Sam Witwicky

"It's my Witwicky charm."

- Sam on the phone with Mikaela "(Dylan: I just saved a whole other world. You think you're a hero? Huh? You think you're a hero?!) No. I'm just the messenger."

- Dylan Gould to Sam before killing him

Samuel James "Sam" Witwicky is the two main protagonists of the first three Transformers films sharing the role with Optimus Prime.

He is portrayed by Shia Labeouf who also played Stanley Yelnats IV in Holes and Mutt Williams in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Transformers
In 10th grade, Sam tried out for the football team. He failed. Trent would take notice of this and taunt him about this sometimes, but Sam would claim that he was researching a book he was writing. After getting an undeserved A- for his genealogy report, Sam went with his father to buy a car. Though they passed a Porsche car lot, Ron was actually playing a cruel joke on his son. (Real smart, considering that he'll eventually get power of attorney someday.) Going to Bobby Bolivia's car lot, they went shopping for a used car. Sam spotted a Camaro that he liked, but Ron, ever the cheap man, refused to go over four thousand dollars. However, when all the windows in the car lot suddenly exploded, Bolivia agreed to four thousand. Sam took his buddy Miles to the lake, where they encountered Mikaela and her boyfriend Trent. Trent pretty much told them to get lost, but Mikaela then dumped Trent. Realizing he had his one shot, Sam abandoned Miles and offered to give Mikaela a ride home. When his car had some engine trouble, Mikaela looked under the hood and was quite impressed with the layout of the Camaro's engine, though Sam was more impressed with the layout of Mikaela. After giving her a ride home, Mikaela asked Sam if he thought she was shallow. Sam awkwardly replied that he thought there was "more than meets the eye...with you". After berating himself for his lame pickup line, Sam watched Mikaela wave goodbye from her porch and felt that he had made progress, prompting him to say he loved his car.

Later that night, his car suddenly left. Believing it was being stolen, Sam followed it to an abandoned junkyard. To his shock and horror, the car was alive. Sam left his last words to his parents and Mojo, in which he acknowledged that he owned the Busty Beauties issues that were given to him by his uncle Charles, then investigated. Some police came and arrested him, and an overzealous cop, believing him to be a junkie, called him "50 Cent". Once he returned home, Satan's Camaro arrived, and Sam fled ignominiously on his mother's pink bike. He hit the cement hard in front of Mikaela and soon found a police car. He demanded the officer's help...at which point said police car turned into an even scarier car. After throwing Sam onto a nearby vehicle, the cop car demanded the location of Sam's eBay items, but Sam fled and ran into Mikaela. The Camaro arrived and took them to a power plant, where the two cars fought it out while Sam was chased by a spastic abomination who pantsed him. Mikaela was able to cut off its head, which Sam punted.

Sam and Mikaela approached the Camaro, who could only speak through his radio and offered them a ride. Mikaela was hesitant, but Sam convinced her to get in. While driving, Sam had shotgun, but Mikaela refused to sit in the driver's seat. Sam suggested that she sit in his lap. Safety first, right? She agreed, then admitted to Sam that it was a smooth move on his part. Mikaela then asked if the robot was so advanced, then why did he turn into a piece of crap Camaro? Insulted, the car forced them out. As Sam lamented how four thousand dollars had driven off, the car returned as a 2009 Camaro. It took the teens to an observatory, where they watched as four meteors entered Earth's atmosphere, during which Mikaela instinctively reached out for Sam's hand. They were then escorted to an abandoned alley, where they met the biggest surprises of them all: Four other cars transformed into robots. The lead robot, after inquiring about Sam's identity, introduced himself as Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots, autonomous robotic lifeforms from a planet known as Cybertron. Prime introduced Jazz, his first lieutenant; Ironhide, his weapons expert; and Ratchet, their medical officer (who claimed that Sam's pheromone level indicated that he wanted to mate with Mikaela, embarrassing both teens); and identified the Camaro as Bumblebee, Sam's appointed guardian. Optimus explained their mission to locate the AllSpark, the betrayal of Megatron and the Decepticons, and how Archibald Witwicky's glasses played a vital role in finding the AllSpark. Going to his house, Sam frantically searched for the glasses, but the Autobots were somewhat impatient and totally wrecked his dad's backyard. After he found the glasses, government agents arrived. Their leader, Agent Simmons, took Sam and Mikaela into custody, separating Sam from his parents. Simmons went bad cop on Sam, threatening him with life imprisonment and revealing Mikaela's criminal record. Just as Simmons demanded answers about aliens, Prime intercepted the convoy, and the Autobots totally outclassed the agents. Sam demanded to know what Sector Seven was, but a backup team arrived. Prime took Sam and Mikaela to hide under a bridge, but they nearly fell to their deaths. Bumblebee saved them but was captured, and Sam and Mikaela were recaptured.

