Eh? Jetfire didn't rip his spark out until AFTER he did his speech. Anyway, the way I see it, as mentioned before, they're just like humans. Nearly every part is essential to sustain life. We can lose arms and legs, like Starscream, but any other part, and we pretty much die. I sort of think of their wiring as veins, and if you rip them out, or they get disconnected from some vital body part, that body part has nothing left to sustain it, so they die.
Though we don't know if their Spark HAS to be damaged for death to occur. Jazz's probably wasn't in his waist, Blackout's probably wasn't in his crotch, and Bonecrusher's and Scorponok's probably wasn't in their heads, yet they all still died. We have hearts, which is basically what Spark is, but we can die if our organs are ruptured or of any damage not related to our hearts.

 

Umm, he kinda can't survive without his head. Not a lot of things can. (and I'd like to point out Megatron merely lost half his face, not head or cranuim, which was largely undamaged. he even had both eyes functioning afterwards)

This isn't BM, TFs can't survive as just a spark. That's why they have bodies, with multiple systems, like people, that keep them alive. Rip a person's head apart and they die. Same with Bonecrusher. he can't survive without his head. like people, it varies. ASome people die with one bullet wound, others can survive grievous disfigurement and loss of limbs. It's all circumstance.

The only one who seems the be the exception is Frenzy, who's head houses all his vital systems it seems, which makes sense since his torso is so skinny and his overall thin body and occupation mean that his body probably gets damaged often.

 

Wow, that's pretty stupid.

 

There are 2 solutions to this quandry you have posed:
1.There are two things that allow a transformer to function properly, a CPU(the "brain") and a spark(the "heart"). If either were to cease functioning/be destroyed, the transformer effectively dies.*

2.It's just a movie so don't think too hard about it and enjoy the sensless voilence of Prime robbing a victim of his face .


*I'm 99.9% sure this was stated somewhere by Simon Furman, I just can't find where. Regardless, I use this as personal canon.

 

Agreed. That's one of the reasons I don't really take the prequels as complete canon.

 

Yeah, prequel comics and the novels are nice for fans that really want to get into it, but they're just fan winks. If it isn't in the movie, then it didn't happen.

 

This.

 

Even if he was still alive he would be a headless body prolly wouldn't ba able to do much with out his optics as said before they're are prolly vital parts in the head which if severed will kill the transformer.

 

I just wish when a robot dies it dies dont bring it back..

aka Megatron, Blackout, Bonecrusher....

 

Optimus

 

Even Prime it got to move on..

They did in 86.. so why not now..

 

this

 

so 1 grindor and 1 blackout is dead, but 10+ clones are possibly on the Nemesis Ship...so we'll probably see more of them in the future...

 

frenzy just had his head seperated from his body, neither part was really destroyed... as the movie and Animated both show us, TF's can have their heads pop off no problem and still be fairly functional.

its when one of the two get destroyed, that the other part loses communications that the robot dies.