I just blew through the Transformers: Dark of the Moon novelization in two days. Really couldn't help myself. The first film had me totally excited and turned out to be crap. Then the second film looked similarly cool, but ended up making the first look like Casablanca. But I am a bona fide Transofrmers fan and I once again found myself eager to see how things turned out in the final film, but knowing, no matter how cool it looked, it would infuriate me, I opted to read the book before I gave Mr. Bay a month of eager anticipation just to be let down. After all, I have always admired the stories of the films. It's just the insipid execution with all the lame jokes and military propaganda that burns me.
So here goes...
As I'm sure you all know, the film starts out during a battle on Cybertron, where an Autobot ship carrying something that could win the war for the Autobots is shot by Starscream, and left to drift off into space. In the 60s, with the craft lands on the moon. The entire space race is, in reality, in response to this, and moon missions are actually to bring back pieces of the Ark, as it's called (fanboy shout out). But no one ever finds the comatose Autobot in the crash vault.
Sam and Mikaela, er, I mean, his NEW girlfriend Carly, are living in Washington, D.C. with Sam looking for a job. However, after saving the world twice, he's restless and doesn't want to be in a job where he doesn't make a difference. Carly, meanwhile, works for a big art and car collector, Dylan Gould, played by Patrick Dempsey. They also have Wheelie and another obnoxious Wheelie-like robot, Brains, living with them.
Meanwhile, the Autobots are on missions around the world fighting varous human threats, along with Lennox (Epps has since retired from the Air Force) Optimus comes into conflict with Shockwave, who is commanding that big "Driller" creature from the trailers. What he's after he ends up letting go of, and Prime syas that it's impossible because it's a piece of a long-thought-lost Autobot ship.
The Decepticons on Earth, led by a very weakend Megatron, are still planning something.
Pissed off at the humans, especially Frances McDormand's character of Charlott Mearing, head of National Intelligence, for keeping this info from them, Prime demands a mission be sent to the moon with them on it. Very quickly this happens, and Prime and the other Autobots wind up on the moon, not knowing they have soem Decepticon stowawys. They discover Sentinel Prime, Optimus's mentor and predecessor, and five of these pillar things.
Meanwhile, at Sam's new job, (where John Malkovich briefly provides some comedy) Ken Jeong's character recognizes him from the TV broadcasts in the second film (apparently the only one to do so) and tries to inform him a Decepticon plot. Apparently he was being forced to help them cover something up, but wants to tell Sam the truth before being killed by Laserbeak. Sam runs to tell the Autobots, and ends up at their secret base, which Mearing is not too happy about, but at everybody else's insistence, allows him to see the goings-on.
Having taken the pillars and Sentinel back to Earth, Optimus re-activates Sentinel using the Matrix of Leadership, before putting it back in himself. The pillars as it turns out, are part of the space-bridge (fanbot shout out) which will allow whoever uses it to teleport anywhere. But they only have five pillars, the remaining hundreds are missing.
Mearing then shoos Sam home, but Sam has deduced on his own that the Decepticons have been using humans like Ken Jeong for something, and since no one will listen to him, he decides to enlist the help of former Agent Simmons in his investigation. Carly tells him he just wants to save the world again, which is true (a big theme is that Sam is going through the opposite of what he went through in the last film, now he just wants to be in the thicke of it but doesn't have an excuse like the last two tiems) so she breaks up with him and leaves to go to Dylan's party. Simmons is living high off writing a book on his exploits, but jumps at Sam's offer. They find a group of old Cosmonauts now living in the states, who they believe, like so many other astronauts, have been forced to hide something. They show them photos of the dark side of the moon, which has the remaining hundreds of pillars on it. Sam realizes tha Decepticons have known about the space bridge this whole time, and were planning on Optimus retrieving Sentinel for them, because Sentinel is the key. They must protect Sentinel.
They go and retrieve Sentinel, and get him safely back to the hangar, but Sentinel turns out to be a traitor, and kills Ironhide and the Twins with this corosive acid gun with turns them into slag, and runs off with the pillars.
