(I just now realized the title may be a BIT too esoteric because I haven't even seen A Most Violent Year [if anyone here has how was it I heard good things lol])

So unnecessary Bayformers comparison aside since everyone has already made them... am I the only one who is okay with the idea of a more violent Optimus Prime?

I mean, OBVIOUSLY the writing would have to accommodate for it - Optimus killing those who are beyond saving and will cause death later on, or maybe an Optimus who just starts slaughtering humans because he finds out they're Nazis or something (yes I just rewatched TLK and yes I'm upset that they somehow made Transformers Killing Nazis boring) would be a way to justify Optimus being more violent, and I don't think Bayformers ever really found the right balance to strike with this. Optimus in this movies didn't feel like he was violent for a story reason, he felt violent because the studio wanted him to be an action movie hero. AOE sorta has a decent motivation for a more violent Prime, but it's not explored nearly as much as it could have been, and Optimus just sorta feels like an unhinged psycho in it.

Regardless, and mostly outside of Bayformers - how would you guys feel about an Optimus with somewhat more violent tendencies? How would you think they should go about it, if this IS the route they want to go about? Should Prime stay true to his character of using violence only as a last resort? Does anyone else wanna see Optimus go all True-Detective-Season-1-Marty-Hart on a bunch of Neo-Nazi's or is it just me?

 

Yes. If anything, I think it fits him better than the usual Captain America/Superman approach, since while he does share those characters' love of freedom and desire to protect the innocent, he's seen more shit than they ever will, given his lifespan. He's been fighting in the Great War longer than our civilizations have existed. He's seen more death, more horror, been helpless to stop the Decepticons' atrocities. He's watched them slaughter millions, burn entire worlds to cinders. If anything, given his backstory, he ought to be fueled by rage at what the Cons have done.

People who complained about Bayverse Optimus's violence often sarcastically compare him to the Punisher or the Doom Slayer, but I honestly think that versions of Optimus who've been fighting the Great War as long as most of them have could stand to draw on those two characters. They don't hurt innocent people and they're very careful about where they direct their wrath, but when they cut loose, they don't hold back at all. Nor should they - given the enemy they're fighting, holding back and allowing them to hurt more people is actually the immoral choice. I think Netflix Punisher especially is a good comparison - he's downright gentle with innocent bystanders like Karen Page, Curtis Hoyle, and the Lieberman family, but this is the same guy who brutally slaughtered three gangs and two separate conspiracies.

In order to properly sell this interpretation of Optimus, the Decepticons need to be villainous - I'm talking IDW levels of atrocities without the narrative trying to justify their origins. They're a bunch of genocidal maniacs, and the only answer to that is to kill them.

 

I feel like other media, even before the live action movies, had/has been able to portray an Optimus that was war weary and violent. That didn't involve shouts of "I'll kill you" or executions of dangerous Decepticons.

 

I'm not against a more violent Prime. People's problem with him in the movies is that he often comes across as a warmonger psychopath, with lines lik "I'll Kill you!" or "We will kill them all!" or killing his enemies execution style

 

I don't think I would be too opposed to it, as long as it's done right. Sort of playing devil's advocate a bit, I was not too thrilled with Prime executing Decepticons or the whole "Give Me Your Face" incident in Revenge of the Fallen. However, I was more accepting of it when he killed Sentinel in DOTM. It's established that Optimus looked up to Sentinel and I can see his betrayal be the first step of his "change" into a more war weary and violent Prime. Then I could really understand his change in AoE. Being hunted, his fellow Autobots getting massacred, his reaction to seeing Ratchet getting melted, it felt more believable and understandable when he decreed the human responsible was going to die.

I guess what I'm saying is I don't want to see Optimus just coming off violent from the beginning. I'd like to see him stand behind his ideals that made him who he was in the past but have him slowly change over to being more violent in the long run.

 

That's part of being more violent - he says what he's going to do and he follows through.

Now, to take the discussion off of Bayverse Optimus, I think that the cause of his more violent nature and the setting's reaction to him being an unstoppable murder machine need to be explored. There's some fertile territory to explore, especially in the latter topic. I'd love to see a murder machine Optimus working with a bunch of Transformers who are, shall we say, more innocent.

 

As a military leader, Optimus would be willing to do what is necessary to get the job done, but violence would always be the last resort. As Prime he is pretty much the moral compass for the Autobots - the likes of Grimlock or Roadbuster enjoy the fighting, for Optimus it should always be something he regrets, a necessary evil of war.

What makes him the leader that he is, is that he keeps to the right side of the line. If Optimus becomes more violent, what differentiates him from Megatron?

