Sure we have to allow for changes in voice actors and the passage of time, but when they make a new cartoon based on the 80s cartoon, should they try to replicate the original voices or not?

I would want the director to show the actor clips of the original cartoon and tell them “this is the character you will be playing, this is what existing fans of the cartoon expect them to sound like” — as opposed to “do whatever voice you want; nobody will care.”

 

Personally, I'd go with "This is how the character you'll be playing was last represented; do you think you can make something interesting out of that, or, if not, can you sell me a good pitch as to why your reinterpretation would be better than the bloke in the next booth?"

I wouldn't want to stifle creativity, if someone wants to pitch something which might really be incredibly good, just because it's different, but not to let 'creativity' be used to cover laziness.

It also depends on whether, just because the name's the same, the character is too. Peter Cullen's G1 Optimus Prime is quite rightly feted as one of the all time best efforts at "heroic" voice acting, and it was quite right for him to be playing the part in the live action and Prime versions, but, conversely, he wouldn't really have fit Animated Optimus Prime. Speaking of whom, how ironic that David Kaye and Frank Welker are both utterly incredible as their respective Megatrons, yessss, but I wouldn't say that either's iconic performances would fit the other way around.

 

Personally, if this ever happened, I would mix and match stuff, with some performances being close to how the original would sound like and others being their own thing while still keeping the essence of the original character. However, one thing that should be done is to let even the actors who are being close to the original to bring their own spin to the role to make it more than just an impression.

 

I’d want a Starscream that looks like G1 Starscream to have a voice that’s a decent enough impression of Chris Latta.

Movie and Prime Starscream don’t look like G1 Starscream at all, so they don’t have to sound like G1 Starscream.

 

That is one of the voices I would personally keep intact, because the G1 performance is just timeless. Same with someone doing a Dick Gautier-esque Hot Rod/Rodimus, 'cause I just can't picture any other voice other than his for Roddy.

But other characters, I feel like they don't have to sound exactly the same to fit the original versions of the characters (for example, even though they played the characters in different continuities, I feel David Sobolov's Shockwave and Harry Lennix's Cyclonus would fit perfectly as G1 versions of the characters despite the different sounding voices because the essence of the original is at least there).

 

G1 Prowl’s actor Michael Bell thought he would get the job of Animated Prowl just because he had previously played G1 Prowl. But Animated Prowl is a completely different character to G1 Prowl so it is fair that he did not play the role.

Prowl wasn’t a major character in the 1980s cartoon and did not have the kind of voice that G1 Prowl should have. G1 Prowl only became a major character later with IDW1 being his defining moment. So I’m which case, I don’t mind G1 Prowl being recast with someone more appropriate.

But in many cases, the 1980s cartoon had many iconic voices.

 

Actually, Benedict Cumberbatch would make for a rather fun G1 Prowl.

 

The voice casting should be tailored to the continuity's depiction of the character, without any consideration of what previous voice actors have done. Even if the voice actor is returning to voice a new iteration of the character, they should still alter their performance to match the new take.

Take the various Optimuses, for example. You wouldn't have Peter Cullen voice Animated Optimus, and David Kaye's take on Optimus would be inappropriate for Movie Optimus, and Garry Chalk's take is different from either of those takes. And even if you go with the old war veteran interpretation of Optimus, Peter Cullen may not always be appropriate - if you're intentionally writing an ineffectual dolt, then putting Cullen in that role's an insult. If you're writing a guy that makes Bayverse Optimus look like a squish, then somebody like Keith David might be better.

 

To me, it's always jarred me when I hear the wrong - or different voice - come out of a character. The worse being Galvatron in s3

 

I personally feel season three Galvatron was much better than the movie voice (then again, I do feel all the season three voices were much better than in the movie due to better material and development).

 

Season 3 had better material and development than The Movie?

Movie Galvatron was a badass with a great voice while Season 3 reduced him to one dimensional, comic relief with a corny voice.

G1 Soundwave's voice was perfect and no modern version came close until the Bumblebee movie. The Animated voice was poor but then it's portrayal of Soundwave was an insult. I would rather not have Soundwave in a series unless they replicate the G1 voice.

Same with Starscream. His voices in Devestation, War for Cybertron and Prime Wars were terrible, sounding forced and corny.