They were taken to Hoover Dam, where Simmons tried the awkward role of good cop, but Sam was uninterested in talking. Tom Banachek tried to bribe him, and Sam demanded the freeing of Bumblebee, his parents, and the expunging of Mikaela's criminal record. Taking them into the dam, Sector Seven showed them N.B.E.-1, whom Sam recognized as Megatron. He explained Megatron's goals and the purpose of the AllSpark. However, the spastic abomination that had pantsed him sent a message to the Decepticons, who attacked. Sam implored Sector Seven to release Bumblebee, saying he could help, which Captain Lennox expedited by putting a gun to Simmons's chest. Bumblebee converted the AllSpark to a smaller form, and the soldiers, soon augmented by the Autobots, escorted the two teens and Bumblebee to Mission City.

Upon reaching Mission City, an F-22 Raptor was spotted, which Ironhide recognized as Starscream. Starscream attacked, damaging Bumblebee's legs, and a tank attacked the soldiers. As the Autobots and the soldiers went to deal with the tank, Mikaela arrived with a tow truck to remove Bumblebee from the battle. Megatron soon arrived and killed Jazz, and Lennox ordered Sam to take the AllSpark to a building to be escorted out of the city. Despite Sam's refusal to leave, Bumblebee handed the Cube to him, urging him to go. Sam was pursued by Megatron, Starscream, and a helicopter, with Ratchet and Ironhide providing protection, but they were injured by Starscream, and Sam was forced to leave without them. During his flight, Sam dropped the AllSpark, causing some nearby machines to come to life. Reaching the building, Sam ignited a flare, but his ride was destroyed by Starscream.

Cornered on the roof, Megatron demanded the AllSpark in exchange for living to be his pet, but Sam refused. Megatron used his flail to knock Sam off the roof, but Sam was saved by Optimus Prime. Telling Sam to hold onto the cube, Prime tried to scale down the building, but Megatron knocked them all off. Prime managed to shield Sam from any serious injury, however. Prime expressed admiration for Sam's efforts and told him that if he couldn't defeat Megatron, Sam was to merge the Cube with Optimus's spark, destroying both Prime and the AllSpark. Megatron was indeed too powerful for Optimus to defeat alone, and Prime told Sam to push the cube into the Autobot's chest. Instead, Sam merged the AllSpark with Megatron, killing him. Optimus extended his thanks, telling him he owed Sam a debt of gratitude. Bumblebee, who could now speak, requested permission to stay with Sam, to which Sam eagerly agreed. Sam and Mikaela entered into a relationship and made out on Bumblebee's hood while Ironhide and Ratchet observed.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
About two years later, Sam was packing up his stuff and preparing to leave for college with his parents, insisting that he was not going to be with anyone else but Mikaela, at which point she called to tell him she was breaking up with him. Sam played it cool as he convinced her that they should stay together, having already brought a "long distance relationship kit", and offered to throw in his sweater from the battle two years earlier. A shard of the AllSpark fell out of the sweater and a.) brought numerous kitchen devices to life and b.) imprinted a large collection of ancient Cybertronian knowledge onto his brain. After Bumblebee destroyed the kitchen robots (and parts of the Witwickys' house with them), Sam handed the AllSpark shard to Mikaela. In a wrenching heart-to-heart with Bumblebee, he dismissed him from his role as guardian, saying it was time for Bumblebee to rejoin the other Autobots (and Sam wasn't allowed to have a car at college, anyway). Before he departed he and Mikaela argued over the fact that neither would say they loved each other, and Sam claimed it was all part of an elaborate plan to keep her interested. Arriving at college, Sam met his roommate, Leo Spitz, who operated a conspiracy website and was convinced that alien robots were hiding on Earth. Sam, already fretting that his wacky roommate would discover his connection to the Autobots and attempting to throw him off the truth, was mortified when he realised Judy had unknowingly bought and digested brownies, making her run around the campus and babbling about his private life before Ron took her away.

