Here's what I'm talking about: First off, the transformers have been alive for millions of years, without their energon being restored. They don't have the All Spark, so of course Optimus could easily be defeated if he were, in a sense, weak. Secondly, you, like so many other individuals, continuosly refer to the G1 era TF universe when relating to the films. It's already been stated and firmly established that the movieverse is a completely different storyline. Recall in ROTF where the 7 tell Sam that Optimus is their last descendant? Optimus is the last Prime. The G1 and other lines hold no weight or bearing in the movieverse whatsoever. The writers may borrow ideas and specifics to build their plot around, but things are going to be carried out differently.
There's still nothing stopping me from believing Optimus Prime couldn't do much because he was in a dense populated area. "Always" is hard to believe when it's only in one fight.
Populated area my ass. In the first film, Optimus was like "F**K this SH*T, IT'S ON NOW" The moment he declared "It's YOU AND ME MEGATRON." But he still ended up getting thrashed. That's evidence enough that Megatron would win.
Were the Decepticons really winning the war? They never gained a real advantage over the Autobots. The reason Cybertron got destroyed is because they were fighting for so long. If the Decepticons were really winning, that wouldn't have happened. Besides, this is Optimus vs Megatron, not Autobots vs Decepticons.
I think there might be more to it than just that. Other film series have done the same thing with the hero starts out a fairly normal but after a few films they make the hero into something so overly powerful that they seem like a parody of the first film or a live action cartoon. The first Rambo movie has a tough Rambo but noting really super human. After a few films though he's some kind of super human killing machine. Ouch and what they did to poor Ripply in the Alien series. Tough to find a film series where the hero doesn't become overly powerful.
I'd have to say Prime would win. Like many others have said, Prime has been searching the universe for thousands of years whilst Megatron has been sitting in a stasis-like state unhappily watching as the humans reverse-engineer shit off him. And, in the first film I'm fairly certain Prime was still holding to a large part of his morals and was afraid of getting a large number of humans killed in the process. Then in the second movie, Prime takes on three Decepticons at once, and it appears Megatron is not as strong as he was in the second movie because if you notice, Starscream is taking a lot of the beating from Prime whilst Megatron remains in the background. And Prime only died because Sam was there, if Sam hadn't been there, I'm fairly certain Prime would've turned around and killed Megatron, with Starscream naturally ditching his commander. And in the third movie, Prime decapitates Megatron fairly easily. Speaks for itself.
I think, in a straight-up fist fight, Megatron would win. He is typically the larger and stronger of the two, has a great savagry to his fighting style and moves quite fast as well despite his bulk. You see in the first film, during the Blackout bit, that their fight is somewhat even, but Megatron has the advantage, and he eventually has Prime down on his last legs. Of course, Prime is wary of collateral damage, but in a final fight to the finish over the Allspark, I imagine he would cut loose and fight Megs blow for blow. Regardless, in the first film, I have no doubt that Megatron would easily win the fight. The second and third film portray a more weakened Megatron, more so in the latter. My aforementioned post was that Megatron beat up Prime a bit when Starscream chased Sam. If Megs had followed that attack rather then gone off after Sam, I think Prime would have been in serious trouble and may have lost. Megatron may have lacked the surprising brutality of Prime, but he had unholy endurance and easily took every last hit. And in the third film, well, Megs wasn't expecting a one-armed guy to fling an axe in his face ROFL XD Overall, I think Megatron is the better fighter and definitely the more durable.
