The Energon Pub

Has anyone noticed that every time Optimus kills someone he allways takes their face off. I wander if he has a trophy room where he keeps all thoughs faces.

Bonecrusher was decapitated by Prime's sword.

Scavenger/Demolisher/Wheelbot whatever you want to call him was shot in the face by Optimus.

Blackout/Grindor whatever you want to call him, had his face ripped in two by two energon hooks.

Fallen had his face ripped off with his own weapon.

Megatron was allso wounded by Optimus in the face but not killed right before the Fallen was killed so not sure if that one should be counted or not.

What's with all this face taking, is Peter Cullen getting pay back for BW Megatron blasting off the original Optimus Prime's face.

It's his way of dealing with the stress of his job.

I think he also punched Frenzy in the face in Ghosts of Yesterday.
He tries pulling off Megatron's head in the first movie.
He also kicks Starscream's head in RoTF.

I'm still working this one out myself, honestly. The whole face obsession is rather new to ROTF. I have a bunch of theories, but they're really screwy and pretentious and read a lot into the idea of the 'face' as a symbol of individual identity.

Like one: by taking their faces, he's removing their identity. Rendering them sub-(human) (well, not human, but you know what I mean), the same way a serial killer (yeah, there's a great analogy for Optimus Prime) often seeks to efface (literally) the identity of his victim.

Another is that it is a total conquest/domination thing, which makes Prime not so very sterling goody-goody.

Another deals with the idea of 'losing face'--a linguistic concept some people may be familiar with from popular Japanese culture--losing face is the same as social shaming. Even in English Discourse Analysis, we see and call it 'face saving' traits in speech.

Another deals with a bunch of Gramsci, but you don't want to know that one.

HK, thinks too much about these things.

I would have to say it helps bring the horrors of the Cybertronian war to the audience.

These are two interstellar factions fighting each other, both to save their race, but one at the expense of ours and the other to preserve ours.

Plus it's one of the moments in the movie when you go Oooooooo Ahhhh Oh S*** did you see that? That was f****** AWESOME!!

Perhaps his obsession with faces was to make sure they were down because nobody got back up again after that (except the Fallen...but hey he was supposed to be all powerful....)

Taking out the head seems to be an effective way of taking out the enemy. Look how much damage Brawl took before he finally went down. Optimus strikes where it's most effective.

Yeah, I know! Im always thinking of this, he always kills them in some way or form, by ripping their face apart. Bonecrusher got his head riped off, in the first movie he even tried to rip Megatron's face off, because when Megatron says "Humans dont deserve to live" Optimus grabs his face and scrapes it. In ROTF he blew Demolisher's face off, he riped Grindor's face off, shot Megatron in the face, and ripped The Fallen's face off! Optimus has an obsession with faces.

Bloodlust, you have a point, kinda.

Face removal doesn't spell 'instant death' for most audiences. Remember that lady who was attacked by that chimp? She's lost most of her face: she's still alive. (Yuck, poor woman!) If the point was to truly strike where it was most effective, we'd see either some recognizable hit--carotid, femoral artery, etc--or we'd've been introduced to some notion of Cybertronian Dim Mak.

I think the thing that strikes people (at least me) about this goes to the first issue you raise--yeah the war is brutal, and you won't defeat the Decepticons by tickling them to death. BUUUUUUUUT, if the 'good guys' fight in a manner as unprincipled as the 'bad guys', uhhhh, who are the good guys again?

This is something you should know pretty intimately, Bloodlust, with Law of Land Warfare and Rules of Engagement, (You Navy people have stuff like this, I presume, only...Navy-er, right?) The US Army has such strict controls over when we can engage the enemy in Iraq and Afghanistan and Somalia. Why? Because if we fight as dirty as the bad guys, we ARE the bad guys.

Same thing with the Autobots. While the US Army wants to fight and win and still look like the good guys to neutral observers, the Autobots and Decepticons, in a sense, are performing this war in front of another audience--the humans (at least the politicians and military folk who know of them).

HK, now, the Corps wants some pushups!

hellkitty wrote:Bloodlust, you have a point, kinda.

Face removal doesn't spell 'instant death' for most audiences. Remember that lady who was attacked by that chimp? She's lost most of her face: she's still alive. (Yuck, poor woman!) If the point was to truly strike where it was most effective, we'd see either some recognizable hit--carotid, femoral artery, etc--or we'd've been introduced to some notion of Cybertronian Dim Mak.

