Gremlins Online!

I have gotten a few emails recently regarding the upcoming Transformers movie, and the voice talent being used to bring life to the robots of yesteryear and today.

One of the original voice actors from the Transformers Cartoon series, Peter Cullen, is reprising his role as the leader of the valiant Autobots, Optimus Prime. This was revealed last year sometime to the general public, and it was quickly assumed that Frank Welker would be returning as well for the voice of Megatron. (Nerd Trivia Note: The original voice of Megatron was performed by Earl Hammond, but most people remember Frank Welker’s later work as Megatron’s voice, though both did a spectacular job.) Unfortunately, the studio decided that Frank was “too old” for the role, and instead cast venerable elf-lord and machine agent, Hugo Weaving as the Decipticons’ first-in-command.

How does this relate to our green reptilian creatures of the nocturnal persuasion? Well, Frank Welker was the memorable voice that brought Stripe to life in Gremlins, as well as various gremlins in the film and also Mohawk in Gremlins 2. (and most likely random background gremlins in the sequel.)

So is Stripe a Transformer this time around? Yes and no. Frank Welker was Megatron in the cartoon series, but will not be in the feature film….However, Frank will be returning to the role of Megatron in the Transformers video game coming out this summer that is based on the 2007 film.

I have to admit that having the original voices of Megatron and Optimus Prime together again in the video game does lend an appeal to a movie tie-in game that I would normally avoid, so we shall see if the movie warrants the game’s rental.

Now let’s see Frank return for GREMLINS 3! Hell, let’s just see them make a Gremlins 3!

As the summer is slow with news, don’t expect very frequent updates, but they will pop up here and there.

Stay tuned to Gremlins Online and remember to drop us an email if you have any tidbits of Gremliny goodness.