Archibald Witwicky

Archibald Amundsen Witwicky is a human from the movie continuity family.

That be the smell of treasure, lads.

Captain Archibald Amundsen Witwicky, father of Clarence Witwicky led the National Arctic Circle Expedition in 1897.

He basically went bonkers after Megatron burned out his eyes, and spent the rest of his life in an asylum. He died August 13, 1938.

Archy's great-great-grandson Sam Witwicky thinks he is lame, and wants to eBay his priceless heirlooms to buy a car.

Fiction

IDW Transformers movie comics

... I didn't come all this way to 'leave well 'nuff alone!'Words that Witwicky would later regret

It's so cold his beard fell off.

In 1897, Captain Archibald Witwicky led the National Arctic Circle Expedition when their ship became frozen in the ice. His first mate Reginald Danco noticed that their dogs were keenly interested in whatever lay beneath the frozen wastes and called Witwicky over to investigate. Despite Danco's well-founded caution in light the expedition's foul luck, Witwicky bravely dug into the ice, and what he saw underneath changed him. Witwicky became blind and insane and despite his blindness, spent the next three months filling one hundred and seventy-six pieces of paper with strange patterns and glyphs. By 1898, Witwicky was in the Boston Secure Hospital, and was interviewed by two independent adventurers named Walter Simmons and Theodore Joseph Wells, who were drafted by the President of the United States to investigate his tales about a "devil man". They managed to discredit Witwicky and sent his effects to his family. Movie Prequel #2 Original

Witwicky spent the rest of his life in the most politically incorrect asylum in Louisiana, raving about taglines yet to be written and movies yet to be produced. Decades after his death, Archibald's descendant Ronald presented his son with the explorer's personal effects. The boy was not impressed with the junk from a "crazy man", and later sought to auction them off to fund the purchase of a car. Movie Prequel #3

Transformers: Beginnings

Voice actor: Patrick Viall (English)

Transformers: Beginnings is a condensed, flash-animated retelling of the IDW Movie Prequel that is detailed above this section.

Transformers: Beginnings

Transformers film

Actor: William Morgan Sheppard (English) Hiroshi Arikawa (Japanese-language dub voice), César Árias (Latin American Spanish-language dub voice)

Shiny oh so shiny.

During the National Arctic Circle Expedition, Witwicky's ship became frozen in the water. As the crew chipped the ship free, he told his crew "no sacrifice, no victory!" (all the while standing and doing nothing to help). During the attempt, the dogs were attracted to a break in the ice, which Witwicky and a dog fell through. As he got his bearings, he came face to face with "a great discovery"...at which point said discovery used his navigational system to burn the coordinates of the AllSpark into his glasses, which had the byproduct of rendering Witwicky blind and insane. Witwicky spent the rest of his life in psychiatric hospitals, drawing strange symbols and ranting about an Ice man.

110 years after his discovery, his descendant Sam Witwicky tried to raise money for a car by auctioning off his equipment, including his compass, his sextant, his telescope, and (for some bizarre reason) his glasses. Transformers

Captain Archibald Witwicky's involvement in the preceding events, or events mostly similar, were also chronicled in the novels Transformers, Transformers: The Junior Novel and The Quest for the AllSpark; the Transformers: Movie Adaptation and Movie Trilogy comics; the activity book "Look and Find Transformers"; and the storybook "Transformers: The Movie Storybook".

Games

Transformers: The Game (PSP)

He was Sam's grandfather. When Sam was a child, Archibald used to tell his grandson about an ice-man he found. This of course means that Sam is at least 70 in 2007, but never mind that. Transformers The Game (PSP)

Notes

• Archibald's middle name is a reference to Roald Amundsen, the leader of the first successful expedition to the South Pole, and not Mitchell Amundsen, the film's director of photography.