As said by a notorious, RED Autobot, struggling to save his dying planet, his race, his fellow robots, both Autobots and Decepticons alike, who made one hell of a compromise in order to make this happen.

Put yourself in the shoes of a Transformer. If you had the same issues we do on Earth on Cybertron, whose side would you be in?
Does this reflect the fact that Michael Bay is a hardcore conservative?
Did DOTM reflect his political opinion, especially if you thought about it?
Are we due in for yet another red fear? And would you not have hated Sentinel Prime had he NOT killed off Ironhide? (If I were Sentinel Prime, I would not have committed blatant assasination, if I'm committed to saving the race...So does this make Sentinel Prime a hypocritical, murderous, rampaging "fallen hero who has fallen off the deep end"? Do you think Michael Bay is trying to portray liberalist views as a "red" view that should be avoided?

Maybe I'm thinking too much about this. Since I have no political inclination and don't really believe in anything, I'm always watching both sides war with each other, and...I was thinking about this. Is Sentinel Prime a fanatical socialist of the furthest left ever? Or would his intentions to destroy an entire culture and planet for its resources actually make him the opposite right extreme? That's also a possibility. So then MB is actually a liberal who despises...
Do the ends justify the means? Can this concept be applied to both right wingers and left wingers? Obviously Sentinel Prime believed that, even after Optimus blew out his fuckin' traitorous brains out.
Maybe I'm just being crazy and seeing ghosts, and trying to look deep into an ultimately shallow movie with crappy characters that's solely designed to be eye candy and sell toy robots!

What do you think?
I know political thinking oft inflames passions, so in order to keep the discussion ongoing, please do be civil, and no flaming. This is actually for a paper I'm gonna write, and I'm gonna write it about how awesome Transformers is, soo...give me good sh!t here.

-Bitch pleaze, don't be analyzin' me!

 

I view Sentinel as being more of an extreme nationalist. If anything, Optimus is the liberal, taking the welfare of an alien race into consideration.

Damn politics, invading my Transformers.

 

I like that, I really do. You're right.

Politics has invaded my life (I'm studying Pol. Sci. after 4 years of Biology/Geology lol), but I never take a stance. Only when it suits me I guess, haha. If I were in SP's position, I'd be on his side, but if I were on Optimus' position, I'd be on his. I'd never take Megatron's position anywhere in the universe, though!

 

Michael Bay is a hardcore conservative? Even though hes a fan of the president and vice versa?

 

I think it's just that Prime hates his own species. Not like he ever did anything in the series to even try to save Cybertron. We need the All Spark to live but I'm so dead set at winning at any cost I'll doom my whole species before I let anyone else win. Sentinel is misguided but it's not like Prime was offering any better alternative to get Sentinel back on the side of the good guys.

It's some weird thing as well that it's bad for robots to save their own species or planet at any cost. A human character though they should do everything they can to save humanity and Earth even if they had to take out another species or planet to save ours.

 

I find it ironic that he says "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" yet is dooming many to save the few of his race

 

Sentinel is wrong, and Optimus is right. Sentinel betrayed himself because he wanted to side with the Decepticons, because they agreed to a truce that the Cons would have never held. You would see in the end, which was the better Prime. Sentinel got played, but Optimus didn't, and ended Megatron real quick.

 

The Autobots. Cause if I was with the Decepticons Optimus Prime would probably rip out my bowels and then run an axe through my face.

Also I'd probably be a naked protoform Decepticon that could die in two shots.

 

This is really interesting, but I don't really think Sentinel was supposed to seem Socialist/Communist. Although the quote could be used that way, it wasn't in this movie. As Nachtsider said, Optimus and the Autobots seem more liberal, and the Decepticons seem closer to the conservative stereotype. The liberals are generally the ones trying to ensure the rights of groups being oppressed, and conservatives tend to be stereotyped as more war-like, and caring less about other groups (I'm not trying to say anything against conservatives here, so don't be offended if you are one). I do think it's really interesting to apply politics to nonpolitical movies like Transformers, though.

 

I believe his "many" refers to their race which is more important while the "few" refers to humanity which is the minority in his perspective.

 

All of the Autobots on Earth? Barring a few stragglers out in space, that pretty much is his whole species. The Decepticons still number in the hundreds, and Cybertron is completely dead. This is like running in with a fire extinguisher after the house has burned down.

 

I somewhat agree on Optimus being a liberal, but I believe if he had a political viewpoint, then he would have changed to conservative after the Chicago attack. Think about, Optimus wants a peaceful resolution to the conflict until he realizes that the Decpticons can't be negotiated with. After that, he decides it's time to end the war once and for all and literally kill them all. Sentinel was an extremist much in the same way that Ras al Ghul was in Batman Begins.

 

This is really skirting the rules, but as for the OP:

The "few" are actually the Transformers. There's hardly any Autobots left and Cybertron is dead. However there's billions of humans, but Sentinel doesn't consider their numbers. The needs of the many do outweigh the needs of the few, and that's why Sentinel was wrong.

In shear numbers: Humans > Tfs.

 

I don't think Sentinel viewed humans as even remotely close to 'equals', so their numbers were irrelevant to him. The "many" I take it are Cybertronians as a whole, and the race could conceivably recover if they got Cybertron back up and running. The "few" would be Optimus and his Autobots and their desire to preserve the human species. Sentinel (and the Decepticons) believe preserving their own race is the most important goal and would take any measures to do so; they have genuinely good intentions but not so noble means to bring it about. The Autobot's "needs" are secondary and even expendable, if it were to fulfill the first goal.

I'm not sure how that fits in with liberalism/conservatism/whatever, and I don't think these movies would go so deep into politics.

 

^This Thank You.

Never once do we see Optimus with Ratchet and or Que devise a plan to restore their planet and race. Optimus is a jerk and if he actually cared about a solution for the planet's survival. Megatron and Sentinel wouldn't have a need to destroy humanity.

Honestly Optimus is to blame here too. Also Sentinel is the hypocrtical bastard who reminds me a lot of Charles Zi Britannia, Kang the Conqueror or Ozymandias from the Watchmen he's the end's justify the means anti villain. Megatron.....well he's Megatron. He wants power for himself.

It's kidnda unfair that their race suffers becuase of Jerkassimus Prime and the other tyrants of Cybertron.

 

Lets say humanity was down to just a prison full of male inmates and a prison full of female inmates. Would you really doom humanity just because you have to rebuild with the scum of humanity rather than the best of humanity?

Even if humanity was down to Attila the Hun and Elizabeth Bathory I'd still save my own species over something like Ewoks or Gungans.

 

Aw, shit, politics.

 

I'm not going to get into the politics part, but I do think it's ironic that the Decepticons want to save Cybertron, considering they're the ones who started the war, and cause all of this trouble to begin with.

 

I think the real question is why does Optimus value human life so much but Cybertronian life so little?

 

Because there's considerably less of the latter, and even less among that number that don't want to kill everything in the universe.