What if the orders that were given to Sideswipe by Optimus Prime (his commanding officer) was to Terminate With Extreme Predjudice. In the Military, if you are infantry, you are taught one thing over anything else. That is you follow your CO's orders in combat. As it stands, by killing Sideways, Sideswipe may have even saved the city from MILLIONS in property damage. Remember, prior to the "murder", Sideways turned a tenement building into a tunnel.

 

It's a war. War is hell.

What if the orders that were given to Sideswipe by Optimus Prime (his commanding officer) was to Terminate With Extreme Predjudice. In the Military, if you are infantry, you are taught one thing over anything else. That is you follow your CO's orders in combat. As it stands, by killing Sideways, Sideswipe may have even saved the city from MILLIONS in property damage. Remember, prior to the "murder", Sideways turned a tenement building into a tunnel.

 

It's a war. War is hell.

 

This is certainly a good argument, but then the question is: Why is Prime giving such an order?

 

I'm not sure that the killing bugs me, so much as the movie failing to deal with the moral implications and motivations does. If we were given a reason, a GOOD reason ("These Decepticons are war criminals, terminate on sight!"), or if the film at least discussed or questioned the morality of it, I'd be at least a little happier than I am.

 

It could go like this, (maybe Chromia is talking to Ironhide, or, ya know, substitute whoever you want in to make the scene more interesting)

 

("...So... did we really have to kill them?"

"The time for playing nice with these monsters is over, let THEM feel the pain loss for a change."

"But... couldn't this make US monsters, too?"

"hmph... some times it takes a monster to stop a monster"

"Maybe... But do YOU really want to be the Monster?"

".........There are more... fragile creatures involved now, we don't have time to question ethics at the cost of human lives."

".........Maybe... but don't forget; if we do go down that road, then when it's all over, and ALL the Decepticons are dead? The only monsters left... will be US. What happens then?"

"......"

"Ironhide?..."

"Don't think too hard on it, and just maybe we'll live long enough to find out."

 

EDIT:

Well, no matter how you slice it, reasonable or not, I suspect it may send "the wrong message" to all the Children who aren't mature enough to come to this forum and participate in our enlightened philosophical discussion here. :shrug

RotF being or not being appropriate for children is a whole other discussion...

I could argue that the discussion is the nature of "Murder" and how it both directly or indirectly relates to Revenge of the Fallen, and am therefore completely within my rights, but... I really don't want to be "That Guy"... So yeah, Sorry I got off topic. :)

 

Except that my by acknowledging that I have the capacity to be "That Guy" in writing inadvertently made it true... and.. wait ... :tfhuh what? ARRRGH! PARADOX! *head explodes* :tflaugh

"Kill em' all and let the All-Spark sort em' out!"

Hmmm, I think I got it. After many millions of years of taking the high ground on everything the Autobots had these small insugnificant flesh creatures convince them that they should just wipe the decepticons out of existance. They are bad after all and should be destroyed, humans do it all the time and it's ok..... See, how could the autobots argue with this logic, they thought it was a good idea.

Who says in the Bayverse the Autobots "took the high ground" for millions of years? They could have very well been more "bloodthirtsy" than humans before coming to Earth.

 

 

Good point... I guess the Autobays and Baycons act a lot different than I exspected.

 

 

You know, in the first movie, Prime corrected his troops when they voiced opinons on the faults of humanity by stating, 'were WE so different?' They are following the dictates of war, whether they like it or not.

 

I don't think the Autobots needed any convincing by Homo sapiens (sapiens) (We're a subspecies!!!) that they needed to go all Pulp Fiction and smelt every Decepticon that moves. I'd think that the experiences of fighting and losing loved comrades in this never-ending war would be enough to lose some--if not all--empathy with your enemy, to stop seeing them as anything but an enemy to be wiped out.

 

You know what's sad? The fact that THIS WAS NEVER TOUCHED ON IN THE MOVIE. I had to come up with this myself. It's an easy place for me to go...so, what's the problem with the writers? A character like Megatron, for instance, is one of the most complex characters in all of the TF mythos, and one of the most interesting fictional protagonists ever. Think about it. He's not insane. He's completely lucid and rational, and believes in much the same things as his primary antagonist: Optimus Prime. The two are so alike in some ways that they literally could have been brothers. Megatron believes in growth. He'll fight for it and spend his life and the lives of all of his troops (Admittedly, he'd spend their lives FIRST) to achieve growth. Megs just believes that true growth can only be achieved through outright conquest, and that while his race is best equipped to do so, only his followers have truly embraced this theory and--since the theory is his--he is obviously the best suited for the job. His pride and ego demands it, and he has the charisma to put forth and through sheer force of will convince absolute strangers to join his cause even though it's very likely that they will end up dying. This scenario is barely different than the scenario of Optimus Prime. Why was this not touched on in the movie(s)? Our main protagonist is still an enigma after two movies--even though he stole the show in the second film. We just don't understand his motivations, for a lot of reasons...not the least of which may be a talent deficiency with regards to the writers.

 

Even with Prime, I'm having to do Bay & Co's job for them. I see Prime as battle-tested, quite hardened, but still with that instrospective and 'soft' spark that allows him to express regret over having to live out his life as a chief participant in this war. I'm sure inside--given the Optimus Prime I've always been familiar with--that it is with sadness and remorse that he executes his enemies...that the option of taking prisoners doesn't exist because the Decepticons will NEVER ALLOW THEMSELVES TO BE TAKEN PRISONER. I'm sure he had to look into their eyes and see the smolder of hatred that never really leaves and makes no allowance for anything but more hatred. I'm sure this and many other things has Prime questioning his beliefs and his main credo ('freedom is the right of all sentient beings') because what he must do now is at direct odds with it. This doesn't even take into account the guilt that Prime must feel regarding the fact that the TFs have irresponsibly placed Earth and everyone on it at risk. This isn't in the movie. I'm taking license with it. I'm making it up, and it was extremely easy to do. There is a ton of TF history to base these conclusions off of. What's the collective problem of the writers?

