It is justified because they CHARACTERS are soldiers in war!

 

Optimus Prime lost his allies, his mentor, and his brother.

How would you be in such circumstance?

 

But this isn't how soldiers act. And it's not how Optimus acts.

So what the hell is it?

Not even relavant. Optimus Prime is above our broken moralities. He's a paragon.

 

But he's not a god, he may outlive humans by centuries but in the end he's a living thing, in fact maybe all other Primes can see these millenium long wars and not be fazed we should be more concerned about them.

 

No. Just no. Reading things like this makes me cringe at decay of 'heros.'

Optimus Prime is just a fictional character, but it seems nowadays people think heros 'kill'. Heros do not take killing as 'standard business practice.' That's why they are heros. If Superman ENJOYS killing Zod, how is his act self sacrificial and heroic? The Punisher has NEVER been considered a hero BECAUSE he kills. He always kills bad guys, but it's his first method, and far too much in the movies, they portrayed Optimus killing as his first choice. The fights always seem like he's out for blood. They could try and make his fighting more reluctant or regretful.

Optimus killing should be a big deal. In the first trilogy, they just made him too brutal. Movie One was cool. After that he was ripping spines out, pulling faces off, and slaughtering everything in general.

At least in this movie, he isn't as brutally portrayed. I still wish they would make him kill in as ungory a way as possible (because he is Prime).

The scene of him pulling Megatron's head off, spine included, was just too brutal for Optimus Prime. I'd be nice to see him fire a shot or two to the spark sometimes. I don't mind Prime killing, it's the brutality.

 

Avengers, battle of New York. Blasting Chitauri left and right. Hulk smashing them. Black Widow stabbing one in the neck.

X2: Xmen united. Wolverine stabbing men breaking into mansion to kidnap nstudents.

Would you call them any less heroes?

 

#1 Wolverine's an archetypal antihero. Not really comparable.

#2 None of that was ridiculously, unnecissarily brutal. Especially not with the classical hero types, like Captain America or Thor.

 

This.

At no point did big spurts of blood shoot from their neck. I'd just like to point out the Joker drove a pencil through the eye of a villain in the DArk Knight, and it was in no way gory. You could keep the gore for guys like Grimlock or the Wreckers. Just make Primes kills more clean, if they must be done. I'm just glad they had him blast Attinger instead of squashing him or something. Just give visual cues to Prime's dislike and reluctance to kill. He can be badass AND noble.

 

theres no blood because its rated PG 13.

So would prefer the cons be pussy's and be killed in one shoot so the deaths are less brutal?

 

So what do you consider John McClane, Dirty Harry, John Matrix, Ben Richards, and the Power Rangers because those Power Rangers kill their villains on a weekly basis dammit!

 

To be fair, when you've established the Transformers to be as tough as they are I think the gore is to quickly show to the audience "This was a killing blow." I mean Brawl got shot up and had his arm chopped off, and got back up. Megatron was overloaded, and was easily repaired. Starscream had his arm pulled off and bludgeoned with it, he snapped it back in an good as new. Even Optimus had a massive hole blown in his chest and was fixed.

People complain about all the head destruction, or over the top TF deaths, but that seems to be the movies way of saying "This guy is dead." If Optimus had for example, just shot Megatron in the chest in DOTM, nobody would believe that he was really dead, because that's shown to be a repairable wound. But chopping off his head did.

Attinger is human, so nothing over the top was needed. A single shot was all it took. But if Optimus had shot a hole like that in Lockdown, the audience wouldn't buy him dying from it, so he had to slice him apart.

 

in a perfect world the decepticons would all be named and just as easily evade death as tje autobots. they also wouldn't be disposable generic monsters. the reason prime is so killy and the way he is is because the decepticons exist in the movie purely as tinfoil fodder so optimus can do a sick kill on that bad guy, megaton or whatever! yeah! 10/10 stars i loved when the big monster guy got his head totally stabbed!

 

This. Why can't people just understand!

 

Too violent? Who cares, what I don't get is how he flies into space ala Superman and travels the universe with no shuttle? Weird ending.

 

Due to my internet acting up, I can finally post this:

....umm, good? What does that have to do with anything?

And yet, writers for both comics and movies try their hardest to humanize superman....

