Most fighters don't literally tear their enemies to pieces in gruesome excess.

It's the same bullshit excuse of "he's a soldier, soldiers kill." I feel like actual soldiers would be offended to be compared to Prime. Soldiers are trained to quickly and efficiently neutralize targets to avoid casualties and complete missions quickly. They don't teach disemboweling in the military.

 

Most enemies aren't as hard to kill as Transformers are.

 

You don't tear someone's face apart with meat hooks unless you really want to.

 

@Hot Shot. Or if you've got the tools on hand and don't really care one way or the other. Now, if I were writing it, I'd have ditched the one-off hooks and had Optimus do it with his bare hands.

 

I wouldn't have used the hooks either cause the whole thing is completely out of character for Optimus. That's kind of the point to him being called "sadistic."

I was fine seeing that in the IDW comics but that's not exactly what he is in the Bay movies. In the Bay movies, based on dialogue, he's almost gleeful in ripping faces and circuits out. Then again, that kind of fits with Autobots who act more like Decepticons in every movie.

 

Ok, so then why rip an enemy’s face off if it’s not going to kill them anyway?

 

I used to get really worked up about this in high school. Now it's just one more part of these movies that's funny when it's not supposed to be.

It's not quite as funny as the people who are apparently watching Robot Abraham Lincoln/Superman rip out another robot's eyes through it's throat or whatever and thinking to themselves, "Now this is the harsh reality of warfare. What hell."

 

Hey now. There's nothing like a classic BAY-TALITY

 

On the contrary, stop saying Bayformers Optimus Prime's behavior is justified.

 

Optimus killing Decepticons isn’t the issue but rather how he does it. In the first film he stabs Bonecrusher in the face and rips his head off. In ROTF he rips Starscream’s arm off and beats him with it, rips Grindor’s head in two, rips the Fallens face off before ripping out his spark and crushing it with his bare hands. In DOTM he goes on a rampage chopping up an army of Decepticon’s, punches a hole in Shockwaves stomach and rips his eye out and tears Megatron’s head off after he surrendered.

That’s not being a soldier, that’s being psychotic and gruesome for no reason. Optimus in G1, Prime, and Bumblebee killed, but he wasn’t mutilating his enemies.

 

True, people keep projecting organic human morality on an inorganic alien species. The G1 cartoon did that as well.

 

I think the best way to put it is that after Prime goes 'evil' in TLK...is there really even a difference?

 

Sorry, but I don't blame Optimus for going for the head.
Frenzy, Mohawk, and even Megatron pulled a "head is still alive" scenario.
He can go for the head all he wants.

 

When "evil" he actually seemed a lot more restraint. He didn't go after Bee as hard as he went after Decepticons previously nor did he try to rip off any faces when "evil." Even his dialouge seemed to be more "clear headed" and measured if member serves me.

 

Why not just say he is gleeful like he's laughing?

On contrary, stop saying my opinion is definitive; yours is not.

This is a knock on all of us by the way. (Including me).

 

A good, focused fighter is someone acting with no hesitation and ready to counter a threat with an overwhelming force by doing it fast and ready to move for another one. Baytimus is a maniac so entranced with the thrill of his bloody kills that he's lucky that those fights are solo and there isn't anyone nearby to use the opportunity when he's drooling at mutilating corpses. I know that those scenes were supposed to make him look powerful and badass... But instead it made him look demented.

 

With that logic, he's doing a pretty shitty job since in TLK, he definitely just cut the heads off of the Infernocons and left them be. For all we know, the heads could have sprouted legs and crawled away.

 

Sadistic means having pleasure in inflicting pain. Optimus Prime is not sadistic at all. He was just being bad ass for the camera. It was just for showman ship.

Did anyone really walk into a movie about giant robot aliens at war, and expecting Peaceful Pacifist Prime with no one liners and no sweet visual kill shots?  

 

that would be a great idea for TF6: The Headmasters LOL

 

Movieverse Prime being violent is really something that people are just going to have to get over.

Optimus in these movies is not sadistic, brutal yes, but not sadistic. Personally I have never been too taken aback by Prime's action, especially since the Decepticons typically have to be borderline ripped apart to be killed (insert not funny joke about Cons being taken down by humans here) I don't see too much of an issue. Its just something that's never bothered me, the same way that Mortal Kombat doesn't bother me.