The thought just occurred to me, Frank is a MASTER of voices and characters, Hugo is a good actor and right now a pretty big name.

Could they not have just had Frank do a different voice?

I think they just went for the celeb name. Which sounds kinda dumb since I don't think the rest of them were big names at all were they?

Ok bye.

who knows, maybe frank will do a reprise as back from the dead megs in the sequal





i got nothin

They distorted Megatron's voice so much it could have been Bea Arthur and no one would have known.

I am prone to disagree with that, he sounded a lot like smith and V (moreso V)

if you were a sci-fi nerd and didnt know that was hugo, you still had a good chance of guessing it

"We cast Frank, but not doing the voice you wanted him to do."

Would that have created less fanboy rage, or more? Sure, in hindsight you're saying, "Well, at least he'd have been part of the production," but I think that idea would've met with just as much, if not more, dissent than going with another actor entirely.


I actually think it makes a lot of sense, not that the audience cared, but I can easily imagine this discussion:

Studio: "You want to cast the guy who did the voice in the cheesy cartoon 20 years ago as Prime? No way."
Filmmakers: "What if we counter that by casting a 'legitimate' actor in the main villain role?"
Studio: "Okay."


See ya.

I think he sounded more like the Dark Overlord of the Universe in Howard the Duck. (I haven't seen V)

I think Weaving's Megatron sounded evil and deadly.

I think Welker's Movie Megatron voice sounded like an old muppets character.

That's why they didn't cast him.

Okay bye.

And let's not forget that atrocious post-movie Galvatron voice that Welker gave us. *shudder*

Yeah, casting Frank Welker, but not letting him do the G1 Megs voice would have pissed off the fandom more then just casting a different actor all together. IIRC Bay even said he wouldn't have felt right casting Welker and then forcing him to change his "classic Megs" voice.

Besides, Hugo Weaving rocks. His Megatron actually did a good job of capturing the best qualities of Welkers' Megs voice, while also giving it a very threatening tone. It fit the character perfectly, IMO.
As for distorting his voice, I'm not sure. I'm sure they did so to an extent, as they probably did for all the TF voices, but I'm not sure it was as distorted as people think it was. Prior to his big break as Agent Smith Weaving was an accomplished voice actor. So that has to be taken into consideration. IMO I could tell it was Weaving's voice (sounded a little V-like), so I'm not sure it was as processed as we all think.

P-C, BTW, see V now. Kick ass movie.

Agreed. It wasn't that distorted. If you watch the extras on the DVD, when they A/B Weaving's voice from finished film to recording session, there is little difference between it - they only enhanced the low end and gave it a slight mechanical sound. They did the same thing to Cullen's voice.

So yeah, anyone who complains about Weavings voice being distorted must also say the same about Cullen's

I have no problem with casting Weaving. I just wish I could tell it was him. I know they distorted Cullen too. But I could still hear Cullen just fine. I felt like all I could hear from Megs was distortion.

well i got the best of both, with welker doing the animated voice and hugo doing the movie, im happy all around. now who's to say they dont keep welker around for SOUNDWAVE, in the next movie. personaly that would be the icing on the cake if he did that instead of megs. i really dont see anyone else doing it with the reverb effect, remember they tried that with soundwave in cybertron, it just sounded like they where tring to hard to get the G1 effect.

That is what I was going to say.

The behind the scenes bit with Weaving was really surprising.

He actually pulled of that voice without a whole lot of enhancement. So did Cullen.

If anything the voice enhancement/distortion was nowhere near as prominent as it was in th A/E/C voice overs with Chalk and Kay.

Anyway I really liked Weaving as Megatron.

A nice change from always hearing either Welker or Kay do Megatron.

I really like the post-movie Galvatron voice. It sounded nothing like Nimoy, but it was psychotic, just like the character. I'd even go so far as to say Welker's performance as Galvatron was more memorable than his performance as Megatron.

Welker's Galvatron sounded like an angry retard, just like post-movie cartoon Galvatron. Just another of many reasons why G1 comic Galvatron > G1 cartoon Galvatron.

'tard monkey--><--God

And quite frankly ANYONE can do Soundwave as that voice was the most digitised of all. Occasionally you hear Welker's Soundwave voice undigitised and it sounds nothing like the digitised Soundwave voice. Welker actually uses a growling voice when he does Soundwave. This was first heard in "Roll For It" when Soundwave talks to Ravage just after abducting Chip Chase.

