Hasbro's May 2010 Transformers Q&A Answers for Cybertron.ca

[pandaprime]

Originally Posted by G.B.Blackrock

OK, that's got to be the lamest answer I've ever seen....

"Why not use the real voice?"
"We thought the fake ones were good enough."

Seriously, I'd rather they said "movie voice actors cost more money, and this was considered to be an unnecessary expense" or some such.

I agree. that's some kinda spin eh

[onecoin]

Neither one of those were actual answers.

I was actually go gonna post this: " Did a gret job representing the characters in the Movie? Wouldn't the Characters in the movie do a Better job Representing the Characters in the Movie?"

Then I thought about it a little. As much as it suck not having the real actor its makes sense not to go with them. First if they are acting in a major motion picture, they are going to be part of the actors union, which is going to guarantee minimum fees for speaking roles. When the film stuff in Winnipeg there is a ridiculous difference in salary for a person as soon as they say something individually. Basically a person can be in an entire movie, not say a word and get paid minimum wage per hour they worked. Or an "actor" can be on screen for like 3 seconds and as soon as they have a line, we're talking 10's of thousands of dollars. Plus that actor would be portraying a character in a film that the studio would technically have ownership over. Those fees must be much worst in the US. So to get a the American Voice actor to act out a few line would cost a fortune. I can only guess, but finding a guy on the street in China to say a few words into a mic must be a lot cheaper.

If they chose to take dialog directly from the film, that might actually cost more. In terms of licensing a part from the actually film, that the studio owns, to the royalties that have to be paid to the actor.

There was the SW:Episode 1 sound chips. I'm guessing that was easier to work out because the Film Studio (Lucas Films) and the License holder are one in the same. In the case of Transformers, Hasbro owns the license, which the studio has permission to use, but the film belongs to the Studio. So, I'm guessing all products from it must be licensed to Hasbro if they choose to use any of the work product.

Also, when it comes to toys. The actual parts being spoken in the film might not actually work well with a toy for kids. Devastator for example. And its pretty common place for speaking toy to do the "I'm Batman" "I'm Optimus Prime Leader of the Autobots," But how often does that actually happen in a movie? Chances are to get decent sound bytes for a kids toy, you have to create them yourselves. With the exception of "To Infinity and Beyond." And if you got to create the sound bytes yourself, aside form the cost, the Legal headache already sounds tremendous, when incorporating the Actor, thier Agent, The Toy Company, The sound Chip Manufacturer, the Sound Recording Studio, the Toy Licensee, the Film Studio, Film Distributor, Toy Safety Watch Dogs and Wal-Mart.