Transformers: Dark of the Moon Movie Adaptation

Transformers: Dark of the Moon Movie Adaptation is a 4-part comic series published by IDW Publishing adaptation the Dark of the Moon feature film. The individual issues of the series also include a serialized prose story titled Transformers: Convergence.

«	Transformers: Dark of the Moon Movie Adaptation issues:	»
#1 #2 #3 #4

Overview

Differences from the movie (general)

• As with pretty much every other piece of media aside from the film itself, Wheeljack and Mirage are referred to with those names, instead of the last-minute changes used in the movie, "Que" and "Dino".
• Shockwave has an extended battle with Optimus after he emerges from the Driller.
• Sam and Carly are living in a ground-level apartment rather than a loft, complete with a yard for Wheelie, Brains and their dog, rather than a balcony. Further, where they have a single mastiff dog in the film, their pets in the comic are the Witwicky family dog Mojo, plus his special friend from Revenge of the Fallen, Frankie.
• Although they were mostly edited out of the finished movie, Skids and Mudflap can be glimpsed among the assembled Autobots as Prime confronts Mearing.
• Megatron kills the elephant that bars his way, rather than just scaring it off.
• Igor is simply a bouncing disembodied head, lacking the stumpy arms and legs he gets around on in the film.
• While the Autobots use the Xantium to get to the moon in the film, here they use a human rocket, the Ares V.
• The Dreads are among the Decepticons hidden on the moon, and secretly hitch a ride back to Earth by clinging to the outside of the Ares V, preceding their later role in the story.
• Walter Simmons oversees the first moon mission.
• The movie has the Autobots raiding an "illegal nuclear facility" at the start of the story; the comic has them recovering illegally-possessed Cybertronian technology that this country has covertly obtained from the Decepticons, continuing a plot thread from the Transformers: Rising Storm prequel. This makes their actions a bit more personal and justifiable!
• As this issue begins, NEST are just finishing up the decommissioning of the Diego Garcia base, following its devastation in Rising Storm, explaining why it didn't appear in the film. Makeshift "caskets" (actually shipping crates) are laid out for all the Autobots who died in that series.
• As he carts Brains off, Sam asks him what he's "done to his head", referring to the addition of a shock of fibre-optic hair Brains sports in the movie that he was lacking in Rising Storm.
• Shockwave's rampage from Rising Storm is actively referred to when he appears at Chernobyl, and he continues to his talk in his cold, stoic, Generation 1-inspired dialect, rather than the growling non-words of the film.
• Megatron's tarp-cape varies in length. It varies between short (going down to his neck) and long (going over his shoulder, like how it's mostly seen).
• Sentinel's eye color changes from blue to red when he shoots Ironhide. They remain red through issue 3, but go back to blue in issue 4.
• Laserbeak's assassinations; Wang is the only victim shown (save for Voskhod, last issue). There is no protracted dialogue between the two, either: Laserbeak just bursts into a window and kills him.
• Sam's difficulty in getting into the NEST base, and Bumblebee coming to his rescue.
• Mearing calling Sam "a messenger", which kind messes up his dramatic speech in issue #4.
• Carly receiving a new car from Dylan.
• Sam contacting Simmons.
• Rather than hide from Laserbeak, Sam actively fights back, taking down the avian Decepticon with a fire-axe to the head. Laserbeak survives, though!
• Dutch really doesn't seem to be German here. Also, Simmons appears far less assured of his skills, often offering him advice and gently berating him.
• In line with this, there's no scene of him flipping out and setting off a Mexican standoff in the Russian bar; instead, Brains reveals himself and starts talking in Russian, charming the cosmonauts into sharing their info.
• Simmons breaks his leg not simply from being flung out of his car, but from the clumsy Dutch accidentally backing up and running him over!
• Hatchet and one of the other Dreads are taken out in the running battle along the freeway, with the third and final one being eliminated by Ironhide immediately upon arrival at NEST headquarters (Crankcase and Crowbar never transform, so we can't tell which is which). Consequently, we're missing our second Mexican standoff.
• Again, Skids and Mudflap are present at NEST headquarters.
• Sentinel's Cosmic Rust cannon is in the form of his shield, rather than looking like a normal blaster in the movie.
• The Decepticons on the moon are referred to as "shock troops", and one of them heavily resembles Mindwipe.
• Bumblebee does not make any attempt to shoot Sentinel Prime after Ironhide dies.
• Megatron simply removes Abraham Lincoln statue from the Abraham Lincoln Memorial instead of blasting it... sounds familiar.
• Dylan gives Sam the Watch-bot, instead of the Watch-bot coiling itself around Sam's arm in the movie.
• The Twins' deaths at the hands of Sentinel Prime are included here.
• Simmons is present during Ironhide's and the Twins' deaths, while he was not present in Ironhide's death scene in the final film.
• Simmons does not use a wheelchair after his legs are broken.
• Ironhide does not die due to the Cosmic Rust, instead he's blasted to pieces by Sentinel Prime's gun.
• Sentinel activates the pillars in Washington D.C. during the daytime. He does it at night in the movie.
