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Peter Cullen Chosen to Voice Optimus Prime (Again)
bigdady92 writes "Yesterday at Comic-Con it was announced that the new voice for Transformers the Movie was to be Peter Cullen who will voice Optimus Prime, the leader of the Autobots. Peter Cullen was the voice of the original Optimus Prime. The lending of his voice to the cast in a quick 'intro' at Comic-con was greeted by unanimous cheer from the crowd. Many fans, internet boards, blogs were calling for the return of Cullen to voice his most famous and well-loved character Optimus Prime."
I'm not a kid anymore.
A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
uly 22, 2006 - During Paramount's presentation on Friday at Comic-Con International in San Diego, the studio made an official announcement regarding their live-action feature film version of Transformers.
While the announcement, which was preceded by a taped greeting from director Michael Bay, wasn't as momentous as the much expected first look at the giant robots in action, it was almost as eagerely anticipated by the fans.
A vocal "greeting" by Optimus Prime himself announced that voice actor Peter Cullen, who played the character in the popular 1980s cartoon TV series, will voice Optimus Prime in nest summer's big -budget movie version.
The announcement was met with rousing applause from Comic-Con attendees. The fans have long desired that Cullen reprise the role he'd made famous on TV.
Will Lion reunite one more time for this project? otherwise this film would be a waste of time.
Awesome. They couldn't have picked a better voice actor.
I heard it was going to be Jackie Mason.
tidokoro
what turns a man's karma neutral? lust for gold? power? or just a heart born full of neutrality?
What a waste of time that show was (on G4). The only thing we got out of it about Transformers is that Optimus Prime is 32' tall and that Peter Cullen is doing the voice. That, and there won't be any actual CGI of them until January or so. Basically it means its going to be a while until we get a real trailer like we were lead to believe they'd be showing.
"On a scale from 1 to 10, people are stupid"
"was to be"
surely they mean "is going to be" ?
If bigdady92 submitted a paragraph enclosed by quotes, then the editors have little choice. If they remove the quotes then they cannot claim that this is what bigdady92 wrote anymore.
Any sequence of ascii characters is allowed in the submission box. Get used to it.
Part of the goal in the movie is to regain nostalgia of when we were kids, no doubly it will be different in a lot of aspects. Just having The Voice of Optimus Prime make us feel at home. His voice was perfect of Optimus Prime, Was a Good Guys Voice but with authority, Other voices could make him seem Either to Pansy and Mean and heartless.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I recall reading recently that entertainment "news" is very popular with newspapers and TV stations because they don't have to have a reporter do any leg-work or research, just get a clip or parrot a quote from the celeb's agent.
These days, thanks to newspaper/radio/tv mergers, all the big wigs care about is profit margin. Entertainment "news" like "Britney marries again!" can be made to fill the same amount of time as a story about (gasp) some bill before the House of Representatives that takes a reporter, camera crew and van travelling to the statehouse, fact checking, interviewing a couple representatives etc. Guess which is cheaper, by far?
Please help metamoderate.
I don't get it. What's so special about transformers? I remember as kid it just another gimmicky, poorly animated cartoon show designed to market little robot cars and other toys. There was certainly nothing memorable the show that would create a fan following, I don't think. Maybe I'm missing something.
What about the slashdotters that are not american, you insensitve clod!?
We'll probably enjoy much more watching it dubbed by the same guy who dubbed the animated series!
something like:
"Sayonara, Optimus Roboto-sam! "
"Hasta luego, Señor Optimus Roboto!"
"Auf wiedersehn, Herr Optimus Roboter"
What is best in life? To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you and to hear the lamentations of their women.
Yup.
So, do you have anything else to say, or does it simply make you feel better to call other people dorks for liking things you don't?
I just browsed to Slashdot, pressed "Read More", pressed "Reply" and wrote this text....
I'm the lowest being on earth...
Quick... back to Youtube where time is well spend..
Sure they can. I submitted and article a couple of days ago that was accepted and the editor almost rewrote the whole submission, yet it still said I wrote it.
What can I say? How can you go wrong with this decision?
Just because you're not a kid anymore doesn't mean you shouldn't have fun either.
At this point and time, I'm only worried about three things in any transformers movie remake:
1) It has a good and entertaining plot
2) It has stunning artistic quality in the visual effects
3) That peter cullen is optimus prime
You can argue til your blue in the face as to what the characters look like and the technology bullshit of disappearing parts or even including the dinobots. The appeal of the Transformers has always been about the characters. They weren't just cute toys, or an afternoon cartoon. The brilliance has always been about the characters. Who they were, what they did, as well as what they transformed into. It was the total package.
