Welker's voice in the commercial sounds alot like his standard Megatron performance.

 

Kinda, he just sounds like Nimoy’s Galvatron. To me at least.

 

Yeah, that just sounds like Megatron to me.

 

I see what FS means, referring specifically to the "And it will be the last time we meet." line, which sounds more reserved and a bit like Nimoy, (or Megatron as he sounded in TF: Prime) as opposed to the standard Megatron voice used for all the back-and-forth narration with Cullen in the commercial.

Generally though, I agree that Nimoy works for menacing "The Movie" Galvy, and Welker works for the more unhinged S3 Galv, though taken on its own, there is a vibe that Welker went "Yeah, I'm pretty happy with my work as Megatron for the last couple years, but now I think I'd like to do an impression of Skeletor."  

 

I've seen Skeletor mentioned a couple of times in this thread. And I tend to agree. Very apt description. Skeletor and Frank Welker's Galvatron are very similar.

And that gets to my point quite a bit. Skeletor's voice was high pitched, annoying, weird, silly and comical. Skeletor wasn't a villian that you took seriously at all.

And none of the above is fitting of a Unicron initiated upgraded version of Megatron.

 

It doesn’t help that post-movie Galvatron was written as a total buffoon who was too short-sighted to be taken as a threat. How many times did this dipstick trust the Quints?

 

Great point.

 

I dunno about that. I personally feel like Galvatron should have a more youthful sound to him, since in my mind, it's not only an upgrade, but a rejuvenation, and Nimoy always sounded way too ancient to be a rejuvenation. With Frank, the lack of rasp indicates a sort of rejuvenation, and honestly, I felt Galvatron was a way better character than Megatron due to how he was written in season three (whereas in the movie, he was just a goon that was only there to let his cronies do the work and be abused by Unicron; in season three, even his own troops were afraid of him).

 

I was taken aback by Galvatron's voice in season 3 after watching the movie because it sounded so different and he even acts different.

Season 3 was a different beast in general, more sarcasm in the jokes instead of the camp of previous seasons. But I think the writing helps me ease myself and accept the high pitched voice of Galvatron by having him say a lot of fun lines while his subordinates chill beside him and tried to think of ways to talk with him while avoiding his anger button.

 

The 18:45 and 19:22 marks of S03E15 "Fight or Flee" are Exhibit 1 and 1A on why I think Welker was so bad as Galvatron. And these are just two of quite a few moments of awkward voice work w/him and the Galvatron character.

18:45 "Decepticons abandon the planet" yikes.

19:22 "Every Decepticon for himself" double yikes:

 

Honestly, Fight or Flee is not a good example of the voicework (it's not even a good example of the overall show either, cuz I find that particular episode to be the absolute worst, surpassing even B.O.T., even B.O.T. didn't have characters out-of-character, whereas this episode did). I honestly feel that every actor in that episode sounded like they didn't like the script. Even Dick Gautier and Frank Welker, who are brilliant as Rodimus and Galvatron in every other episode, sound uncharacteristically down and bored in this episode. The only actor here that delivers an honest effort is Jerry Houser as Sandstorm, but all the others... it feels as if either they didn't like the script or Wally Burr just didn't give a damn during that particular recording session (which is weird, because he was a very demanding guy when it came to the acting).

But honestly, Frank's Galvatron had way more range than Leonard Nimoy's take, and Frank had better material to work with most of the time, and once again, I always preferred Galvatron over Megatron thanks to his depiction in season three and Frank's manic and energetic performance.

 

That's actually what I loved about it. It was such a big departure from Megatron, that it really sells them as two separate characters.

 

Hm, I don't think he sounds either like G1 Megatron or Prime Megatron. He sounds most like he's doing an imitation of Nimoy's Galvatron here.

 

Exactly!

 

I prefer Welker’s Megatron to his Galvatron personally but his Galvatron is also top tier. Honestly whether or not I prefer Nimoy or Welker depends on the day really.

 

Gonna go Nimoy, love Welker as Megatron but the voice and Galvatron's characterization in season 3 made him a bit too silly to take seriously.