Going to a frat party on at the same time as his first web chat date with Mikaela, Sam also met his fellow student Alice, who immediately and forcefully attempted to seduce him. When Bumblebee showed up noting they had a problem, Alice invited herself along on a ride with Sam, but Bumblebee did everything he could to convince her to leave. After finally getting rid of her, Bumblebee took Sam to Optimus Prime, who was convinced—for some reason—that Sam was in danger. Even more strangely, Optimus asked Sam to act as a go-between for the Autobots to humanity at large. Sam, wanting to be normal, declined due to his anger that he hadn't even been given one day of normality at college.

Because no good deed goes unpunished, of course, as Sam shortly thereafter began to see strange symbols right in the middle of his first astronomy class. He also developed a nasty eye tic and decided to assert in front of his professor and about three hundred of his colleagues that Einstein was wrong, that the first four dimensions were unfairly in the spotlight, and what about the other thirteen that nobody ever talks about? He began to write out the symbols in support of this theory on a blackboard in front of his class, until he pulled himself together and was ordered out of the class.

After recovering from this outburst, Sam believed it might have something to do with him touching the AllSpark shard, and he contacted his bitter-for-standing-him-up girlfriend to warn her not to touch the shard. Mikaela promptly boarded a plane to see Sam, but when she arrived, she found him in what appeared to be an intimate moment with Alice, who had come in with Leo as Sam was drawing more Cybertronian symbols all over the walls. Fortunately for Sam's relationship, Alice turned out to be a killer alien robot who tried to strangle him with her tongue. Sam, Mikaela and Leo, who stumbled across Alice's robotic self by accident, tried to escape but were captured by a Decepticon helicopter who took them to an abandoned foundry where Starscream and a resurrected Megatron waited.

After Sam's failure at relating to the thirty-foot-tall robot, Megatron ordered a small, glasses-wearing robot called The Doctor and his assistants to remove Sam's brain in order to access the information from the AllSpark shard. Sam pleaded for the chance to talk things through, just as Optimus Prime and Bumblebee arrived and attacked the Decepticons, freeing Sam, Mikaela and Leo. Fleeing with the Autobot leader through a forest, Sam was caught up in Optimus's attempt to fight off Megatron, Starscream and Grindor all by himself. After killing Grindor, Optimus was impaled by Megatron and died, his last words being for Sam to run. Just then, the other Autobots arrived, causing Megatron and Starscream to retreat. Sam was safe, for the moment at least, and upset that he had been responsible to Optimus Prime's death.

In a hijacked TV broadcast, The Fallen revealed his existence to the global public and demanded Sam to be surrendered to him. Decepticons landed around the globe, killing several thousand people. In Paris, one of them tracked down Sam's parents and captured them, and a manhunt led by the FBI and CIA began for Sam. Sam hid out with Mikaela, Leo, Bumblebee and the Autobot twins, Skids and Mudflap in an old prison, and was frustrated by Leo's panicking. Sam contemplated turning himself in, blaming himself for all the casualties, but Mikaela and Bumblebee knew the Decepticons wouldn't just leave Earth alone if that happened. Sam then decided they should try and find out what the symbols he had been seeing meant, but neither Bumblebee or the twins could read the ancient dialect, and Leo suggested they ask his rival, "Robo-Warrior", owner of a competing website, for help. To everyone's surprise, Robo-Warrior turned out to be none other than Seymour Simmons, former agent of Sector Seven, who still held a small grudge against Sam until he mentioned the Cybertronian symbols. Simmons revealed that symbols similar to those Sam was obsessed with had been found on numerous excavation sites around the world, but in order to read them, they might need a Decepticon. Mikaela just happened to be carrying around a Decepticon, who when interrogated suggested they track down one of the Seekers, a species of Transformer that had been present on Earth for much of its history.