The total package includes Peter's voice. It's unmistakable, unduplicatable, and undeniably the best!
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
There's a particular view where certain interests and behaviors are associated with childhood and certain interests and behaviours are associated with adulthood, and if you're a good child you follow those, and when you become an adult you continue to behave in the way society tells you to.
Then there are people who grow up, which among other things means leaning to think for yourself, decide for yourself, and be responsible for your own decisions and their consequences.
For people who've grown up, whether to be excited about this or not is a matter of personal preference, but for those who haven't really grown up yet, the fact that they're an adult and not a kid anymore is relevant to this. To the latter group, the comment "I'm not a kid anymore" is a valid explanation for why they would not be interested in this. If and when they ever do grow up, they'll refrain from making those kinds of comments about things that simply don't interest them for whatever reason.
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
I am an adult to. I am getting Married Have my own how,
You and Aslan both.
Set Photos here
Notice how lame Optimus Prime looks with those flames.
Nice Jubblies though in the last pic.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
Granted; a lot (if not most) movies were made after some author wrote a book which was picked up by a director who eventually made it into a movie. All in all it used to be one (or more) people who wanted to get a story out. Actually create something enjoyable by the masses.
But these days I taste none of that, its like people are desperatly trying to find certain storyline(s) for the sole purpose of making more money. First you've seen this behaviour happening on the 'superheroes' front where Marvel created movies from their several characters, even when there already was such a movie (Spiderman comes to mind). But even in those cases you're basicly making a movie from a phenomenon. The 'superheroes' saga has lasted for years and was enjoyed by millions of people, young and old alike.
However, IMO it started becoming a little ridiculous when you get movies from cartoons while the cartoon itself was already a phenomenon in itself. Take, for example, 'Masters of the Universe'. Whats even striking me more is that this series was originally launched with the idea of merchandize in the back of people's mind. Is that really a good starting point to make a movie from it ? Or what about the 'Flintstones' ? In my opinion thats an even worse movie since it doesn't even try to be a regular movie but mimicks all the cartoon effects, sometimes in a more than ridiculous manner.
In the end all of those movies don't pay attention to anything which made the whole thing great and basicly introduces the "directors liberty". You know; when a simply known fact from the original is twisted because "it matches the movie/story/scene/whatever better". You've seen this happening in many if not all movies. Narnia: The professor met the kids right after they left the closet. Hello; wasn't there some tour going? In the original BBC series they looked him up in his study. Master o/t Universe: In the end battle Skeletor rambles about getting the power to become God. Hello? Don't tell me that the whole "Master of the Universe" has already degraded to nothing more than a mere title? In the original Skeletor always tried to become the Master of the Universe. Inspector Gadget: Lets not even get into this one, when compared with the original it was just bad since nothing was adopted, not even the mystery behind Dr. Claw. Lord of the Rings: While not totally bad its plain out obvious that the story isn't exactly the most important anymore, its the special effects. Where previous cartoons totally focussed on story and passion these movies need the special effects for "massive battles". A pity IMO.
In all honosty the last example isn't fair since this isn't something which has been remade. It simply is the first real movie from the book, just like any other of its kind. But it does goes to show you that money is ruling supreme here. Being a big Transformers fan myself at the age of 36 (I stopped caring when we got Beast Wars and the Transformers Armada) and a big Evangelion fan (basicly I just like cartoons but these two are rather special IMO) I'm really not looking forward to the upcoming live movies. I'd rather see some television station doing a re-run of the original series, and I don't mean the horrible series where they started sticking the serie together with an awfully annoying cube animation.
Why can't we leave something great as great as it is and simply acknowledge its greatness by enjoying the original all over again?
... the bad news is that he's going to be voicing a robotic lawn mower.
I grew up watching tf and loved it. But going back and watching the original series, you see a lot more cheese than you remembered. Still a fun ride but not the same. But the animated movie I watched a few times over the years and I think it really stands the test of time. Ya it was an obvious ploy to kill a bunch of em for new toys, but they did it with such style. The animation is obviously better than the series, the story more serious, and c'mon, Orson Welles as unicron! (I've read it's the last thing he did but imdb has things credited later but probably older material resurfaced from some projects, not to mention best voice ever next to james earl jones). Even Leonard Nemoy was great as galvitron.