 

The fact that he's trying to protect the people that Megatron's wanting to enslave and murder, for one. As to the first part, it's not about whether Optimus enjoys it, but how violent he is - he doesn't have to enjoy it to be a raging berserker. As for violence being a last resort, given that he's up against a bunch of genocidal maniacs, the situation's reached the point where there is no other solution but violence. The time for diplomacy passed a while ago, when Megatron fired the first shot.

 

Each to their own opinion of course, but for me Prime as a raging berserker leaves a bad taste in the mouth. If his answer to every military engagement is "kill them all", he's not much of a hero is he? Yes, he is trying to protect people, including Transformers. I would think that he would consider that some of the Decepticons could be redeemed and saved also. We've seen in various media that there are some honorable Decepticons out there.

Prime should be "Captain America", there are plenty of other Autobots that can fill the Anti-hero role.

That being said, I would be interested to see a "What If?" story where Prime goes all Anakin and turns to the Darkside. But for mainstream Transformers, no he should not become more violent. As I said, just my opinion.  

 

Honestly, I think that Decepticon defectors would be pretty high up on the list of people under his protection - my own fancanon has him crossing swords with the DJD many times during the war - he'd be responsible for a good portion of their high turnover rate.

As to him being like Captain America, I think we're not disagreeing as strongly as you might think - if I were doing it, the murder machine interpretation of Optimus would be Captain America after four centuries of non-stop fighting against a brutal enemy that looks at a list of war crimes like a checklist.

 

I don't think people have a problem with Optimus killing... it's a war, he probably has had to.

What people have a problem with is how much he seems to ENJOY it.
"GIVE ME YOUR FACE!"

"When I find out who did this, he's going to die."

"We will kill them all."

None of that feels like something Optimus Prime would say. Even Peter Cullen agrees, supposedly he even told Michael Bay he didn't like saying any of those lines.

 

I think it depends on continuity. In the movies, it generally works because of the overall tone; the Decepticons in the movies are often more "rampaging monster" than they are "human" (for lack of a better term) anyways. ("Give me your face" was a little over-the-top, though.)

IDW is a confusing mess in terms of tone; it couldn't seem to decide how sympathetic/unsympathetic it wanted anyone to be. If they wanted to portray a less "black-and-white" war, they shouldn't have made the Decepticons genocidal maniacs, because that makes them the clear villains unless both sides are equally villanous (which in IDW, it sometimes seemed like they might be). Making the majority of the Autobots really unpleasant while making the Decepticons non-cartoonishly, horribly evil doesn't make for a nuanced story so much as it makes for a depressing slog that makes me want the majority of the cast to continue fighting until they all kill themselves off. If they wanted to make the Decepticons really, really evil (which, especially in the early part of the franchise, they DID), then they should have dropped the origin story, or at least altered it somehow so the two sides don't seem to flip moral standing between the backstory and the present day, and they shouldn't have then tried to make them sympathetic after the war (one or two exceptions, maybe, but not the MAJORITY of the Decepticon cast!). If they had consistently gone the "monstrously evil" route, than a more violent Optimus would have made sense. IDW had some interesting ideas, but HOO BOY, is it frustrating!

I might have actually preferred a more violent Optimus in TF: Prime, both because anything would have been an improvement over Cardboardimus Prime and because I don't particularly care for the idea of Optimus and Megatron having been friends before the war just to give Optimus stupid angst. He murdered your planet, killed lots of your allies, wants to lay waste to an entire inhabited planet, and desecrated the dead (including his own allies). KILL HIM ALREADY! (I'm generally pretty pacifistic, and even I think Optimus should have been willing to kill Megatron long before he did.) The way he kept slaughtering Vehicons while NOT slaughtering robots like Starscream, Shockwave, or Airachnid also seemed bizarre. Like, you'll kill miners and grunts whose worst crime was (generally) being mass-produced to fight in someone else's war, but you won't kill literal psychopaths? (I'm not even referring to killing Starscream when he was rogue; I'm talking about when he was a Decepticon, which was at least half of the series.) Like, I understand that you need to kill your enemies before they kill you...but why are you ONLY killing the most harmless ones with the least agency?

In the G1 cartoon (not the comics, the cartoon), RID 2001, Animated, Rescue Bots, or RID 2015, a less violent Prime was more appropriate, both because the Decepticons in those shows tend to be absolute morons and because a violent Optimus wouldn't fit the more lighthearted nature of those shows.

 

This is another excellent point - some continuities don't really need a violent Optimus, while a couple really could have used one.

 

Thanks!  

Because I'm now thinking about it, here's a general guideline to how violent Optimus should be (be aware that this is not a definitive list). :

-How destroyed is Cybertron? The more destroyed it is, the more of a threat the Decepticons pose, and the more force Optimus will need in order to stop them. (By destroyed, think "incapable of supporting life", like in Prime or IDW).

