Sentinel's true colors. However by the time at the end of the movie, he managed to subvert the rest of his corrupting after he was revived and rebranded as Optimus Prime where he became much more wiser and benevolent entirely than before, though he still kept his playful and joking manner of his occasionally.
Even though he flips Darkwing off while trying to stand up for Elita-1 after she was unfairly fired for him breaking the protocol, he was never meant to be vulgar on him and it's because Darkwing was a huge jerk who always treats bots without cogs like trash.
No matter how much D-16 and Elita-1 are being a jerk to him because of his antics, Orion still deeply cared for them and would do anything to stick up for them. Even during his arguement with D-16, he never argued at him back while they're argued regarding about what they should do with Sentinel once they return back to Iacon and defeated him.
Even if the High Guards are very hostile to him and his friends, he could still try to talk them out by convincing them to join them in their fight against Sentinel and liberate Cybertron from him, which eventually succeeds with the help of Elita.
Despite everything that Sentinel has done, he still tried to stop D-16 from killing the false Prime because it won't make him better, showing how pacifistic and merciful he could be as he was only focusing on make Cybertron a better place, but with no success as D-16 already rebranded himself as Megatron and finally succeeds in killing Sentinel.
While he did banish Megatron and the High Guards from the Iacon, it is the only way to stop them from keep on causing a rampage on Iacon and believed that the former is too hard to be reasoned with, while only did this out of genuine mercy. By the look on his face while confronting Megatron, he was completely sad and heartbroken over his betrayal rather than expressing anger and disappointment at him. After Megatron and the rest of High Guard leave Iacon, Optimus then remembers back at the time where he and D-16 first met, showing how much he still cared for them despite their friendship has been slowly fractured.
Final verdict
Easy solid keeper.