I had hope, I believed;
Character Information
Character Name: Samuel “Sam” James Witwicky
Fandom: Transformers films
Timeline: Dark of the Moon; After Dylan has outfitted Sam with the watch from Hell, ordering him to find out what Optimus’ plan is.
Source: No sacrifice, no victory.
Character History: Born October 10, 1990 to Ron and Judy Witwicky, Sam had a relatively ‘normal’ childhood. The term ‘normal’ being used loosely, given his parentage and his somewhat spastic personality - But when compared to what he would face in later years, it seems downright ordinary.
When he was twelve years old, his father passed down the belongings of his great-great-grandfather, Archibald Witwicky. Of course, being young and possessing a short attention span, the young Sam could really care less about the items or their value.
It wasn’t until a couple years later, when he and his best friend Miles began plotting how best to pick up chicks that he came to realize the worth of his inheritance - If he sold the priceless heirlooms in an online auction, he’d have the cash necessary to buy a car. This was a brilliant idea, as cars were obviously the key to stealing the heart of any woman! Fortunately, Miles also suggested that he wait until his sixteenth birthday to hold the auction, as he wouldn’t be able to drive said vehicle until then.
In the time following, Sam was able to come to an agreement with his father - If he could come up with two ‘A’ grades and two thousand dollars, his father would pitch in the other two thousand dollars to purchase his car. While he was able to somehow scrape together the money and an A, his family genealogy project almost spelled the downfall for his plan - For attempting to hock Archibald’s belongings to his class, he was given a B-. It was by fluke (and with some help from Jesus) that he managed to convince his teacher to upgrade to an undeserved A-, and thus set into motion the events that would decide Cybertron’s fate.
Sam’s father took him to Bobby Bolivia’s used car lot, where he eventually picked out a beat-up yellow Camaro. Strangely, Bolivia had never actually seen the car before that moment; he threw a five thousand dollar price tag on it due to its custom paintjob, which Ron refused to pay. The Camaro expressed its displeasure at the decision, its radio firing off a supersonic pulse which shattered the windows of every vehicle in the lot, and subsequently convinced them to drop the price to four thousand.
Now equipped with his rusted-but-classic babe magnet, Sam and Miles headed out to an exclusive party at the local lake. After an uncomfortable confrontation with Trent, his car’s radio subtly suggested that Sam drive home the jock’s girlfriend and his long-time crush, Mikaela Banes. Kicking Miles out, he drove after her and offered her a ride (after offered to ride her) - A venture cut short by the sudden failing of the old Camaro.
Fortunately, Mikaela revealed that she had a background in cars; she took a look under the hood, and in doing so, discovered that the old beater was actually far more high-tech than it first appeared. “More than meets the eye”, if you would. Sam managed to ruin the moment with his not-so-smooth technique, and Mikaela decided to walk home on her own. Oddly enough, the Camaro immediately kicked back to life to the chorus of “Baby Come Back” and assisted its driver in catching up with her.
Later that night, Sam awoke to the sound of his car taking off - More importantly, taking off without him in it. He immediately assumed that the vehicle had been stolen, calling the police as he gave chase on his bicycle. When he found it in an old junkyard, however, he quickly realized that it wasn’t a theft... His car was alive. Alive and a giant robot, projecting the alien robot symbol into the sky like a Bat Signal.
Being understandably horrified by this revelation, he recorded his last words to his parents - A process cut short by the local junkyard dogs. As this is a Michael Bay movie, the dogs had been raised on a steady diet of steroids, and managed to tear their chain leashes from the concrete wall and chase down the teen. He was eventually rescued by a high-strung policeman, who in turn arrested Sam under suspicion of drug use. (Of course, Sam’s spastic behaviour is all natural - Drugs are not necessary.)
Thankfully, he was bailed out before he had to worry about dropping the soap, and the following morning Sam was revisited by his demonic Camaro. With his own bike lost the previous night, he stole his mother’s and took off, the driverless vehicle in hot pursuit. In a painful stunt, he crash landed on the sidewalk, conveniently in front of a product placement for Burger King Mikaela, once again attracting her attention.
Eventually, he managed to evade his yellow stalker long enough to find another police car, and, believing he’d finally stumbled onto some good fortune, he demanded the officer get out of the vehicle. What he had not anticipated was that this was a second giant alien robot by the name of Barricade. Obviously unimpressed by the fleshling pounding on his hood, the Decepticon flung Sam against the nearest car and proceeded to interrogate him about his eBay page.
As he fled yet again, he literally crashed into Mikaela and the pair of them escaped in the Camaro - Apparently, a stalker Camaro is less intimidating than a raging police car robot. When they arrived at a deserted plant, the Camaro once again transformed and did battle with their pursuer, while Mikaela and Sam faced off against the much smaller, cracked out Cybertronian, Frenzy. Mikaela saved her pantsless partner by decapitating the smaller robot, and the pair returned in time to see that the Camaro had been triumphant.
Sam trusted that the yellow Cybertronian was not actually out to kill them (and was definitely a Japanese construct), and encouraged Mikaela to get into the car. After all, years later, had they not gotten in the car, they would regret never knowing what would come of it - and the movie would have been awfully boring had they chosen to walk home.
After upgrading the Cybertronian’s vehicle mode to a newer model Camaro, the three of them met up with Optimus Prime and the other newly-arrived Autobots. Optimus explained that Bumblebee, their ride for the evening, had been ordered to protect Sam, and proceeded with some clunky exposition about the Cybertronian civil war. Megatron had apparently crashed on Earth hundreds of years prior and his frozen body had been discovered by Archibald Witwicky. After activating his navigation systems, which are inexplicably located in his finger, the coordinates of the fabled ‘AllSpark’ were imprinted on his glasses - These, of course, being the very same glasses that Sam currently had posted on eBay. Product placement!
While the Autobots destroyed his backyard and threatened to murder his dog, Sam attempted to hide their presence from their apparently blind and deaf neighbours as he hunted for the glasses, which he’d somehow misplaced. After some intensely awkward moments with his parents, they were interrupted by the appearance of Agent Simmons and a super-secret organization known only as Sector Seven. Fortunately, he managed to retrieve the glasses before he was taken into custody, both he and Mikaela being taken in a separate vehicle than the rest of his family.
While he attempted to press the teens for information about aliens, Simmons revealed that Mikaela had a criminal record and threatened to send Sam to prison for non-cooperation. Fortunately, due to convenient plotting, Optimus arrived in time to prevent the interrogation from going too far. With the team temporarily disabled and in their underwear, Sam attempted to learn the truth behind Sector Seven, only to be interrupted by an equally convenient back-up squad.
In a moment of questionable tactics, Optimus scooped up Sam and Mikaela and ran off on foot, while the other Autobots transformed and rolled out. This obviously failed miserably when Mikaela nearly fell off of the enormous robot’s shoulder and the glasses were dropped. Bumblebee sacrificed himself to rescue his human friends and was subsequently captured by Sector Seven. Sam and Mikaela were also, once again, taken into custody - The Autobots were apparently bored of rescues at this point, refusing to risk human casualty to save them or their comrade.
When the military finally came to the conclusion that making enemies of the select few who knew anything about the invading alien race was a bad idea, Sam and Mikaela were brought to the Hoover Dam facility. There, they learned that the government had been keeping both a Megatronsicle cryogenically frozen Megatron and the AllSpark hidden for decades - Ironically, in the very same building. After demanding that Bumblebee and his parents be freed and Mikaela’s criminal record expunged, Sam shared what little information he had about the Decepticons and the Autobots.
With Bumblebee’s assistance, the team escaped into Mission City with the AllSpark before the rallied Decepticons managed to unthaw their frozen dinner frozen leader. There, they were joined by the other Autobots, sans Optimus who was not ready for his dramatic entrance. Ironhide and Bumblebee destroyed a truck full of Furbys Bizarrely negative product placement! in a show of goodwill towards mankind, but the resulting explosion ended up severing the scout’s legs.
