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I am tired of people pulling the race card everywhere possible. TFs are no different.

That's only what the toy say. He's staying dead in the moives. Or at least as far as I know.

I'm not mad that they offed Jazz, who, by merit of his transformation/break dancing skills and "word up" vocabulary, was the token black guy. In fact, it gives me a lot of material to work with for comics, and far be it from me to look a gift horse in the mouth.

I take issue with the fact that people are mad because of the race issue, and not the fact that if was Jazz who got torn in half. Jazz is a favorite of mine, but he was so poorly fleshed out (so to speak) that it feels like they just killed him because the writers all got wasted on Jaeger bombs one night and said "oh hey let's just have this one torn in half because it's an action movie and at least one protagonist has to die" and they thought it was the raddest idea ever.

Simply put, there was no real reason for him to die. Anybody new to the series doesn't know if it's in his nature to start sass-mouthing creatures three times his size or whatever. He just happened to be standing there, so off he went. Shortpacked! does a better job of illustrating it than I do.

So I'm not that worked up over the fact that Jazz fulfilled the apparent racial destiny of all token black guys in films, and was the first one in line at the chopping block. It's a silly notion to pull the race card in something as inconsequential as a Hollywood action movie when there's a heck of a lot more serious things for me to get huffy over.

But man, at least Optimus Prime got some form of characterization in the old movie before they went and killed him. Jazz just flashed some gang signs and there was probably a cut scene of Optimus chiding him for pulling into the drive-thru at the KFC before he was torn in half by Megatron.

Actually, I'm kind of mad they didn't kill off Optimus. It would have been a better device in the sequels, to see how the Autobots cope in the face of a new threat without their leader.

Wait, never mind. That's probably too involved for whoever was writing the scripts, anyway.

(This post turned out a lot longer than I intended. Oh well.)

heart , Tampons.

I would disagree about there being no reasoning in Jazz's demise. Being the second in command, it is appropriate that Jazz led in Optimus' absence. Then, in the fight, Megatron went for the commanding officer first. It is simple battle tactics. By ripping him in half, it was not a race thing for the 'token black character' as much as a battle decision combined with showing how malicious Megs was. No mercy, and a vicious kill.

What I do hate is how Jazz was portrayed in the few lines he had. The breakdancing, the poor lines, all of it just adds up to both cliche and wrong. Jazz was always a consummate spy, blending into the environment and seamlessly meshing with local culture. Perhaps they could have kept his character intact with other references than bad 80's hip-hop.

Actually Tampons, after watching the movie and actually listening to Jazz's 2 (actually 9) lines, you can tell one thing about him: he cares deeply for the safety for the other 'Bots.

It's very quick, and you have to catch it just right, but when Megatron appears, Ratchet tells everyone to run for it. For maybe half a second, you see Jazz turned around about to run. Then he turns around and pulls a gun on Megatron. More than likely, I bet he knew he was going to die. Also, note how he was taunting Megatron right before he got ripped in half. Whether he meant to or not, he was buying everyone else time.

It's very subtle, and you will miss it on the first few watch-throughs, but his character's there. Just a single 3 line exchange could've established this noble part of Jazz. Sure, it would've been pretty cheap, but it would've put it out there and made his death more reasonable.
Although all things considered, my mom managed to catch his death and go "Awww..." when he got killed. And yes, the writers did decide to kill a character besides Prime or BB. They figured Jazz was the best bet.

Hope I didn't ruin your comic ideas Tampons!

OMG!! That shortpacked comic was hilarious.