Discussing voices, who is going to be the voice of megatron? I sure hope Frank Welker will reprise the role.
Agreed. They've done that with my submissions in the past too, rewriting them to sound more dramatic/wrong. Then I get the blame for the inaccuracy.
There is one AC posting all (or most) of these stupid ass comments. The writing style is exactly the same.
Notice how lame Optimus Prime looks with those flames.
Has Optimus Prime ever had an extended front? Every time I've seen him in vehicle mode, it's always been a flat-front truck...
Haven't they already made a CGI trailer, showing a giant robot on Mars? It doesn't show very much (you can't identify which TF it is), but it's still CGI.
Here's the direct link. Basically, it appears to be Independence Day 2: Transformers. They're even releasing it on the 4th of July.
I was a little dismayed seeing some of the "creative" changes that Bay seemed to be applying to this film. I can handle Optimus Prime being a long-nose truck, mainly because in some iterations of the franchise (i.e. Armada), he does appear that way. However, the decision to paint him with flames, as well as making Bumblebee a Camero, indicated to me that Bay had no regard for the original personalities of the Transformers. Basically he just wanted to make everything be "eXXXXXtreeeme" as possible.
Cullen voicing Prime will at least ensure that some elements of character's original personality will stay intact, and this is probably the selling point for me seeing the movie.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
Congrats fellow 20-30 men in america! You are now in the demographic that spends money on worthless crap. So now you will be targeted in a more mainstream way than before when you were just part of the kid demo and they were busy targeting your parents. Back then, you were not interested in the crap your father was getting sold on and probably being told how great that stuff from his childhood was that he was getting back into--inbetween the "i walked miles in snow to school" compensation.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
He loved the way the Duke always came out on top. Loved the way Wayne's characters acted and lead and showed men how to be men.
And all that stuff.
And while I've never watched a John Wayne movie, I tip my hat to them despite how cheesy they may have been, because I loved and respected my grandfather and those movies were the ones we bought for him when he was suffering from cancer at the end of his days. He was in obvious pain, but he enjoyed them nonetheless.
Optimus Prime is the John Wayne of the generation who grew up in the 80s. Sure, there was Duke from GI Joe, but he was usurped in midstream by a general. There was Lion-o, but the Thundercats were too wierd for most kids to take seriously. There was He-Man, but he was never anything more than a bad Superman re-interpretation.
But Optimus, man... Optimus was a truck and an action figure all in one. And when he spoke, he did so with conviction on the side of right and he used his leadership to defeat those who would harm others. And even when he was wrong, he eventually did the right thing. I don't own any "toys" anymore. I mean, I have recreational objects that I use to unwind with, but nothing that a kid would understand or find interesting. Except one. My 20th anniversary edition Optimus sits proudly on my desk. The original toy looked little like the cartoon character. But this one? 60 bucks and it doesn't even matter... Optimus looks like he shoulda. He's a kickass poseable paperweight.
When Optimus died in the movie, I was a kid, and I was upset. Who was this Rodimus dude, and what did he do with our hero? See, even with the neat futuristic car and the neat flaming paint job, Hot Rod and Rodimus just weren't as cool. Didn't matter that he could fight Galvatron and kick some Swoop ass... he wasn't the hero. He wasn't the legend. And when Optimus came back, he died saving the universe again. And then he came back for more.
Children today will tell their kids about the time they saw Kobe Bryant score 81. They'll swear Duane Wade was the best ever. But they never saw Jordan play. They never watched Magic pass. But I never got to see Wilt in his heyday, or see Oscar Robertson average a triple double. They'll claim that LaDainian Tomlinson is the best RB to ever lace them up because of his fancy moves, but they never got a chance to watch Barry spin the way I never got a chance to see Jim Brown knock people over.
Everyone grows up and has their own legends to tell tales about. For the 80s bunch, Optimus Prime saved the day after school, and that's why so many love and respect the character to this day. And you can't have Optimus Prime without the deep, John Waynesy voice of Peter Cullen. Just wouldn't be right.
With Michael Bay running the show, the movie will still suck.
Software Wars
They'd pick Will Smith. "OH! I know you Decepticons didn-t just invade earth baby! No you in trouble!"
Optimus Prime? Bah! Peter Cullen will always be KARR to me. (Even though he wasn't in KARR's second appearance. :p) "I have checked my data on basic human desires. Therefore, I understand your needs. You wish to eat. You wish to drink. You wish to reproduce. Which one first?"
