I opened this thread so that the thread that everyone wants another thread to die can leave it alone.

Here's what I said so far:

They did kill off many 1st Gen TF characters in the real movie.  From memory, they were in order:

Brawn
Prowl
Ratchet
Ironhide
Wheeljack & Sunstreaker
Optimus Prime
Starscream

Others were not killed off, but given new forms.  In order:

Thundercracker: Scourge
Insecticon clones: The Sweeps
Skywarp: Cyclonus
Insecticon clone: Cyclonus clone
Megatron: Galvatron
Hot Rod: Rodimus Prime

And, of course, Unicron dies.

Excluding insecticons, that makes 11 characters from 1984-1985 that were eliminated. Hot Rod is #12, but he didn't appear until the movie & 3rd year of toys (1986).

Yeah, I can recite the entire movie, word for word, timing everything with the soundtrack running in my head so it's matched to the movie to the second!

In GI Joe the Movie (1987), which was made for TV, Duke was going to die, but the bad reaction to Optimus' death changed their minds.  Instead he went into a coma.  They already animated it so he dies, so they overdubbed a few lines: "He's going into a coma", and at the very end, "Great news!  Duke's coming out of his coma!"  I own a VHS of GI Joe: The Movie signed by Sgt. Slaughter himself.