Alright, I'm certain the spoiler warning for this wore off anyway. In the midst of thinking about spoilers, I was just thinking of the big "Oh no, Sentinel killed Ironhide" thing. But then the thought occurred to me, why did Sentinel kill Ironhide in the first place, right then and there? All he was doing was explaining his motives, and Ironhide made no first move or anything. Did he see him as a potential threat? Or did he just shoot him in the back because "I'm evil now"? I mean, he tried to appeal to Optimus to have him join them, why not do the same with Ironhide and the others?

 

He was probably trying to make a point, he is not to be messed with. He was also trying to get rid of the Autobots so they posed no threat to him later on as he did attempt to kill Bee (I still don't understand why he never killed Prime with he had the chance.)

 

Because they had to establish him as a villain there and make it obvious considering his lack of characterization beforehand.

 

Also, he knows if he killed Bee first, Ironhide would be a tough fight! And he might not get the pillars if Ironhide was in the way?

 

That was totally not the reason he didn't go after BB first lol

 

Ironhide is the weapon specialist.

 

Because Optimus was like a son to him, he expected Optimus would join him.

 

This.

 

This stuck in my mind as well. Ironhide has always been heavily armed, and seriously, if the guy whose heavily armed is right near you when you're telling how you've turned on everyone...he's going to be the first one to aim his cannons at you.

As well, Ironhide was totally off-guard when Sentinel rustgunned him down.

 

Ironhides was the autobots best warrior besides optimus prime, in the prequel comics he kicked primes ass in a 1v1 show down, so Sentinel probably wanted him gone as fast as possible

 

Ironhide was standing right in front of him and has fuck off great cannons on his arms, he was the closest and biggest danger to Sentinel at that point. It also served as a 'What the hell just happened?' distraction to give him a few seconds head start.

 

Sentinel wanted his pillars back, Ironhide wouldn't just let Sentinel march in and forcefully take the pillars, so he acid-rusted him to remove him from the equation.

I guess he figured just disabling him wasnt good enough, considering how tough Ironhide was.

 

Because Ironhide pose a threat.

 

because movies.

 

Ironhide (and pretty much any bot and human right there) was a genuine threat to him once he revealed himself there. It doesn't really matter if he stated his motives like he did or just started shooting: it came out of nowhere anyway. Shooting Ironhide in the back makes perfect sense.

Why did he let Optimus live? He was Sentinel's student/successor...and a Prime himself. I'm sure Sentinel thought he would be able to convince him to turn in the end, not so much the other characters who are 'regular' soldiers.

 

I'm pretty sure Sentinel always intended to kill all the Autobots and him trying to get Optimus to join him and sparing him was just to mess with his head and mentally break him.

I mean he spares Optimus and then asks him and the other bots to leave peacefully, but then has Starscream blow up their ship. So he obviously didn't mean to actually let them leave peacefully.

After that he only tries playing the "You must understand me Optimus!" card when he's about to die.

In short Sentinel's "good" qualities were all an act to mess with or further manipulate people. He was really just a flat out bad guy.

 

Because he was the closest Autobot that he could kill at that time.

 

Ironhide was at the wrong place, wrong time.

 

Because he was going to steal the pillars, and the Autobots would've stopped him.

 

i completely agree.

sentinel still needed to steal the pillar.. and we saw how well sideswipe did against the dreads.. so, ironhide was the only defense they had of protecting the pillars. .. he needed to die.