The Fallen, according to Orci.

 

Its cause he didn't want to play the "Ooh....We're related!" Card. He didn't want to come off as an asshole or something.

 

He made the tone mocking, though. That's what we have to go off and judge the scene by. Whether or not the actor loved his role is totally irrelevant. That was how he chose to say the line, that was the clip the studio chose to use, and that was what came out of Megatron's mouth in the movie.




Bay was afraid to ask? Wonder why the guy didn't ask Bay, then.

 

I assume by the time he did, the movie was too far along to change. Not much you can do about it after a certain point.

 

I really think you're overthinking the line. It's open to interpretation, and quite a few different ideas have crossed my mind, but never "surrender or die".
Megatron was planning to make a truce, and stick to it
He was planning to kill Prime later, after he made a strategy
Maybe Megatron has a sense of pride, and was taunting him so he could kill him in an actual fight
Whatever the case, he was trying to make a truce and/or taunt him into fighting, not get Optimus to surrender pointlessly. It was very obvious he was trying to get on Prime's good side, probably because he realized he was finally losing the war.

If he wanted Prime to surrender, why was he desperately trying to kill him for thousands of years? What was he planning on doing with him once he surrendered? Put him in robot jail? Why? What purpose would that serve? Earlier an Autobot surrendered, and was shot by Decepticons anyway. Megatron doesn't really have a huge sense of honor.
If he wanted Prime to die, why did he not wait another minute until Sentinel had finished with him? Or just shoot him instantly with the gun he had ready? Why wait?

 

That would have been amazing. I love Tony Todd's work, but hot damn, imagine Nimoy voicing The Fallen.

 

I think Megatron was mocking, just not in a "Surrender or die" way. After thousands of years of war, he may have thought it would be underwealming to kill Prime just lying there. He may have wanted Prime to get on his feet and fight.

 

And you're attaching way too much importance to an alternate ending that exists for no other reason than the studios wanted the books and comic to have a different ending than the film.

Fine: The line's subtext was "Surrender AND Die". The point is there was never any intention of a truce in any legitimate definition of the term. To think otherwise is pure obliviousness, and I have no interest in taking this any further with you.

 

alas, we'll never know what was going through his cranial cogs

 

Optimus' axe.

Megatron DID shoot Prime in the back in ROTF. And...ya know. Killed him.

 

This is funny cause Red Skull and Megatron are done by the same Actor....

Back to the question, it's probably because he's Sideshow Bob and can do whatever the hell he wants to, or because he had family that died in either Mission City or the Chicago battles.

 

Xenophobia.

 

When megatron said "Who would you be without me prime?" He was completely right, look at optimus now, no megatron no use for optimus, optimus without megatron would be a nobody, but still, megatron is an evil cybertronian and deserved to die( in the movie atleast), although I do find the novel version more fitting to pime's character

 

probably because of what happened in Chicago. Maybe he lost someone close to him in Chicago and blames the transformers for it.

 

These robots tend to destroy a lot of stuff in their hate war. One time this asshole tried to blow up the sun.

 

Perhaps because of the same reason Bay hates Transformers, someone with a Transformers tee shirt and backpack gave him a wedgie and he swore one day he'd ruin what they loved  

But on the serious side it really doesn't take much at all to make humans hate. Humans have hated other humans because of the color of their skin. Humans have hated other humans for how or what they worship. Humans have hated other humans over their political views. Heck we've even seen humans hate other humans over their taste in films. If we are so quick and easy to hate each other over rather insignificant things it's not hard to imagine that some people would hate and fear something that was really alien and not just a slight variation.

From the trailer it looks like Chicago is going to be a rallying cry like the Alamo or Pearl Harbor to work people up, so perhaps he sees hating Transformers as a good thing. If they drop the silly Mission City cover up idea then, well the robots do have a history of destruction and long list of dead humans to show for it.

 

Could have happened in any of the previous 3 movies: Qatar Blackout attack, Mission City, a highway scene, invasion in ROTF or DOTM

 

IMO he just wanted to be in charge again... like he said... and probably wanted to betray Optimus later.

After Prime put up a hell of a fight.

 

After fighting three Cons, including himself. Not sure how fair that is considering Megatron kicked Prime's butt in the first movie.

 

my guess

He probably lost a loved one ( wife,child,relative) during the incident in Chicago or hes just an asshole.