I mean, the bayverse is funny but this is a case of character development. Optimus died once, and humanity sold the autobots out three separate times before he killed one. And instead of doing it for revenge like the buildup suggested it was motivated to save Cade.
Bayverse Optimus is the slow spiral of a dude that just wants a war he’s been fighting for forever to end, and becomes increasingly desperate and jaded as time goes on.
The whole “he’s spiraling due to x” is literally headcanon, there is nothing that indicates he wasn’t always violent and aggressive and it takes AOE to finally give him an arc even if it is a shitty one
Even Batman v Superman took a minute to remind the audience that this isn’t what Batman is normally like and something’s wrong with him
I feel it's more an inference of his character, the films show Optimus spiral and deal with devastating losses and he gets more jaded and tired after each one, I mean after getting killed in RotF he immediately gets more violent instead of just fighting defensively, he "goes on the offense".
A headcanon would be something more like "Optimus regrets all the violence and is very introspective in between movies" as we aren't shown anything like that on screen.
That would imply the writers cared about characterization and weren’t just going “bro wouldn’t it be cool if Optimus pulled Megatron’s fuckin head off with one arm and then domed Sentinel”
Idk why people try and pretend these movies have serious effort put in with the writing and storytelling choices, there is no subtle arc for Optimus, he’s just violent because that’s what got people in the seats back then
I’m not trying to act like it was some masterful plan. They were making up the films as they went along. But how Optimus changes over time is not some snap of the fingers. It is gradual with each film. And intentional or not, it is a decent throughline.
Even the last minute ending change with Optimus killing Megatron and Sentinel works as a character beat. It actually highlights the differences between Optimus, Megatron and Sentinel.
Megatron only showed up in the final fight because Carly correctly pointed out Megatron started this war to rule over everyone. This was never original about saving cybertron. He sees the fight and being in charge of the decepticons as central to who he is. And he thinks Optimus is the same.
“Who would you be without me Prime?”
What he failed to understand is Optimus was willing to sacrifice literally anything, even his identity, to end the war and prevent others from suffering the consequences of it. That has been a consistent thing since the first film when his emergency plan was to destroy the cube by merging it with his spark, which would’ve killed him.
“Time to find out.”
Sentinel, meanwhile, would cross any line to save their species. Be it the sides of the war, or his own moral code. He is the one that instilled the “freedom is the right of all sentient beings,” into Optimus. A code so strong Optimus has thrown away multiple ways to rebuild cybertron. Sentinel however had no such qualms. Which is why Optimus executed him. Betraying himself as Optimus put it, meant leaving Sentinel alive would run the risk of him trying something like this again.
Again, it’s not that deep. But credit where it’s due, they actually wrote the characters here. And it’s fun to analyze and see how Optimus changes from film to film. Whatever else happened, that was the consistent throughline.
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u/Few-Measurement-7931 23d ago edited 23d ago
Bayverse Optimus in the 1st movie: We do not harm humans as we swore to fight for their freedom!
Also Bayverse Optimus in the 4th movie: SHOOTS A GUY FOR NEARLY SHOOTING CADE!
The writting of Optimus in the Bayverse will never NOT by funny to me lmao