Chris Hemsworth and Scarlett Johansson will be Optimus Prime and Elita 1 in 2024 Animated Film

Sabrblade wrote:I'm sure Peter Cullen ain't happy about getting passed over for Thor.

I don't know, this one might be more labour intensive and with the CGI done by ILM and Prime possibly not having a faceplate most of the time, then it could be more demanding for Peter, who's getting on in age. At least he'd be ok with them not hiring non union. It will be like when they chose someone else over him for the last winnie the pooh film. He was dissapointed but not unhappy, more like "oh well".

Sabrblade wrote:I'm sure Peter Cullen ain't happy about getting passed over for Thor.

Most likely it will be an improvement over what we got in the Netflix trilogy. Will he have an accent?

william-james88 wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:I'm sure Peter Cullen ain't happy about getting passed over for Thor.

I don't know, this one might be more labour intensive and with the CGI done by ILM and Prime possibly not having a faceplate most of the time, then it could be more demanding for Peter, who's getting on in age. At least he'd be ok with them not hiring non union. It will be like when they chose someone else over him for the last winnie the pooh film. He was dissapointed but not unhappy, more like "oh well".

Sure miss Cullen's voice acting. But, if he passed or was passed over it is our loss. Doubt Hemsworth will bring as much range, but time flows forward. Hopefully, this will not be increasing trend.

Could have been worse. Could have been Chris Pratt! XD

If they make the lyrics more appropriate, they could use U2's 'One' as part of the soundtrack.

Chris Evans is a XXXXX.

Could have been worse. Could have been Chris Pratt! XD

Or that giant XXXXX Chris Evans!

The Transformers franchise is big news this week with the reveal of Unicron in Rise of the Beasts and the announcement of the animated film's title and cast. We now have images of the presentation, posted on getty images, which show us the title card reveal and our first look at Cybertron. It is very colorful and we have outlines of the Autobots and Megatron. Elita has her very typical silhouette.

Enjoy!

That voice cast is extremely random outside of Lawrence Fishburne. I guess we will see what they give us.

I do know though, my Mom loves Chris Hemsworth, and freaked out at that casting.

no thanks. they cant even get the voice casting right and get cullen or chalk. no thanks

Elita being in this movie makes me wonder if they'll do what I've been hoping they'd do with Arcee and retcon her not to be the three characters with a shared mind in ROTF. Because one of them was called Elita, but that was a toy only thing and never said in the film. At the same time Mirage is not a younger Dino just because Dino was going to be Mirage originally and Q was only called Wheeljack in the credits and not the film or video games so they are probably going to be made two different people. Were as Arcee feels like she is one of the other call backs to the original films Rise of the Beasts has with her being the maroon bike and the wheels being able to go into her feet like that old design did, but at the same time I think the reason Mirage and Wheeljack are in this film instead of Ironhide and Ratchet for the 2007 nostalgia bump is because that way we have new characters who aren't dead that can show up in the future movies when we go back to the modern day.

snavej wrote:If they make the lyrics more appropriate, they could use U2's 'One' as part of the soundtrack.

I hope not. If they're gonna use a song titled "One" it should be from Metallica.

I want to hope they'll do well with this. But this is Hollywood we're talking about - what have they done recently with any of their major franchises which would lead us to think they won't mess it up somehow?

And they even got the announcement wrong, for starters. They boldly proclaim that this will be "the first animated Transformers movie EVER". Like the original 1986 movie doesn't count?

DeathReviews wrote:And they even got the announcement wrong, for starters. They boldly proclaim that this will be "the first animated Transformers movie EVER". Like the original 1986 movie doesn't count?

Hollywood think people are goldfishes and we can only remember what happened a minute ago. How many movies had their "first X ever"?

Like for Disney loudly claiming that their new movie have the "first LGBT thing ever" at almost every single movies they release is a meme on itself.
FORBES pointed it out back in 2021.

-Kanrabat- wrote:

DeathReviews wrote:And they even got the announcement wrong, for starters. They boldly proclaim that this will be "the first animated Transformers movie EVER". Like the original 1986 movie doesn't count?

Hollywood think people are goldfishes and we can only remember what happened a minute ago. How many movies had their "first X ever"?

Like for Disney loudly claiming that their new movie have the "first LGBT thing ever" at almost every single movies they release is a meme on itself.
FORBES pointed it out back in 2021.

A lot of people choose to just forget the 1986 cartoonmovie happened, that is why this is hilarious.

And seriously, you really don't need to bring up "LGBTQ+" at every opportunity, especially when the "first japanese transformer" joke was right there too.