Frank is so cool.He makes us terrible even more so than Hugo. I could understand why Starscream was so scared of him.

Its just Welker's Doctor Claw voice (from Inspector Gadget) digitized.

Ah, but did comic Galvatron sound like tard monkey Galvatron?

Nope! That's the beauty of comic books, no crappy voices! (no good ones either, it all depends on how you visualise it)

I saw the Weaving bit in the DVD features and thought "Wow. They hardly left any of his voice." A voice I might add I think was Better then a Welker Megs would have been.


Now Welker is a voice GOD, but that doesn't mean he is the best Megs there could be. Welker's megs was a very different character than Movie or BW.

But I think for old school G1 Megs Welker will always be the true voice.

Movie is not G1.

Hugo Weaving's voice is a great all time villian voice. I wish they had kept more of its true sound.

It's not the electronic distortion that kills it. It's the addition of Bass. Which I can not imagine why they thought they needed.

although Welker will always be Megatron to me, i could not stand the way his voice sounded in the games. Sounds like he had a soar throat while voicing it. Weaving did a great job, as good and maybe better than Welker considering how he sounded for the movie games. Maybe Welker can't do the Megatron voice the way it sounded back in the eighties. Maybe too much Curious George?

Joe Pesci as Galvatron it is!

I have finally seen the movie now (waited to get it on DVD) I have to admit Weaving was superb as Megatron (and I thought he ruled as V) and Cullen as Prime just made it extra special. Having seen it and watched all the extras I can understand why Michael Bay took the decisions he did. It took the movie to show me that I was wrong in wanting things similar to the way they were in G1. This is 2007 and this is a full blown "real" movie. Weaving being cast as Megatron was a masterstroke. Transformers didn't live up to my expectations - It blew them to Cybertron.

There were several times during the movie that I felt like a child in the 1980's again;

I got goosebumps when Starscream appeared! (Even though it was subtitled "This is Starscream - Decepticons mobilise"

And when Prime and Megatron met at the end "One shall Stand .... One shall fall" and "It's just you and me Megatron .... No! It's Just me!" I was taken back to watching G1.

So I say this, Sorry to Michael Bay and thank you for delivering the best movie I've ever seen..... Now go do it again!

I saw the movie two weeks before it came out at the box office as a sneak preview, it just blew me away when Megatron breaks out of the ice and then says, "I am Megatron" and then again when he goes "Then you can join them in extinction." Hugo was great hands down. It sent chills up my spine.

Hugo Weaving FTW! he did a better job of putting the ego in Megatron, even better then Kaye ever did.

Sorry but Weaving rules all!

I thought Weaving did a fantastic job. Seeing the movie I have a hard time imagining Frank's Megatron being any better.

Just play the TF game sometime. Welker's wheezy old man voice is ...not impressive.

Just like the actions scenes editing can kill or make it.
Prime was great but too much was done with the voice.
And the example they used in the DVD to justify not using Frank was a sample form the cartoon and not even dialed in.
Lets not forget when Orson did the movie they had to do a lot of tweaking cause of his health and Unicron was and is the Biggest baddie.

If they would work with Frank am sure they could get the correct sound we all would love.
As for the game who knows how much time they even spent on the voice actors. They don't even record cartoon session like they use to. All the actors where in the room together and could act and play off each other. Now its via sat and each is recorded alone.

Maybe a fan edit of the movie is what it will take ..

Nope. That goal is impossible. Best to give up on it now, hk.

I'm not saying either one would really be better than the other. I'm pretty indifferent to the whole thing...

BUT

The special features where they "proved" Welker's voice wouldn't work in live-action was ROFL to the max. They just took a random line from a random episode, with no context, and dubbed it over a scene in the movie with no lip sync, and they were like "See? It doesn't work!" Yeah, no sh*t Sherlock. You'd get the same net effect by dubbing over any of Cullen's old lines too, and he pretty much made the movie.

Sorry, no. Hugo Weaving was perfect as Movie Megatron. Welker's G1 voice, even if he could still do it, wouldn't have worked. Besides, I doubt he can still do the G1 Megs voice anyway.

I reckon Weaving's Megatron voice is still better for than Welker's, even without electronic modification.