With his guardian out of commission and his robotic teammates occupied, Sam was ordered by Lennox to take the AllSpark to the top of a building, where it could be taken out of the city by helicopter (despite the urban location being his idea in the first place). Outrunning a decidedly less frigid Megatron, he scaled the stairs in record time - Only for the cavalry to be blown out of the sky by Starscream, leaving him alone on the rooftop with a robot with no discernable ankles the Decepticon leader.
In an act of foolishness and/or bravery, Sam refused to give up the AllSpark, and Megatron destroyed the corner of the building and sent the boy toppling to his would-be death. Optimus intervened with a precision only movieverse Autobots seem to have, and snatched him out of midair, cushioning his fall with equally uncomfortable metal armour.
Once they were safely landed, Optimus instructed Sam to shove the AllSpark into his chest should he prove unable to defeat Megatron. However, as Prime is still relatively sane in the first film, he inevitably failed in that, getting the ever-loving scrap pounded out of him while causing a ton of collateral damage. Before Megatron could turn him into a Samcake, Sam shoved the cube into the Decepticon’s chest instead, which gave him a fatal orgasm overloaded his systems, killed him, and obliterated the AllSpark.
With the threat passed, Sam and Mikaela made out on top of Bumblebee while Ratchet and Ironhide indulged their strange voyeur kink and Optimus Prime made a heroic speech to the audience.
However, as the movie made a large amount of money, ending it there would have been bad business.
Once the Decepticons returned to activity, Optimus assigned Bumblebee to once again take up his role as Sam’s guardian. This was not all sunshine and rainbows, as the yellow Autobot proved himself a nuisance; he physically knocked a cat out of a tree, earned multiple traffic citations, and intentionally flipped over Trent’s car. Because the Autobots are the good guys, remember?
When Sam‘s parents declared Bumblebee would not be allowed to stay home when he left for college, he stalks off on his own and is captured by Barricade. After falling out of the movie and missing the climax, the Decepticon hoped to force Bumblebee to deliver the remaining AllSpark shard in exchange for his whiny human charge. As there is a second film, this ploy obviously failed.
Approximately two years following the events in Mission City, Sam was preparing to go an unnamed college - Mostly because no school in their right mind wanted to be associated with a joke involving Sam’s mother and weed-laced brownies. While he somehow managed to convince Mikaela not to dump him, despite the long distance relationship, he found a shard of the AllSpark on his old shirt. Upon touching it, the shard somehow transferred a vast amount of ancient Cybertronian knowledge directly into Sam’s brain (he likely wasn’t using that space for anything anyway).
In addition to that, the entirety of his kitchen decided to come to life and attempt to murder him. Fortunately, this allowed the movie to introduce the fact that Bumblebee is still living in the garage - The Autobot rescued Sam and his family, only to be yelled at and told that he would not be accompanying Sam to college. Sam failed once again to tell Mikaela that he loved her, and he left the AllSpark shard in her care when he left.
At school, he met his new roommate - Leo Spitz, an alien-obsessed techie and, unfortunately, the one other student who is as spastic as Sam himself. Leo revealed that he had been maintaining a website about alien sightings, and was in the processing of posting a video that looked suspiciously like a Decepticon attack. Despite Sam’s chilly demeanour and outright smackdown of his conspiracy theories, the pair ended up going to a party together that same evening - And if you bother paying attention to the ham-fisted love plot, Sam missed his online webcam date with Mikaela because of this.
While Leo attempted to get his freak on, Sam began seeing strange symbols in cakes and was forcibly molested by a blonde sex object student named Alice. Bumblebee attempted to crash the party and rescue him, but the persistent would-be adulteress decided to go along for the ride. After getting smashed in the nose by the dashboard, she finally relented, and Sam was taken to speak to Optimus Prime.
Optimus, for God knows what reason, requested that Sam speak to the American government on behalf of the Autobots. He felt that if a human were to show support to their being on Earth, the president might be reminded of the positive aspects of their presence on Earth. Sam selfishly refused to help, as he wanted to live a “normal” life - And, even more stupidly, he never thought to mention the alien symbols that had plagued his thoughts the previous evening even though the Prime’s armour is technically covered with them.
Not long afterward, Sam had another meltdown; this time, during in one of his classes. Seeing the same symbols once again, he read an entire textbook in less than half a minute and interrupted the lecture to cover a chalkboard in indecipherable Cybertronian text while babbling about dimensional theory.
... Needless to say, his professor kicked him out of the class.
He called a disgruntled Mikaela to tell her what had happened, and insisted she not touch the AllSpark shard, as he believed that was what started this mess. While she grabbed the earliest flight to reach him, Sam retreated to his dorm room and began to paint the symbols all over his walls like a lunatic.
Alice and Leo arrived in time to see the tail end of his freak out, and Alice promptly shoved Leo out the door so she could, once again, advance on Sam. Pinning him to the bed, she forcefully kissed him... just as Mikaela walked through the door. Assuming that Sam was cheating for some bizarre reason, despite his reported mental collapse only hours earlier, she swiftly ended their relationship in one word and left. As the horrified Sam made to follow her, Alice decided to get kinky - She lashed out a ridiculous robotic tentacle/tongue and attempted to strangle him. Apparently, she was a Decepticon pretender, who had conveniently enrolled in the exact same school as the boy her faction was now hunting. Go figure.
At the sound of his effeminate screaming, Mikaela and Leo rushed back in time to witness Alice transforming back to her Cybertronian form. Joined by Sam, the three of them ran out of the dorm, and, being the only competent one in the group, Mikaela ran the bitch over with a car a couple times.
Before they could escape entirely, their car was snatched by Grindor; they were delivered to an abandoned warehouse, the temporary evil base of operations of Starscream and a very much alive Megatron. Having learned of the information Sam now possessed, Megatron intended to physically extract it. Sam futilely attempted to reason with him, until Scalpel shoved a brain slug up his nose and began to directly project the images from his thoughts. Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough, and the doctor insisted that removing his brain altogether was their best option.
Suddenly, Optimus Prime and Bumblebee appeared thanks to their uncanny ability to arrive in the nick of time, and Sam is rescued once again. While Bumblebee peeled out with Mikaela and Leo, Sam and Optimus took off out of the city. Reaching a clearing in the forest, Sam hid in the foliage as Optimus battled Megatron, Starscream and Grindor in a match of badassery.
Unfortunately, the live-action Transformers franchise had yet to meet its Optimus Prime death quota - And that would never do. In a show of Decepticon cowardice, Megatron literally stabbed Prime in the back and destroyed his spark chamber, killing the Autobot leader. Sam was taken to safety by Bumblebee as he came to the realization that he was personally responsible for the death of robot Jesus.
With Optimus out of the way, The Fallen decided to make his television debut and demanded that the humans hand over Sam Witwicky. Sam became Earth’s Most Wanted overnight, forcing him into hiding.
After a decent amount of moping and blatant racism, Leo suggested that Sam visit “Robowarrior,” the maintainer of a rival conspiracy site, as he might be able to give some meaning to the symbols he’d been seeing. This internet mastermind turned out to be former-agent Seymour Simmons, who now worked in a deli with his mama and kept a secret stash of Sector Seven classified information in his basement. Fortunately, that information did contain relevant photos, and with the help of the kidnapped Wheelie, they discovered that there was an ancient Cybertronian Seeker hidden in the Smithsonian Flight Institute.
Since using the AllSpark fragment on Optimus would have made for a much shorter movie, they decided to use it to revive the geriatric Blackbird, Jetfire. The crotchety converted Decepticon decided to help them by translating the language of the Primes into an equally indecipherable riddle, then space-bridged them to the middle of an Egyptian desert. Following some more forced exposition about the Fallen and the lost Matrix of Leadership, Jetfire sent the humans on their way; they didn’t know exactly where they were going, but they did know that the Matrix could potentially bring Optimus back from the dead, much better than that pesky piece of the AllSpark could have.
As they decoded the clue given to them, they stopped for a quick phone call to NEST, asking that they air drop Optimus’ dead body in Egypt. Sam failed epically at romance once again, and somehow in the process, they realized the Tomb of the Primes was hidden in Petra. When they finally found the building made of Prime corpses, which was surprising difficult to spot, the Matrix dissolved into dust at Sam’s touch. Nice job breaking it, hero.