At the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Sam used the last remaining AllSpark shard to reactivate an old Decepticon named Jetfire, disguised as an SR-71 Blackbird. Jetfire claimed to have defected to the Autobots and upon Sam showing him the symbols and mentioning The Fallen's name, Jetfire opened a space bridge and teleported the entire group to Egypt, injuring Sam's hand in the process. Jetfire proceeded to tell them about The Fallen, who betrayed his brothers, the Primes, many millennia ago. The Fallen intended to destroy the Earth's sun in order to create energon, the Transformers' source of energy, and the symbols in Sam's head were a map to the location of the Star Harvester, the weapon intended to use to destroy the sun. Jetfire also revealed that only a Prime could stop The Fallen, and a key was needed to activate the harvester: the Matrix of Leadership. Sam asked Jetfire whether the Matrix would also revive Optimus Prime, to which Jetfire responded that it might be possible, given the unusual radiation that the Matrix generated. Setting off with Jetfire's translation of the symbols, "When dawn alights the Dagger's Tip, Three Kings shall reveal the doorway", Sam planned to have Simmons call Lennox and have him transport Optimus's body to Egypt. After a stopover for the night between the Pyramids of Giza, during which Sam totally failed at declaring his love for Mikaela, he realised that the Three Kings were in fact the star constellations above the Pyramids, which pointed to Jordan. In the Petra mountains, the group discovered the tomb of the Primes, uncovered during a fight between Skids and Mudflap. Inside, Sam found the Matrix, which crumbled to dust when he touched it. Sam collected the dust regardless, and together they traveled back to Egypt. Meanwhile, the NEST team parachuted down and prepared for battle near the pyramids, having realised the Decepticons were on their way. Before Sam and the others could get back to Lennox and his people, the Decepticons commenced their assault and Starscream attacked, so while the others created a diversion, Sam and Mikaela cut through an Egyptian village. After killing a searching Insecticon, they fled from Starscream and Scrapper, running straight into a trap the Constructicon Rampage had set up using his parents. Sam stalled for time by offering to hand over the Matrix dust, 'til he was rescued by Bumblebee. Sam ordered Bumblebee to get his parents to safety while he and Mikaela continued on.

Sam and Mikaela almost joined a search group led by Ironhide and Arcee, but they were attacked and forced to head on by themselves. Arriving at the site of the main battle, they were saved by Lennox, Epps and Jetfire, but Sam was mortally wounded by a blast fired by Megatron as he made his way to Optimus's body. While paramedics tried to reanimate him, the Matrix dust was spilled across his hand, and Sam encountered the dead Primes in a vision. The Primes told him that he was destined to find the Matrix and save the life of the last Prime. Sam returned to life, and the dust in his hand reassembled itself into the Matrix. Sam took the opportunity to tell Mikaela that he loved her. With the Matrix, Sam was able to revive Optimus Prime, who ultimately was able to defeat the Fallen.

With the battle won, the Autobots, NEST, Sam and his friends returned to the USA on board an aircraft carrier, where Sam and Optimus Prime checked out the view from the back. Optimus thanked Sam for saving his life, and Sam in turn thanked him for believing in him. Upon his return, Sam continued to attend college.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon
Sometime after Operation: Firestorm and following being dumped by Mikaela, Sam was awarded a medal for his heroism by Barack Obama. While at the White House, he met Carly Spencer. He later went on to move in with his new girlfriend in Washington, D.C.. They took in the small Autobots Wheelie and Brains as "pets" (and Mikaela's dog for some reason) while Bumblebee also continued to live with Sam, but he would frequently leave to continue his work with NEST, leading Sam to buy a Bumblebee-like car (described by his mother as a 'sad piece of shit') to fill in for his friend.

Receiving a stuffed rabbit from Carly as a good luck charm as he prepared to set out to find a new job, Sam took a moment to complain about the government not allowing him to work with the Autobots, having to borrow money from Carly to pay for things, and the fact that his parents were coming to visit in a week's time. As Carly left for work, Sam reminded the small Autobots of their place and left to begin job-hunting. But his parents had arrived early, and Sam made it clear he had job interviews, and he had to get a ride from them, since his car refused to start. After a series of failed interviews, Sam arrived at a telecommunication company named Accuretta Systems, where his apparently failing attempt to win over Bruce Brazos succeeded, and he was given a position as a mail carrier. Sam then visited Carly at Hotchkiss Gould Investments with the news. He then met Carly's boss, Dylan Gould, who seemed all too close to his girlfriend, but Sam denied any jealousy. Before they could go, Dylan revealed that he was on the board for Accuretta Systems and had provided a letter of recommendation for him, to Sam's confusion.

