Last year’s Machinima-produced Transformers: Combiner Wars series was neat, but its voice cast, largely comprised of prominent YouTubers, was hit-or-miss. For the second leg of the trilogy, they’re bringing in the big guns, including the original voices of Optimus Prime and Hot Rod. Also, Tay Zonday.
Combiner Wars’ Optimus Prime was voiced by Jon Bailey, the Honest Trailers guy, which was fitting as he was playing an honest guy with a trailer. He did a fine job, though I kept expecting Optimus to say “bewbs.” This time around Machinima and Hasbro have Peter Cullen, the original Optimus, taking point. He’s joined by Judd “Remember Judd Nelson?” Nelson, reprising his role of Rodimus Prime / Hot Rod from the original animated film. Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Michael Dorn and Wil Wheaton are Fortress Maximus and Perceptor. We’ve got a Power Ranger playing Emissary, and Nolan North taking a break from voicing all the things to lend his pipes to Autobot City Metroplex.
Then we have the “influencer” cast. Influences are a new subgroup of Transformers. I think they combine to form PewDiePie. The most exciting addition to the influencer cast is Mr. Tay Zonday of “Chocolate Rain” fame, playing whoever the hell he wants, he’s Tay Zonday.
- MatPat (COMPUTRON): YouTube influencer and creator of the web series Game Theorist, Film Theorist, GT Live and MatPat’s Game Lab.
- DashieGames (MENASOR): Popular YouTube gamer with more than 6 million subscribers.
- Rob Dyke (DEVASTATOR): YouTube influencer best known for Seriously Strange.
- Tay Zonday (CHORUS OF THE PRIMES): Viral and award winning YouTube sensation known for his ‘Chocolate Rain’ video
- Abby Trott (WINDBLADE): Voice over actress with credits including video games Halo Wars 2 and Killer Instinct
- Lana McKissack (MISTRESS OF FLAME): An actor and YouTube vlogger
- Frank Todaro (STARSCREAM): Voice over actor with credits including video game franchise LittleBigPlanet
- Jason Marnocha (MEGATRON) Actor from Bat In the Sun’s popular YouTube series Super Power Beat Down
Transformers: Titans Return will premiere in November on the go90 service, with a total of 10 short episodes planned.