Refusing to give up, Sam gathered up the magical Matrix dust into one of his socks, and they followed the NEST planes toward their pre-planned meeting place. After Starscream attempted to kill them, Sam showed his true tactical genius by declaring that he and Mikaela would continue on foot, while Leo and Simmons took the three cars and distracted the Decepticons. Why? It could have been because it would prolong the climax even longer, or for optimum Megan Fox breast bouncing... Or the fact the logic is not involved in action scenes.
The Decepticons prepared a trap using Sam’s parents as bait, in an attempt to coerce Sam into giving them his Matrix sock. Bumblebee intervened with spectacular movieverse timing, and Sam, suddenly dead set against automobiles, sent Bumblebee to safety with his parents, while he and Mikaela soldiered on towards Optimus’ dead body.
Firing in the desert happened, followed by more firing in the desert, until Sam was eventually shot during his epic slow-motion running sequence. Like Optimus, he died. Whoops.
Sam then went to Robot Heaven, where the past Primes informed him that the entire movie was pointless, as the Matrix of Leadership had to be earned, not found. They sent him back to revive Optimus, just in time for Mikaela to say ‘I love you’, and duping her into thinking Sam was saved by the power of her love. With the restored Matrix in hand, Sam stabbed Optimus in the chest with it (likely triggering some traumatic memories in the process) and resurrected the Autobot leader.
Sam then vanished from the action while Optimus dressed up in a corpse to steal some faces, and only returned for the sappy conclusion. The Matrix absorbed all the knowledge the AllSpark had stored in Sam, freeing him from the frequent insane outbursts that he forgot to have for the second half of the movie. He admitted his love for Mikaela and had a sentimental moment with Optimus, before finally returning to school to be a normal teenager with an alien robot for a car. Strangely enough, there was a case of national short term memory loss, as no one seemed to recall the fact that the Fallen had demanded Sam Witwicky be handed over to the authorities only days earlier.
However, happiness was short-lived. Megan Fox got fired Mikaela and Sam went their separate ways, and left Sam with her dog, her Wheelie, and a broken heart. Or, broken until his trip to the White House, where he was awarded a medal for his heroism and a new token female named Carly.
Insert some more comic events here, which are forgotten or retconned later. Sam met Brains when Bumblebee was harassing him and some Decepticons attacked. No one ever references these events again.
After his break-up with Mikaela, Sam, along with Wheelie and Brains, moved into an apartment with Carly in Washington DC. While the government had paid for the remainder of his schooling, he was unable to find a job - Apparently, helping some aliens save the world doesn’t look good on a resume. Carly picked up his slack on the rent and food, mentally castrating Sam and making him feel like a boytoy. This would never fly, of course - Michael Bay only objectifies women, dammit!
Annoyed and weathering his parents’ disappointment, he struggled through several interviews, until he was eventually hired on at Accuretta Systems. It wasn’t his dream job by any stretch, as he longed to be working with the Autobots - Apparently, the writers got the memo about how no ‘normal’ person would ditch their alien robot friends in favour of being normal. Not only that, but it turned out that Dylan Gould, Carly’s way-too-perfect-and-potentially-girlfriend-stealing boss, was the one who slipped in a good word for him, making receiving the position a bit of a backhanded achievement.
Soon after Sam started his new career, Carly visited him on the job and used her overt sluttiness to improve his boss’ opinion of him drastically - It would seem that having your girlfriend offer gratuitous panty shots is a sure-fire way to earn points at Accuretta. Carly revealed that Dylan had given her a brand new Mercedes, making Sam feel worse about himself and his stance in life.
In between running the mail cart and organizing binders, Sam was sexually assaulted shanghaied by co-worker Jerry Wang. After some bizarre innuendo and dirty talk covered up as ‘speaking code’, Wang slipped Sam his notes on the impending Decepticon threat and their secret plans involving the moon. When Sam attempted to further discuss the information with his not-boyfriend, Jerry screamed at him to leave and appeared to kill himself not long after. Apparently, he couldn’t handle the fact that he would never be able to date Sam? The man had some skewed priorities.
It was only a matter of minutes before Sam realized the truth behind Jerry’s death; Laserbeak, one of Soundwave’s pets minions, revealed himself and attacked. The chase was short-lived, as the minicon apparently got bored or couldn’t handle stairs, and called off the pursuit.
Understandably upset by the day’s events, Sam dragged Carly and his two pet robots to the NEST facility and demanded to speak with Optimus Prime. After a scuffle at the gates, he was escorted into the base by Bumblebee and Lennox, as he explained his short-lived romance encounter with Jerry Wang and the information he’d been given.
Fortunately, he’d arrived in time for the late night showing of robot resurrection; Optimus was about to revive the long-deactivated Sentinel Prime, using the Matrix that he was shown to blow up in the previous film. After listening in on some Leonard Nimoy-flavoured exposition about the robot dildos pillars and the space bridge, disgruntled Intelligence Director Mearing took Sam and Carly aside to discuss matters. Arranging for Bumblebee to take up his post as Sam’s guardian once more, she kicked Sam’s self-esteem squarely in the balls and told him that he wasn’t able to further help the investigation.
Reunited with his best robofriend, Sam called on the aid of Simmons and his fashionable assistant, Dutch, in order to unravel the Decepticons’ more recent plot. Carly, however, did not approve of her boyfriend having a purpose aside from pleasuring her, and was none too pleased when Sam chose to skip out on Dylan’s work party. Believing him suicidal unable to live without putting himself in danger, she broke it off and went to bang her much hotter boss as consolation.
Free of female sex symbols to slow scenes down, Sam and Simmons crashed a bar and questioned Russian astronauts about their cancelled mission. When top secret photos revealed that the Decepticons possessed hundreds of pillars, Sam deduced that they had set a trap - They had still required Sentinel to activate the space bridge, but they needed Optimus to bring him back online before they could complete their plan. He immediately called Mearing, insisting that they needed to get the elder Prime to safety, before the enemy could locate him.
After an epic highway scene, Sam, along with Bumblebee, Mirage Dino, Sideswipe, and Ironhide brought Sentinel back to NEST headquarters just in time for his scheduled Heel Face Turn - The asshole Sentinel had apparently struck a deal with Megatron long ago, intending to work alongside the Decepticons in order to win the war - And being a giant douche, shot Ironhide in the back with a cosmic rust gun. Sam could only watch in horror as he stole the remaining pillars and took off.
Since Sam is apparently allergic to car interiors or something, he took off on foot again to locate Carly. When she wasn’t at the apartment, he remembered that she had gone to Dylan’s party - Which he crashed ever-so-gracefully and insulted its host in one fell swoop.
What he hadn’t anticipated, however, was that Dylan was actually a human liaison for the Decepticons, and even more shockingly, Soundwave was Carly’s sweet new ride. With Soundwave threatening to tentacle rape murder his girlfriend, Dylan demanded that Sam learn Optimus’ plan to strike back; in order to ensure his cooperation, Sam was outfitted with a watch-shaped minicon. So long as he wore it, he would be unable to tell anyone about what had happened, and in turn, it would relay any and all information directly back to Soundwave and his meat puppet Dylan.
Unfortunately for all parties, Sam wouldn’t be able to relay any such thing, as it was just after these events that he was transported to Axiom Nexus.
Character Personality:
Given that Sam hails from a world where giant robots exist (and one crafted by Michael Bay at that), it’s hard to really be an average teenage boy.
Hyperactive to an extreme degree, Sam’s general behaviour can be summed up in a single word: “spaz.” He is prone to stammering and flailing with even the slightest provocation, frequently tripping over his words and tossing in redundant justifications when they really aren’t necessary. Thankfully this has lessened as he’s matured, but that really isn’t saying much. He still rambles on even after he’s said his piece, flipping out over things that most would simply take in stride.
His mouth has been known to get him into trouble and is easily the number one reason for his spastic flailing. He seems to be lacking a brain-to-mouth filter, blurting things out without considering the consequences. He purposely antagonizes Trent and his friends, he constantly slips out embarrassing Freudian statements when speaking to Mikaela, asking her to “ride her home” at one point - It’s pretty clear that he doesn’t put much thought into the words coming out until it’s too late.