Almost as soon as he started work, Sam found his job to be boring and unfulfilling. Receiving a quick visit from Carly, during which she apparently helped boost Bruce's opinion of Sam, he was dismayed to learn Dylan had loaned her a Mercedes SLS AMG. Later, one of Sam's co-workers, Jerry Wang, confronted Sam and held him down in a toilet stall. There Jerry told the freaked-out Sam that the Autobots were in danger and the Decepticons were killing humans. After giving Sam his manifesto, Jerry left and Bruce noticed that the two had been struggling in the stall together, creating some. . . awkward moments afterwards. Sam went through Jerry's notes, which contained information regarding the dark side of the Moon. He was confused as to what it meant and went to Jerry's office to ask some questions, but Jerry acted strangely, pretending it had never happened and demanded he leave. Almost immediately after, Jerry fell out of the window to his death, and Bruce told Sam that he didn't care about what had happened earlier, however a condor-like Decepticon suddenly attacked Sam, amd he barely managed to get out of the office.

Sam decided to head to the NEST base with Carly, but the guards refused to let him in and pretended he was in the wrong place. After arguing with the guards, Sam radioed for Bumblebee as they restrained him, and Bumblebee arrived and warned them off. Before they went in, Sam told Bumblebee that he was disappointed that they never saw each other any more. He told Lennox about Jerry's death and his notes of the Moon. Incidentally, NEST and the Autobots had discovered the crashed Autobot ship the Ark, which had been the driving force of the American-Russian space race in the '60s, on the Moon. Not only that, they had recently returned from it with the deactivated Sentinel Prime and five pillars that helped form a space bridge. National Intelligence Director Charlotte Mearing was not happy with Sam's presence, and after witnessing Optimus reactivate Sentinel with the Matrix of Leadership, she warned Sam that while she was pleased with the information he had brought, he was nothing but a messenger and that his help wasn't necessary. Upon arriving back at home with Bumblebee, Sam decided he wasn't going to let the matter go and called Simmons and his assistant Dutch for help. The group went through piles of information and came to the conclusion that humans were working with the Decepticons and had been doing so since the space race. When Carly got back, she wasn't happy with Sam, reminding him they were going to Dylan's and believed that he wanted to put himself in danger. She asked Sam to let the situation go, but he refused, and she left. After tracking down a pair of Russian cosmonauts, the group learned that there were once hundreds of pillars, but the Decepticons had stolen them before anyone had reached the Ark. Realising that the Decepticons had left behind Sentinel, the only one who could control the pillars, so that the Autobots could revive him, Sam called Mearing to warn her.

Aided by Bumblebee, Sideswipe and Dino, they began escorting Sentinel back to the NEST base. En route, they were attacked by the Dreads, and during the ensuing chase, Bumblebee was forced transform over a crashing truck, tossing Sam out above him and catching again as he reverted to vehicle mode. But when they arrived back at base, Sentinel revealed that he had made a deal with Megatron to restore Cybertron, then killed Ironhide, wrecked the NEST base and stole his pillars before leaving.

Sam rushed back home to find Carly before remembering she was at Dylan's. He went to his parents to tell them about their argument, and after an embarrassing conversation in which Judy and Ron expressed their opinions of Sam's love life, he realized how much he loved Carly and warned his parents to leave the city. Arriving at Dylan's mansion, he convinced Carly to allow them the chance to talk by being rude to Dylan. However Dylan revealed that his father was once one of the Decepticons' allies. Sam and Carly tried to flee in the loaned Mercedes, only for it to reveal itself as Soundwave, who held Carly hostage. Dylan demanded that Sam find out the Autobots' plan to fight back against the hundreds of the Decepticons brought to Earth by the space bridge, forcing him to wear a Watch-bot so that he couldn't warn them. Before he left, Sam promised that he would kill Dylan for threatening Carly. He was taken to Mearing by NEST agents, and after she apologized for not believing him, learned that Sentinel had forced the government into exiling the Autobots. Sam was taken to the Autobots' ship, the Xantium, where a group of Autobots called the Wreckers were preparing the ship for launch. Sam pleaded for Optimus to ignore the government's demand for exile and asked what their plan was, but Optimus said they had none. After he and Bumblebee bade him farewell, Sam watched as the Xantium took off and called Dylan to let him know they were gone, only to learn that the Decepticons had never intended to let the Autobots leave. Sam could only watch as the ship was then destroyed.

