The voice cast

His final performance. He recorded alone, in a session closed to everyone but the voice director and the engineer, and died on 10 October 1985, months before release. He had not read the script and did not know he was playing a planet. Told his biographer Barbara Leaming: "I play a planet. I menace somebody called Something-or-other. Then I'm destroyed."

In the series? New. Unicron was created for this film.

Since: Recast repeatedly since, from Roger C. Carmel onward.

Recorded solo, at a separate session from Welles, who never met him. There is a neat reversal buried here: two years earlier, Frank Welker had provided the uncredited screams of the regenerating Spock in Star Trek III. Welker voiced Nimoy's character, then Nimoy took over Welker's.

In the series? New. Galvatron debuts in this film.

Since: Returned to the franchise 25 years later as Sentinel Prime in Dark of the Moon.

Cast straight off The Breakfast Club, aged 25, and it was his first voice work. He arrived and told the director "I've never done this before, I have no idea what I'm doing, please hold me by the hand." The contrast with Welles, who refused to be directed at all, is the whole cast in miniature.

In the series? New. Both roles created for the film.

Since: Extensively. Rodimus in Animated, Titans Return and Power of the Primes, where he also voiced Unicron, the role he fought in 1986.

Flown to New York on Concorde for a single day of recording. He has said he did not understand a word of it: "Lines like Itchging ugh-gah bluhblah. And they'd say, no no, the emphasis is on ITCH-ging." He has also never seen the film. Note the writing conceit is specific to this film: here his lines are mashups of several catchphrases spliced into one new sentence, while later writers just gave him straight TV quotes.

In the series? New. The Junkions debut here.

Since: No. Animated wanted him back for their Wreck-Gar but he was doing Spamalot, so "Weird Al" Yankovic took it.

Elliot Ness in the original Untouchables, the host of Unsolved Mysteries, and Captain Rex Kramer in Airplane!, a parody of himself. His character's death was originally scripted and storyboarded as a drawing and quartering.

In the series? New. Magnus is a 1986 toy.

Since: No. Jack Angel took Magnus over for the television series.

His film career began in 1932. He was named to HUAC as a Communist in 1953, blacklisted, and spent fifteen years working in Europe before returning. Born 11 January 1908, he is the earliest-born person ever to work on Transformers.

In the series? New. Kup is a 1986 toy.

Since: No.

The world's fastest talking man, famous from the FedEx and Micro Machines commercials. He is the only supporting name given a "Co-starring" credit in the opening titles, and in 1990 he got his own licensed board game.

In the series? New. Blurr was built around him.

Since: Yes. Blurr in Animated and the 35th Anniversary stop-motions. Transformers Hall of Fame.

He plays both Optimus Prime and Ironhide, and both die inside the same twenty minutes of film. Two origin stories for the voice exist and both are first-hand: his brother Larry, a Marine, telling him "if you're going to be a hero, be a real hero, be strong enough to be gentle"; and voice director Wally Burr asking him to stop shouting and "just make Optimus a very nice gentleman who doesn't shout at anybody, because he knows what the hell he's doing."

In the series? Established. Both are his television roles.

Since: Continuously, for forty years. Awarded a NATAS Lifetime Achievement Award in December 2023, presented by Frank Welker.

Seven characters in one film. He does NOT voice Galvatron here, which is the most common cast error about this movie; Nimoy does, and Welker inherited the role immediately afterwards for the toy commercials and season three. One long-standing credit has since been corrected: Laserbeak's squawks were attributed to Welker for over thirty years and were actually Chris Latta.

In the series? Established, except Wheelie and the Junkion.

Since: Continuously. Megatron and Soundwave across the live-action films, Prime, and the games.

The cast's self-appointed deputy, the one who would stop the director mid-line-reading with "Wally, don't give us a line reading, we're actors!" His favourite role was Prowl, "because he had a wry sense of humour. Too bad they killed him!" He also originated the running joke that the director killed Orson Welles.

In the series? Established, except the Junkion.

Since: High Tide in Rescue Bots, Sideswipe and Scrapper in Devastation.

Shockwave's voice is a David Warner impression, specifically Warner as Sark in Disney's Tron, a character Burton himself went on to play in Kingdom Hearts II.

In the series? Established.

Since: Yes. Megatron, Ratchet, Ironhide and Shockwave in Animated.

Hook's voice came out of a failed Gregory Peck impression. His favourite line in all of Transformers is Springer's "I've got better things to do tonight than die!", and he credits Springer as the one part that spared him what he calls throat ripping, the vocal damage the screaming roles caused.

In the series? Springer is new. The other three are established.