-Is the war still going on? If it isn't, like in Animated or RID 2015, the violence should probably be toned down some, as the Autobots are now more of a police force than an army proper.

-Do the legitimately threatening Decepticons make up less than a quarter of the overall Decepticon faction? The more incompetents and morons there are, the less violent Optimus likely needs to be. Note that a character can be amusing while also being competent and/or heinous (e.g., Animated Starscream).

-If the Decepticons constantly kill/attempt to kill any humans they see (the Movies and early IDW are good examples of this), Optimus should be more violent .

-If, like the Decepticons in Prime, the Decepticons use huge amounts of cannon fodder, then they are likely to be more evil. (The movie Decepticons do this, too, and IDW implied that there were loads of low-ranking Decepticons who were sent into war with the expectation that they wouldn't survive.) Thus, Prime should be more violent...but it would be preferable if he focused less on slaughtering dimwitted, substantially less evil cannon fodder who couldn't hit the broad side of Broadside and more on killing Megatron, Starscream, Shockwave, etc.

-How often do the Decepticons come up with totally insane schemes? I'm not talking about schemes that are poorly executed by the writers (like some of Megatron's plans in the movies), I'm talking about things like "let's hypnotize a bunch of humans with a disco club" or "let's destroy the Autobots with an annoying electrical Pokemon" or "let's participate in a race under the impression that winning it will make us the legal rulers of Earth's roads" (RID 2015) or "let's build a giant purple griffin for no apparent reason" or "let's knock the moon out of its orbit so that we can use a device Soundwave made so that we can flood one canyon so that we can create limitless energy" or "let's take over a train station and a football stadium!" or "let's disguise Sky-Byte as a red sports car so that we can win a race" (RID 2001) or "let's build a clone of Optimus Prime to lead the Autobots into a trap, but NOT learn any of their names or how their base works, and then NOT kill off the real Optimus Prime" or...well, you get the idea (most of these are, unsurprisingly, from G1). The more of these are, the less violent Optimus needs to be.

-Does Megatron allow Starscream (or any other traitors) to stay in his army after repeated coup attempts without any obvious reason? If he does, Optimus doesn't need to be as violent, as infighting amongst the Decepticons will be much more frequent. (Also, this implies that Megatron is an idiot.)

-Related to the above, is Megatron a temper tantrum-throwing idiot? (G1 cartoon Megatron, in about half of the episodes you appear in, and RID 2001 Megatron, I'm looking at you.) If he is, then Prime can be less violent.

-Do the Decepticons outnumber the Autobots? If they do, Prime should be more violent.

 

I don't care for this idea in the slightest.

Optimus Prime is a character who is defined by his compassion and his thoughtfulness. His original bio paints him as a humanitarian, a philosopher, and a doctor; a solemn, mature, but still hopeful father-figure. A paragon of security and nobility who embodies immense kindness and humility. He's meant to be an icon of decency and optimism.

Turning him into someone who gives into his anger and rage moves him away from that. He shouldn't lose control and succumb to those baser instincts. I do think Optimus should kill; after all, he is a soldier, but he shouldn't do so gruesomely or vehemently. He should maintain a certain level of composure in the heat of battle. He obviously shouldn't be mutilating or dismembering his enemies. Brutally slaughtering your enemies is what war criminals do, not soldiers.

 

This is a good point; some of his movie kills are over-the-top. ("Give me your face!" has to be the worst, though, solely because it sounds really silly.)

 

Optimus is a war commander so him killing other Decepticons in battle is fine; I think his scenes in the Bumblebee movie is a good example of Optimus should carry himself in combat. Problem with the Bay movies were lines like "we will kill them all" or "give me your face" is what gives the impression he's some battle lusting craze to make him more along the lines of a traditional movie action hero.

Not really keen on him killing humans, or any Autobot killing a human really. Too much of a power disparity that it comes off as cheering someone for stomping on an ant.

 

I have no problem with Optimus being more violent. A lot of times, there really isn't no other solution to fall to. Sometimes a hero just has to be violent in order to get things done and ensure the bad guys don't win.

And IMO, despite how people get all upset and call movie Optimus "Murder Prime" I think his actions has results that ensures that the Autobots are victorious. Sometimes I feel like I am the only one who understood movie Optimus' decisions.

 

Again, I'm one of those people who doesn't mind a more violent Optimus, but personally, I always felt that was more of a Rodimus thing.

I always pictured Rodimus as being a lot more violent than Optimus ever was, so seeing a much more violent Optimus, even though I don't mind it, makes me wish Rodimus was there instead, 'cause it would feel a bit more in-character and besides, we just get Optimus in everything, so he really has gotten stale.