Michael Bay Wants Frank Welker to Voice Soundwave in Transformers 2

Posted by Neil Miller (neil@filmschoolrejects.com) on March 10, 2009

welker-soundwave

Let me take you back in time, somewhere between the fall of 2006 and the summer of 2007, during the post-production of the first Transformers movie directed by Michael Bay. At that point in time there were quite a few fans who became upset when they found out that Bay had successfully brought Peter Cullen in to voice Optimus Prime, but had replaced Frank Welker with The Matrix’s Hugo Weaving for the voice of Megatron. In the 1980s, Welker and Cullen were the very recognizable voices of these two iconic characters, and some fans were beside themselves in a Frank-less world.

And now here we sit, one successful Transformers movie in the bag and Mr. Bay back in post-production on the sequel. And according to a somewhat cryptic posting by the director on his own message board, this time around may include a little a side of Welker to compliment the Cullen/Weaving pairing from the first film. At the end of a long thread in which fans called upon Bay to bring Welker back, Bay had this to say: “I think I’m going to pursue Frank on Soundwave.”

Soundwave will be a new addition to Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, but certainly not a new addition to the Transformers universe. In fact, a USA Today online poll showed that Soundwave was one of the number one Transformer that fans woul like to see in the sequel. And if polled, I’m sure that fans would agree that Frank Welker would be the perfect guy to voice Soundwave, as he was the voice of 14 of the original Decepticons in the 1980s. Also if polled, I would certify that this news is awesome.

What do you think of Frank Welker being brought in to voice Soundwave in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen?


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  • I doubt it will make a real difference to the movie itself but for the fans, why not. I did like the fact they had Cullen for the original Optimus Prime voice.

    Of course it would also seem that at this point that Bay may be trying to pull this off for the fans and the potential bonus of having them going out and buying a ticket to see this movie.
  • Bay said in the Audio Commentary for Transformers (yes, I've listened to it and yes recently), that the reason he didn't go for Welker for the role of Megatron was because he made it sound too much like a cartoon. Now, for anyone familiar with Welker and his giant resumé, they know that he can do... well pretty much anything. Fire all the voice actors in Hollywood and have him do them all, it'll be just as entertaining (although harsh on his voice and not so great for all the out of work voice actors out there). So for Bay to say this... well it was a little silly.

    I'd like to know what made Bay change his mind (apart from peer-pressure).
  • D-Man
    @ Joshi -
    Correction: Bay said that Welker's voice sounded too weak and wasn't deep enough for the Megatron that he had in mind. He also thought that it would be disrespectful to ask him to change it.

    Get your facts straight.
  • Fair enough, I didn't remember it correctly.
  • How can you make a Transformers Movie and not use the original voices from the series that made it successful in the first place. You know Hugo Weaving cost Bay way more than Frank Welker would have taken to do Megatrons voice and he added NOTHING to the character where as Welker would have garnered instant recognition like Peter Cullen did.

    Stupid, Stupid, Stupid Hollywood and Michael Bay, they just don't get it and it seems they never will.
  • D-Man
    The original voice actors are what made the series successful? Really? That's odd, because I could've sworn that it was the fact that it was based off an insanely popular and revolutionary toyline and comic book series...
  • The toy line didn't come into existence till after the first season, and the comic series was 5 years after the TV series. I have the original toys in mint in the boxes to prove that.
  • D-Man
    Both the toyline and comic book came out before the animated series. In fact, not only did the cartoon draw ideas from the comic book, but the comic book writers were the ones who conceived Optimus Prime and Megatron (as far as names and personality are concerned). Look it up.

    Your mint condition toys can't prove something that's completely false.
  • Is someone deleting my posts?
  • hage
    haha
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