Since: Convention readings, and the Shout! Factory 25th anniversary reunion.

Also Cobra Commander in G.I. Joe, and the first voice of Mr. Burns and Moe on The Simpsons. Starscream's coronation and disintegration is the film's other great set piece after Prime's death.

In the series? Established.

Since: No. Transformers Hall of Fame.

She based Arcee on Barbara Stanwyck, and created the voice for the film not knowing she would also be written into the television series. She is also one of the two people on the record confirming that Orson Welles performed all of his own lines.

In the series? New for the film, then added to the series afterwards.

Since: Yes, and on the other side of the glass: voice director on Beast Wars, Beast Machines, Animated and Prime.

Harry Mudd in the original Star Trek and the animated series, which makes two Trek leads in one cast. He then inherited Unicron from Welles for the television series, and died three months after the film opened.

In the series? Both new.

Since: No.

His final film. Jazz survives the picture and is then never heard from again, because Crothers died. Per Dan Gilvezan's memoir, the recording booth was so small that most of the cast waited in the lobby, and Crothers brought his guitar to every session and played for them while they waited.

In the series? Established.

Since: Honoured with an In Memoriam at the 40th Anniversary Event in 2024.

He left the franchise not long after, during the season three episode "Thief in the Night", over its portrayal of the dictator of an invented Arab state called Carbombya. Kasem's family is Lebanese Druze, and his objection was specific and worth stating properly: not that there were Arab villains, but that there were no other Arab characters to balance them.

In the series? Established.

Since: No. In Memoriam at the 40th Anniversary Event.

Also Odie in Garfield. On working with Frank Welker: "Frank would do something ridiculous and then go, well, it was either this or college."

In the series? Established.

Since: Yes. Grimlock in the games, and several roles in the 40th Anniversary Event. Transformers Hall of Fame.

Wrote the memoir Bumblebee and Me: Life as a G1 Transformer, which is the single best first-hand account of these recording sessions and the source of half the good stories on this page. He originally auditioned for Starscream, Ratchet and Prowl.

In the series? Established.

Since: Yes. Bumblebee in Devastation, and the 40th Anniversary Event.

Also Colonel Campbell in Metal Gear Solid and Grandpa Max in Ben 10. When Animated replaced Perceptor's voice with a speech synthesiser, he later met the same crew on Ben 10: Omniverse and greeted them with "so you guys are the ones who recast me as a computer!"

In the series? Established.

Since: Yes. Four roles in the 40th Anniversary Event.

Won an Emmy in 1976 for a televised version of his one-man stage show about Frederick Douglass, comfortably the most decorated performance by anyone in this cast. Also Destro in G.I. Joe.

In the series? Established.

Since: One of eight actors in the Shout! Factory 25th anniversary reunion.

The man who absorbed the celebrity cast once the movie money was gone: he inherited Ultra Magnus from Robert Stack and Cyclonus from Roger C. Carmel for the television series.

In the series? Established.

Since: Also Chunk in Toy Story 3.

Black Vulcan on Super Friends, and a five-decade music industry career including hosting Dick Clark's Soul Unlimited.

In the series? Established.

Since: No.

Baloo in TaleSpin, and a published entomologist under his birth name. He once brought a dinner-plate-sized South American tarantula into a Transformers session. It escaped, and the studio adopted a permanent no-pets policy.

In the series? Established.

Since: No.

The original voice of Emperor Palpatine in The Empire Strikes Back, later replaced by Ian McDiarmid in the DVD re-release. Two Tony nominations.

In the series? Established.

Since: No.

Replaced Peter Cullen as the voice of the Predator in Predator 2, the second time he stepped into a Cullen role.

In the series? Established.

Since: Runs a voiceover studio near Denver.

Aquaman on SuperFriends, and Lou the mechanic in the long-running AC Delco commercials.

In the series? New. Kranix is the film's first speaking casualty.

Since: No.

Lex Luthor on Challenge of the Super Friends, and narrator of the 1986 Little Shop of Horrors.

In the series? New.

Since: No.

A Pittsburgh radio legend before he was an actor. He became the recurring Quintesson voice through season three.

In the series? New.

Since: No.

A fourteen-year-old child actor at the time. The following year he won two Golden Raspberries for Over the Top, opposite Sylvester Stallone.

In the series? New.

Since: No.

The G1 series narrator, and the voice on the ThunderCats toy commercials. He is also the voice on the European version's closing narration reassuring the audience that Optimus Prime will return.

In the series? Established. Also the voice of the film's own trailer.

Since: Yes, still working in the franchise. Narrator on Titans Return and Power of the Primes.