Please tell me if I missed something here, but I cannot come to grips with the beginning of the movie.

Just what exactly was Demolishor and Sideways doing wrong? All of the destruction they cause is because they are escaping the Autobots and the military.

And the way Prime finished the job left me reeling. I'm not being "That's not my G1 Prime *sob* *sob*", but he continually acknowledges through both movies that humans have compassion and are a species worth protecting. Further, in the first movie, he criticises Megatron for doing exactly what he just did to Demolishor.

There is no doubt that the Decepticons are painted in a particularly evil light in the movies, but this is a construction vehicle and a sports car, not military vehicles or robot infiltrators (Soundwave, Ravage, Scorponok, Frenzy). Further, looking at their bios on the toys, Demolishor is a protector of a group of smaller Decepticons, including Sideways, who come across as refugees to me.

Sure, they throw in Demolishor's last words to try and tie him in to some kind of stereotypical (and perhaps racist) holy war concept, but at that point I felt like: "Yeah! The Transformers need a saviour from these brutal Autobots".