In Dark of the Moon, why did they opt to have Sentinel make the deal with Megatron to save Cybertron at the expense of Earth as opposed to Shockwave, who is traditionally hailed as his homeworld's protector?

Given how he was portrayed in earlier comics and other incarnations, it just seems to make much more sense for him to be the one Sentinel Prime could sway into allegiance by asserting the prominence of Cybertron.

What do you all think?

 

Maybe Megatron was the "Ruler". So he out ranked Shocky-Shock.

 

Well, it wasn't Sentinel who offered a deal to Megs, it was the other way around. Megatron looked for Sentinel and offered him a deal, fight together to save Cybertron.

So the thing here is less "why did they make Sentinel choose Megs" and more "why did Megatron chose Sentinel" [which kind of answers on its own: Important autobot figure].

And as all know, this incarnation of Megs wants to save Cybertron [to then rule it with an iron fist, but you got the point].

From an in-story point of view [besides the whole "Megatron chose Sentinel, not the other way around"], Sentinel's [and Megatron's] objective was to end the War once and for all, so they could rule Cybertron together. Siding with Shockwave would probably lead to another War for power between Shocky and Megatron. So he had to pick one of them, since Megs outranks Shocky..

 

Should have. could have. Didn't.

Trust me I wish they did this. A better reason for Megatron to want control back and a real partnership between him and Optimus Prime.

 

Because Shockwave wasn't in the live-action movies.  

That was his lesser known half-brother, Shockkwave.

 

Because tradition ain't got got a place in the movies.

 

Kind of hard to make an alliance with a character that only rides around on a snake thing.

 

I'm going with this. The Shockwave we saw in the movie was a KO, which explains while he was fragile and broke so easily.

 

After being shot by the Wreckers, Epp's team of soldiers, Bumblebee and co., before having is torso busted open and his eye ripped out by Optimus.

Yup. Really broke easy.

 

Yeah, he was a beast.

 

I would have liked to have seen that, and then had Megatron relegated to a position outside of power, and then a focus on the character growth that would arise from that.

 

That was his brother Sixshot.

No he's Not the cool Cyber Ninja sixchanger.

 

If he was he would have survived the immobilizing parachute of doom.

 

*sigh* It annoys everytime I think how he was defeated......

 

By having Optimus punch a Volkswagen-sized whole in his abdomen and then rip out his optic through his throat right after being pummelled by Wreckers and soldiers bombarding him with fire after getting a parachute wrapped around his face?

Definitely annoying.  

 

I had the feeling that the plan was always to have Sentinel as the villain, they only picked Shockwave as a cheap big name villain to redirect the audience's attention before the release. They know TF fans love Shockwave, he was the perfect bait. They never really planned to give him a major role in the actual story.

 

He already had half his eye hanging out of his head by the Optimus rolled around.

 

You wanna know what I think could have been interesting for DotM? If Sentinel had a deal with Shockwave.

By that, I mean we'd have Sentinel joining the Autobots, as Shockwave (given a much bigger role) joins the Decepticons. When Sentinel betrays his kind, Shockwave follows suit, as they reveal that they've formed a partnership to save Cybertron (as they believe Optimus would gladly destroy his own kind and homeworld to save another species and that Megatron is genocidal and crazy); we'd have Sentinel's passion to save Cybertron and Shockwave's logic to finding a "suitable" solution.

This would call for a temporary alliance between Optimus and Megatron take down their traitorous kind.

 

...That doesn't really affect my argument or yours. I said "Optimus rips out his optic through his throat". So what if it was already hanging out? The soldiers/Wreckers started it, Optimus finished it.  

 

If Shockwave was the one to make the deal...then the film would have been 100x better, not saying it was bad.