I think the thing that strikes people (at least me) about this goes to the first issue you raise--yeah the war is brutal, and you won't defeat the Decepticons by tickling them to death. BUUUUUUUUT, if the 'good guys' fight in a manner as unprincipled as the 'bad guys', uhhhh, who are the good guys again?

This is something you should know pretty intimately, Bloodlust, with Law of Land Warfare and Rules of Engagement, (You Navy people have stuff like this, I presume, only...Navy-er, right?) The US Army has such strict controls over when we can engage the enemy in Iraq and Afghanistan and Somalia. Why? Because if we fight as dirty as the bad guys, we ARE the bad guys.

Same thing with the Autobots. While the US Army wants to fight and win and still look like the good guys to neutral observers, the Autobots and Decepticons, in a sense, are performing this war in front of another audience--the humans (at least the politicians and military folk who know of them).

HK, now, the Corps wants some pushups!

Well most of my experiance with the army is that they shoot anything, including the Marines (talk about interservice rivaly).

Our hands are tied by the same Law of War as you guys since US CENTCOM is the one that passes those rules out, and frankly they get more people hurt on our side than the enemy.

Does a shot to the spark count as a critical hit (Aka Brawl and Blackout)

Bloodlust wrote:Well most of my experiance with the army is that they shoot anything, including the Marines (talk about interservice rivaly).

Smile when you say that, corpsman. (Ummm, they shot me, and I was *in* the army. Friendly fire, my....smurf.)

Our hands are tied by the same Law of War as you guys since US CENTCOM is the one that passes those rules out, and frankly they get more people hurt on our side than the enemy.
Does a shot to the spark count as a critical hit (Aka Brawl and Blackout)

I imagine actual Autobots would find the same thing happening to them, honestly.

And it seems that spark shots should count as critical hits, though, sniffle, I still miss Blackout. (I have kind of a copter fetish).

But face removal? Meh. It has to be symbolic.

HK, or...once again, I could be totally wrong. It's *BAY*verse, after all.

hellkitty wrote:

Bloodlust wrote:Well most of my experiance with the army is that they shoot anything, including the Marines (talk about interservice rivaly).

Smile when you say that, corpsman. (Ummm, they shot me, and I was *in* the army. Friendly fire, my....smurf.)

Our hands are tied by the same Law of War as you guys since US CENTCOM is the one that passes those rules out, and frankly they get more people hurt on our side than the enemy.
Does a shot to the spark count as a critical hit (Aka Brawl and Blackout)

I imagine actual Autobots would find the same thing happening to them, honestly.

And it seems that spark shots should count as critical hits, though, sniffle, I still miss Blackout. (I have kind of a copter fetish).

But face removal? Meh. It has to be symbolic.

HK, or...once again, I could be totally wrong. It's *BAY*verse, after all.

Remember Murphy's Law (one of them) - Friendly Fire isn't.

You would think the Decepticons would learn to wear helmets after a while

I to miss Blackout.....

hellkitty wrote:Another deals with the idea of 'losing face'--a linguistic concept some people may be familiar with from popular Japanese culture--losing face is the same as social shaming. Even in English Discourse Analysis, we see and call it 'face saving' traits in speech.

While I'm not all that familiar with the Japanese language, I think the term "face" has its origins from the Chinese (Mandarin) language. The physical face is sometimes called "lien" as well as "mien". But the figurative use of it, face/honor is termed as "mienzi" in Mandarin, or "meen tzi" in Cantonese, although the distinct use of "zi/tzi" is not compulsory.

Examples in Mandarin and Cantonese: "Shang/gei mien" (MANDARIN: to give face to someone), "mei mienzi" (MANDARIN: to not have face), "lok nei/ngo/kui meen" (CANTONESE: to shame you/me/him-her, basically to cause someone to lose face), "ng yiu meen" (CANTONESE: shameless), "mo meen" (CANTONESE: to not have face; similar to losing face), "sei yiu meen" (CANTONESE: desperate to save face at any cost), "hark hei fai meen" (CANTONESE: literally to darken one's own face, basically to scowl).

In case you wonder, I've been facinated by Chinese and Japanese culture for years, and am currently learning the basics of the Japanese language.

