I've got ethical hang-ups on these sorts of AI things anyway, but I really would rather they not be used for people who have passed on and thus cannot consent to their use.

Either way, TF reinvents itself so often that there's not really any need. There's no new material made in the Sunbow G1 universe anyway, so no need for those voices specifically. I can understand the fans of something like Star Wars being hesitant to warm up to new talent (even if I would still prefer new talent over some of the AI stuff that's been done), but in TF any new incarnation isn't a sequel to the old one.

 

And have the Sunbow and Beast Wars voices available forever?

I'm all for it.

 

Even if new stuff was made in the Sunbow universe I'd want new voice-actors and actresses. I don't need nor want the exact same voice, especially for those who have died.

Because god forbid we have new, fresh blood in the franchise and move on from the past.   Nope, gotta stick both feet in the grave and dig those corpses up!

 

Sometimes I feel things get to a point where they're perfect. Here are some more examples:

James Earl Jones Vader
Kevin Conroy Batman
Mark Hamill Joker

 

No finer way to piss on Kevin Conroy's grave than to "resurrect" his voice as a shitty AI. You don't care about the actor(s), you just care about whether the voices sound "good enough."

 

I see it as being so good that people don't want it done by anybody else.

 

But people do. I don't want future Batmen and Jokers to be endless carbon-copies of Conroy and Hamill, I want them to be their own things, with their own strengths and weaknesses, but above all their own heart.

As technically impressive as AI voicing is, they cannot replicate the range and emotive ability of a real human actor.

 

People really need to learn to disassociate actors from the characters they play. It was bad before, but with the false intimacy of social media, it's like people can't tell the difference between character and actor anymore. It's bad news for all involved, really.

We all need to learn to do without.

 

Exactly, heck if AI voicing was a thing decades ago than people be wanting Batman sound like Adam West forever. We got Keaton, Conroy, Bale and many others because we had to move on when people didn’t want to keep doing it.

While I grew up with BTAS, I personally enjoyed the character portrayals from The Batman cartoon. I appreciate that Kevin Michael Richardson just didn’t imitate Mark and instead did his own take.

Going back to Transformers, from Beast Wars to Transformers Cybertron, a lot of us didn’t grow up with the G1 voice actors. David Kaye, Garry Chalk, and Scott McNeil became fan favourites due to voicing the characters. Had AI voicing been a thing back then, they wouldn’t been given the opportunity to voice those characters.

That’s the danger with all this. First it’s recreating the voices of those gone, then it’ll be the livings turn. When you can recreate the voice, then you put existing actors out of work and doom the next generation. Like Frank’s work as Fred from Scooby Doo. If WB could, they would use AI to recreate his voice and stop paying him to save money.

 

You're goddamn right. My entire damn collection is based on nostalgia.

 

I think what it really boils down to is whether a fan prefers their tf media to be 'art' or to be 'product'. Now, official transformers media has always been a commercial product or a means of promoting a commercial product, so it's always been some mixture (at best) of 'art' and 'product'.

The 'art' part of it means writers with a vision and something meaningful/relevant to say, animators/designers/directors trying to make their own statement visually, and a cast of artists genuinely trying to bring the characters to life with well-thought, 'soulful' performances. It involves conscious artistic decisions along the way, each of which may result in something that's able to touch some members of the audience deeply, but potentially with the risk of alienating others.

The 'product' part of it means it's designed to be 'sold', to appeal to the target market as best as possible (whether that's a 'general' audience, kids, hardcore fans, etc., and sometimes more than one group at once). The more focused the audience, the more tightly the product can try to give them what they want (though sometimes they'll add a couple elements to try and appeal to another group outside the 'main' one without sacrificing their core appeal). Often, it means giving the audience more of what they liked in the past, ideally they'd just sell the same successful product over again, but realistically it's usually changed to some degree to keep the audience from being bored with it. The risk of 'product' is that it can only base what people will want on what they liked previously, it can't take the risk of delivering something new, even if that new product has a chance of making a greater impact.

 

Is your "nostalgia" worth suffocating the hobby under mass-produced, underbaked slop that is openly hostile to new performing talent?

 

Why ask questions the last decade of Transformers content has already given an answer to? :/

 

VAs are in general pretty underappreciated/disrespected as is. I can't think of anything much worse than reducing it to just A.I. generated "voices" based off long dead people.

 

No you're not. I agree with this. As long as them or their living relatives approve, I say let's do it.

 

An aging actor agreeing to it themselves, I wouldn't have to much of an issue with, but relatives really have no right. You can't use a dead person's organs unless they themselves consented to it while alive, and I see no reason one's voice isn't just as much their own property, if not more

 

Hm. That's a good point.

 

I doubt most people feel that way.

To stick with the Batman example, we've had so many actors in the role, who each brought their own heart to the character, that while Kevin may be the best animated version of Batman, his mark on the role is far from indelible. Olan Soule, Diedrich Bader, Rino Romano, Troy Baker, Jensen Ackles, Keanu Reeves, . Even Adam West, THE Batman, played 3 different animated versions of the character.

As for Optimus Prime, he (and in one obscure case she) has already been played by a number of actors. I actually prefer Garry Chalk and David Kaye over Peter Cullen, especially post 2007 Cullen. So he's already had several successors. And let's face it, given how lifeless the voice directors have Peter himself make Optimus these days, the AI version would probably be even worse. Have you even watched Bayverse, played the High Moon games or watched Prime? What makes you think the AI would be programmed to emulate G1 Cullen rather than Epic Speech Dispenser Cullen?

 

“Becauseeeee…..That's the way, aha, aha
I like it, aha, aha
That's the way, aha, aha
I like it, aha, aha…”

lol

 

I don't like it, but if it's going to be the "future of VA", than it needs to be limited to current characters or franchises and only if the actors give permission and their families are paid licensing fees. So if you want Peter Cullen's voice for Optimus Prime, than you gotta pay top dollar to his family.