I think the worst portrayal of a character's voice was Menasor in Prime Wars. The G1 and Devestation voices suited the hulking giant but letting that Dashie Games guy portray him in Prime Wars was an awful idea.

Not only did it not suit the character but it was grating and annoying. Menasor has been my favourite Combiner since 1986 but every time he spoke in Prime Trilogy, I cringed.

I definitely think Jeff Bennett should be brought back for future incarnations of Prowl.

Some first incarnations of characters had corny, horrible voices like Red Alert, Rattrap, Dinobot, Quickstrike, Armada Cyclonus and Energon Ironhide.

That said, I do feel Transformers voice acting has gone down in quality in recent years. The worst offenders being:

Prime Wars Menasor
Prime Wars/Devestation Starscream
Movie Crosshairs
Movie/RID 2015 Drift
Brains
RID 2015 Grimlock
RID 2015 Jazz
Mohawk
Cyberverse Jetfire
Cyberverse Skybite
Movie Lockdown. Unforgivable given that he was the main Cybertronian villain.
Animated Ironhide
Prime Bulkhead

I've never been a fan of accents on Transformers as often it comes across as corny and a lazy way of characterizing a Transformer. Oddly, I didn't mind Last Knight Hot Rod's French accent since they at least gave an in continuity reason.

Also, the Titans nearly always get bad voice acting like G1 Metroplex and Scorponok.
Metroplex and Omega Supreme were ok in the War For Cybertron games but Metroplex could have been better in Prime Wars though I did like Fortress Maximus being voiced by Worf from Star Trek.

I suppose really, it comes down to capturing the essence of the character and Hasbro have in recent times actively strived for uniformity in the brand.

I would love Troy Baker to reprise the role of Jazz again as he did a perfect impression of Scatman Crothers in the Fall of Cybertron game.

I'd also love to hear Peter Cullen voicing Ironhide again.

 

Not totally true. Yes, Galvatron was comical at times, but his condition was actually treated pretty seriously (especially in Webworld). He was much more interesting than Megatron or even 86 movie Galvatron because the insanity he had made him a lot more dangerous and unpredictable. Movie Galvatron was just there most of the time. The only things he did of note is turn on Unicron and pulverize Starscream, not much else. Season three Galvatron, on the other hand, was sent to a kind of lunatic asylum in Webworld, the therapy failed and his damaged psyche was enough to cause feedback into the planet's computer core when they tried to absorb the energy of his mind. And after that, he destroys the planet's memory core while facing the risk of frying his own circuits. If that isn't badass, then I dunno what is.

Leonard Nimoy did have a good voice, but he just doesn't sound like a rejuvenated Megatron. It sounds like it would fit someone like Megatronus a lot more. Frank's Galvatron sounds rejuvenated due to the lack of the rasp, sounds fittingly unhinged and unpredictable and could sell the one-liners perfectly.

 

We'll agree to differ. I grew up on the Marvel UK comic and didn't see many episodes of Season 3 so the movie voice was my main exposure to Galvatron's voice. The first of the only three S3 episodes I saw was Dark Awakening, which while I'm not a fan of Optimus Prime, is my favourite S3 episode.

However Galvatron's change of voice actor, not to mention the poor animation, was quite jarring. I'd watched Transformers The Movie 100 times by then, not an exaggeration, so I was well used to the gravelly voice of the movie.

I find it interesting when you say Galvatron sounds like a rejuvenated Megatron. While I prefer Nimoy's portrayal, I've always felt that Galvatron's voice, whoever the actor is, could have been Megatron's younger voice.

 

That's understandable. Season three is actually my favorite season of them all. It had the strongest stories (though stuff like Fight or Flee, Only Human and Starscream's Ghost really needed a massive rewrite, while Return of Optimus Prime shouldn't have existed at all) and the movie characters were much better represented and developed. The animation was pretty inconsistent (sometimes being amazing, while other times being mediocre or pretty bad), but the strength of the stories was enough to make me let that slide.

And personally (with an emphasis on the personally, since again, this is an opinion), I just don't see Leonard's Galvatron fitting the Marvel Galvatron pretty well (at least in the US comics, since I haven't read many of the UK ones aside from Man of Iron, the Space Pirates saga and some Starscream stuff, including the Christmas issue). Galvatron is pretty insane in those stories, so Frank seems to fit a bit better for me.