 

Yet another thing the movie could have and should have at least touched on.

 

What I'm saying is that--as presented in the Bayverse--the Decepticons are cookie-cutter baddies that need to be rubbed out, and they have committed many acts throughout both films to corroborate that assessment. The counter-argument is hollow to me, because no other information exists. The Bayverse is a retcon,and they've already cast out much of what we might consider to be canon. This now makes it the job of Bay & Co. to explain what the hell is going on with regards to THEIR TFs, because you can't have it both ways. The potential for much more exists, but it's a Bay film...and there's no room in the Bayverse for depth, substance AND bigger and better explosions.

I don't think we'll ever be able to pin down whether or not Sideswipe killing Sideways was unjustified - there are simply too many factors involved. Alien lifeforms on an alien world, involved in quasi-official war... who are we to make a judgement call in this area? Maybe the Autobots were ordered not to take prisoners. Maybe the Autobots have no concept of taking prisoners! The possibilities are endless.

 

The scene was, however, pretty horrible in terms of showing Sideswipe in a good light. He chased down an inferior underdog opponent that refused to fight, killed him in a particularly brutal fashion, and then tops of his performance with a jaunty celebration! Hardly the best depiction of a 'heroic' Autobot...

I have a good point to bring up. If they should kill all decepticons on site with out trying to reason with them why would they not straight away attack Jetfire and the whelli.

 

And don't say Jetfire turned good or chose to become an autobot. How would prime and the others who were not there when he said that know. All prime should have known was...

 

He woke up, there was a decepticon there and based on the argument that it was war and you shoot first and ask questions later should he not have started attacking them......

How does Sideswipe necessarily know Sideways is an inferior underdog opponent? There are lots of Decepticons...

And without having read Sideway's toy bio, how can Sideswipe know that Sideways would refuse to fight?...

I can almost see it!...

Ironhide: "We need to gather more information on our opponents, there's too much we don't know!"

Prime: "Agreed! Sideswipe, it is your mission to gather as much info on the enemy combatants as possible! Head down to Wal-mart and read all the toy boxes! In fact, buy some while you're there! I need to complete my collection!"

Sideswipe: "Yes Sir!" *a short time later....*

Sideswipe (examining toy boxes): "Ah... so THAT'S Mixmaster... he's going on the kill on sight list for sure! Oops! Sorry I killed ya, Sideways! I didn't know you were such a wuss...Slag it! They haven't released the Voyager Class Long Haul yet! (and I really wanted that one, too!)....... Hey! What are you starin' at kid?"

Kid: "You".

"Oh, I guess that's reasonable" :P

 

And then a giant Decepticon hand smashes Chromia into the ground :)

 

Awww..... even in my fiction she barely gets any screen time....

What if the orders that were given to Sideswipe by Optimus Prime (his commanding officer) was to Terminate With Extreme Predjudice. In the Military, if you are infantry, you are taught one thing over anything else. That is you follow your CO's orders in combat. As it stands, by killing Sideways, Sideswipe may have even saved the city from MILLIONS in property damage. Remember, prior to the "murder", Sideways turned a tenement building into a tunnel.

 

It's a war. War is hell.

 

Maybe he wouldn't have if he wasn't being chased down like an animal.

What I'm saying is that--as presented in the Bayverse--the Decepticons are cookie-cutter baddies that need to be rubbed out, and they have committed many acts throughout both films to corroborate that assessment. The counter-argument is hollow to me, because no other information exists. The Bayverse is a retcon,and they've already cast out much of what we might consider to be canon. This now makes it the job of Bay & Co. to explain what the hell is going on with regards to THEIR TFs, because you can't have it both ways. The potential for much more exists, but it's a Bay film...and there's no room in the Bayverse for depth, substance AND bigger and better explosions.

 

This is it---if they'd just used the canon as it was they would already have had the rules established that we all would have referenced to understand the movies. Instead, they threw the baby out with the bathwater and "started over" with an inferior, disjointed bunch of material that is just "kind" of like the canon. Therefore, it was their responsibility to give us all that backstory for this movie-verse, which they have failed at, miserably.

How does Sideswipe necessarily know Sideways is an inferior underdog opponent? There are lots of Decepticons...

And without having read Sideway's toy bio, how can Sideswipe know that Sideways would refuse to fight? Maybe if Sideswipe wasn't so quick, Sideways would have eventually turned around and blasted him?

I don't think the attack was really "brutal." He stuck his sword in the ground and Sideways drove into it...

I agree the celebration was uncalled for, though...

That's a great question. I would actually say that what Sideswipe did was, under the circumstances, quite logical - especially when dealing with an opponent from a species that thrives on the gullibility of others. I simply think that the scene as written depicted Sideswipe as competent, rather than heroic.

 

For instance, Sideways could have ran, slowed Sideswipe down with a cheap-shot, and then ambushed Sideswipe as he rounded the corner. Cue some nice, high-speed hand-to-hand fighting and just when it looks like Sideswipe is done for he turns the tables and hurls Sideways. That's Sideways cue to transform in midair and land on all four wheels, ready to escape - only for Sideswipe to then cut him in half.

 

Bang! Sideswipe looks a hell of a lot more sympathetic. :)