thank god. no one else can voice prime right other than cullen.. it's like hagar in van halen.

 

Or Brian Johnson in AC/DC (Bon Scott will always be AC/DC to me)

Chalk to me cant act in toons, he just sounds like he is reading a script aloud. Cullen sounds like he is giving the charachtor the emotions and the wisdom.

 

 

But the problem with those emotions and wisdom, is that there is a time when he should turn that off...go back and watch where Prime talks to Sam about when "Destiny calls upon us a the time...." Then go back to the 1st movie when he is telling Sam that he needs to find the glasses....Two different times(and different movies) Pete is using the same Wisdom/Noble tone even when he talks about finding lost Glasses...and it's the same when he talks about BB getting captured.

 

I think he only sounds somewhat real(and I know he isn't a real person) is during the forest fight scene...

In the first movie he sounds like a battle scarred warrior, hell he sounds almost relieved to be fighting his brother once more. In the second he is more relieved that the threat of Megatron and those fanatical enough to be searching him out are no longer a threat. He sounds like being amongst a full unit even of humans some order has came back to a chaotic life.

 

Kinda like Giant Badass therapy.

 

 

OK I'll give em that...during the conversation between OP and the Miltary personel video satelitte, he did sound like a more familiar OP.

Rod, I think you're missing something. When Cullen first created the "Optimus Prime" voice for the original G1 cartoon. He was specifically channelling his older brother, who was a Marine officer. He also patterned it after the late, great, John Wayne. The whole point was to create a very authoritative, commanding, yet wise and compassionate voice for the character. His age has only added to that for the movie. Gary Chalk's rendition is a pale imitation of that. It has some of the wisdom, but it lacks the authority. Peter Cullen is the definitive Optimus Prime to whom all others are compared to.

^ here's the thing, when the 07 movie was being worked on he told that story and the one where he and Frank first read the movie script 8000 times.

They seemed like the only 2 stories he had.

 

Now I'm not gonna say someone in PR wrote it for him to use in interviews.

 

I am gonna say this though, if you go through alot of 80's cartoons that he worked on, your gonna hear that exact same voice

Exact same voice being spoken into a coffee can.

 

So while I'm not putting down Pete, I am not really willing to give him that much artistic credit. After all, in nearly every interview he did before the movie, he was very common place to mention that scrits where just put in front of him. One day he'd be a robot, the next he'd be a cat, and everything kinda merged.

 

Chalk on the otherhand, especialy when it came to the Beast Era describes it as a preformance that he put himself into as apose to AEC where it was just translated lines.

In terms of Chalks lack of authoritative manner, well realisticly he wasn't that type of character. Primal was a researcher, a scientist. Chalk pulled that off great and made those moments when his Optimus athoritative stand out more cause you could tell it was a stretch for the character, not his normal attitude.

 

To me, Cullen read a script, Chalk was voice acting.

Correct me if I am wrong but didn't Mr.Cullen refuse to do beast wars because he wanted more money???

I never heard that, but it could be.

As far as I know going into Beast Wars the staffers had little to no experience with the origional series, and had no intent on making it another sequil.

They got the nudge to make it one though after the response from the Starscream Ghost episode.

With all that in mind I doubt they tried for Cullen as they also said they were pretty sure they wouldn't make it past 1 season. They also brought over alot of voice talent from ReBoot.

Here's the thing: we love Cullen as Prime but he is not one of the great voice actors in so far as range goes. He really only has two voices: Optimus Prime and Eeyore. And in one of the more recent Winnie The Pooh Cartoons I happened to see, (the computer animated one on Disney Channel with the little girl instead of Christopher Robin,) even his Eeyore was starting to sound kind of Prime-y, which was just kind of weird.

 

But personally I will never, ever begrudge him for playing Prime. I'm happy that the movies have atleast given us one more extended stint of him playing the character, but it would be nice to hear him reclaim some of his more youthful range. You know, the prime on sherman dam trash talking Megatron and calling him old. They tried to do some of that in Revenge, but it sounded more hateful, rather than fun as it was in the original toon.

^ here's the thing, when the 07 movie was being worked on he told that story and the one where he and Frank first read the movie script 8000 times.

They seemed like the only 2 stories he had.

 

Now I'm not gonna say someone in PR wrote it for him to use in interviews.

 

I am gonna say this though, if you go through alot of 80's cartoons that he worked on, your gonna hear that exact same voice

Exact same voice being spoken into a coffee can.

 

So while I'm not putting down Pete, I am not really willing to give him that much artistic credit. After all, in nearly every interview he did before the movie, he was very common place to mention that scrits where just put in front of him. One day he'd be a robot, the next he'd be a cat, and everything kinda merged.

 

Chalk on the otherhand, especialy when it came to the Beast Era describes it as a preformance that he put himself into as apose to AEC where it was just translated lines.

In terms of Chalks lack of authoritative manner, well realisticly he wasn't that type of character. Primal was a researcher, a scientist. Chalk pulled that off great and made those moments when his Optimus athoritative stand out more cause you could tell it was a stretch for the character, not his normal attitude.

 

To me, Cullen read a script, Chalk was voice acting.

He definitely has more than just two voices. Remember, he also did G1 Ironhide, and it was a distinctly different voice than Optimus. He also did Venger (from Dungeons and Dragons, King Alfor, Candor, and Commander Hawkins in Voltron, KARR from Knightrider, Zandor from GI Joe, and a significant number of other voices, all of them different: Peter Cullen Yes, they all tend to be deeper voices, but they are all different.

but alot are the same, even in the line up you just mentioned voices over lap.

 

I don't think any voice actor is above that.

 

Still, in interviews before 07 all he use to say was it was a busy time and he was just reading lines.

He even went on to say that he forgot all about Optimus Prime till he was invited to a convention.

 

I don't want to denounce the guy. The simple fact is though, he wasn't trying to cultivate a character that would withstand the test of time. He was just doing a job reading lines, and as it turned out, these just happened to be the lines and character that stuck.

 

I like Peter, but honestly think if he wasn't the first Optimus Prime, he'd be sitting with Neil Kaplan right now.

 

That in itself says something about Chalk and Kaye. after the RID interlude, they were called right back!

 

I give Frank and Peter alot of credid for their work, again they were the first, but Dave and Gary really deserve just as much credit for the time and talent they put in as well.

God bless that man a LONG life please....