It's not hilarious. Having no respect for the source material is the live action franchise's biggest problem. Pretty much every other media, whether comic or tv series, in some way acknowledges the previous generations. The movies basically just cannibalize the available IP and distort it and wreck it for quick cash. My prediction is that now RoTB will do it with Beast Wars characters, and depending on what this prequel will end up being, it will follow suit. Too bad, I'm actually somewhat excited for this one.

D-Maximal_Primal wrote:

-Kanrabat- wrote:

DeathReviews wrote:And they even got the announcement wrong, for starters. They boldly proclaim that this will be "the first animated Transformers movie EVER". Like the original 1986 movie doesn't count?

Hollywood think people are goldfishes and we can only remember what happened a minute ago. How many movies had their "first X ever"?

Like for Disney loudly claiming that their new movie have the "first LGBT thing ever" at almost every single movies they release is a meme on itself.
FORBES pointed it out back in 2021.

A lot of people choose to just forget the 1986 cartoonmovie happened, that is why this is hilarious.

And seriously, you really don't need to bring up "LGBTQ+" at every opportunity, especially when the "first japanese transformer" joke was right there too.

Please don't imply that I'm "anti-LGBT". That was just the first thing that came to mind because it was the best example for the "first ever X", celebrating it like it's "groundbreaking" over and over while in fact it's just mundane.
LGBT representation is a thing in media since decades. It's pretty normal and ordinary.

Let's face it. All those "first black to X", "first woman to Y", "first hoola-hoop dancer to Z" is pretty ridiculous in itself and can be sliced ad infinitum. It's corporate way to market things and to appear good with minimum efforts.
The normal reaction to this is every time that happen, we just eye-roll and say, "yeah, whatever. Been there, done that."
¯\_( ͡°ヮ ͡°)_/¯

To be fair, this will be the first animated TF film, set on Cybertron, released in the year 2024. A brave and amazing accomplishment. .

Any OG voice talent would have been welcome. But with all the talk about taking jobs away from certain persons, I'm surprised nobody defends Voice Actors. I know it's nothing new to try to use celebrities in place of VAs especially when it comes to animated film, but still...VA's are just so much more talented and have more experience.

I still hope this film is good, but my excitement for it has definitely gone down several notches.

Rather frustrating that yet again, it's all about big Hollywood names instead of actual VAs who could do a much better job. Why not just have the animation à la "Shark Tale" while they're at it.

I can't image any TF fans care for these actors doing VO over the OG pros. Are these celebrity actors any cheaper? Doubt it. Do parents pick which Disney movie to watch with their kids by looking at who's doing the VO? Don't think so. So why? What's the payoff?

All this celebrity voice casting form animated movies really stems from Robin Williams being cast as Aladdin's Genie. Prior to then, any celebrity voices in movies were mostly a neat novelty or signs of some just needing a quick paycheck. But when Williams as the Genie proved to be a smash hit, suddenly everyone wanted celebrity voices in their animated movies to get more parents in seats along with their kids. The very next Disney animated movie, The Lion King, was stacked with celebrity voice talent, and then both Pixar and Dreamworks went on to pretty much make celebrity voice casting the next big thing in animated film work, becoming the standard that it is today.

As an aside, it's a miracle that A Goofy Movie (released not too long after both Aladdin and The Lion King) mostly avoided the traps of celebrity voice casting by only having its biggest names (Pauly Shore, Wallace Shawn, and the late Pat Buttram) in only minor roles not important to the film's main story. And it dodged a bullet by having Goofy himself voiced by his longtime standard voice actor Bill Farmer instead of the celebrity they originally wanted to voice him, Steve Martin, all thanks to Disney executives stepping in and saying "No, Goofy should have his normal voice. It's Goofy!"

Bout time they did something unique. Haven't had anyone doing anything more than a Cullen impression since Animated. I wanted those corporate ass hamsters to do something new, and they're doing it. Here's hoping they take it seriously.

84everfan wrote:Bout time they did something unique. Haven't had anyone doing anything more than a Cullen impression since Animated. I wanted those corporate ass hamsters to do something new, and they're doing it. Here's hoping they take it seriously.

Alan Tudyk isn't doing a Cullen impression over in EarthSpark.

Well, you're not wrong, and I commend him for that, but that show sucks ass and I don't care.

Speaking of which, while I do dissent in that I am not a big fan of TFA, David Kaye did a great rendition of a young Optimus Prime. Should have given him the opportunity.

While I’m usually against a movie cramming big names as voice actors, I’d be lying if I didn’t say I think this will be effin’ amazing. Maybe that perfect fusion of Aligned/IDW backstory.

If this is, like, for real real, maybe it could capture the recent and renewed interest in the brand that the IDW comics started, Earthspark mastered, and RotB (hopefully delivers).

Don’t their waists look too small or something?

Those silhouettes look awful

TK415 wrote:Don’t their waists look too small or something?