• Sam Witwicky, Lennox, Wheelie, and Brains are present when Sentinel activates the Pillars.
• The Autobots engage the Decepticons in an extended fight before they retreat, and the Washington Monument is destroyed.
• Unlike the movie, Carly doesn't change her clothes while held captive by Dylan Gould. She remains in her dress.
• Dylan is apparently a lot bolder than in the film, as he pushes Sam around himself instead of having his bodyguards restrain him.
• Barricade is also not present in the final battle. Instead, he appears with Starscream in a video feed during Sentinel's speech to Congress. Another remarkable difference is that the Decepticons coming from the Moon have individualized appearances, while in the film they are generic. Kudos to the artist.
• Sentinel Prime mentions that he "never really liked [Ironhide's] kind", seemingly in reference to his victim's origins as a Thetacon.
• Megatron mentions Starscream's stint as ruler on Cybertron and his use of ramshackle space bridge technology, as seen in The Reign of Starscream.
• Starscream hesitates before claiming he merely saw Sentinel Prime die on Cybertron – in Foundation, it was the Decepticon second-in-command who fired upon the Ark, seemingly destroying it.
• We get clarification that Megatron and Sentinel's plan was to seek out the planet of the last Star Harvester (something Megatron learned of from The Fallen), explaining away what otherwise seems like inexplicable foreknowledge of Earth.
• Sam mentions the attack on the Diego Garcia base, as seen in Rising Storm.
• Hardcore Eddie is inexplicably drawn as a muscular, Caucasian male with a red Mohawk.
• We never see Sam and Epps finding the soldiers, unlike the film.
• Lennox shows up after Starscream is dead.
• Bumblebee doesn't save Sam when Starscream dies.
• The Wreckers don't tear apart the Decepticon pilot.
• Most of the scenes with the NEST soldiers during the battle are omitted.
• Topspin speaks!
• The Decepticons are shown tearing a building apart and making a fortress out of it, something that was only alluded to in the film.
• Carly does not change her clothes while she is trapped with Dylan Gould. She still wears her white dress from last issue.
• Shockwave speaks in the final battle.
• Starscream attacks Sam and the others when they are in the building about to shoot at the pillars, something that never happened in the movie.
• Simmons is still sans wheelchair.
• The boomstick that ends Starscream's life is stabbed in his mouth instead of eye.
• The Autobots are in chains during the execution scene, as opposed to simply being restrained.
• Wheeljack lives, and instead Mirage has his head ripped off by Soundwave.
• Bumblebee kills Soundwave with one shot to the chest, and the two do not have an extended battle.
• Wheelie and Brains live as opposed to the movie where their fate was merely ambiguous.
• Optimus' rampage is omitted. Shockwave stands with Sentinel as he triggers the pillar, and is simply stabbed in the chest as opposed to having his throat ripped out.
• The final fight between Optimus Prime, Sentinel Prime and Megatron takes place up in a large, destroyed building. Megatron helps Optimus in killing Sentinel Prime, providing a distraction so Optimus can use Sentinel's rust cannon against him.
• The main control pillar is destroyed by a cruise missile strike ordered by Lennox, instead of up-close blasts from Bumblebee.
• The final confrontation between Optimus Prime and Megatron is left ambiguous, splitting the difference between the movie and the novelization. Unlike the movie, where Megatron dies before Sentinel, here, Sentinel dies first, and the last we see of Megatron is him staring down Optimus as Cybertron fades away following the bridge's deactivation. Megatron does not actively offer a truce, as in the film and novel; he merely wonders, in his internal monologue, if such a thing would even be possible. The final scene from the comic, with Igor wondering what became of his master, is not in the movie or novel, and furthers this ambiguity.

Creative team

The series is written by John Barber, author of IDW's previous Dark of the Moon prequels, Sector 7, Foundation and Rising Storm, adapting Ehren Kruger's screenplay with numerous added references and caveats to forge tighter connections—and explain away any apparent contradictions—with pre-established IDW stories. Art for the adaptation is provided by newcomer Jorge Jimenez Moreno, who brings a manga-style flavor to the live-action movie universe.

Notes

• Months before the film's actual release, a large chunk of this comic was leaked by Amazon, spoiling a large number of fans about the major twist of Sentinel Prime's betrayal that the entire film hinged on. In fact, it was this leak that convinced Michael Bay to enforce an executive order, forbidding any prequel or adaptation of Age of Extinction to prevent a similar incident from happening again. Ultimately, it would take seven years before IDW would be allowed to produce another movie tie-in comic, in the shape of 2018's Transformers: Bumblebee Movie Prequel.

Collections

• Transformers: Dark of the Moon TPB (released May 11, 2011) ISBN 1600109179 / ISBN 978-1600109171

Bonus material includes all cover art from each issue.

Atypically, this trade paperback was published before the individual issues of the series. The prose story Convergence is not included in the collected edition, having been produced for the subsequently-released issues as bonus content for supporting readers.