"War crimes" lmao. Funny that people still think that.

 

From the UN website:
"In the case of an armed conflict not of an international character, serious violations of article 3 common to the four Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, namely, any of the following acts committed against persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention or any other cause:

1. Violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;
2. Committing outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment;
3. Taking of hostages;
4. The passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgement pronounced by a regularly constituted court, affording all judicial guarantees which are generally recognized as indispensable."

The Decepticons in the films from just this one section commit all of these crimes while the Autobots did all but taking hostages, with Prime himself also taking part in 1, 2, and 4.

 

I guess now's a good time to mention that I made a video on this recently.

(Got motivated to do more Transformers after my went wrong with Rodimus Prime video got a massive uptick. I'm not sure what the site rule is on this so I'll take it down if I can't post this)

 

Geneva Convention only applies to signatories and as far as we know the Autobots and most certainly the Deceoticons are not so therefore they do not apply. The Decepticons are not covered under humanitarian law and clearly aren't doing anything humanitarian on this planet.

 

The Alien/Autobot Cooperation Act the Autobots signed with the US and other countries, thus making them a signatory, says otherwise. So if anything this argument translates to "The Decepticons didn't commit war crimes but Optimus and the Autobots did", which makes it even worse.

 

The Alien/Autobot Cooperation Act was signed, but that doesn't mean the Autobots are subject to US law. That just means there was an agreement on the books to work with them.

 

A signatory is a party that can sign acts and treaties that are then recognized and subject to international laws, what the UN is, not US laws. By signing the act the Autobots were saying they are a sovereign power and operate under said international US laws. If they didn't sign and just stayed underground the entire time after 07 than yes it would not apply to them, but they did.

 

If that's the case, by the time of Chicago in DOTM the alliance was specifically stated to have ended, therefore they wouldn't apply. Plus it is never stated that Optimus or anyone was tried so clearly it wasn't an issue. Plus I doubt that a secret agreement with alien life being kept secret would apply them to international law.

 

Prime's a murderer, no doubt, and that scene is uncharacteristic of the real Optimus but I'm now of two minds on it. (For a while, I was team Optimus. Then, I was team "oh, no. That's murder", now...)

On the one hand, Prime murdered him execution-style in cold blood. (Though, it technically could be considered a mercy killing. Sentinel was missing his helmet/skull and his brain was exposed. I can't imagine that was painless. It's like being scalped... Getting put out of one's misery at that point is probably merciful. Still murder, though.)

On the other hand, you put down a rabid dog for the safety of others. Period.

 

I was gonna say Bay just wanted to go with a standard action movie ending, which usually ends with the resident bad guy dying/getting their componence but even those cases I recall it usually has the villain either still in a position where they're dangerous or sneakily trying to go for a cheap shot.

 

I find this reasoning hilarious because Ironhide had barely any character in the movies and his friendship with Optimus was non existent. Odd as other Optimus Primes didn't brutally and viciously execute their enemies like an asshole when they lost friends lol

 

What's funny is how Prime and every other character immediately forgot about Ironhide's existence the second after he died.

 

Jazz at least got two seconds.

 

Now that you mention it, yeah they just forget about Ironhide as soon as he dies, no one acknowledges his death in anyway, it's funny the Transformers were barely characters in their own movies lol.

Even then Optimus sounds more annoyed with him than anything when he says "Aww Jazz". And they proceed to forget about him and Megatron gets a burial scene.

 

Because of last minute writings.

it was supposed to initially be a conjoined effort with both Megatron and Optimus, so that it would be less an execution and more a battle to the death.

However, because the initial ending was leaked, they opted for a more “unpredictable” ending and made it into a full blown execution.

 

Even if the Autobots didn't commit war crimes because they technically aren't accountable under the Geneva Conventions... who cares? The Geneva Conventions are still the kind of behaviors you shouldn't commit, regardless of whether or not you can be enforced under them. It's like arguing murder is only bad because it's illegal, and that it would otherwise be acceptable behavior. Laws like this dictate the kind of behavior that is acceptable, but they don't decide that.

 

Optimus and his autobots clearly had history back on cybertron. But maybe you have a point. Optimus could've freed Sentinel to witness him continue to kill his autobots, and him and the rest of the planet earth.

 

Funny how the movies never really explore that history or relationship between the Autobots in any meaningful way nor with actual depth and never bother to show the Autobots act as a family or comrades but we're still meant to care.

Lol who said anything about freeing Sentinel? You know maybe have Sentinel face proper justice. Or not have Optimus kill Sentinel or frankly any of his enemies in such a brutal and sadistic way that frankly misses the entire point of his character. Who's meant to be kind, fun and is about justice, mercy, peace and is strong enough to be gentle.

Which is a big problem with the movies.

 

I’m glad he did it.
Bay’s OP is my favorite version of OP.

And when he gave Megatron the ax, it was about dang time!

I agree- it was very unG1 Optimus... but very much Bay Optimus.

And the Bayverse should have ended there.