Hugo Weaving on Being the Voice of Megatron

I believe we've seen or heard about this from a past interview ... not too shocking.

It's not any kind of surprise. It would have been like that for pretty much anyone. Megatron barely had any lines throughout all 3 movies.

Nothing really new here. I didn't really expect him to return myself.

That's actually how it is with a lot of voice acting gigs, especially VA parts in live-action movies.

It's fun to see how Bay hired a guy who doesn't care instead of Welker...

And yet he still pulled in a better performance.

You know nothing about that, Welker never did it. Weaving's Megatron is very, very generic.

Yep.

Megatron was essentially phoned in.

What a joke...

Not necessarily. Given the chance, who knows what a talent like Welker, who has an affinity and connection to the character, might have pulled off? It didn't have to be the G1 voice, necessarily.

As posted above, hardly surprising in any way, but it is both darkly hilarious and (for the fandom, to a degree) a little disheartening to read this each time he talks about Megs/Transformers in an interview.

All that said, I'd be interested in him doing Megs again in some fashion, be it in flashback sequences during future films or in other Transformers media. I do enjoy Frank Welker and have loved his voice acting on Prime, but I did like what Hugo Weaving did and am welcome to his returning in some fashion as Megs or another character somehow.

He did it in the games. And he has his Megatron-falling-asleep voice in Prime.

Maybe in the first movie where they deepened it to the extreme, but not in 2 and 3. Unless by generic you mean "finally a good Megatron voice that wasn't David Kaye" then yes.

The thing is, while we the fandom may be hinging on every dicision and whatnot, we're always the ones who care the most. For the majority of people in the business it's just a job, plain and simple.

Skyped in, actually.

Who gives a shit? All is said and done and we already got a great voice for the movie. Just because it's reveaed after the fact that his VA didn't give a damn doesn't change the fact that it was good.

Then why bother with him anyway?

Even if Weaving didn't give two shits about the role, I still think his voice was one of the best Megatron's we've ever gotten.

Not a chance. Any retarded monkey would have done a better job. Weaving's Megatron is lifeless.

Agreed.

He could've been recording his lines while taking a shit and it's still rank at the top of the list.

Hahano. But nice try. Well, not really.

Weaving's Megatron had more life in his line about the Allspark being destroyed in ROTF than Welker has in all of Prime. (though to be fair, that's in no way Welker's fault. Even Cullen sounds bored in that show)

Frank's voice doesn't fit Movie Megatron at all. It's too raspy, too high-pitched. It'd honestly make a pretty good Starscream I think. Weaving fit the character to a tee. Deep, growly, yet at times almost smooth.

that's hilarious.

Fixed.

I dunno. I'd say Corey Burton's Megatron was right up there with Welker.

That's all that needs to be said.

Corey Burton's Megs was awesome. Welker's can't even touch that. Burton's Megatron was like every Megatron combined. Way better than any of Welker's angry old-man impressions.

Again, Weaving's voice was excellent. Just because Weaving himself didn't care doesn't mean it wasn't. Nothing is changed. Hell, if anything it makes me imagine what he'd sound like giving it his all. Probably would've been amazing.

He's doing a fine job in TF Prime. I think he could of pulled off movie Megs.

Funny how you instantly assume that, because it was a rush job, Hugo Weaving wasn't being a professional doing his job.

News flash: not every actor working on a franchise you love cares about it as much as you do. It's a job for them. Weaving admits he knows nothing about whatever it was that he worked on, but that doesn't mean he went into the booth and phoned it in. I mean, did you guys ever see the man? Haven't met him, but judging from his movies, Weaving delivers quality work.

You may not like the movie Megatron voice, but the man was explicitly asked for the role because the people making this movie wanted his voice. He did it, he got paid. End of story.




As for the whole Welker vs Weaving debate...I don't get the big deal. Welker was great fun for the G1 Megatron voice. I'm definitely on the side of people who thought using that voice for movie Megatron was an ill fit - something the movie games (that DID use that voice) proved a hundred times over.

Thankfully, Welker has been able to change up the voice for Transformers Prime, and I think it fits that version of Megatron. But apparently nobody had that idea when he was asked to voice the games.

C'mon. Weaving's Megatron = any random monster going WRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

It's always pleasant to be reminded that Mr. Weaving shares Mr. Bay's profound respect for the craft of voice acting.

Just saying that Hugo Weaving is a better actor than anybody that ever worked in Transformers and that no critic opinion of Bayformers or Youtube link of shitty Dinobot death will change that.

And yes this is just my opinion you don't have to point it out.

No I don't think you're stupid for disagreeing with me.