Not sure what all this has to do with OP's face fetish, though

In most battle situations, it makes perfect sense to go for the head, since it takes out the enemy in one well-placed shot, or by simply decapitating him. This is especially true for Cybertronians, who can lose most of their parts and still survive.

Bloodlust wrote:Does a shot to the spark count as a critical hit (Aka Brawl and Blackout)

Actually, I think Blackout was shot in the groin by Lennox, while Brawl took one to the neck from Bumblebee.

Doesn't quite correspond to the usual weak points of a TF. But then, we're talking about a Micheal Bay movie here, directed by the king of flawed logic.

I always thought that as long as the spark was intact, it didn't matter how badly damaged the body became. The spark is the "soul" of a transformer, the body is just a vessel. Just transfer the spark to a new protoform. It didn't make sense to me that a transformer can be killed by decapitation. But then again, I do not know the rules of transformer "physiology" too well, especially in the Bayformer universe. The transformers seem to be able to reproduce and grow like other lifeforms, despite being robots. That chick from the first film who mentioned "DNA based computer" was onto something.

Yeah, I think a 'Bayformer' is a living thing. They grow (ROTF hatchlings), bleed (Ravage's spine), breath (many instances of snorting etc.), spit (again, many instances) etc.

Machines have a lot of different fluids in them. Oil, coolant, antifreeze, transmission fluid, hydraulic fluid. So it makes sense for a robot to have them too.

So basically the premise behind the Bayformers is that somewhere in the universe a metal based lifeform evolved where their DNA codes for machine parts and machine fluids instead of proteins. I know this is supposed to be science fiction but...

If this is the case, then sparks aren't from the Allspark? Bayformers are just born with them? Their DNA codes for it?

It's because the Decepticons have such ugly face designs, Prime can't stand to look at them. I don't blame him.

Omega-1 wrote:It's because the Decepticons have such ugly face designs, Prime can't stand to look at them. I don't blame him.

Well that solves it. I'm satisfied.

Anyone else notice that in addition to the face thing, He has to take their right arm?

Cuts off Bonecrusher's.
Cuts off Grindor's
Cuts off Starscream's
Cuts off Megatron's
Cuts off fallens fingers off too.

I think the only one he has fought who DIDNT lose an appendage was Demolisher. Oh wait his wheel. nm

Faces and right arms are his thing yoh.

I think its just common sense: You want your enemy to go down, and stay down - the head/face is where the brain is. Sever its' connection to the main body, and you're dead.

Prime was just tryin' to keep the Decepticons down, thats all. Besides, "GIVE ME YOUR FACE!" is a classic now, like "Light our darkest hour", or "Decepticons - Transform and Rise Up!", or "Yessssssss!"

Prime dosen't wait till he gets head, he just takes it.

Dead Metal wrote:Prime dosen't wait till he gets head, he just takes it.

That was so very, very wrong.

Starscreamer217 wrote:I think its just common sense: You want your enemy to go down, and stay down - the head/face is where the brain is. Sever its' connection to the main body, and you're dead.

Prime was just tryin' to keep the Decepticons down, thats all. Besides, "GIVE ME YOUR FACE!" is a classic now, like "Light our darkest hour", or "Decepticons - Transform and Rise Up!", or "Yessssssss!"

I think You picked the wrong planet,Give me your face is the perfect line to use on a quintisen. (I know Im going use it for such hehe.)

I just realised that he actually tore his foes' face a lot of times upon seeing this thread

Lastjustice wrote:

Starscreamer217 wrote:I think its just common sense: You want your enemy to go down, and stay down - the head/face is where the brain is. Sever its' connection to the main body, and you're dead.

Prime was just tryin' to keep the Decepticons down, thats all. Besides, "GIVE ME YOUR FACE!" is a classic now, like "Light our darkest hour", or "Decepticons - Transform and Rise Up!", or "Yessssssss!"

I think You picked the wrong planet,Give me your face is the perfect line to use on a quintisen. (I know Im going use it for such hehe.)

Wouldn't it them be "Give me your faces!", you know because they have 5... well not all of them but you know what I mean.

Actully think it would be funny to see Quintessons in TF3 and have Prime ripping off multiple faces from the same guy or maybe he'll used his face collection to build a Quintesson? There's a new twist on things. Quints built Prime and now Prime is building Quints.