I watched Transformers: Dark of the Moon again recently. The options were pretty clear. Getting the pillars was the step of Signpost 2 and protecting Sentinel Prime was the step of Signpost 3. However, it turns out Sentinel has actually been acting for the Decepticons. He turns against our Autobot protagonists as Megatron hoped. Then, with all the pillars and Sentinel Prime to help, the antagonists start their plan for transporting Cybertron to Earth in Signpost 4, which I take to be the crisis. It seems happy when the Autobots win in the end, but this seems a failure story if you think of the options as prerequisites or requirements in pursuit of the goal. It's the same conundrum as in Michael Clayton or Ghostbusters.

That brings up my question. Would these have been Prerequisites and transporting Cybertron to Earth have been the actual Requirement at the end of the story to accomplish a goal? The goal would've been the purpose of transporting Cybertron.

Since my guess is that the goal has something to do with STOPPING the invasion, I think it would qualify as a SUCCESS story. I don't see the Decepticons as being protagonists. IMO, this is one of those negative goals where the goal is to prevent something from happening instead of trying to achieve something.

It's a bit different from Michael Clayton in that the subjective characters where on UNorth's team (employment-wise), so the goal was related to what UNorth was attempting to achieve. This is different than the human forces battling the Decepticons.