You learn something new every day.
All right, so… Peter Cullen has been confirmed to be the voice of Optimus Prime in the upcoming Transformers movie. For those not familiar with the name, he was the one who voiced Optimus in the original cartoon series. This is, of course, a pretty good sign. I’m not one of those who is against the movie because it’s made changes from the original series, mind you; every iteration of Transformers has made changes to the continuity and/or characters since the original “Generation 1” series. Still, this might be an indication that Michael Bay respects the franchise.
Of course, now the attention is likely going to be focused on whoever will voice Megatron. Most people I come across are hoping Frank Welker returns as Megatron. Welker voiced Megatron in the original series. However, I’m likely one of those rare people who also like the voice of the person who had been voicing Megatron in the recent Transformers series. I did some looking, and found that from Beast Wars until Cybertron, Megatron had been voiced by David Kaye. So, I have no objection to him getting the part. What surprised me, however, was who voiced Optimus. Apparently, from Beast Wars to Cybertron, Optimus Prime/Primal had been voiced by Garry Chalk. Those of you who like Stargate SG-1 would know him as the actor who plays Colonel Chekov. Small world, I swear…
As I said before, I’m not one of those who’re getting pissed about some of the changes they’ve been making in the movie. For example, a lot of people are annoyed that Bumblebee is a Camaro instead of a VW Beetle. Uh, news flash: Volkswagen refused permission to have their cars used in the movie. Also, people are annoyed that Megatron doesn’t transform into a gun, and instead transforms into some kind of alien jet. Again, news flash: Megatron hasn’t been a gun since G1. Most versions of Megatron have him transforming into either a tank or an alien fighter/gunship. :-) The movie looks like it’ll be fun, despite what some people are worried about; hell, one of my favorite little fun details has to be on the vehicle mode of the Decepticon Brawl. He turns into a black Mustang police car; however, the “city seal” has the Decepticon logo over it, and instead of saying “To protect and serve” it says “To punish and enslave”. :-)
Ah, well… the movie won’t be out for another year. We’ll see how good (or bad) it is then.