Although, you do have to wonder how much him getting to slaughter his enemies again factored into his decision…

But it’s Optimus who was the real Number Cruncher of Doom in the movie, deciding that over a thousand innocent deaths was an acceptable sacrifice to save the rest of humanity. Sentinel actually accused Optimus of not prioritizing the needs of the many over the needs of the few (cute, since he was voiced by The Wrath of Khan’s Leonard Nimoy). In the very same movie, he allows Decepticons to stage an attack on Chicago that results in 1,300 deaths, all to prove that Decepticons are a threat to Earth. Optimus would continue down this dark path in the 2011 follow-up Dark of the Moon, where he’s betrayed by his mentor Sentinel Prime, causing something inside him to just snap. That had to contravene some kind of Robot Geneva Convention about POW. In the 2009 sequel Revenge of the Fallen, the Autobots team up with humans to hunt down all remaining Decepticons on Earth, like Demolisher, who Prime executes with a point-blank headshot after he’d already been disabled and posed no threat. And that makes some of the things he did in the live-action movies essentially war crimes. The problem, though, is that Optimus, an eternal veteran of the bloody oily war for Cybertron, is always in War Mode. And when OP gets informed about the death of his comrade Jazz, who was ripped in half by Megatron, his reaction was little more than “Oh no! Anyway…” You can try and excuse this by saying that Optimus was fighting a war, which can desensitize people and robots alike. This week, Polygon celebrates all forms of sci-fi villainy because someone has to (or else).Īnd yet… even back then, there were some concerning things about Optimus Prime’s behavior.įor one, he allowed Bumblebee to be captured by Sector 7, sacrificing him to a shadowy, torture-happy government organization because he didn’t want to risk losing the All Spark. In space, no one can hear you scream - but that doesn't stop an evil-doer from trying.

Optimus prime vs decepticons