Most Decepticons are made for war, others are simply not. here, i'm gonna judge their entire performance, motives and overall worthiness throughout their screen times. if they weren't given enough time to show their weapons or fighting techniques then i will make exceptions and use the Movie licence games on their behalf.

now lets get started:


Starscream, a villain that called his 07 peers to mobilize to get the cube and managed to best Bumblebee, Ironhide (a guy who screamed his name in full terror) and Ratchet in a gunslinger battle. his IQ is incredibly low because that makes three potential Autobot kills he could've had but instead he hits and runs way too much. Its also the lack of helping his teammates when Brawl was getting attacked and he clearly could've helped him or fixed his arm, same with Blackout and Megatron. after everyone was slaughtered, he left to the nemesis ship to basically retire. sure there's that "help spawn our new army" but i'm pretty sure he was just lying because The Fallen's not really a 'commanding' type. fast forwarding to the refinary battle, Bumblebee kept shooting crazy at Starscream basically to keep him away from him and the humans. considering its a small confined space in there; i could see why Starscream chose to not return fire, wouldn't want the whole building to crash down on them now would he?


Next he tried to sneak attack Optimus but failed and was forced to leave the refinary before Optimus shot anywhere vital on his body like his head, a smart move nonetheless. As he was called upon by Megatron to join the forest battle; Starscream chased sam but in a dumb fashion where he couldn't keep his balance while running so he gave up and once again tried to sneak attack Optimus but again, the way he walked while he was breaking Megatrons leg was completely embarrassing and he shot at the autobot leader while charging at him. The 3 v1 fight ends with Starscream swinging his arm around like a child to the point of Optimus tearing it off. in the end, Starscream may not be a match for a prime but his overall performance in the forest battle was a disappointment at its finest.

During the Egyptian battle, Starscream seemed to have learned his lesson to not abandon his teammates this time but even there, he screwed it up when the bombers arrived to blow up the battlefield and he leaves everyone to die again. Before then, He finds the boy and the girl but made no solid attempts to kill either, this kind of incompetence became his undoing later in DOTM when sam shot him in his both his eyes, ala blowing up his head in the process and Starscream did nothing but panic and let it happen.


conclusion: For an airborne asset with the ability to takedown almost all of Optimus Primes men; Starscream really doesn't take this war seriously enough, he lacks the discipline needed to protect his teammates and he goes AWOL whenever he pleases. If I was Megatron, I would personally give him a dishonorable discharge from the army.

 

That’s an incredibly long winded way of saying Starscream is a coward.

 

The fact that you as a Megatron would prefer dishonorabe discharge over his usual practices of shooting/mauling/torturing the dissident probably makes you a far better contender for position of Megatron than most Megatrons.

 

Well and incompetent. Storm Troopers in Star Wars seem to have better aim than Starscream.

 

So... basically you just described what's been the core of the character for the last 30 years?

It's not that he's dumb, its that he's incredibly selfish and self-centred, and that EVERYONE in the movies is fairly dumb in an objective sense.