As he’s aged, his temper seems to have gotten progressively worse. Particularly in Dark of the Moon, Sam’s developed a short fuse, verbally lashing out at both friends and foes alike. Combined with a knack for sarcasm and his tendency to continue on long after his point is made, it makes him come across as a bit of a jackass.
A large part of this can be linked back to Sam’s innately selfish nature. He has the unfortunate tendency to be very self-centered, focusing primarily on how things affect him more than others. When Optimus asks for his help in Revenge of the Fallen, he turns him down in favour of having a “normal” life; even knowing that his Autobot friends were at risk of losing favour with the government, he flat out refuses to even try. In the third film, he’s willing to risk Epps and his friends to go after Carly, because it’s his fault she’s in that situation; he may have had the best intentions, but when he justifies his reasoning, it’s because of his involvement, not because of the danger she is in.
This trait can also manifest as extreme possessiveness, of both objects and people. While it may be his insecurity talking, he is extremely uptight about his girlfriends and how others associate with them. Despite his encounter with Alice and how hypocritical it is, he’s quick to attack Wheelie’s ‘affection’ for Mikaela, and more importantly, Mikaela herself for allowing it. The behaviour is even more evident in his treatment of Carly and Bumblebee, however. With Carly, he is bitterly jealous of her relationship with her boss, Dylan Gould - Her flippant disregard for what could be perceived as a less than professional interest only makes him angrier, as she doesn’t acknowledge that it could be a danger to their relationship. He seems to regard Bumblebee as “his car,” treating him more like a dog than a friend at times. While it’s obvious that Sam does care deeply for the Autobot, it doesn’t stop him from frequently scolding the scout and attempting to make him feel guilty for doing his duty.
Being the outcast at school, his self-esteem is on the decidedly lower end of the scale. He’s aware that he doesn’t always fit in, and he does what he can to compensate. He has a tendency to exaggerate situations, frequently insisting that he saved the world, while it was really more of a case that he helped to save it -It’s not so much that he’s lying, as that he really just wants to feel as though he is important. When he does manage to accomplish something, good luck getting him to stop talking about it... Has he told you about his hero medal from Obama yet?
For all his faults, Sam is truly a good kid. He can be impulsive, but courageous when the situation calls for it. Despite his flailing, he does know when it’s time to be serious. Even if he’s screaming like a girl the whole time, he’ll do what he has to in order to get the job done - Which is really an impressive feat, given that not so long ago, his biggest problem was scraping up an A- in sociology.
On more multiple occasions, Sam has been willing to lay his life on the line for his friends and his world, even when the odds weren’t necessarily in his favour. He has stood alone against Megatron more than once. He stubbornly refused to relinquish the AllSpark, even when he was presented with the opportunity to surrender. Even when he knew that reinforcements weren’t coming, he offered himself up to the Decepticon leader in order to protect Mikaela and Leo at the warehouse in the second film. There was no way he could have known the Autobots were coming for them, but he refused to let both of them be killed when there was even the slightest chance he could prevent it.
This gambit actually does fail him in Revenge of the Fallen, and he does manage to get himself killed - But he doesn’t show any real remorse for that fact. As petty as he has proven himself in the past, he never attempts to hold that fact over the Autobots’ heads; in fact, immediately after he comes back from death, he rushes to Optimus’ aid.
Arguably, his death actually seems to make him more dedicated to the Autobots and assisting them in their quest to protect Earth from the Decepticons. While he originally wanted to abandon any ties he had with the Cybertronians in order to lead a normal life, following the events in Egypt, he seems more determined to make a difference. He’s frustrated that he’s not allowed to help alongside Lennox and the others in NEST, and frequently bemoans the fact he’s treated like a civilian after helping to save the planet on multiple occasions.
His inner strength is enough to get him noticed by the Dynasty of the Primes. In the brief span of time before he was revived, he is told that he had the heart of a leader and had managed to earn the Matrix of Leadership. While he is not its true bearer, he does show qualities similar to that of the Autobot commander; he is self-sacrificing, determined, and willing to take charge if it means protecting what he cares about.
Powers:
Sam is a normal human, at this particular point in canon. Following Revenge of The Fallen, the knowledge of the AllSpark was transferred back into the Matrix of Leadership. He is still able to recognize a few odd symbols as being Cybertronian or the language of the Primes, but he can’t read them or even begin to decipher their meaning.
Due to his point in canon, he is still wearing the “watch” forced on him by Dylan Gould. A servant of the Decepticons, the watch is able to tap into Sam’s nervous system, allowing it to see whatever he sees, hear whatever he hears, etc. It is capable of inflicting severe pain on him should he break the parameters of the original contract. Until it is removed, he is unable to disclose information regarding the Decepticons’ involvement in the space program, Dylan’s role in those plans, or what has happened to Carly.
Samples
First person:
[A very distressed looking Sam Witwicky is fighting with his device right now, jamming buttons with far more force than is really necessary, as a bored looking TransTech from processing looks on. Apparently, he’s not all that interested in the paperwork or the comm tutorial, or he might have noticed that he’d turned the feed on.]
Are you serious? Are you really serious right now?
Look, I’m sure that your crazy robot wifi is great here, but you aren’t listening. There’s been a mistake. I’m not supposed to be here. Do you have a manager or something? I’d like to file a complaint for kidnapping.
I get it, I signed up for this when I decided to keep a giant alien robot as my car, but come on. I kind of have some important shit to do. [He winced at the statement, drawing his hand back to rub at his wrist.]
You don’t want me here, I don’t want to be here - So let’s cut the crap, you send me home, and we’re all good.
Okay? Okay.
[The TransTech doesn’t seem particularly moved by the rant, not the Sam really expected him to be. It hadn’t worked on Mearing, so it wasn’t likely to work on a robot who could crush him underfoot. Alright, Plan B.
Drawing back from the counter, he stood on the tips of his toes, trying to see above the over-sized crowd.]
Bee! Bumblebee! You’ve got to be here... Can you hear me?
Third Person:
The universe hated him. It wasn’t a question at this point.
Where did he start? Well, first, he’d had to peel himself off the pavement after getting his ass handed to him by a pretty-boy with a tentacled Mercedes. Oh, and then the love of his life had been kidnapped. Add that to the Timex from Hell stalking his every move and forcing him to betray the Autobots...
Hey, what’s a little interdimensional kidnapping? It’s not like he was expecting his day to get any better.
Even after he’d met Bumblebee, Sam had never really imagined that he would see Cybertron for himself. Based on what Optimus Prime had told them, the planet had all but destroyed by their war - And after he’d taken the AllSpark out of the picture in Mission City, it wasn’t coming back. It was a graveyard, and after everything that had happened, Sam had seen enough dead robot to last him a life time... Which made visiting a planet full of Cybertronian corpses pretty low priority to say the least.
And after an hour on this supposed ‘war-free’ Cybertron? He could truthfully say he was perfectly happy having not seen it.
So far, he’d been pushed around, nearly stepped on more times than he cared to count, and not one single Cybertronian had any interest in helping him. Autobot, Decepticon, Motorola... They didn’t care. And why would they? He so much as hinted at the crisis that was about to befall his own world, and he started twitching like a Chihuahua on crystal meth.
... Apparently, the Decepticon that had latched onto his wrist had survived the trip as well. Awesome. While he wasn’t sure if it was capable of reporting back its findings, it was certainly more than able to punish any bad behaviour - If he so much as breathed the wrong way, the razor backlash of its teeth was right there to correct him. For all the good it did either of them; they were in the wrong universe. He couldn’t save Carly anymore than the little bastard could send any information it gained back to Dylan and Soundwave.
“Optimus Prime isn’t even allowed in the city. Why don’t you go vacation somewhere else?” he muttered, by all outside appearances speaking to his own feet.
The words were promptly followed by a hiss of pain, nearly knocked off his feet by the swing of his own arm. He stumbled a few steps forward, blinking back tears with a few muffled curses. Damn, that really didn’t get any easier with repetition.
Note to self: Even tiny Decepticons have a really shitty sense of humour.