You must think in Russian.
We don't have anything better to do than get excited about a Transformers movie.
You don't have anything better to do than think about us getting excited about a Transformers movie.
I'd rather be me here.
Proud neuron in the Slashdot hivemind since 2002.
Peter Cullen also voiced Eeyore of Winnie the Pooh. O_O
finally some good news for this movie.
I think a billion little kids--not to mention most of their parents--would take issue with calling Optimus Prime his "most famous and well-loved character." Peter Cullen has voiced Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh for decades.
Boom Shanka
Despite being tagged "Slow news day" this announcement is definitely more than meets the eye.
CATS/Diebold '08- All your vote are belong to us!
And there are hundreds of them. That's unique for the fiction I've encountered.
I swear, it is like you people are dedicated to having no fun in this lifetime.
A medium-well steak is no more nutritious for me than a few bites off of a cow. It costs more but I'll enjoy it a lot better, trust me.
There's a reason it is called the "entertainment industry", they make money by entertaining people. The nerve.
Where can I hand in my license and compiler?
I can't stand the original Transformers. I tried watching a few episodes recently, and came only to the conclusion that with all that cheese, I now have an explanation for why I'm so f'd up in the head. (Between that and Thundercats.. Christ.)
Furthermore, I *liked* Beast Wars.
Wow... So here I am with a couple mod points to give away when I run across this article. Afraid I lost 20 minutes of my life I'll never get back, fruitlessly searching for anything useful or interesting. Don't get me wrong; I plan to see the movie, love the concept, but /.ers didn't bring their "A" game today. Can I mod the entire thing down -1 (pointless)?
-- A.C.
"You heard me. I can't believe all of these losers. Its a freaking kiddie cartoon."
$5 says you creamed in your shorts over previews of Episode I, Matrix Reloaded, and Serenity. Even if I'm wrong about one of them, I'm still willing to bet you shouldn't be casting any stones.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
could it actualy be the leader of the stunticons? i think his name was motormaster?
That's a really interesting thought. While Motormaster is really a flat-front truck, as seen in this cel found online, changing him slightly would be significantly more palatable than having that be Optimus Prime.
I would've waited an eternity for this!
qntm.org
What a shame Orson Welles isn't still around. IMO, his voice was up there with Peter Cullen's.
---southpaw
M-O-O-N spells Optimius
"They razzed me for three months to no end," said Prime. "They really dug into me about it."
ZERO ZERO ONE ZERO ONE ZERO ONE ONE! Just brushing up for my next big invention: Ethernet over Voice (EoV)
Believe it or not, it is possible that someone could have enjoyed children's entertainment when they were a child and find it immature as an adult without some sort of outside influence, as you suggest. It's a kid's show, and kid's toys, after all. Unfortunately it seems that pop-culture has gotten to the point that a man not being entertained by the silly tv shows he enjoyed as a kid is somehow considered abnormal (or a troll/flamebait). Does your wife still watch Care Bears or pink pony cutsie cartoon shows?
For better or worse, a lot of my childhood revolved around my imagination being blasted wide open by the Star Wars movies, yet as an adult I think that those same Star Wars movies are kinda dumb and immature. Shocking, I know.
Oh, and I never liked the Transformers; even as a kid I thought the show was dumb and the toys were cheap, flimsy and, well... dumb.
RTFM; please, I beg you.
Not a single Clerks 2 reference yet?
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
11 years ago Optimus Prime was a long nosed truck.
In fact, black with red flames.
The toy was actually pretty good.
I wonder if the robot looks the same too.
GPL Deconstructed
..... Can be found below:
http://www.transformersthemovie.com/
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
It would be useful if we could mod the editors as well as the articles. Imagine how often Zonk would get the -1 Dumbass mod!
Similar to the upcoming US election results
...for Elias. He's gonna go nuts over this.
The sounds in every video clip are awful. I remember transformations back when I watched the show in the 80s sounding like a serious of computer generated tones in a bit of dischord. The previews makes every mechanical action sound like a dozen cheap power drills going into metal and a few prison cell doors slamming shut. Since the transformations are all CG and not necessarily realistic, using supposedly realistic sounds just ruins things for fans. Also the attempt to tie the plot into a transmission from a crashed Mars lander seems overplayed. Is George Bush directly funding this film? Who gives a damn about Mars these days?
I'll be your candy shop of infinite deliciousity if you'll be my discotheque of endless rump-shaking.
News is entertainment.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
And knowing is half the battle.