Rest in the stars Peter Cullen, the voice of Optimus Prime

Optimus Prime Lives On But Just

We lost the voice of Optimus Prime today.

I knew the name. Vaguely. I didn’t know his face at all. I just knew what he brought to the gigantic blue-and-red Autobot leader.

I don’t know what it was about that giant truck-turning-robot, but he inspired a generation. And somewhere, a father-abandoned girl thought, Yeah. That one. He’ll be my dad. In the years to come, he became a strange guiding presence. Maybe it was the ideal. The freedom he spoke of like religion. Or the steady I will stand that made him perfect.

But I somehow slept better knowing he was there. Not physically, of course, but with my imagination, it might as well have been true.

So many nights, and sometimes days, my ten-year-old self would put on those cartoons, and I’d just look up at nothing and feel that towering presence and go, I can do this. Don’t ask me. I didn’t get it then and I don’t get it now.

But today Peter Cullen, the voice of Optimus Prime, died at 85, surrounded by his family.

And yeah, a person is dead. But for me, that strange low timbre of Optimus’ voice is gone.

And I can’t explain the loss. Hell, I can’t even feel it all just yet. Maybe it’ll hit me when they give him something new. When I sit in a theater surrounded by a hundred people and brace for that impact. When he doesn’t sound like Peter Cullen. Or worse! If he does. I don’t yet know how I feel about that.

I just feel a strange sense of being untethered.

Forty-five isn’t enough maturity to think about Optimus Prime being gone in some strange, small way. God, don’t even get me started on the way I cried as a twelve-year-old when Optimus flew into the sun or something to save the galaxy or universe, and I don’t even remember what happened in that old animated movie. I just remember I was this kid sitting in front of her TV, bawling her eyes out.

It’s weird, right? How voices, characters, books, paintings or even cars become something more than just intangible things. Things that make us who we are.

And today it hit me so hard, as a writer, that that… that is the true legacy of a character. When they become someone’s tether. When they become someone’s safe place. When they become someone’s home.

So yeah. Farewell to a man, but a bittersweet farewell to the voice that said, "Freedom is the right of all sentient beings."

Optimus might not be gone, but he will never be the same without you, Peter Cullen.

Rest in the stars. Till all are one. #PeterCullen #OptimusPrime #Transformers #RIPPeterCullen #VoiceActing #Autobots #TransformersG1 #TillAllAreOne