It seems most other parts of those movies had the same attention to detail.

Disappointing

Yes, the movie Decepticons are depicted more as monsters than as equals to the Autobots.

So at what point in your logic does that disqualify Weaving's voice from being professional? Even through all the growling, he did have lines and all that. And I'm pretty sure I've never heard another character ever with a voice similar to what Weaving delivered, unless it was delivered by..well, Weaving.

Again, you may not like the voice for movie Megatron, but that doesn't mean he didn't do a good job at what he gets paid for. In fact, if you think it's a monster voice, he did his work RIGHT, because that's exactly what they were going for with movie Megatron.

Frank Welker can do monster/animal sounds. In fact, that's his forte, but that's not how he voices Megatron. Both G1 Megatron AND Prime Megatron's voices are bad choices for the monster that's movie Megatron.



Fans getting what they want can be a bad thing. Sure, I love how they got Peter Cullen for the movies, and I will not deny that the man is a great voice actor (one of my favorites too), but if we're going to compare his movie voice to the G1 voice while we're at it: they're different. The way Cullen delivers Prime is different from back in the day. Maybe because he's gotten older and there's more bass in his voice. Maybe he was instructed to deliver a more regal voice - I do not know.
What I do know that not every line he delivered in the movies, Prime and the High Moon video games are voice acting gold. In fact, for every line that's just magical, there's another that just sound plain forced and awful.

As a fan it's disheartening when people that have absolute no affiliation to the product you love come in and mess it up, yes (it actually happens alot less than you'd think - most of the time it's a matter of the 'wrong' person being in the 'right' spot with too much control). But there's one thing worse: when fans get everything they want. Because that's the point where a product no longer evolves and moves forward, it just degenerates into rehash after rehash after rehash, because fans just want to have what they had when they fell in love with said product, nothing more.

In Transformers, that means: I'd rather not like Transformers Prime and sit this generation out, eager for what they will come up with after it, than being stuck in 1984forever with no iteration every trying to do something fresh.

What, you say? Perceptor is no longer a telescope but is now a RESEARCH TRUCK?!! HERESY!

Strange relation to own work, though.
In Russian dubbing, I proud for it, Megatron is quite interesting and have really evil appearance and voice (though, quite similar to Frank Welker, I heard his voice in TF: the Ride). I respect him for famous phrase in TF1: "Как неразумно..." ("How foolish..." when Sam talk with him from behind the statue on the roof of skyscraper).

That's right. They got his voice. It might be the only one he has. Anyway, it's the only one they wanted.

Hooray for stunt voice acting, because it makes perfect sense for a feral girl, raised by wolves, to sound like Claire Danes.

On a totally unrelated note, where are the Eric Idle and Orson Wells haters?

As an actor who hasn't done alot of voicework, there's no denying there's clearly a 'Weaving' in Megatron's voice. He's not as versatile as voice actors who can go from stuffed animals to evil warlords within seconds.

But comparing his performance in V for Vendetta, the Matrix, the Lord of the Rings and Transformers: no, he's not just doing the same thing.


But yes, Megatron definitely has Weaving's voice. The reason they hired him. It happens.

Not really surprised about the Megatron thing. However, I am shocked that he apparently hated playing Red Skull and wouldn't come back unless he was contractully forced to. Just...wow.

I can't tell you because it's a secret.

It might have turned the whole thing into Springtime for Megatron...

(Time paradox alert)

Glassy eyed movie fanboys who love whatever they were spoon fed and then subsequently state it was the be all end all 'best choice' never fail to amuse. Given the knee jerk defense so many of these fans have when talking about Weaving's shockingly boring "could be ANY Joe Nobody trying to sound evil" take on Megatron, clearly Michael Bay could have hired a Jonas brother to voice him and everyone would think it was the absolute best thing ever... and of course, drop the obligatory claim it was better than anything Welker could ever do.

That said, seeing Weaving say all of this (which, btw, wow) is beyond hilarious.

Either Weaving said the exact same thing as he did a few months ago or this is the same interview.

Bingo. And I'm entirely open to hearing him again in future movies.

You know what also never fails to amuse? Transformers fans who can only think in black and white.

'Oh, this guy is defending the movie Megatron voice, he must be a movie fanboy!'

Errr...no.
For the record: I liked the first movie - had alot of flaws but was a decent enough setup for a franchise.
I hated the second one, because they pretty much made a movie out of all the things I didn't like from the first one (terrible humor, hard to follow action, too much focus on the military, no emotion to the Transformers' side of the story).
By the time the third one was released I didn't really care anymore, knew exactly what to expect. And no matter what Bay&co said about the third movie being better, it was pretty much the wreckage of ROTF, dinged out and given a new paint job, presented as 'new'.

