*SPOILERS* Freedom is the right of all sentient beings...

[Tober]

...but jeez, they couldn't have tried something like "Screw you, we'll base ourselves in Australia then!"?

Our government doesn't seem to like Megatron coming into here either tho

[ NO! I'm still not over it! ]

[RageOnTheRoads]

Your last sentence sums up what differs between Autobots and Decepticons. The Fallen fell to evil when he broke the Primes' sacred rule about never harvesting a star that supported life, and later The Fallen corrupted Megatron, who was once lord high protector of Cybertron. (RE: Defiance - when's the TPB coming out?!)

exactly!

And yet the human race has committed similar such evils and depravities. Ironhide even acknowledges that in the first movie. I mean lets face it we eradicate as many as 50,000 species each year on our own planet (a lot more than the 'evil' Decepticons manage during their reign of terror I'd wager ) and easily committed atrocities that equal any 'Con. We lie, beg, steal, murder, slaughter hundreds of our own kind etc. (I mean sector 7 practically tortured poor Bee.) And yet Prime set his life on the line to protect our right to survival, despite all of humanities flaws. Its that higher principle, and the devotion to it even in the face of unspeakable evil and cruelty that made good ol' Prime so awesome... so to see him splatter a wounded, helpless con's processors all over the wall for being no more or less flawed than a good proportion of humanity. Well just seems a bit hypocritical and a blatant disregard of his principles is all.

I mean I could even sort of forgive him for the way in which he killed the Fallen, because he was in essence the ultimate corruption, but Demolisher was just another deluded pawn... Oh well.

I guess I just wish they has simply stuck with the way they had portrayed the whole scene in the novel/comic and not tried to 'beef' him up Die hard style.

Hasn't the Defiance TPB already been released? I am pretty sure it has. I was having a perv through my friends version the other day. Read pretty nicely as a series actually.

[Lord_Zed]

Defiance TPB has been out since the movie was released, I've got it, and it's probably my favourte of the movie comics so far. not that that's saying much, but it does shed some light on the new movie at least.


Sortof......

[FFN]

What could they do? Slap stasis cuffs of them and put them in jail? Put them on trial for war crimes? Banish them by shooting them off on a rocket to the Moon or Mars? Even if they did, they'd just escape and come back, causing more death and destruction when they land.

Earth is the human and Autobot home. The Decepticons are not welcome here, they are invaders, and have previously shown a callous disregard for lives of the native inhabitants of this world at best, and have murderous intentions at worst. And given the revelation of The Fallen and Megatron's plans, NEST's actions were completely justified.

To paraphrase Major Kira from Deep Space Nine, the Decepticons invaded our home and killed our people. It doesn't matter whether the Decepticons were soldiers or concealed scouts, they are all guilty and they are all legitimate targets.

[RageOnTheRoads]

What could they do? Slap stasis cuffs of them and put them in jail? Put them on trial for war crimes? Banish them by shooting them off on a rocket to the Moon or Mars? Even if they did, they'd just escape and come back, causing more death and destruction when they land.

Yeah, it wouldn't of hurt them to have pulled a beast wars/machines, removed their sparks form their bodies and put it in a stasis jail. Been done before in TF lore many times, and it would at least have meant that the autobots abided by the principles that they supposedly stood for. I mean if Bay actually cared about the characters he was portreying it would have been easy. e.g.

Prime gestures to the fallen and helpless 'con. "Ironhide remove his spark and put it with the others." (or something to that effect, written by someone who could actually write. )

There, easy. Wouldn't take much to write it into the story, and It would actually have had Prime in character. Some simple dialogue and no whining fandom. Or alternatively they could have gone with what's in the comic and again no one would be complaining.

Earth is the human and Autobot home. The Decepticons are not welcome here, they are invaders, and have previously shown a callous disregard for lives of the native inhabitants of this world at best, and have murderous intentions at worst. And given the revelation of The Fallen and Megatron's plans, NEST's actions were completely justified.

To paraphrase Major Kira from Deep Space Nine, the Decepticons invaded our home and killed our people. It doesn't matter whether the Decepticons were soldiers or concealed scouts, they are all guilty and they are all legitimate targets.