All that you wrote...and still it does not disprove what I wrote. Especially with "we empathize with these figures in the sense that we understand what they're feeling..."...the only way we can empathize with figures like these is when they're...um...I don't know? More human?? More relatable??

And I agree that there's an appeal to a paternalistic role model...and that's why characters like superman, captain america and others are still relevant...TODAY, because *gasp*...like I mentioned before, they have flaws. Hell even in design aesthetics, flaws make things interesting as well. Star Wars with their lived in future, the paint jobs on the TF....if they're all squeaky clean, you lose a sense of realism. It looks....BORING.

Characters like the ones you mentioned were invented to reflect the era they were created in, and you're absolutely right.

And in this case, this Optimus is reinvented to reflect the times we are in now. It's not about indulging ourselves in acts of violence, it's not about satisfying our urges to enact vengeance on those that wrought destruction. IMO, it's to show that the world created in these films are real and dangerous just like our own.

Hyperbole. I must've missed the scene when prime swaggered around with the fallens face saying "this is what happens when you try to fuck with me". Also, other than RoTF where prime unfortunately says "give me your face", did he exhibit shit like that in the other 3 films?? NO.

Oh and heaven forbid he say "you die" to shockwave. Wow what a sadist.

And compassion isn't primes only defining trait. God you'd think his name was compassionus prime. Protecting the weak and innocent. Willingness to sacrifice himself for the greater good, unwillingness to back down. Courageous. Do those not define prime??

After what you described, it still doesn't exempt captain Americas brutality. He doesn't say shit, but the things he did, that's some crazy shit.

....ok?

He had the intent to kill megatron.

Intent.

Kill.

You fail to realize yet again starscre....errr, galvatron...he intended to kill megatron because it was a movie and SHIT GOT REAL. Shit never got real in the tv series. And it finally did in the movie. I don't recall him ordering the dinobots to destroy anyone in the Tv series...but whoa! He said it...IN THE MOVIE, where danger was elevated and cats were getting smoked left and right.

And you're absolutely right...he wouldn't act like movie prime on HBO...not on HBO. Oh, what's this? Transformers Prime???

The prime featured in TFP, IMO, is a happy medium between the movies and G1. The compassion you seek and the "get shit done" I like. Nonetheless...prime from TFP wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty.

Nope....it's not.

 

Galvatron, you seem like a cool guy...but I wish you'd stop relating fans of this prime to sadistic psychopaths. You starting to come off as a guy that thinks he's better than all of us because IYO, we r coming off as dudebros that ONLY play CoD and madden and if given the chance, we'd execute fuckers left and right just for giving us a dirty look.

No offense man, you keep that shit up, I am no longer replying to you. Yeah, big loss right? Well I consider this a healthy debate since no ones been spewing fanboy shit and calling eachother names.

But for real, get off your high horse. Stick to your argument without assuming we are mindless, kill hungry lunatics that can only satiate our desire for death by watching prime taking care of business. No ones called you a vegan wuss right?

Edit- one more thing to add...

I'm sure you've noticed by now, fans of this Optimus have been able to draw upon other sources to back up their argument. Real life situations, other franchises, and also from within. Far beyond that of "teenagers" you're so willing to associate these films with...going back to what I said earlier, stop labeling us as immature. Have we not been able to coherently elaborate our views? I don't recall us saying "pfft, u stupid bruh, prime is badass. Kill kill kill!"

 

There is no justification for Optimus telling Grimlock "Work with us or ill kill you," or whatever the quote was. I can justify Optimus being angry but that quote is so far removed from "Freedom I the right of all sentient beings" that it isn't funny. Then to have Drift say that he isn't forcing the dinobots is stupid as that's exactly what he's doing. That only works if he is giving an inspiring speech, not threatening them with their lives.

 

It was either hurry up and get the Dinobots under control, or risk the thousands of lives that were going to die by the Seed.

 

He was giving a speech which was basically "I have no time here so don't fuck with me and help me now for the greater good!" Then Grimlock attacked and Optimus realized he needed to gain their respect with strength.

 

I understand that was the intent behind it, but I'd rather see Optimus inspire them with reason or (as he did in the movie) show them he is their equal in battle. That one line did not fit that scene, that one line crossed the line. I laughed at "we will kill them all" from DOTM because Ironhide died and I could see his justifications at several other times, but that one line did not sit well with me.