He decided that he would find Dylan and save Carly, and with Simmons and Dutch's help he tracked Dylan's location to Chicago. Epps decided to help Sam and gathered a group of soldiers to accompany them. But en route, the Decepticons invaded Chicago, and the group arrived on the devastated city outskirts. While the soldiers were reluctant to go in, Sam was determined, even though Epps tried to convince him they didn't stand a chance. They were then attacked by a Decepticon fighter, which was brought down by Optimus Prime and the Wreckers. As the rest of the Autobots arrived, they revealed that they had known the Decepticons would never let them go or leave Earth alone and so had hid in a booster rocket that disengaged before the ship was destroyed. With Bumblebee piloting the fighter, Sam infiltrated Dylan's building but was again attacked by Laserbeak, who dropped him over the side. Luckily, Bumblebee caught him, and after Carly jumped onto the fighter, Sam held Laserbeak in place as Bumblebee blasted the 'Con's head off. Once the fighter crash-landed, they awaited the arrival of the rest of the Autobots. After Carly explained the Decepticons' scheme to bring Cybertron into Earth's solar system to NEST via a downed UAV drone optic, Epps came up with a plan to destroy the control pillar with a rocket shot from a high building. Before Sam and the other humans left, Que handed out grappling hooks and boomsticks.

Sam and the others made it into a tall building, but before the rocket could be launched, Decepticon fighters began firing at the skyscraper, causing it to tilt, and a Decepticon protoform came in looking for them. Escaping by jumping out of the window and sliding down to a lower floor, the group's presence was discovered by Shockwave, who sent his Driller to finish the building. After their tower slammed into another, Sam and the others escaped while Optimus arrived and killed the Driller. They began rushing toward the building with the pillars, which had started to activate, but Sam and Carly were separated from Epps and his men. They were found by Starscream, who relished the opportunity to be alone with Sam and started toying around with him. Sam fired the grappling hook into one of Starscream's eyes, and as Starscream thrashed in panic, Sam was flung around and eventually crashed through a window. While he had the opportunity, he armed one of the boomsticks Que had given him, hoping that it had 'better work.' Taking advantage of the arrival of Lennox's team, Sam jumped onto Starscream's head and lodged the armed boomstick into his other eye. He was again flung around while Lennox tried to free him. Starscream flew to the top of a building, and as his head exploded, Bumblebee arrived to catch the falling pair.

They met up with Epps's team and large force of soldiers, but Sam and Carly snuck across the river to find Bumblebee, Dino, Sideswipe, Que and Ratchet captured by Soundwave's forces. As the 'Cons began executing their prisoners, starting with Que, Sam desperately tried to prepare another boomstick to save Bumblebee when his turn came, but it malfunctioned, forcing Sam to watch in horror and despair as his friend was about to be executed before his eyes. Luckily, Bumblebee was saved when Wheelie and Brains took control of a Decepticon ship and caused a distraction that allowed Bumblebee to kill Soundwave. Sam and Carly ended up in the middle of the battlefield, and Sam called to Optimus to warn him about the pillars, and Optimus managed to stall the process by firing at the control pillar. Sam insisted on helping and assured Carly she would be all right, then began rushing to the pillar, which Dylan was trying to reactivate. Sam tried to stop him but failed, and Dylan kicked him off the collapsed structure. Sam refused to give up, however. When Dylan said Sam wasn't a hero, Sam agreed, stating he was just the messenger...then knocked Dylan into the active pillar, killing him. Bumblebee and Ratchet arrived and destroyed the pillar, causing the partially formed Cybertron to collapse in on itself.

After Optimus had killed Sentinel Prime and Megatron, Sam arrived with the others and hugged Carly in relief. Sam apologized for putting himself in danger and said she was all he needed and he would do anything to make it up to her. She forgave him, and Bumblebee took the opportunity to pass out rings, though Sam interpreted this as needing to "slow way down". Sam then joined the Autobots and soldiers as they stood as heroes for rescuing the world from utter destruction -- perhaps finally with due credit.