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This is a question about the events of the '86 Transformers movie that's been bugging me for quite some time. It relates specifically to Optimus Prime's death at the hands of Megatron, Ultra Magnus's death at the hands of Galvatron, and Ultra Magnus's resurrection by the Junkions.

While I understand completely that Optimus Prime's corpse was still all the way back at Autobot City and there was no time to go back that far with Unicron to deal with, but what I wanna know is, after the events of the movie, perhaps toward the very beginning of Season 3, why is it that the Autbots couldn't simply go back to Autobot City, fetch Optimus's corpse, and bring it to the Planet of Junk for the Junkions to revive just like they did Ultra Magnus?

I'm sure there's a perfectly reasonable explanation, I just haven't been presented with one thus far and I'd really like to know.

This is just my view on it, so don't take it as written in stone.

Ultra Magnus didn't "die" like Optimus did. His spark didn't leave him. He got shot by Galvatron and his body exploded, but that doesn't always mean a character dies. He was in stasis lock, but not technically "dead." Yeah, Arcee said "First Prime, now Ultra Magnus" but that was just speculation on her part. (At least I think it was her who said that line. Haven't seen the movie in 5 months, I can't remember.) So basically the Junkions just repaired some damaged parts and brought him back online. That couldn't be done with Prime, he had suffered too much damage.

Also, this is a matter of opinion as well, but I think removing the Matrix had a negative effect on Prime as well. He had been carrying it for so long, removing it at the most critical time could have been the last blow to his already pulverized systems. Could he have survived had the Matrix stayed in him? It is a life-giving force, right? (Or is that just in the comics?) Yeah, he thought passing it on was the right thing to do, but he was not mentally in a good state, he could have been mistaken. I mean, he was mistaken about who the recipient of the Matrix should have been. I don't know if the argument that Hot Rod touched the Matrix 1st and that's why it didn't work for Magnus holds any merit, but as things turned out, It was Hot Rod who was "The Chosen One" not Magnus.

So to answer your question, as far as the 2 "deaths" are concerned, and what the Junkions could do about it, they're 2 different situations, as I believe Ultra Magnus was not actually dead like Prime.

HEAD CANON: Magnus only survived because he's really a little white robot in a larger suit, and wasn't himself damaged by the attack

IIRC, UM was originally meant to be pulled apart by the Sweeps, which maybe means he didn't die so much as was "just" dismembered (and so easily fixed). Then that got toned down to him merely getting shot, leading to the plot hole.

Of course the actual reasons were:

1. Bad writing

2. His toy was no longer on toy shop shelves

It's best not to attempt to rationalise it, just go with the flow.

Quint wrote:2. His toy was no longer on toy shop shelves

Talking about the actual Magnus toy or the Diaclone version? Because Magnus's 1st appearance in the cartoon was in the movie itself, so his toy came around the same time as well.

And yeah, that head canon about him actually being a smaller white Prime inside the armor and thus surviving the armor being blown apart actually makes some sense. Even if the white Prime concept came from DW in which he wore the armor in pieces instead of as his toy was, which just had the armor fold over him. So if you go by the DW version of the white Prime theory, his arms and legs still got ripped off, but the body armor took the brunt of the shots to the upper torso, thus allowing him to survive.

Rodimus Prime wrote:

Quint wrote:2. His toy was no longer on toy shop shelves

Talking about the actual Magnus toy or the Diaclone version? Because Magnus's 1st appearance in the cartoon was in the movie itself, so his toy came around the same time as well.

Neither, the subject of the question was Oppy P.