This is true. But that doesn't justify abandoning your ideals and principles, becoming as cruel and despicable as the enemy you engage. Lets face it shooting a helpless down and out soldier is a cowardly callous act, full stop. It may be explainable or even necessary, but the act in and of itself is cruel and deplorable. (and made even more so by the fact Prime didn't have any compunctions about doing it.) Just because it is committed at the hands of someone supposedly standing for good doesn't change the nature of the act itself and it's most certainly not something you'd associate with someone who stands for the protection of honour, morality, dignity and life.

Not to mention humans are guilty of the same atrocities as the cons, and yet Prime was willing enough to forgive and protect us. That is just his natural awesomeness.

So it's just a bit disheartening to see him lose the ideals that made him so honorable and succumb to the cruelties (or efficiencies, as some put it ) of war.

[kup]

I have recently been watching the 90s Spider-Man cartoon and during the Venom 3 parter, Spiderman under the influence of the suit defeats Rhino and has him at his mercy. Spider-Man grabs an unhinged metal door and is about to smash Rhino dead with it when he stops and reflects on how immoral such an act would be and how he would have regretted all his life if he had executed someone in cold blood while they were defenseless.

Guess those moral values don't apply to movie Prime - Not much of a heroic Autobot at all.

[GoktimusPrime]

Yeah, it wouldn't of hurt them to have pulled a beast wars/machines, removed their sparks form their bodies and put it in a stasis jail.

Some problems with this idea:
+ Such a project would be costly - where would the Autobots acquire the resources and labour to construct such a prison without giving humans access to their technology? Optimus Prime clearly doesn't trust Cybertronian technology in human hands.
+ Acquiring land to construct this prison. I don't think the Autobots own any land on Earth - they appear to be wards of the U.S. government and I don't know if they'd be able to hold real estate in order to construct a gaol -- again, would probably involve land ownership by an Earth government who would oversee its construction (and thus gain an insight into Cybertronian technology).

I concur with what FFN said - there's little else they could do and an enemy scout is still an enemy. The gathering of intelligence is absolutely vital to an army.

"Hence it is only the enlightened ruler and the wise general who will use the highest intelligence of the army for purposes of spying and thereby they achieve great results. Spies are a most important element in water, because on them depends an army's ability to move." - Sun Tzu (The Art of War)

[Tiby]

A couple of things in response to some comments above:
1. Flag-draped coffins: You harass a bee-hive, you get stung. That is the bee's defence mechanism. I can't remember now if the coffins were from the ships or the Demolishor scene, but the ones in the Demolishor scene were the result of Demolishor's self-defence.
2. Scouts vs refugees: Ok, Demolishor obviously knew something big was coming, referring to the Fallen, but he also clearly feared the Autobots and what they were doing. His Bio talks about protecting smaller Decepticons in hiding. Sideways is a courier. Hardly top military targets.
3. Mercy killing: If he was beyond repair, that was not established very well. Frenzy gets dismembered several times and keeps going.
4. Intelligence: Demolishor says the Fallen is coming. What an opportunity to find out more! But instead, he is executed.
5. Changing sides: poorly handled in the film, but perhaps also something the current generation of TFs are not aware of. Jetfire refers to it, and he is ancient. Wheelie doesn't understand it when Jetfire reveals it. The current TFs may have been fighting so long they have forgotten that they could choose sides. The Fallen himself appears to be neutral. Prime (hard to tell how old he is) if he know, could have offered Demolishor the chance to defect. Poor Sideways, on the other hand, was shoot first ask questions later.
6. Politics: much of this could easily leap into a political discussions about the country that made this film, much like the much more superficial and media-friendly argument about the twins, but that is beyond this forum's scope.

[FFN]

2. Scouts vs refugees: Ok, Demolishor obviously knew something big was coming, referring to the Fallen, but he also clearly feared the Autobots and what they were doing. His Bio talks about protecting smaller Decepticons in hiding. Sideways is a courier. Hardly top military targets.

Guess what a courier ferries? Intelligence. Intelligence on your defenses, your troop disposition, your positions. His information lets his superiors form a strategy to kill you and yours, and the Decepticons are clearly not going to limit themselves to military targets.

[jaydisc]

I'm not seeing it as self-defense. Demolisher attacks first by smacking the concrete cylinders which land on a few military personal. I can't remember at this point if the military started firing yet, but they should of, if they didn't. He starts swatting black hawks out of the sky and then making a mess of Shanghai.

All the suggestions of interrogation assume that these guys are subject to torture. Otherwise, why would any Decepticon talk. And torture is arguable as nasty, if not more, than any of the other allegations being made here.