I mean... the dude is basically doing a Peter Cullen impression... which really rubs me the wrong way. I mean... every time I watch this:

I'm so awestruck as it really shows what voicing OP means to Peter Cullen... and now they just have some other guy doing an impression of someone's who's doing an impression of his older brother who really was that hero. "Strong enough to be gentle."

 

Idk, maybe it's the direction, or the script, or inexperience, or the fact that it's based off an impression, but I'm not a fan. Despite being actual robots, Cullen, Chalk, and Kaye all bring humanity to the role because that is what connects him to the viewer. Each of them is a person. Even at his worst, Movie prime's fury feels earned because of what he's lost. His terrifying, "give me your face" and, "they slaughtered ratchet," are not exactly well written, but Cullen sells them because they contrast his warmth and intimacy outside of combat.
Contrarily, I feel like Tilman is playing an idea. It's the perception version of optimus prime, a pop culture hero, not a man who's strong enough to be gentle. It could be a writing issue or an acting issue, probably both, but he lacks the warmth and humanity of his predecessors. When his prime lashes out at someone, it rarely feels like consistent, even with a war battered, exhausted prime, because at all other times, you hear an actor trying to play a hero, not a person trying to kindle hope.
Jury's out on John Bailey though.

 

Copied from my post in the other thread.

Optimus? I have said it before when it came to Cyberverse, but i suppose I'll say it again. Give me Cullen, give me Chalk, give me Kaye, heck give me the guy who played Bulkhead in Prime, but please Hasbro stop trying to make Jake Walmart-Brand Impressionist-Not-Actor Foushee/Tillman/whatever the next Optimus. His performance here was worse than Cyberverse. When he yelled out "We are not Decepticons!" in one of the first episodes it was especially bad. It was inconsistent at times, sounding like an entirely different character, but all around stale. People criticize Cullen for having been stoic in recent stuff too (I still stand by what I have said that Cullen's dilema has been a matter of writing, not himself), but at least he has presence. At least when you hear it your first thought is "yeah, that's Optimus". It didn't help that this new Optimus had no development. It honestly felt like Optimus from TF Prime but with less humility and a far less talented VA.

 

I dunno. It seems unfair to give Cullen the benefit of the doubt when it comes to writing/direction with his poorer performances but not this guys. The voice-acting was so consistently droll and slow across all characters that I would I have to assume that they were directed to speak like that.

I mean, I'm also not a fan of the recent Cullen-impersonations... but I think the days of having drastically alternate takes of Optimus Prime as a character are behind us. It's not neccessarily the voice-actor making the choice to impersonate Cullen all on their own.

 

Thing is, Optimus in the cartoons of the past decade has been written to be a stoic soldier who can drop an epic speech at the end of the day. The only time we got more than was in AoE which is, despite the controversial take on it, one of Cullen/Optimus's best and impassioned performances. Too bad it was wasted on a bad film.

Either way, even if not Cullen there are still better options than the kid we have right now.

 

Maybe, but Chalk and Kaye, while fantastic voice actors, are not Cullen-impersonators, so I don't think they'd ever be chosen as these modern Optimus Primes. It seems what they're specifically looking for is "person who sort of sounds like Cullen".

 

And thats the problem. They aren't impersonators, which is why they would be good for the role. Hiring an impersonator that lacks the depth and presence of the original just feels cheap.

 

Honestly one of the worst primes, jon bailey is better
When he yells he sounds like a human/teen, some how reminds me of rodimus

 

He was god awful in cyberverse but better in siege

 

Honestly? He's terrible. At his best, he sounded like Dr Smoov's Optimus voice, and during his unnecessary temper tantrum yelling fits, sounded like an 18 year old boy. It was very clear that he could only portray "Optimus" in one vocal inflection, and completely falls apart when trying to show any other range, because he was clearly told to just do a G1 Peter Cullen impression. Which completely fails when you have to do other things that G1 Optimus wouldn't do vocally (namely, throw a temper tantrum and yell). He played the roll of an impressionist, not a voice actor.

