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Peter Cullen Not The Voice Of Optimus Prime?
Post Submited By: Phil You can submit a post here
Regular Movie Blog reader Phil sent me a note with this link, that may give us some insight to the future of Optimus Prime. Here is what Phil Wrote:
“Just thought i’d point this out in a vain attempt to get you to talk about Transformers once a week at least. Don Murphy, one of the producers on Transformers, has his own message board at the link provided and was asked by fans whether Peter Cullen (original voice actor for Optimus Prime) is playing the part in the new movie. It appears that he has auditioned for the part but the only response Murphy could muster was:“when I feel they can handle the truth I will tell them”
Interpret that however you want but personally, i think it means bad news is coming and Mr. Murphy doesn’t want the fans going ape-shit just yet.”
Now, you can look at it in two ways. One way, is that they have decided to use Peter Cullen, and they’re just building the suspence… or the more likely senario is…
That they auditioned him… and it just doesn’t work… and they don’t want to say that yet. (As a side note Cullen has been doing all the voice work for Eeyore in all the “Winnie the Pooh” stuff).
Hey, I’d like to hear Cullen’s voice as Prime as much as anyone. BUT… if they tried it out, and it just didn’t work, or his voice has aged too much, then I’m totally ok with them getting a new voice as long as it has that same magestic and authoritative tone to it. It doesn’t have to sound the same of Cullen’s voice… just carry that same authority. I’m sure you’ll have a lot to say in the comments section on this one.
It would be a DEEP disappointment not to have Cullen do the voice of Optimus… But, i agree, if he has simply aged too much, it makes sense to get someone else to do it. (it just BETTER NOT be like Keanu Reeves or something stupid like that…)
On a complete fanboy note, i found out last year that a guy i work with is Peter Cullen’s nephew. The guy didnt understand why i went NUTS when i found out… i guess he was a little too old for Transformers when they hit (he’s in his early 40’s now). I still want him to get his uncle to leave the outgoing message on my answering machine…
My suggestions for the voice if Cullen is out:
Dennis Haysbert (from ‘24′)
Robby Benson (Beast in Disney’s ‘Beauty & the Beast’)
Craig T. Nelson (Did a great job in ‘The Incredibles’)
Then you always have the great voices of:
Michael Ironside (Top Gun, Starship Troopers)
George Clooney
Samuel L. Jackson
James Earl Jones
Ah Dennis Haysbert’s a nice idea, Jim. Good voice.
Yeah I got to agree it would be dissapointing but I’m sure they will get someone with just a good voice to fill in as Prime.
Ohhh Dennis Haysbert, I like that alot, as a first alternative ofcourse. He is AWSOME in that show The Unit and a solid voice.
nord
Hey I got the perfect voice for Megatron president Bush!!! I’m not kidding.
Micheal Ironside would be great!
I have a great story about don murphy. he is a complete weirdo…..incredibly insecure and for a movie producer bizarrely thinskinned
Remember on “aint it cool news” when you could click on a name in the messageboards and it would go straight through to that persons e mail and you could email people?
well I once put up a message about transformers ages and ages ago saying how good it was don murphy was producing this and hopefully it turns out as good as the last piece of shit he produced league of gentlemen.
the next day I had 3 e mails from don murphy calling me a number of things. a loser, a faggot all sorts of stuff. telling me he was having brunch with lee tamahori and they were talking about what a loser i was. (????? very strange)
I thought it was very weird and thought no way would it be the real guy so I replied to him saying “good on you you fucking weirdo” thinking no way can this be the real guy. He replied in turn and mentioned lee tamahori again and told me that i live in my mothers basement.
Why he was so obsessed with telling me about lee tamahori I will never know. But after what happened to lee tamahori last year perhaps isn’t wasn’t brunch they were having. well someone might have been eating something but I don’t think it was french toast.
Then I go onto the chud boards and see don murphy is there abusing and attacking anyone who hates his films. saying the exact same things he said to me. I thought it couldn’t be could it? So I sent an e mail to the guys from AICN to ask about it and as it turns out yes it was don murphy. He is famous for it. He trawls movie website message boards and if anyone dislikes his films he attacks them. He did it to the AICN guys….the chud guys…him and devin had a huge fight…it is still there on the chud boards somewhere. very funny. he teamed up with these other guys who started a website called scorched earth or something and they sent bogus stories to aicn to try and fuck with. they were really after moriarity as he gave murphy films bad reviews…I don’t know why the scorched earth guys hated him but they teamed up with murphy. then don murphy denied he knew them when they turned out to be a bunch of racists. On their site they started putting up articles about “ni##ers” being the scum of the earth etc etc. He quickly denied knowing anything about them.
This is all completely true as weird as it sounds. He is completely insane.
What a great story though he’s probably not insane……just sensitive. That cross dressing mess up Mr Tamahori on the other hand………
Getting back to the subject for a second, i’m by no means a purist (i’m not even a huge Transformers fan but i am looking forward to this movie more than anything else next year including Spidey 3 and the Simpsons movie). I’m not going to throw a hissy fit if Prime is not red and blue in the right places but i will be dissapointed if Cullen hasn’t gotten the part. He just is that character, there’s no question about it. I’m sure he can still do the voice well enough. On the other hand, maybe they have redesigned the character so drastically that Cullen’s voice no longer matches the Optimus of this film.
In any case, what i’m most excited about is that if the film is a box office powerhouse, we could be seeing the start of a whole slew of 80’s cartoons coming to the big screen. I wanna see He-Man (er, again cause they did make the one with Dolph Lundgren), Thundercats, COPS, G.I.JOE (that one is coming, i just know it), Silverhawks, even friggin Jem.
On a side note… being mentioned on the audio edition has made my life complete… really.
:-)
transformer teaser confirmed for july 4th….will be attached to pirates of the caribbean……confirmed
I know the studio will be dying to get big name actors for the main characters but I’d be happy with unknowns as long as they capture the essence of whoever they’re playing.
I’m totally behind Haysbert as Prime though. A little electronic tweaking and he could be perfect. How about Michael Dorn too. He has a ’stong’ voice.
Cullen does the Optimus voice here and he sounds exactly the same. And the dude does not look close to 80 years old.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=3fCkE2s4y90&search=optimus%20prime