Hasbro is marking the 40th anniversary of The Transformers: The Movie by directly acknowledging the controversy that has shadowed it for decades: the shock death of fan-favourite Optimus Prime early in the 1986 film. Rather than avoid the topic, the toy giant has framed its anniversary campaign as an "Apology Tour", pairing a new toy line with a cinema rerelease, a rare move that treats long-standing fan grievance as a marketing asset rather than a liability.

The rerelease, run with Fathom Entertainment, brings the film back to cinemas in 4K from 17 September, alongside a new 12-minute animated short, Optimus Prime: Awakening. The short features Peter Cullen's final original performance as Optimus Prime and sees Frank Welker reprise Megatron and Soundwave; Cullen died aged 85 two weeks before the article's publication, shortly after recording it. Hasbro's Alyse D'Antuono said staff who watched the film as children helped shape the campaign, and described it as a tribute to Cullen's decades-long association with the character.