Character Name: Samuel “Sam” James Witwicky
Fandom: Transformers films
Timeline: Dark of the Moon; After Dylan has outfitted Sam with the watch from Hell, ordering him to find out what Optimus’ plan is.
Source: No sacrifice, no victory.
Character History: Born October 10, 1990 to Ron and Judy Witwicky, Sam had a relatively ‘normal’ childhood. The term ‘normal’ being used loosely, given his parentage and his somewhat spastic personality - But when compared to what he would face in later years, it seems downright ordinary.
When he was twelve years old, his father passed down the belongings of his great-great-grandfather, Archibald Witwicky. Of course, being young and possessing a short attention span, the young Sam could really care less about the items or their value.
It wasn’t until a couple years later, when he and his best friend Miles began plotting how best to pick up chicks that he came to realize the worth of his inheritance - If he sold the priceless heirlooms in an online auction, he’d have the cash necessary to buy a car. This was a brilliant idea, as cars were obviously the key to stealing the heart of any woman! Fortunately, Miles also suggested that he wait until his sixteenth birthday to hold the auction, as he wouldn’t be able to drive said vehicle until then.
In the time following, Sam was able to come to an agreement with his father - If he could come up with two ‘A’ grades and two thousand dollars, his father would pitch in the other two thousand dollars to purchase his car. While he was able to somehow scrape together the money and an A, his family genealogy project almost spelled the downfall for his plan - For attempting to hock Archibald’s belongings to his class, he was given a B-. It was by fluke (and with some help from Jesus) that he managed to convince his teacher to upgrade to an undeserved A-, and thus set into motion the events that would decide Cybertron’s fate.
Sam’s father took him to Bobby Bolivia’s used car lot, where he eventually picked out a beat-up yellow Camaro. Strangely, Bolivia had never actually seen the car before that moment; he threw a five thousand dollar price tag on it due to its custom paintjob, which Ron refused to pay. The Camaro expressed its displeasure at the decision, its radio firing off a supersonic pulse which shattered the windows of every vehicle in the lot, and subsequently convinced them to drop the price to four thousand.
Now equipped with his rusted-but-classic babe magnet, Sam and Miles headed out to an exclusive party at the local lake. After an uncomfortable confrontation with Trent, his car’s radio subtly suggested that Sam drive home the jock’s girlfriend and his long-time crush, Mikaela Banes. Kicking Miles out, he drove after her and offered her a ride (after offered to ride her) - A venture cut short by the sudden failing of the old Camaro.
Fortunately, Mikaela revealed that she had a background in cars; she took a look under the hood, and in doing so, discovered that the old beater was actually far more high-tech than it first appeared. “More than meets the eye”, if you would. Sam managed to ruin the moment with his not-so-smooth technique, and Mikaela decided to walk home on her own. Oddly enough, the Camaro immediately kicked back to life to the chorus of “Baby Come Back” and assisted its driver in catching up with her.
Later that night, Sam awoke to the sound of his car taking off - More importantly, taking off without him in it. He immediately assumed that the vehicle had been stolen, calling the police as he gave chase on his bicycle. When he found it in an old junkyard, however, he quickly realized that it wasn’t a theft... His car was alive. Alive and a giant robot, projecting the alien robot symbol into the sky like a Bat Signal.
Being understandably horrified by this revelation, he recorded his last words to his parents - A process cut short by the local junkyard dogs. As this is a Michael Bay movie, the dogs had been raised on a steady diet of steroids, and managed to tear their chain leashes from the concrete wall and chase down the teen. He was eventually rescued by a high-strung policeman, who in turn arrested Sam under suspicion of drug use. (Of course, Sam’s spastic behaviour is all natural - Drugs are not necessary.)
Thankfully, he was bailed out before he had to worry about dropping the soap, and the following morning Sam was revisited by his demonic Camaro. With his own bike lost the previous night, he stole his mother’s and took off, the driverless vehicle in hot pursuit. In a painful stunt, he crash landed on the sidewalk, conveniently in front of a product placement for Burger King Mikaela, once again attracting her attention.
Eventually, he managed to evade his yellow stalker long enough to find another police car, and, believing he’d finally stumbled onto some good fortune, he demanded the officer get out of the vehicle. What he had not anticipated was that this was a second giant alien robot by the name of Barricade. Obviously unimpressed by the fleshling pounding on his hood, the Decepticon flung Sam against the nearest car and proceeded to interrogate him about his eBay page.
As he fled yet again, he literally crashed into Mikaela and the pair of them escaped in the Camaro - Apparently, a stalker Camaro is less intimidating than a raging police car robot. When they arrived at a deserted plant, the Camaro once again transformed and did battle with their pursuer, while Mikaela and Sam faced off against the much smaller, cracked out Cybertronian, Frenzy. Mikaela saved her pantsless partner by decapitating the smaller robot, and the pair returned in time to see that the Camaro had been triumphant.
Sam trusted that the yellow Cybertronian was not actually out to kill them (and was definitely a Japanese construct), and encouraged Mikaela to get into the car. After all, years later, had they not gotten in the car, they would regret never knowing what would come of it - and the movie would have been awfully boring had they chosen to walk home.
After upgrading the Cybertronian’s vehicle mode to a newer model Camaro, the three of them met up with Optimus Prime and the other newly-arrived Autobots. Optimus explained that Bumblebee, their ride for the evening, had been ordered to protect Sam, and proceeded with some clunky exposition about the Cybertronian civil war. Megatron had apparently crashed on Earth hundreds of years prior and his frozen body had been discovered by Archibald Witwicky. After activating his navigation systems, which are inexplicably located in his finger, the coordinates of the fabled ‘AllSpark’ were imprinted on his glasses - These, of course, being the very same glasses that Sam currently had posted on eBay. Product placement!
While the Autobots destroyed his backyard and threatened to murder his dog, Sam attempted to hide their presence from their apparently blind and deaf neighbours as he hunted for the glasses, which he’d somehow misplaced. After some intensely awkward moments with his parents, they were interrupted by the appearance of Agent Simmons and a super-secret organization known only as Sector Seven. Fortunately, he managed to retrieve the glasses before he was taken into custody, both he and Mikaela being taken in a separate vehicle than the rest of his family.
While he attempted to press the teens for information about aliens, Simmons revealed that Mikaela had a criminal record and threatened to send Sam to prison for non-cooperation. Fortunately, due to convenient plotting, Optimus arrived in time to prevent the interrogation from going too far. With the team temporarily disabled and in their underwear, Sam attempted to learn the truth behind Sector Seven, only to be interrupted by an equally convenient back-up squad.
In a moment of questionable tactics, Optimus scooped up Sam and Mikaela and ran off on foot, while the other Autobots transformed and rolled out. This obviously failed miserably when Mikaela nearly fell off of the enormous robot’s shoulder and the glasses were dropped. Bumblebee sacrificed himself to rescue his human friends and was subsequently captured by Sector Seven. Sam and Mikaela were also, once again, taken into custody - The Autobots were apparently bored of rescues at this point, refusing to risk human casualty to save them or their comrade.
When the military finally came to the conclusion that making enemies of the select few who knew anything about the invading alien race was a bad idea, Sam and Mikaela were brought to the Hoover Dam facility. There, they learned that the government had been keeping both a Megatronsicle cryogenically frozen Megatron and the AllSpark hidden for decades - Ironically, in the very same building. After demanding that Bumblebee and his parents be freed and Mikaela’s criminal record expunged, Sam shared what little information he had about the Decepticons and the Autobots.
With Bumblebee’s assistance, the team escaped into Mission City with the AllSpark before the rallied Decepticons managed to unthaw their frozen dinner frozen leader. There, they were joined by the other Autobots, sans Optimus who was not ready for his dramatic entrance. Ironhide and Bumblebee destroyed a truck full of Furbys Bizarrely negative product placement! in a show of goodwill towards mankind, but the resulting explosion ended up severing the scout’s legs.