Those silhouettes look awful

Maybe because it's an Animated prequel?

griftimus prime wrote:no thanks. they cant even get the voice casting right and get cullen or chalk. no thanks

Cullen didn't voice pre war Optimus/Orion Pax in G1 either

-Kanrabat- wrote:

TK415 wrote:Don’t their waists look too small or something?

Those silhouettes look awful

Maybe because it's an Animated prequel?

But even in this picture, his hips are the same width as his waist. In the silhouette their waists are even smaller.

The silhouettes look like Lego Bionicle’s, or something.

TK415 wrote:The silhouettes look like Lego Bionicle’s, or something.

Or ants.

-Kanrabat- wrote:

TK415 wrote:The silhouettes look like Lego Bionicle’s, or something.

Or ants.

True. All their bodies look pretty generic. I agree with many that say if it cant pass the "squint test", or be obvious via silhouette, then those really aren't the characters. Though I'm probably a bad example because several character designs used in MTMTE/TLL I couldn't recognize and they were fully rendered .

I'm guessing (by the heads alone) far left is Megatron. 2nd from right is Elita. I could take educated guesses as to the other 2, but based on the silhouette alone, I have no clue.

o.supreme wrote:

-Kanrabat- wrote:

TK415 wrote:The silhouettes look like Lego Bionicle’s, or something.

Or ants.

True. All their bodies look pretty generic. I agree with many that say if it cant pass the "squint test", or be obvious via silhouette, then those really aren't the characters. Though I'm probably a bad example because several character designs used in MTMTE/TLL I couldn't recognize and they were fully rendered .

I'm guessing (by the heads alone) far left is Megatron. 2nd from right is Elita. I could take educated guesses as to the other 2, but based on the silhouette alone, I have no clue.

Unless what is show is all protoform "babies"?

-Kanrabat- wrote:Unless what is show is all protoform "babies"?

Ah the newest collab with Jim Henson studios....Protoform Babies.....

o.supreme wrote:

-Kanrabat- wrote:Unless what is show is all protoform "babies"?

Ah the newest collab with Jim Henson studios....Protoform Babies.....

Nay! Destron Babies!

Destron Babies, we make our schemes come true
Destron Babies, we're gonna destroy you

When your world looks kinda dead and you wish that you weren't there
Just close your eyes and make believe and you can rule anywhere

I like destruction
I like conquest
I love great plots
Trypticon smash!!
I've got my Transmuter
I strike from the air
I play the cassette tapes
And I make despair, ha!
Me, I just break things
Hee hee hee heee!

"Is everything all right in here?
Yes, Uni."

Destron Babies, we make our schemes come true
Destron Babies, we're gonna destroy you

Destron Destron Destron Destron
Babies Babies Babies Babies
Make schemes come true.

Truly truly truly amazing.

Sabrblade wrote:Nay! Destron Babies!

Destron Babies, we make our schemes come true
Destron Babies, we're gonna destroy you

When your world looks kinda dead and you wish that you weren't there
Just close your eyes and make believe and you can rule anywhere

I like destruction
I like conquest
I love great plots
Trypticon smash!!
I've got my Transmuter
I strike from the air
I play the cassette tapes
And I make despair, ha!
Me, I just break things
Hee hee hee heee!

"Is everything all right in here?
Yes, Uni."

Destron Babies, we make our schemes come true
Destron Babies, we're gonna destroy you

Destron Destron Destron Destron
Babies Babies Babies Babies
Make schemes come true.

. Nope definitely didn't sing the words out loud..... no way . Although *Navi* might be closer to Nanny (would have to drop the "D")

Everyone so far being a celebrity is a smidge disappointing but I presume these are all the main characters with the secondary characters hopefully being more diverse.

Optimus is really the only one though that seems egregious but I'll wait to see how he ends up in the role I hope he at least has a voice that isn't Chris Hemsworth being Chris Hemsworth.

Megatron, Elita, Sentinel (yay Sent), and Alpha Trion (woo!) are fine imo, I especially have faith in Laurence Fishburne he'll make a good Alpha Trion for sure.

In recent memory Keegan was fine as Toad in Mario, just not sure if he's the right one for Bumblebee, I would of liked to see the guy they had for Bumblebee return, if this is indeed a prequel to the rest of the films I hope he has younger characterization...hopefully they address the B-127 thing if so and don't call him Bumblebee but rather just say his name as Bee because otherwise it'll be a continuity issue but it's not like that is a huge priority thus far based on previous films.


Peter Cullen and Frank Welker would not have fit the younger Prime and Megatron thing their attempting to go for although that brings into question how young is Bumblebee even supposed to be here? Making him the "young guy" in the later films with this doesn't really gel if he really isn't actually the young guy but then again character roles like that has always been an issue for the "Million year war" stuff Transformers backstories brings.