Yes, I feel Frank sounds the most like a rejuvenated Megatron who, after Unicron was destroyed, can't cope with the amount of power that is in his body and in addition to that, he got his brain damaged when he landed in the lava plasma of Thrull, so he is driven absolutely to the edge.

So yeah, like you said, it's really down to experience and personal preference.

 

Curious that with very similar experiences, we can draw very different conclusions. Likewise, the UK comic was always my 'definitive' Transformers continuity growing up, and likewise, I only saw three season three episodes.

If you say "Dark Awakening", "Grimlock's New Brain", and "Ghost in the Machine" I'll be vaguely alarmed, but, on the other hand, those did seem to be the most widely available VHS tapes. I think I saw tapes for "Starscream's Ghost", "Fight or Flee" and "Surprise Party" in shops at one point or another, but didn't get them.

Still, regardless- I can see what you mean about the animation (certainly) in Dark Awakening, and Galvatron's voice, but to me, the scrappy animation bizarrely helped Dark Awakening- somehow the scruffiness, the wonky faces and so on contributed to the sheer 'battered' look of the universe at this point to me, compared with the crisp, clear, brightly coloured and pristine Toei look of the pre-movie episodes I'd seen ("More than Meets the Eye", "Dinobot Island", "Megatron's Master Plan", "The Key to Vector Sigma", "War Dawn", "The Revenge of Bruticus". Dark Awakening's cast looked like they'd been through a war and still had splinters broken off them to prove it, and everything seemed on the verge of breaking or exploding.

 

I think it depends. With voices there's a lot of room for creativity.

For instance I think Corey Burton's Shockwave is basically his ideal voice, Burton doing an impression of David Warners Sark. Animated did a neat gimmick where his accent changed depending on whether he was disguised or not. Fall of Cybertron did something interesting (though I'm not entirely sure if it was intentional or not) giving Shockwave a voice inspired by Victor Caroli.

As much as I like David Sobolov and think he has a great voice, his Shockwave is super dull, and then the guy voicing him in Cyberverse was trying to mirror the voice Sobolov did for him... yeah.

Personally if I couldn't get Burton I'd probably get Tom Kane to voice him.

 

While it came up, the 3 episodes were Grimlock's New Brain, Dark Awakening and The Nightmare Planet.

I know it's common among the fandom to despise Daniel and Wheelie but I never had a problem with them in Season 3. However having struggled to get through Headmasters, I do understand their disdain.

But I digress, the Nightmare Planet centred around Daniel but I still like it. I loved the portrayal of the Predacons especially Razorclaw. His teaming up with Springer against the dragon was a great scene especially his mocking the princess. Cool voice too.

 

Yeah, I didn't mind Daniel and Wheelie in season three, but they were godawful in Headmasters.

For me, Nightmare Planet is, again, an episode like Carnage in C-Minor: a lot of people hate it, but I enjoyed it for what it was. It had a great story and some pretty intense moments and acting (the battle with the dragon was pretty intense thanks to the season three music score).

IMO, season three had the best episodes, but there were weak ones like Starscream's Ghost, Fight or Flee and Only Human, which felt too rushed, characters didn't feel very in-character (Rodimus in Fight or Flee being the worst offender, because I absolutely liked him in all the other episodes, but in that one, it feels like what he would become in the Japanese Headmasters cartoon) and the animation looked pretty much unfinished.

 

For me, if they are trying to recreate a character similar to what his original interpretation is, the voice becomes important. This is less about looks and more about characterization. Outside of Optimus (and Ironhide) and Soundwave (simply because of how timeless his voice is), Jazz and maybe Michael Bell's Prowl, I don't see most of the G1 cast working with the IDW1 comics. Also, I think you could change Optimus for that as well. It's because the interpretations are so different. Do I really want the shrill Chris Latta playing President elect Starscream? No - in no way would that work. Would Frank Welker start sounding like Freddie for Autobot Megatron? To me, the voice can tell you a lot about the character independent of the writing - so that's where voice consistency comes in.

 

Within the seasons of a show? Vital, unless there's an actual reason for the voice to change.

Between shows? Not at all important, and I really don't see why people get hung up on it (especially Cullen as Prime and Welker as Megatron).