With his guardian out of commission and his robotic teammates occupied, Sam was ordered by Lennox to take the AllSpark to the top of a building, where it could be taken out of the city by helicopter (despite the urban location being his idea in the first place). Outrunning a decidedly less frigid Megatron, he scaled the stairs in record time - Only for the cavalry to be blown out of the sky by Starscream, leaving him alone on the rooftop with a robot with no discernable ankles the Decepticon leader.
In an act of foolishness and/or bravery, Sam refused to give up the AllSpark, and Megatron destroyed the corner of the building and sent the boy toppling to his would-be death. Optimus intervened with a precision only movieverse Autobots seem to have, and snatched him out of midair, cushioning his fall with equally uncomfortable metal armour.
Once they were safely landed, Optimus instructed Sam to shove the AllSpark into his chest should he prove unable to defeat Megatron. However, as Prime is still relatively sane in the first film, he inevitably failed in that, getting the ever-loving scrap pounded out of him while causing a ton of collateral damage. Before Megatron could turn him into a Samcake, Sam shoved the cube into the Decepticon’s chest instead, which gave him a fatal orgasm overloaded his systems, killed him, and obliterated the AllSpark.
With the threat passed, Sam and Mikaela made out on top of Bumblebee while Ratchet and Ironhide indulged their strange voyeur kink and Optimus Prime made a heroic speech to the audience.
However, as the movie made a large amount of money, ending it there would have been bad business.
Once the Decepticons returned to activity, Optimus assigned Bumblebee to once again take up his role as Sam’s guardian. This was not all sunshine and rainbows, as the yellow Autobot proved himself a nuisance; he physically knocked a cat out of a tree, earned multiple traffic citations, and intentionally flipped over Trent’s car. Because the Autobots are the good guys, remember?
When Sam‘s parents declared Bumblebee would not be allowed to stay home when he left for college, he stalks off on his own and is captured by Barricade. After falling out of the movie and missing the climax, the Decepticon hoped to force Bumblebee to deliver the remaining AllSpark shard in exchange for his whiny human charge. As there is a second film, this ploy obviously failed.
Approximately two years following the events in Mission City, Sam was preparing to go an unnamed college - Mostly because no school in their right mind wanted to be associated with a joke involving Sam’s mother and weed-laced brownies. While he somehow managed to convince Mikaela not to dump him, despite the long distance relationship, he found a shard of the AllSpark on his old shirt. Upon touching it, the shard somehow transferred a vast amount of ancient Cybertronian knowledge directly into Sam’s brain (he likely wasn’t using that space for anything anyway).
In addition to that, the entirety of his kitchen decided to come to life and attempt to murder him. Fortunately, this allowed the movie to introduce the fact that Bumblebee is still living in the garage - The Autobot rescued Sam and his family, only to be yelled at and told that he would not be accompanying Sam to college. Sam failed once again to tell Mikaela that he loved her, and he left the AllSpark shard in her care when he left.
At school, he met his new roommate - Leo Spitz, an alien-obsessed techie and, unfortunately, the one other student who is as spastic as Sam himself. Leo revealed that he had been maintaining a website about alien sightings, and was in the processing of posting a video that looked suspiciously like a Decepticon attack. Despite Sam’s chilly demeanour and outright smackdown of his conspiracy theories, the pair ended up going to a party together that same evening - And if you bother paying attention to the ham-fisted love plot, Sam missed his online webcam date with Mikaela because of this.
While Leo attempted to get his freak on, Sam began seeing strange symbols in cakes and was forcibly molested by a blonde sex object student named Alice. Bumblebee attempted to crash the party and rescue him, but the persistent would-be adulteress decided to go along for the ride. After getting smashed in the nose by the dashboard, she finally relented, and Sam was taken to speak to Optimus Prime.
Optimus, for God knows what reason, requested that Sam speak to the American government on behalf of the Autobots. He felt that if a human were to show support to their being on Earth, the president might be reminded of the positive aspects of their presence on Earth. Sam selfishly refused to help, as he wanted to live a “normal” life - And, even more stupidly, he never thought to mention the alien symbols that had plagued his thoughts the previous evening even though the Prime’s armour is technically covered with them.
Not long afterward, Sam had another meltdown; this time, during in one of his classes. Seeing the same symbols once again, he read an entire textbook in less than half a minute and interrupted the lecture to cover a chalkboard in indecipherable Cybertronian text while babbling about dimensional theory.
... Needless to say, his professor kicked him out of the class.
He called a disgruntled Mikaela to tell her what had happened, and insisted she not touch the AllSpark shard, as he believed that was what started this mess. While she grabbed the earliest flight to reach him, Sam retreated to his dorm room and began to paint the symbols all over his walls like a lunatic.
Alice and Leo arrived in time to see the tail end of his freak out, and Alice promptly shoved Leo out the door so she could, once again, advance on Sam. Pinning him to the bed, she forcefully kissed him... just as Mikaela walked through the door. Assuming that Sam was cheating for some bizarre reason, despite his reported mental collapse only hours earlier, she swiftly ended their relationship in one word and left. As the horrified Sam made to follow her, Alice decided to get kinky - She lashed out a ridiculous robotic tentacle/tongue and attempted to strangle him. Apparently, she was a Decepticon pretender, who had conveniently enrolled in the exact same school as the boy her faction was now hunting. Go figure.
At the sound of his effeminate screaming, Mikaela and Leo rushed back in time to witness Alice transforming back to her Cybertronian form. Joined by Sam, the three of them ran out of the dorm, and, being the only competent one in the group, Mikaela ran the bitch over with a car a couple times.
Before they could escape entirely, their car was snatched by Grindor; they were delivered to an abandoned warehouse, the temporary evil base of operations of Starscream and a very much alive Megatron. Having learned of the information Sam now possessed, Megatron intended to physically extract it. Sam futilely attempted to reason with him, until Scalpel shoved a brain slug up his nose and began to directly project the images from his thoughts. Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough, and the doctor insisted that removing his brain altogether was their best option.
Suddenly, Optimus Prime and Bumblebee appeared thanks to their uncanny ability to arrive in the nick of time, and Sam is rescued once again. While Bumblebee peeled out with Mikaela and Leo, Sam and Optimus took off out of the city. Reaching a clearing in the forest, Sam hid in the foliage as Optimus battled Megatron, Starscream and Grindor in a match of badassery.
Unfortunately, the live-action Transformers franchise had yet to meet its Optimus Prime death quota - And that would never do. In a show of Decepticon cowardice, Megatron literally stabbed Prime in the back and destroyed his spark chamber, killing the Autobot leader. Sam was taken to safety by Bumblebee as he came to the realization that he was personally responsible for the death of robot Jesus.
With Optimus out of the way, The Fallen decided to make his television debut and demanded that the humans hand over Sam Witwicky. Sam became Earth’s Most Wanted overnight, forcing him into hiding.
After a decent amount of moping and blatant racism, Leo suggested that Sam visit “Robowarrior,” the maintainer of a rival conspiracy site, as he might be able to give some meaning to the symbols he’d been seeing. This internet mastermind turned out to be former-agent Seymour Simmons, who now worked in a deli with his mama and kept a secret stash of Sector Seven classified information in his basement. Fortunately, that information did contain relevant photos, and with the help of the kidnapped Wheelie, they discovered that there was an ancient Cybertronian Seeker hidden in the Smithsonian Flight Institute.
Since using the AllSpark fragment on Optimus would have made for a much shorter movie, they decided to use it to revive the geriatric Blackbird, Jetfire. The crotchety converted Decepticon decided to help them by translating the language of the Primes into an equally indecipherable riddle, then space-bridged them to the middle of an Egyptian desert. Following some more forced exposition about the Fallen and the lost Matrix of Leadership, Jetfire sent the humans on their way; they didn’t know exactly where they were going, but they did know that the Matrix could potentially bring Optimus back from the dead, much better than that pesky piece of the AllSpark could have.
As they decoded the clue given to them, they stopped for a quick phone call to NEST, asking that they air drop Optimus’ dead body in Egypt. Sam failed epically at romance once again, and somehow in the process, they realized the Tomb of the Primes was hidden in Petra. When they finally found the building made of Prime corpses, which was surprising difficult to spot, the Matrix dissolved into dust at Sam’s touch. Nice job breaking it, hero.
