Sam Witwicky: Greatest Hero of Our Time [Part 2]
(This is the second piece of a three-part analysis of the Transformers mythology. Warning: each article contains spoilers for the movie it covers.)
Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen: The Victory of Self-Knowledge
As the opposition, the Decepticons have a solemn duty to wage war against Autobots and the humans perpetually. If the chance to clash with the forces of good arises, then they must take it in spades; they must oppose. In Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen, this predisposition is sustained. They are back, again searching for a tool that can help them bring about destruction. But this time, instead of a cube, it is a destructive force that is repackaged in the Matrix of Leadership. But, fascinatingly, this search has been going on for thousands of years, dating back to the earliest age in human history when an original Decepticon, named the Fallen, tried to harvest the sun (and, with it, destroy all life on earth) because he hated humans. Luckily, he was stopped by a group of Primes (the original leaders and distant ancestors of Optimus) in a way that only heroes can: they took the Matrix of Leadership and hid it by sacrificing themselves to cover up any trace of its whereabouts. No one, not even the modern-day Autobots, know of this incredible history linking Transformers and humans. It was knowledge that could only be intuited by heroes.
Enter Sam. After helping the Autobots save the world from the tyranny of the Decepticons, Sam is now ready to move onto bigger and better things: namely, college. He has enrolled at a school on the East Coast, miles away from the world he knows best. Not only will going to school far from home rekindle and expand his understanding of personal liberty, it should, if all goes according to plan, expand his understanding in a field of personal interest. As the great hero of our time, Sam is heading off on another rite of passage that is overwhelmingly American. Like most in this country, he goes off to college to better himself, attempting to enhance the freedom he has with higher education because, with a better understanding, he can open up doors that even his great liberty could not. Just like all college-bound Americans, Sam knows education is a great key to unlocking his dreams.
But, as he is preparing to go, he stumbles upon a shard of the All Spark in his home, which imprints untold amounts of information into his head. Before he is even begins his journey for scholastic enlightenment, he finds himself with all the information he needs. But since it is written in alien hieroglyphics that go beyond his comprehension, understanding the information is extremely problematical. Sam has all the information that he needs to better himself and achieve his dreams; he just needs a way to bring it all together.
Judy Witwicky: Look at this place! I feel smarter already! Can you smell that?
Ron Witwicky: Yeah, smells like $40,000 a year.
Despite its almost instantaneous ability to expand the mind of its students (and shrink the bank account of their parents), college cannot compare to Sam’s innate knowledge; his know-how supersedes anything that he can learn there. In an astronomy class, he shows up his suave professor (Rainn Wilson) by revealing insights into astronomy previously outside the grasp of even the most learned. Sam, in rapid fashion, flies through his textbook and proclaims that Einstein (the modern-day icon of genius, no less) was wrong. Einstein can’t hold a candle to Sam. And it is his great knowledge that makes him a target of the Decepticons once again. Desperately trying to find the Matrix of Leadership to activate the machine to harvest suns, the Decepticons need the information inside Sam’s head to find the tool and restore strength and life to their army (which is slowly dying without its life-giving ability), particularly the Fallen. To capture Sam, they send a Decepticon who takes on the appearance of a beautiful college student, named Alice (Isabel Lucas), who simultaneously gets a hold of Sam’s body (testing his faithfulness to Mikaela) and mind (where all the information is). After a close call, Sam escapes her clutches by hiding in the college library, in between shelves of tomes and desks where eager students try to learn as much as they can in the first few days of the semester. Unfortunately for them, however, the whole building is demolished once Alice enters the place of knowledge; the information stored in the college library (or anything that can be learned in the whole educational institution) is combustible next to Sam’s knowledge. What he has taken to college is far more important and valuable. The real library is his mind, and Sam, along with Mikaela and his new college friend Leo Spitz (Ramon Rodriguez), destroy Alice and set off to find the answers about the innate information inside of himself.
Sam Witwicky: Hey, you know the glyphs? These? The symbols that have been rattling around in my head?
[shows the Twins the symbols he drew]
Skids: That’s old school, yo. That’s like… That’s Cybertronian.
Mudflap: That’s some serious stuff, right there.
Sam Witwicky: They gotta mean something, like a message or like map. Like a map to an Energon source! Can you read this?
Skids: Read?
Mudflap: No. We don’t really do much reading. Not so much.
Sam Witwicky: If you can’t read it, we gotta find somebody who can.
Trying to overcome unfathomable ignorance by understanding exactly what he possesses inside his head, Sam and his comrades search out Jetfire, an ancient Transformer, who clarifies some of the symbols that Sam sees and reveals the ancient history of the Transformers on earth. Most importantly, he imparts the information that only a Prime can defeat the Fallen. Regrettably for them, Optimus Prime was recently killed while trying to protect Sam and his knowledge. But because Sam is gifted with great know-how, he knows that Optimus can be restored if they find the Matrix of Leadership and use it to resurrect him.
So, having been transported to Egypt by Jetfire, Sam and his friends find the Matrix of Leadership; upon touching it, it disintegrates into a fine powder. Nevertheless, when all hope seems to be lost, Sam realizes that he can still use the powder to bring Optimus back. Sam knows it will work; he knows what he knows is right. He understands that his plan to resurrect Optimus is the only course of action. This knowledge is beyond everyone else; only Sam can see its possibility, its legitimacy.
Sam Witwicky: The voices and the symbols in my head led us here for a purpose. Everyone’s after me because of what I know, and what I know is that this is going to work.
Mikaela Banes: How do you know it’s gonna work?
Sam Witwicky: Because I believe it.
Against all the odds, and against all logic, Sam finds a way to make his belief in what he knows to be right a reality. Maneuvering through a dangerous battlefield to get to Optimus’ remains (which had been dropped into the area and defended by Lennox and Epps and the rest of their outfit, NEST), Sam is downed by an explosion and drifts away to an ethereal place populated by the Primes of the past, the heroes that had hidden the Matrix of Leadership in ancient times. They explain to Sam that the Matrix cannot be found. It has to be “earned.” Sam’s innate understanding of what he had to do was right; he just had to go the brink of existence to prove it. And, consequently, when he comes to, Sam resurrects Optimus with the Matrix (magically no longer powdered form), and the Prime defeats the Fallen. Sam’s leadership wins the day.
Without Sam’s know-how, the Decepticons would have harvested the sun, destroying all life as we know it. But Sam is able keep knowledge alive and preserve the sun–earth’s lasting source of enlightenment–because he knows that he had all the knowledge he needed. He was a great leader because he decided what was right, and did so by instinctively knowing it. American know-how works in the same way. It allows the innovators to see how things can be done when others cannot; it opens up the door when others say it is closed for good. Sam did not need college, nor did he need to spend all his time in the library at school, wasting his time with books that offered little for contemporary existence. What he needed was a better understanding of himself because he has all the tools to be a leader in the world. He has all the knowledge that is necessary to be a hero for others.
Continue to Sam Witwicky: Greatest Hero of Our Time (Part 3)