This is not a kneejerk reaction. But like any product, the live action movies are not 100% good or 100% terrible. There's actually some things they did right, you know.

I never said Weaving was the 'end all' choice. I am saying that Frank Welker's Megatron voice would have been a horrible choice for that depiction of Megatron. Are there other voices that would have fitted the character? Probably: yes. But we don't know. What we do know now, though, thanks to TF Prime, is that no matter what way you twist G1 Megatron's voice, it just will not match the monster Megatron from the movies.


I'm actually way more annoyed with the people that want to bash Weaving simply because they don't like the movies OR don't like movie Megatron's voice. Here is a man who is honest in not caring as much about a petty little franchise, and is just here to do a job - the perfect opportunity for snarky fans who have a score to settle!
That's what this is about. We're not even talking about the quality of the work he delivered, and if it fits the character he portrays. No, we're perfectly happy making claims Hugo 'phoned it in' simply because I don't like what they were going for with the character.

I'm not the biggest fan of movie Megatron as a character. Alot of wasted potential. Alot. But my opinion on that, or any of ours, has nothing to do with Hugo Weaving doing a voice.


If only people here knew how many of their favorite actors didn't give two shits about characters they portrayed/voiced.
Amazing how people always forget actors are people. People with jobs, just like you and I. If I worked in a convenience store, and let's pretend I liked it there, but I didn't really care for stocking food items, would rabid fans of Chicken Tonight accuse me of doing a poor job and not respecting their product? That sounds crazy, but that's kinda what's happening in this very thread.

I'm all for the Jonas brothers doing Transformers voices! Maybe they can voice Reflector in TF4, and they could make them sing!

Why would he be particularly thrilled to play Red Skull?

Anyways, good for you Weaving, tell it like it is. What he had to say doesn't change the fact that Megatron's movie voice was awesome (albeit underused) and that Weaving, as seen in his other movies, does great work, even if he isn't fully into it or whatever.

Wish there were more scenes with Megatron throughout the trilogy just to hear him some more. I won't ever forget going into theatres and hearing him and Cullen go back and forth with their philospohy/battle banter as they slug on one another

this is a diff interview

Meh. Growl a lot, use rehashed G1 references now and then... and there's Movie Megatron. But then again, not like the movies had much substance at all..

Not surprised that neither Weaving, nor the casting/directing folks, gave a damn for Megatron.



^ Pretty much all there is to the movies anyway. Turn off your brain, enjoy mindless explosions and one reaaaaaally angry rendition of Prime going around ripping faces and decapitating 'Cons.

And I'm not referencing those ones. I'm referencing the ones that seemingly HAVE to drop scathing insults at Welker's expense any & every time they talk about liking Weaving, and whilst doing so, insinuate that anyone who didn't like Weaving's voice are just little geewunners stuck in the past or whatever other nonsense. It's ridiculous.

Oh! No, in that case: I understand if people didn't like Weaving's voice.

And Welker is one of the best voice actors alive.

If anything, this reflects worse on Bay than on Weaving, since it only further shows the lack of attention that was devoted to Megatron as a character. Weaving's performance was fine, but within the boundaries of the script and the direction, there's only so much he would be able to bring to a character with very little true screentime and few memorable lines. It's another way that shows the unused potential of what Megatron COULD have been in the Bay films.

i much prefer the movie design with weaving, welkers voice with it in the game was awful.

While Welker could've easily done his Prime voice for the film Megatron, and I would've been perfectly happy with it, Weaving really delivered on this Megatron, despite his lack of involvement with the role.

We've known about his lack of involvement for some time; he didn't even know about DOTM until it was mentioned to him in an interview in 2010. Still love what he gave us as Megs; in ROTF and DOTM, he definitely came into his own, to nearly David Kaye and Corey Burton-level Megatron.

villianess?? did Megatron havce a sex change?

It is unusual to not have the director there when the voice actors film their lines

...I see what you did there.

I don't understand what this pissing contest even is. Welker and Weaving have both done an excellent job as far as I'm concerned. It obviously doesn't matter how "involved" Weaver was considering the final result. Ironically, I feel it is his RotF performance that really stands out as excellent, because he gets to have some emotions other than anger or weariness.

now since frank sound more sinister on TF prime bay needs to use him

It's odd how you can play the major villain in a trilogy of movies from such a distant position, both physically and metaphorically -- much less actually be GOOD at it. I guess it goes to show how skilled Hugo Weaving is at acting.

Either a typo, or Hugo is even more oblivious to his role than we thought.