Refusing to give up, Sam gathered up the magical Matrix dust into one of his socks, and they followed the NEST planes toward their pre-planned meeting place. After Starscream attempted to kill them, Sam showed his true tactical genius by declaring that he and Mikaela would continue on foot, while Leo and Simmons took the three cars and distracted the Decepticons. Why? It could have been because it would prolong the climax even longer, or for optimum Megan Fox breast bouncing... Or the fact the logic is not involved in action scenes.
The Decepticons prepared a trap using Sam’s parents as bait, in an attempt to coerce Sam into giving them his Matrix sock. Bumblebee intervened with spectacular movieverse timing, and Sam, suddenly dead set against automobiles, sent Bumblebee to safety with his parents, while he and Mikaela soldiered on towards Optimus’ dead body.
Firing in the desert happened, followed by more firing in the desert, until Sam was eventually shot during his epic slow-motion running sequence. Like Optimus, he died. Whoops.
Sam then went to Robot Heaven, where the past Primes informed him that the entire movie was pointless, as the Matrix of Leadership had to be earned, not found. They sent him back to revive Optimus, just in time for Mikaela to say ‘I love you’, and duping her into thinking Sam was saved by the power of her love. With the restored Matrix in hand, Sam stabbed Optimus in the chest with it (likely triggering some traumatic memories in the process) and resurrected the Autobot leader.
Sam then vanished from the action while Optimus dressed up in a corpse to steal some faces, and only returned for the sappy conclusion. The Matrix absorbed all the knowledge the AllSpark had stored in Sam, freeing him from the frequent insane outbursts that he forgot to have for the second half of the movie. He admitted his love for Mikaela and had a sentimental moment with Optimus, before finally returning to school to be a normal teenager with an alien robot for a car. Strangely enough, there was a case of national short term memory loss, as no one seemed to recall the fact that the Fallen had demanded Sam Witwicky be handed over to the authorities only days earlier.
However, happiness was short-lived. Megan Fox got fired Mikaela and Sam went their separate ways, and left Sam with her dog, her Wheelie, and a broken heart. Or, broken until his trip to the White House, where he was awarded a medal for his heroism and a new token female named Carly.
Insert some more comic events here, which are forgotten or retconned later. Sam met Brains when Bumblebee was harassing him and some Decepticons attacked. No one ever references these events again.
After his break-up with Mikaela, Sam, along with Wheelie and Brains, moved into an apartment with Carly in Washington DC. While the government had paid for the remainder of his schooling, he was unable to find a job - Apparently, helping some aliens save the world doesn’t look good on a resume. Carly picked up his slack on the rent and food, mentally castrating Sam and making him feel like a boytoy. This would never fly, of course - Michael Bay only objectifies women, dammit!
Annoyed and weathering his parents’ disappointment, he struggled through several interviews, until he was eventually hired on at Accuretta Systems. It wasn’t his dream job by any stretch, as he longed to be working with the Autobots - Apparently, the writers got the memo about how no ‘normal’ person would ditch their alien robot friends in favour of being normal. Not only that, but it turned out that Dylan Gould, Carly’s way-too-perfect-and-potentially-girlfriend-stealing boss, was the one who slipped in a good word for him, making receiving the position a bit of a backhanded achievement.
Soon after Sam started his new career, Carly visited him on the job and used her overt sluttiness to improve his boss’ opinion of him drastically - It would seem that having your girlfriend offer gratuitous panty shots is a sure-fire way to earn points at Accuretta. Carly revealed that Dylan had given her a brand new Mercedes, making Sam feel worse about himself and his stance in life.
In between running the mail cart and organizing binders, Sam was sexually assaulted shanghaied by co-worker Jerry Wang. After some bizarre innuendo and dirty talk covered up as ‘speaking code’, Wang slipped Sam his notes on the impending Decepticon threat and their secret plans involving the moon. When Sam attempted to further discuss the information with his not-boyfriend, Jerry screamed at him to leave and appeared to kill himself not long after. Apparently, he couldn’t handle the fact that he would never be able to date Sam? The man had some skewed priorities.
It was only a matter of minutes before Sam realized the truth behind Jerry’s death; Laserbeak, one of Soundwave’s pets minions, revealed himself and attacked. The chase was short-lived, as the minicon apparently got bored or couldn’t handle stairs, and called off the pursuit.
Understandably upset by the day’s events, Sam dragged Carly and his two pet robots to the NEST facility and demanded to speak with Optimus Prime. After a scuffle at the gates, he was escorted into the base by Bumblebee and Lennox, as he explained his short-lived romance encounter with Jerry Wang and the information he’d been given.
Fortunately, he’d arrived in time for the late night showing of robot resurrection; Optimus was about to revive the long-deactivated Sentinel Prime, using the Matrix that he was shown to blow up in the previous film. After listening in on some Leonard Nimoy-flavoured exposition about the robot dildos pillars and the space bridge, disgruntled Intelligence Director Mearing took Sam and Carly aside to discuss matters. Arranging for Bumblebee to take up his post as Sam’s guardian once more, she kicked Sam’s self-esteem squarely in the balls and told him that he wasn’t able to further help the investigation.
Reunited with his best robofriend, Sam called on the aid of Simmons and his fashionable assistant, Dutch, in order to unravel the Decepticons’ more recent plot. Carly, however, did not approve of her boyfriend having a purpose aside from pleasuring her, and was none too pleased when Sam chose to skip out on Dylan’s work party. Believing him suicidal unable to live without putting himself in danger, she broke it off and went to bang her much hotter boss as consolation.
Free of female sex symbols to slow scenes down, Sam and Simmons crashed a bar and questioned Russian astronauts about their cancelled mission. When top secret photos revealed that the Decepticons possessed hundreds of pillars, Sam deduced that they had set a trap - They had still required Sentinel to activate the space bridge, but they needed Optimus to bring him back online before they could complete their plan. He immediately called Mearing, insisting that they needed to get the elder Prime to safety, before the enemy could locate him.
After an epic highway scene, Sam, along with Bumblebee, Mirage Dino, Sideswipe, and Ironhide brought Sentinel back to NEST headquarters just in time for his scheduled Heel Face Turn - The asshole Sentinel had apparently struck a deal with Megatron long ago, intending to work alongside the Decepticons in order to win the war - And being a giant douche, shot Ironhide in the back with a cosmic rust gun. Sam could only watch in horror as he stole the remaining pillars and took off.
Since Sam is apparently allergic to car interiors or something, he took off on foot again to locate Carly. When she wasn’t at the apartment, he remembered that she had gone to Dylan’s party - Which he crashed ever-so-gracefully and insulted its host in one fell swoop.
What he hadn’t anticipated, however, was that Dylan was actually a human liaison for the Decepticons, and even more shockingly, Soundwave was Carly’s sweet new ride. With Soundwave threatening to tentacle rape murder his girlfriend, Dylan demanded that Sam learn Optimus’ plan to strike back; in order to ensure his cooperation, Sam was outfitted with a watch-shaped minicon. So long as he wore it, he would be unable to tell anyone about what had happened, and in turn, it would relay any and all information directly back to Soundwave and his meat puppet Dylan.
Unfortunately for all parties, Sam wouldn’t be able to relay any such thing, as it was just after these events that he was transported to Axiom Nexus.
Character Personality:
Given that Sam hails from a world where giant robots exist (and one crafted by Michael Bay at that), it’s hard to really be an average teenage boy.
Hyperactive to an extreme degree, Sam’s general behaviour can be summed up in a single word: “spaz.” He is prone to stammering and flailing with even the slightest provocation, frequently tripping over his words and tossing in redundant justifications when they really aren’t necessary. Thankfully this has lessened as he’s matured, but that really isn’t saying much. He still rambles on even after he’s said his piece, flipping out over things that most would simply take in stride.
His mouth has been known to get him into trouble and is easily the number one reason for his spastic flailing. He seems to be lacking a brain-to-mouth filter, blurting things out without considering the consequences. He purposely antagonizes Trent and his friends, he constantly slips out embarrassing Freudian statements when speaking to Mikaela, asking her to “ride her home” at one point - It’s pretty clear that he doesn’t put much thought into the words coming out until it’s too late.
