I was thinking about making this about casting Japanese only cartoons for an American audience but why limit it to just that? Plus I think threads like that have already existed several times in the past.

This isn't just voice cast by the way you can also recast on screen human characters from the live action films if you want to. They'd still have the same scripts, same director, you're just swapping the actor with someone you think could have maybe done a better job with the material they were given than the actor who was actually there.

That said...

Beast Machines

Jetstorm and Thrust should of been voiced by Scott McNeil instead of Brian Drummond and Jim Byrnes.

Tankor should of been voiced by Richard Newman instead of Paul Dobson.

I think the idea behind recasting them was to make it harder on the audience to figure out who they were originally but like especially in Scotts case having him voice them wouldn't have made any difference. You'd still have Blackarachnia thinking that Thrust was Silverbolt and it'd actually be even funnier when you realize they're both voiced by the same person.

And I'm not saying that Brian, Jim, or Paul were bad in these roles just that I would of liked to hear how their original voice actors would of portrayed these characters.

RID2001

Not sure if anyone has really noticed this but the combiners in this series are usually voiced by the same actor who also serves as the leader of the team who forms that combiner. All except for Omega Prime who has a total different voice actor than his individual parts. Even weirder is that Omega Prime shares his voice actor with Megatron/Galvatron so every time you see those two fighting you're also hearing Daniel Riordan talking to himself. He's good playing the dual roles but it would seem to make more sense with how the other combiners work if Neil Kaplan voiced both Optimus and Omega.

Cybertron

Paul Dobson as Sideways

Ron Halder as Primus

Colin Murdoch as Wing Saber

Bret Miller as Hot Shot

Scott McNeil and Jetfire (I just realized Brian Drummond took both Jetstorm and Jetfire from Scott McNeil.)

Ward Parry as Landmine

Red Alert actually is the same actor already but basically the idea here is for all the characters in Cybertron to sound the same as they did in Armada/Energon and drop the silly accents that they gained for no apparent reason. It wouldn't fix all the problems with this messed up continuity but it would it least show that they were making an attempt to connect them instead of doing everything they could to make this sequel stand out on it's own as a totally separate universe.

Animated

Gary Chalk as Optimus Prime (I like David Kaye but not as Optimus he never sounded right in that role.)

Literally ANYONE as Perceptor

If you don't already know this Perceptor's voice was PlainTalk, a text to speech computer program which is why he sounds so monotone and robotic. He literally is a robot voice. Hence why you can put literally anyone in that role and have a better performance. I think he only had one line of dialog so whoever was in the recording studio that day when they were recording that episode just have one of them read that line out.

I really shouldn't be complaining about a robot being voiced by an actual robot but it takes work away from actual voice actors and I'd hate to see a future where every Transformer is done by a text to speech program and only the human characters are voiced by real actors.

Rescue Bots/Rescue Bots Academy

Going to get a bit more controversial with this one because I'm not just putting the original voice actors into the sequel. This would be my ideal voice cast for both shows...

Steve Blum as Heatwave

Frank Cwiklik as Chase

Imari Williams as Boulder (Are Boulder's voice actors related? They both have the same last name.)

Micheal Hansen as Blades

Hiro Diaz as Optimus Prime (I don't really like this voice but it helps set this Optimus apart if he's not Peter Cullen or Jake Tillman.)

Jeremy Levy as Bumblebee (Not that I don't like Will Friedle... it's more that I don't like this being in the same continuity as Prime/RID2015 so I'm giving him a different voice actor.)

Terrence Flint as Grimlock

Elan Garfias as Cody Burns (Not that I don't like his new actor but Cody being voiced by an actual child actor meant that the character kinda grew up in real time which is kinda rare for kid characters in cartoons. His voice changes during the course of Rescue Bots because the actor was actually growing up along with him. Now it's suddenly a completely different person and even though his voice was always changing anyway it's still felt kind of jarring for Cody to suddenly have a more adult voice.)

Frank and Micheal I put in there because I actually like them slightly more in Academy than I did in the original Rescue Bots. Chase is still boring but he's not quite as monotoned as the original voice actor. Blades I actually found kind of annoying in the original show and considering how popular he was that's where I'm probably going to have controversy because I like him a lot better in Academy.

Prime/RID2015

Peter Cullen as Optimus Prime

Will Friedle as Bumblebee

Khary Payton as Grimlock

Cyberverse

Jake Tillman as Optimus Prime

Ryan Andes as Grimlock but make the robot voice sound more like the beast voice

Ian James Corlette as Cheetor

Peter Spellos as Sky-Byte

I really don't like the new takes on their characters. Cheetor was more interesting when he didn't talk at all and he sounds oddly happy all the time even when he's suppose to be feeling sad or angry and it's kind of unsettling. The original Cheetor actually expressed different emotions. Sky-Byte is just too much like Jetfire to be interesting. So I figure while we're bringing back these characters who haven't been seen in a cartoon in almost 20 years why not also bring back their original voice actors.

 

I would have had BB Movie Dropkick voiced by Lee Tockar. He would sound like Vile from the Ruby Spears Megaman Cartoon. (the purple guy that looks like Boba Fett)

 

I think Carl Lumbly would make a great Jazz for the Knightverse, considering his portrayal as Dick Hallorann in Doctor Sleep.

I also think Joseph Gordon-Levitt might be interesting as Starscream or at least one of the other Seekers. Some of you may know why...

 

Super Mario as the voice of all the Armada Mini-Cons.  

 

Any version of bumblebee voiced by radio replaced with a real bleeping actor

 

Combiner Wars Menasor with his Devestation voice actor.

Every non G1 Soundwave voiced by Frank Welker or John Bailey with the appropriate vocoder effects.

Every modern Ironhide bar Energon voiced by Peter Cullen.

Every modern Jazz voiced by Troy Baker.

Prime Bulkhead voiced by Bill Faggerbakke.

Every modern Starscream voiced by Charles Adler.

All Shockwaves by Corey Burton.

All Grimlocks by Gregg Berger.

 

For TFTM, I would have rather have Dick Gautier as both Rodimus and Hot Rod, Tony Pope as Wreck-Gar, Jack Angel as Ultra Magnus and John Stephenson as Kup. As for Unicron, I would have preferred William Conrad if they wanted to go the celebrity route, but if not, I would have settled on Roger C. Carmel. Speaking of which, they should have cast Travis Willingham as Animated Rodimus and have kept Ben Pronsky as Prime Wars Rodimus (then again, I've never been a fan of Judd Nelson's take).

Animated Lockdown should have been Gregg Berger. I always felt Lance Henriksen was a bit meh, plus, I always felt he would be a better fit for Nightbeat.

I would have personally cast Charlie Adler or Steve Blum as Animated Starscream, 'cause I felt Tom Kenny was waaaay too forced, and I would have cast Michael Madsen as Bulkhead ('cause I always felt a George C. Scott type voice would fit him better).

They should have kept James Arnold Taylor as Megatronus in ROTF instead of using Tony Todd. Either that or use someone with a more booming voice like Timothy Dalton. Same for Prime Wars Megatronus. Mark Hamill just feels like he would fit Mindwipe better.

 

Should Elita-1 appear and return in any future TF films/shows, they need to get Cree Summer back, and hell, maybe even get someone like Lenore Zann.

 

Mark Hamil as Starscream