DOTM - not excited? [possible spoils]

[GoktimusPrime]

It is interesting that the movie novelisation just has Demolisher saying his final words after Prime's attack with no comment or kill shot from Prime. In the comic adaptation Furman has Prime say "I wish there was another way" as he delivers a fatal blow. Both seem more 'right' and suggest the adaptors weren't fans of that scene or the script was rewritten at a late stage.

Yep. That's a much better way of handling it (especially in the comic adaptation) than what happened in the movie. Just a short simple line like, "I wish there was another way." would have done the trick nicely.

I've interpretted the scene differently to yourself. Rather than simply being incapacitated, I see a Decepticon in a great deal of pain, beyond repair and close to death. The only thing Prime could do was to 'put him out of his misery' so to speak. He knew this and that's ultimately why he introduced Demolishor to his little friend. Perhaps he could have said something a bit better than 'Any last words?' but this is a war and sadly not everything happens the way it should.

Yeah but a small line just to indicate this to the audience would have made a massive difference, rather than leaving it ambiguous and looking like an execution.

I actually think it makes Prime a bit more interesting and less predictable than usual. *shrugs*

We had enough character contradictions in Beast Machines thanks. Don't need any more. Let's leave those seeds of the future lie buried in the past!

It's true ROTF sucked Devastator's very large balls, but I will defend the right for Prime or any other Autobot to kill Decepticons, even in a execution style manner. The Decepticons in the movieverse are unlike anything we have ever seen, they are far more sadistic and brutal then any other universe I know, they won't think twice about gutting a Autobot for the fun of it.

But the Autobots are meant to be the good guys - they're meant to have a higher standard of morals over the Decepticons. Not lower themselves to their same level. That's one thing that always separated Optimus Prime's other incarnations and made him distinct... as G1 Megatron once said in the episode "Heavy Metal War," Optimus Prime's only weakness is his sense of honour. In "Afterdeath" Optimus Prime voluntarily allowed himself to be killed (in fact he demanded it) after he lost to Megatron in a LAN game. Despite the fact that Megatron used a hack code to cheat, Optimus Prime insisted on keeping his deal with Megatron (that whoever died in the virtual world would have to die in reality too). And thus he was DESTROYED (and stayed dead until they rebuilt him as a Powermaster).

And we saw this in movieverse Optimus Prime too. In TF1 Optimus Prime repeatedly said that if he could not defeat Megatron then he would sacrifice himself by merging the AllSpark with his own Spark -- and even as Megatron came to finish him he told Sam to push the AllSpark into his chest. And when Sam decided to push it into Megatron's chest instead, Prime called out, "No Sam!" - and as mentioned before, Prime expressed regret to Megatron after his demise.

Perhaps the movie comics probably demonstrate this better than the actual movies themselves I guess: Demolisher slaughtered entire Autobot settlements on Cybertron, besides probably killing a load of people in China, he got what was coming to him, perhaps that factored in to Prime's decision to kill him?

Yeah I know Tales of the Fallen tried to justify the execution -- but of course, they wouldn't have had to do this if it didn't look like one in the first place. Obviously someone at IDW picked this up tried to see if they could try to justify the act. But as utterly merciless and relentless as Demolishor was, at the time he was completely incapacitated and no longer able to inflict any further harm or damage to anyone.

For example, if Allied Forces had managed to capture Hitler, would they execute him on the spot or arrest him so that he can stand trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity?

Megatron is commiting mass genocide on his own people, the Autobots are on the verge of extinction.

And yet Optimus Prime vehemently tried his best NOT to kill him (choosing to sacrifice his life over Megatron's (Sam chose the other option)) -- but even then, Megatron was killed in mid-fight, not after he was defeated. Megatron, Bonecrusher, Grindor, Alice etc. were killed in combat, not executed after defeat.

This is a war, at some point you gotta pick up a gun and start shooting, stop being a victim and start being a soldier.

Yeah, you shoot at people who are shooting at you. You don't shoot them after the fight is finished.

Unlike everybody else here, I have no problems with Optimus Prime executing Demolishor or Sideswipe slicing Sideways in half. Hey, they Decepticons are invading my planet, and the theme song says "The Autobots wage their battle to destroy the evil forces of the Decepticons."

lol

Beast Wars Megatron, the best Megatron, would like a word with you

+1

(Not referring to you specifically) People like to complain that these movies have little to do with Transformers and don't refer to enough Transformery things. The inclusion of the Fallen, even though that was handled poorly (there were some significant changes from earlier drafts of the script which weakened the Fallen's relationship with Megatron among other things), was a pretty huge in-reference to hardcore fans.

Yeah but I think it was Paulbot who said that the character also needs to make sense and appeal to non-fans too. :/

We saw the rail gun on screen. It was far away and fired. Attackers do not need always need be on screen with their victims, especially with longer-range weapons. That would be bad cinematography.

Check out the science behind rail guns. They hurt very, very much, even to Transformers, who are only invincible to human weapons if you use cartoon or All Hail Megatron story logic.

The US Navy's Railgun fires a 3.2kg projectile at 2.4km/s, meaning that the rounds land "more swiftly and with little to no warning compared to a volley of Tomahawk cruise missiles."

I agree that it's good that the movies aren't treating the Transformers like Gods. Modern human weapons ARE powerful and can hurt the Transformers... but at the same time, it seemed all too rather convenient that there just happened to be a US Navy vessel in close proximity to the pyramids at that exact time - and Simmons knew about it of course. What luck! Simmons should've bought a Lotto ticket that day.

Prime is not a professional soldier. None of the autobots are. They have been forced into war to preserve their way of life. Even if they have been at war for a millenia they are still civilians fighting a war that haven't had the proper training to act professional.

Yeah sure, most of the Autobots were civilians to start off with, but you'd think after millenia of warfare they would have devised rules of engagement and become a more professional unit. Also, they did have some professional soldiers amongst their ranks like Ironhide - and also, Prime was not that merciless in the first movie.

Also what about the fact that Demolisher wouldn't go willingly. He resisted arrest and it took Prime and Ironhide to physically restrain him. Also where would he be incarcerated? He is a war criminal on the run because his leader is dead. Even when he was crippled he didn't even surrender he made threats about "The Fallen" taking over Earth.

I've got no problem with the execution of Demolisher.

Yeah but all those horrible things he did before he was finally taken down is something that should be dealt with later after he's captured as a POW. And if the Autobots had no means of detaining him, and given that he's refusing to relent, or if he's mortally wounded, then again have someone SAY something to indicate this (like in the comic adaptation).

No matter how brutal or threatening or unrelenting an enemy combatant is, if you kill them after they've been defeated, that's execution which has been considered barbaric since the Middle Ages. For instance, as aggressively violent and hostile as the Black Knight was, and even after he continued threatening and taunting King Arthur after he was defeated, Arthur Pendragon maintained the moral high ground and galloped (coconutted) away.

"Oh, oh, I see, running away then. You yellow b*****ds! Come back here and take what's coming to you. I'll bite your legs off!"