As he’s aged, his temper seems to have gotten progressively worse. Particularly in Dark of the Moon, Sam’s developed a short fuse, verbally lashing out at both friends and foes alike. Combined with a knack for sarcasm and his tendency to continue on long after his point is made, it makes him come across as a bit of a jackass.
A large part of this can be linked back to Sam’s innately selfish nature. He has the unfortunate tendency to be very self-centered, focusing primarily on how things affect him more than others. When Optimus asks for his help in Revenge of the Fallen, he turns him down in favour of having a “normal” life; even knowing that his Autobot friends were at risk of losing favour with the government, he flat out refuses to even try. In the third film, he’s willing to risk Epps and his friends to go after Carly, because it’s his fault she’s in that situation; he may have had the best intentions, but when he justifies his reasoning, it’s because of his involvement, not because of the danger she is in.
This trait can also manifest as extreme possessiveness, of both objects and people. While it may be his insecurity talking, he is extremely uptight about his girlfriends and how others associate with them. Despite his encounter with Alice and how hypocritical it is, he’s quick to attack Wheelie’s ‘affection’ for Mikaela, and more importantly, Mikaela herself for allowing it. The behaviour is even more evident in his treatment of Carly and Bumblebee, however. With Carly, he is bitterly jealous of her relationship with her boss, Dylan Gould - Her flippant disregard for what could be perceived as a less than professional interest only makes him angrier, as she doesn’t acknowledge that it could be a danger to their relationship. He seems to regard Bumblebee as “his car,” treating him more like a dog than a friend at times. While it’s obvious that Sam does care deeply for the Autobot, it doesn’t stop him from frequently scolding the scout and attempting to make him feel guilty for doing his duty.
Being the outcast at school, his self-esteem is on the decidedly lower end of the scale. He’s aware that he doesn’t always fit in, and he does what he can to compensate. He has a tendency to exaggerate situations, frequently insisting that he saved the world, while it was really more of a case that he helped to save it -It’s not so much that he’s lying, as that he really just wants to feel as though he is important. When he does manage to accomplish something, good luck getting him to stop talking about it... Has he told you about his hero medal from Obama yet?
For all his faults, Sam is truly a good kid. He can be impulsive, but courageous when the situation calls for it. Despite his flailing, he does know when it’s time to be serious. Even if he’s screaming like a girl the whole time, he’ll do what he has to in order to get the job done - Which is really an impressive feat, given that not so long ago, his biggest problem was scraping up an A- in sociology.
On more multiple occasions, Sam has been willing to lay his life on the line for his friends and his world, even when the odds weren’t necessarily in his favour. He has stood alone against Megatron more than once. He stubbornly refused to relinquish the AllSpark, even when he was presented with the opportunity to surrender. Even when he knew that reinforcements weren’t coming, he offered himself up to the Decepticon leader in order to protect Mikaela and Leo at the warehouse in the second film. There was no way he could have known the Autobots were coming for them, but he refused to let both of them be killed when there was even the slightest chance he could prevent it.
This gambit actually does fail him in Revenge of the Fallen, and he does manage to get himself killed - But he doesn’t show any real remorse for that fact. As petty as he has proven himself in the past, he never attempts to hold that fact over the Autobots’ heads; in fact, immediately after he comes back from death, he rushes to Optimus’ aid.
Arguably, his death actually seems to make him more dedicated to the Autobots and assisting them in their quest to protect Earth from the Decepticons. While he originally wanted to abandon any ties he had with the Cybertronians in order to lead a normal life, following the events in Egypt, he seems more determined to make a difference. He’s frustrated that he’s not allowed to help alongside Lennox and the others in NEST, and frequently bemoans the fact he’s treated like a civilian after helping to save the planet on multiple occasions.
His inner strength is enough to get him noticed by the Dynasty of the Primes. In the brief span of time before he was revived, he is told that he had the heart of a leader and had managed to earn the Matrix of Leadership. While he is not its true bearer, he does show qualities similar to that of the Autobot commander; he is self-sacrificing, determined, and willing to take charge if it means protecting what he cares about.
Powers:
Sam is a normal human, at this particular point in canon. Following Revenge of The Fallen, the knowledge of the AllSpark was transferred back into the Matrix of Leadership. He is still able to recognize a few odd symbols as being Cybertronian or the language of the Primes, but he can’t read them or even begin to decipher their meaning.
Due to his point in canon, he is still wearing the “watch” forced on him by Dylan Gould. A servant of the Decepticons, the watch is able to tap into Sam’s nervous system, allowing it to see whatever he sees, hear whatever he hears, etc. It is capable of inflicting severe pain on him should he break the parameters of the original contract. Until it is removed, he is unable to disclose information regarding the Decepticons’ involvement in the space program, Dylan’s role in those plans, or what has happened to Carly.
Samples
First person:
[A very distressed looking Sam Witwicky is fighting with his device right now, jamming buttons with far more force than is really necessary, as a bored looking TransTech from processing looks on. Apparently, he’s not all that interested in the paperwork or the comm tutorial, or he might have noticed that he’d turned the feed on.]
Are you serious? Are you really serious right now?
Look, I’m sure that your crazy robot wifi is great here, but you aren’t listening. There’s been a mistake. I’m not supposed to be here. Do you have a manager or something? I’d like to file a complaint for kidnapping.
I get it, I signed up for this when I decided to keep a giant alien robot as my car, but come on. I kind of have some important shit to do. [He winced at the statement, drawing his hand back to rub at his wrist.]
You don’t want me here, I don’t want to be here - So let’s cut the crap, you send me home, and we’re all good.
Okay? Okay.
[The TransTech doesn’t seem particularly moved by the rant, not the Sam really expected him to be. It hadn’t worked on Mearing, so it wasn’t likely to work on a robot who could crush him underfoot. Alright, Plan B.
Drawing back from the counter, he stood on the tips of his toes, trying to see above the over-sized crowd.]
Bee! Bumblebee! You’ve got to be here... Can you hear me?
Third Person:
The universe hated him. It wasn’t a question at this point.
Where did he start? Well, first, he’d had to peel himself off the pavement after getting his ass handed to him by a pretty-boy with a tentacled Mercedes. Oh, and then the love of his life had been kidnapped. Add that to the Timex from Hell stalking his every move and forcing him to betray the Autobots...
Hey, what’s a little interdimensional kidnapping? It’s not like he was expecting his day to get any better.
Even after he’d met Bumblebee, Sam had never really imagined that he would see Cybertron for himself. Based on what Optimus Prime had told them, the planet had all but destroyed by their war - And after he’d taken the AllSpark out of the picture in Mission City, it wasn’t coming back. It was a graveyard, and after everything that had happened, Sam had seen enough dead robot to last him a life time... Which made visiting a planet full of Cybertronian corpses pretty low priority to say the least.
And after an hour on this supposed ‘war-free’ Cybertron? He could truthfully say he was perfectly happy having not seen it.
So far, he’d been pushed around, nearly stepped on more times than he cared to count, and not one single Cybertronian had any interest in helping him. Autobot, Decepticon, Motorola... They didn’t care. And why would they? He so much as hinted at the crisis that was about to befall his own world, and he started twitching like a Chihuahua on crystal meth.
... Apparently, the Decepticon that had latched onto his wrist had survived the trip as well. Awesome. While he wasn’t sure if it was capable of reporting back its findings, it was certainly more than able to punish any bad behaviour - If he so much as breathed the wrong way, the razor backlash of its teeth was right there to correct him. For all the good it did either of them; they were in the wrong universe. He couldn’t save Carly anymore than the little bastard could send any information it gained back to Dylan and Soundwave.
“Optimus Prime isn’t even allowed in the city. Why don’t you go vacation somewhere else?” he muttered, by all outside appearances speaking to his own feet.
The words were promptly followed by a hiss of pain, nearly knocked off his feet by the swing of his own arm. He stumbled a few steps forward, blinking back tears with a few muffled curses. Damn, that really didn’t get any easier with repetition.
Note to self: Even tiny Decepticons have a really shitty sense of humour.