Question: How much truth is there to the claim that if the G.I. Joe movie had been released first then Optimus Prime would not have died in this one?
Answer: The reason for this is the intent of both movies (G.I.Joe and this one) to kill off the old group and bring in a new group for younger kids. You noticed how most of the dead are from the old cartoon. The backlash was so bad that the G.I.Joe movie was changed to not kill off anyone (if you watch it you can see where characters were meant to die but the show was changed at the last sec to keep them alive. If G.I.Joe was release 1st then they would have died and if the same backlash happened you would have seen no-one die in this one.
Answer: In the UK we don't have G.I Joe, only action force so thats your first problem, and secondly the UK comics built up to the Transformer movie without no mention of G.I Joe story lines which may have appeared in the US.
Answer: Warren T. grabbed Tiger and told him he was fired. Tiger did eventually leave some time after that though.