Maybe he's a talented actor, but honestly Rooster Teeth has never been good with casting, but moreover, has never had good serious vocal direction. 99% of the voice actors in Siege were misused and terrible.

 

Honestly indont what yall are talking about. Ive loved all of the voice stuff of Netflix Prime. It sounds to me at least like a good midpoint between the youthful trucker vibe from G1 and the more stoic speech ridden Prime of the movies. It is going for a Cullen feel but i think it definitely has something more going for it.

 

It would have been much better if he did his own take on a hero's voice vs. a Peter Cullen impression. If they intend to do a Cullen-based voice for Prime, and Peter Cullen is still alive, just get Peter Cullen.

 

Exactly that. Do something new or get the union actors you want.

 

The voice was undeniably terrible, but for as bad as the voices are I have a hard time blaming the actors because the problems are consistent among every character: stilted delivery, bad impressions, same-y tones. To me that’s clear sign of bad voice direction, not acting. The VAs are clearly trying their hardest, but they can only do so much with the material they’ve got. Someone in the director’s chair decided everyone should sound as bad as possible, even veteran actors can’t fight that.

I also would have preferred he just use a natural voice. I’m sure it would’ve been much better than what we got.

 

I honestly think he did a much better job in Cyberverse, probably because of the tone of the show. I couldn't take him seriously when he shouted WE ARE NOT DECEPTICONS! I really hope that Hasbro goes back to union actors at some point because to me one of the strongest aspects of Transformers is the voice acting.

 

This is my take as well. Ultimately they need to begin to prepare for an Optimus Prime that is not Peter Cullen, which I guess they have been doing starting with Cyberverse.

But it's hard to tell what their angle is. Chalk and Kaye are fondly remembered and they are completely different from Peter Cullen, yet still embody what people tend to think of as Optimus pretty well, even if they are different incarnations. And maybe it's partly due to the heavy G1 inspiration the brand has leaned into for the past several years now that they feel they have to have a Cullen-esque Optimus, but in that case... just hire Peter Cullen. Do something different with the character or just use Cullen, don't go for this weird limbo middle ground, which by all accounts seems to be because they don't want to pay for him.

 

I think this is a good point. I actually though Tillman was pretty good in Cyberverse (from what I saw), where he would have had a lot less pressure to sound like Peter Cullen than he likely had in Siege.
As with Chalk and Kaye, if you want a new Optimus voice, that's great! Both of them did a really good job, and Tillman clearly can put out a good performance when he's not trying to be Peter Cullen 2.0. But, as you say, if you want Peter Cullen voicing a G1 Optimus Prime (and Siege Optimus looks a whole lot more like G1 Optimus than Cyberverse Optimus did)....just hire the real deal. I know it's probably more expensive, but it's not fair to him or to Tillman (or any other new Optimus Prime voice) to have other actors try to do an impression of his voice. Cullen is clearly still fond of the role, and he's still alive (hopefully for years to come), so if you want his voice, why not use him?

 

At times I thought he sounded fine, and sort of forgot who I was listening to. But it was comical when he got angry. He sounded like Megatron. Maybe that was supposed to be the point, but I laughed. Either way, I long for Cullen back. Or a fresh take all together.

 

I don't have as big of an issue with his voice as some. Sometimes it sounds like a very good version of Cullen's voice, other times it sounds very off and Tillman's age shows. I wonder if, to a voice actor, Optimus is a voice to be emulated and not crafted. When Peter Cullen first used the 'Optimus voice' we're so familiar with, it was a new thing that no one had ever attempted before. I don't know who the show's voice director was, but it's likely he wanted a G1 voice and they went with Tillman's impression because it strikes a chord with G1 fans and fans of the films.

Obviously, Optimus isn't a Looney Tune, but the goal of a voice actor voicing Daffy Duck is to sound as much like Mel Blanc as possible. I think the same principle was used here.

 

My main complaint about him, other than him not being Peter Cullen LOL , is that his Prime shouts in Anger too much