I prefer some shades of gray. Optimus shooting robots doesn't bother me -- what's he going to do, put them in a very large cell? But "Give me your face!"? Just a wee bit sadistic, eh, Op? Actually the line made me laugh. And made me want to repeat it again and again.The movie was OK but damn was Optimus Prime cruel in this one. Scraping other robots face off, making comments like you fall and I rise...

Yep. Check out some animated robot carnage from the '86 cartoon movie. I remember seeing this in the theater. It was a big WTF moment. Up until that time, robots got shot on the cartoon all the time and they just got right back up.^^^^^^
The '86 movie was brutal and very fatal for a number of bots/cons on both sides.
The funny thing about the Transformers animated movie is that Optimus Prime wasn't supposed to die originally. The G.I Joe guys -- who were by and large also the Transformers guys (there were some crossovers you would only notice if you were fans of both series, and one full-on crossover in a Transformers episode) asked if they could have Duke die in the G.I. Joe movie. Not only was that approved, but they were ordered to also kill off Optimus Prime in the TF movie. Well, TF ended up getting released first, and kids in theaters across the country balled over their hero getting killed. This prompted some letters from angry parents, causing the producers to chicken out and edit the G. I. Joe movie so that Duke lives at the end. It's a horrible edit; it's obvious he's supposed to be dead.
I was too young at the time to appreciate the mythological motifs present, similar to the way Star Wars used mythological motifs (Unicron is Grendel, Matrix is Sword in the Stone or the Force, Hot Rod is young King Arthur, Kup is Vergil from Dante's Inferno or Merlin).I just rewatched it a few nights ago. It still holds up well, imo, considering when it was made.