But hey maybe they can get Peter and Frank for other roles in the film or even as cameos as a flashforward to who Optimus and Megatron eventually become.

Happy to see the silhouettes are simple and recognizable.
Happy that they gave Cullen a break and I think the voice cast shows that they are serious and the celebrities are actually important for the casuals.


Something to look forward to.

Sabrblade wrote:

o.supreme wrote:

-Kanrabat- wrote:Unless what is show is all protoform "babies"?

Ah the newest collab with Jim Henson studios....Protoform Babies.....

Nay! Destron Babies!

Destron Babies, we make our schemes come true
Destron Babies, we're gonna destroy you

When your world looks kinda dead and you wish that you weren't there
Just close your eyes and make believe and you can rule anywhere

I like destruction
I like conquest
I love great plots
Trypticon smash!!
I've got my Transmuter
I strike from the air
I play the cassette tapes
And I make despair, ha!
Me, I just break things
Hee hee hee heee!

"Is everything all right in here?
Yes, Uni."

Destron Babies, we make our schemes come true
Destron Babies, we're gonna destroy you

Destron Destron Destron Destron
Babies Babies Babies Babies
Make schemes come true.

This is the greatest post I have EVER seen on this forum. Period. Muppet Babies was the shiznet in the day. I still remember their "Star Wars" episode.

First-Aid wrote:This is the greatest post I have EVER seen on this forum. Period. Muppet Babies was the shiznet in the day. I still remember their "Star Wars" episode.

I think you mean their "Star Wars/Jetsons/Star Trek TNG/Star Trek TOS/Indiana Jones/Doctor Who" episode.

'Twas a very packed episode.

I'm actually more interested in this than I am about Rise of the Baysts. Hopefully the voices won't be overly distracting.

Honestly, a brand new voice cast is definitely welcome. Cullen and Welker aren't going to be around forever. So a new defacto voice cast for the movies would be the best thing for a prequel to establish.

The more I think about the casting of Hemsworth as Optimus, the more I'm reminded that if Cullen hadn't won his audition for Optimus for the first movie back in 2007, Bay would have instead had Optimus voiced by Liam Neeson.

Sabrblade wrote:The more I think about the casting of Hemsworth as Optimus, the more I'm reminded that if Cullen hadn't won his audition for Optimus for the first movie back in 2007, Bay would have instead had Optimus voiced by Liam Neeson.

I'm not sure that would have been too bad. I liked him as Hannibal Smith. That "A-Team" movie is a guilty pleasure.

Here's an interesting question: how important WAS that casting? Peter's voice added something...paternal to the G1 Optimus Prime voice. I think that's why kids identified him so much and why that death scene in TFTM back in the day hit so hard. Would that have happened with another voice actor? Who would have been the alternative? As good as Frank Welker is, he doesn't have the low end on the vocal range Peter does...at least not that I've heard; he's a bit more high-pitched (baritone vs bass).

As good as Frank Welker is, he doesn't have the low end on the vocal range Peter does...at least not that I've heard; he's a bit more high-pitched (baritone vs bass).

Welker's vocal cords have gotten a LOT of wear and tear over the years. Both he, and Cullen, are reaching the age where their voices are starting to sound a bit raspy and tired (like Mark Hamill). In theory, this ought to work well for Welker's original Megatron voice, since it was intentionally raspy.

Though when Welker does Fred Jones for Scooby Doo cartoons, it still sounds almost as fresh as it did when he first started in the 1960s. His natural voice does have a higher range to it. I can still hear the ghosts of Fred Jones AND Dyno-Mutt in his Megatron voice work - and especially his portrayal of Galvatron. That's one of the reasons why I disliked his Galvatron voice, because it sounded a little too MUCH like Dyno-Mutt.

With as much work as Welker has done doing animal voices, and even the voice of "The Cave of Wonders" in Aladdin, one would think he could do a low range voice easily...

Hemsworth and Johansson? Very bad take. I don’t want to hear Thor voice come from Optimus’s mouth. ScarJo? She can’t act. Paramount really needs to find better people. I also wish someday for voice actors to get top billing. For them to be recognized.

I'll give the voice cast a shot. It worked out for the Mario movie. At least it shows that there's going to be some effort put into this movie, and I hope that translates to the script as well.

Also, a minor nitpick, but I'm kinda disappointed they stuck with "Transformers One" as the title. Randomly tacking "One" on the end of a name/title is a trend that needs to stay dead.

Tuned Agent wrote:Also, a minor nitpick, but I'm kinda disappointed they stuck with "Transformers One" as the title. Randomly tacking "One" on the end of a name/title is a trend that needs to stay dead.

It's likely still just a placeholder name at this point.