The way I see it the Autobots were loosing and Megatron getting his hands on the Allspark means every other life form is doomed.

As Jetfire said the Decepticons have so much hate (Bonecrusher) and negativity that they would destroy the universe.

True Optimus Prime has doomed the Transformers as a race as the means of creating Energon are gone.

The Transformers as a dying race is probably the reason why he chose to stay on Earth. Optimus wants somebody to remember them.

 

Then ppl would have been complaining how soft prime is....the thing I don't like,is he dont let other fight with him, in the forest they outnumber the decepts but he told them to get out of there...wtf? It was 6 against 2 @ that point after he killed blac..uh..grindor...

 

Ash: I think that part of the reason for the discrepency here is the medium used to tell the story. All previous Transformers productions were kids' shows; there was only so much that they could get away with, and the media censor would have screamed to high heaven if the protagonist was portrayed as something other than your standard Saturday morning cartoon character. With the movies, Optimus is allowed to cut loose, and show the Decepticons the true consequences for their actions.

 

I like the Leader class toy bio as explanation for movie Optimus' attitude, he lost his world, the race seems to be doomed, he lost friends and now the only thing left for him is Earth, he wants to live here, he wants to make sure it all works out, but the Decepticons are STILL PUSHING, he won't take any more from that and will try to defeat every Decepticon, he is genuily ANGRY.

 

I don't know Beast Wars seemed to have a good deal of freedom doing things we haven't seen in any other Transformers series. Yet even there heroes had to struggle with what makes them who they are and what lines they could not bring themselves to cross.

The movie really didn't seem to tapping into the adult territory as it was tapping into the man child thing that makes us cheer at the unrealistic level of violence that only the make believe of movies can achieve. That glee of oh crap dude did you see that he took his whole head off.

The overboard violence in the film really isn't any more realistic than the violence of a Saturday morning cartoon, just a lot more graphic and with more death.

 

shroobmaster: Exactly.

Ash: Did Optimus actually ensure that the Predacons weren't a threat in the future? No? Then Beast Wars didn't explore that adult territory. Optimus's not killing Megatron on Earth should have been a huge part of his character in Beast Machines; it would have been interesting to see him struggle with the guilt of allowing Megatron to live and continue his genocidal plans (after all, third time's the charm).

 

I'll agree that the films really could be a little more deep then they are, but I'll also argure that this negative mentality toward the whole "man child" side of transformers is bull crap.
Indulging one's "man child" is part of the fun of Transformers. Most of us are probably around 20 and older. We buy toys and read comic books about giant robots...We all are man children.(And women children. Dont want to forget the fan-girls.) Just because Dinobot recited Shakespeare doesn't change that.

Yes, it would be nice to see a little more characterization and at the very least, a cohesive plot. But this highbrow snobbish attitude has got to stop.
At it's basis Transformers has always been and always will be about giant robots who turn into things, beating the crap out of other giant robots that turn into things.

Since Captain America fought in WWII I'd find it hard to believe he didn't kill anybody.
I also wouldn't really put Optimus Prime in the same level as Superman. Sups is basically a demigod. He can afford to have a holier then thou attitude.

Prime in the movies never was just randomly killing left and right. There was the big forest fight scene, but that truely was a matter of life and death with all these homicidal Decepticons ganging up on him.

 

I´ll say this again, I´m perfectly fine with killing the bad guys if that saves more inocents. Example, if Primal was smart he would have killed Megatron before leaving Earth. He didn´t and, look what hapened? The Transformers race was nearly anhilated in Beast Machines because he decided to took the moral highground. Not to mention it caused the death of Rhinox too.

 

That's actually pretty good. Though I don't think there can ever be any possible justification for the gleeful face-raping with one-liners.

Even paedo-rapist-Hitler doesn't deserve that treatment. It's just too sadistic.

Do Decepticons feel pain?

 

I think his attitude is exactly what it would be going from a kids cartoon to a live movie, and with this being a war.

 

And that's ultimately what it come down to. It's not that Optimus Prime would kill in battle, it's being brutal just for the sake of being brutal.
And the only times that really felt out of place was the Demolisher execution, and the whole "Give me your face" thing. In fact these two moments were not even consistent with Prime's behavior through the rest of the film.
It was just these two things, but because of them, people are going go off and say he's a mad dog killa. omg!

 

Honestly, Prime was little more than an admirable charcter in a horrible film. I can see what the writers were trying to do but ended up a horrible mess.

 

I just don't think kill them because they might hurt someone else really works for every hero. For some characters and some stories it can work really well, but I don't want to see every hero get turned into the Punisher.

Maybe it's because I've read too many old comic books, but it seems like the bigger the hero the more of a moral code they carry around with them. Maybe Spiderman could turn most of his rouges gallery into a bloody smear on the wall, but he just wouldn't be the same person so dedicated to saving the day and doing the right thing that some times he even saves the foes who were out to kill him.

 

I think part of it is characters like Batman and Superman are heroes who deliberately set out to stop crime and capture crooks. Optimus Prime is fighting a war; and in war you don't always have the option to take prisoners. More often then not it's kill or be killed.

 

While I agree that it isn't exactly fitting behaviour for the hero of the movie, in the midst of the film I gotta admit, it didn't particularly bother me.

It was kinda funny in the sense of "did that really just happen". And then later you think, OMG, can't believe they actually got Cullen to say that. It was definitely wrong for the character, but at the same time, so ridiculously over-the- top that that it was hard to be genuinely offended about it.

If it was Superman doing that kinda thing to human villains, it would feel like a mockery of everything he stands for. Somehow with robots mutilation, you don't quite make the same connection.

 

I know that we describe it as a war, but it just seemed more like Marvel's Secret Wars than Full Metal Jacket or We Were Soldiers. Just seems when you look at how the Autobots are more like a superhero team like the Avengers and the Decepticons are more like a super villain team like the Legion of Doom then the war movie rules don't fit as well.

When you see Prime and Megatron fighting it out even in the movies it seems more like Superman and Lex Luther going at it than like Capt. John Miller taking out the Germans in Saving Private Ryan.

Which isn't say that there is anything wrong with war movies because some of the best movies I've ever seen where war movies. But Transformers just seems to fit the superhero mold better than the war movie mold.

 

That's generally how I felt about it too, at first. But now it's become this big issue that's spawned a debate about if it is, or is not, right for the hero to kill badguys.

lol I never got the feeling of the Autobots as super heroes. Not even in the days of G1. In fact that was one of the things that really resonated with me. These guys are not putting on theatrics like most super heroes and villains. These guys are genuine enemies.

I can see what you mean, no mater what Transformers will always have that hero vs the villain thing going on. But still it never feels like a superhero type thing. Megatron has always felt like a conquering warlord(Even at his goofiest.) and Prime is the opposing general.

 

Been compared before, but hey the OP didn't care, neither do I.

Yeah, pretty much par for the course for this fandom.

 

i liked TF1 Optimus. It just showed how angry megatron was and optimus had the hero quality intact. he fought bonecrusher and cut his head off and the reason there was no problem with that was there were no lines like junkyard crap and piece of tin. there was no dialogue at all. i mean its ok we dont like the OP in ROTF, and who cares if its been talked to death, if you dont want to talk about it, dont post anything

 

Uh? Transformers has always been sold to us as a planettary civil war, I don´t really see from were you are getting this "superhero" idea.

On the subject of heroes and killing, case in point, the Green Lantern Corps. They kill and the recent comics made quite clear that while it was an amoral rule, killing their opoents was the while way they could have survived the Sinestro Corps war.