Sentinel believes that the Autobots would never have won the war, so he find himself forced into an alliance with Megatron, to bring about the peace swfitly. All that tiem ago, Sentinel was on his way to meet Megatron on Earth, with Starscreams pursuit an apparent ruse, and both he and Megatron (remember Megatron crashed into the arctic) were waylaid.
Now their plan is complete and they activate a hidden army of Decepticons buried in the moon all these years and are able to transport them to Earth. With a giant army, they then decide to go into hiding for a bit so the plot can progress.
With an army that seems ubeatable against nine Autobots, the human's response is to give up and let them suck their planet's resources. The Autobots are asked to leave the planet, and they get on a ship to do so.
Meanwhile, Sam goes to Dylan's party to make up with Carly, but once there discover, of all the humans the Decepticons have enlisted the aid of, Dylan is the biggest. He kidnaps Carly and puts a little Decepticon on Sam, telling him to discover if the Autobots are planning any attacks, and the bot will record what goes on around him, and if he disobeys, Carly will die.
Sam goes to see the Autobots off, finding Epps working at the base they're on, and asks them if they're planning anything, managing to be subtle enough to tip Optimus off. Optimus says they're just leaving, and they do that, but their shuttle is shot down mid-air by Starscream, and all the Autobots are thought dead.
Sam then convinces Epps to help him track down Dylan and rescue Carly. They discover they are in Chicago, and so them and a bunch of Epps's mercenary buddies go there.
It's then, however, that the Decepticons decide to lay waste to Chicago, just cause they feel like it. This gets most survivors out of the city so we don't have to worry about collateral damage in the big climax.
On the outskirs of the city, Epps and company seem to think all hope is lost, but the Autobots show up, surprise! It was all a ruse and they escaped from the shuttle! They all head into chicago for a big melee as Sam and Epp's team attempt to rescue Carly, and Megatron and Sentinel set up the space bridge once more, this time to transport the entire planet of Cybertron into Earth's space, destroying Earth, but making it so they can rescue a certain amount of humans for slave labor, and rebuild their world. Wheeljack, the gadget gizmo, and Mirage, two new characters, are the remaining Autobots who die in the ensuing battle.
Carly is rescued, and the others try to blow up the space bridge beacon from afar, but their plan fails as that building goes down, as seen in the trailer.
Sentinel gets pissed at Megatron, telling him he doesn't work for him, and pushes him off the building, where the weakend Megs simply can't get up.
Starscream confronts Sam, who manages to use on of wheeljack's weapons to actually kill him. As Starscream picks Sam up, Sam shoots him in the eye with this grapple gun, then sticks a bomb in his chest. As Starscream flies away, he goes kablooey.
Wheelie and Brains manage to sneak aboard a Decepticon ship and use it to destroy a lot of their enemies.
Optimus fights and kills Shockwave, using his laser blaster to take down the beacon. The main piece of it falls in front of Sam, who goes for it but is confronted by Dylan, who fights him. Dylan gets shoved in front of the thing, which distintigrates him. The army guys come and blow the little contraption up, just as Cybertron was starting to materialize.
Meanwhile, Optimus fights Sentinel, and is losing big time, until Carly, while the Sam and the guys are off in the above paragraph, goes over to the fallen Megatron and teases that now he'll just be working for Sentinel. It works, and Megs gets up and fights Sentinel with Optimus. Optimus takes his acid gun the he used to kill Ironhide and the Twins, and uses it on him.
And here's where things get really stupid: Megatron then says that he wants peace, and Optimus allows him to take all the remaining Decepticon forces on a journey back to Cybertron.
Amidst the ruins, Sam and Carly, who in the middle of the battle were finally able to tell each other "I love you," (tell me if THAT doesn't sound familiar) are sitting next to Bumblebee who produces a gasket ring and forces Sam into unwittingly proposing.
Optimus's closing monologue: In any war, there are calms between the storms. There will be days when we lose faith. Days when our allies turn against us... But the day will never come when we forsake this planet and it's people. For I am Optimus Prime, and I send this message to the universe: We are here. We are home.
THE END.