Transformers One director on why Chris Hemsworth took over as Optimus Prime & how it’s a Cybertronian Ben-Hur

Transformers One is now playing in theaters, and many critics (including this one) say it’s the best Transformers movie ever made (disagree with that? Take our poll!) Yet, the film has been the subject of a bit of controversy, with some fans resenting that, for the first time in the movies, someone else is voicing Optimus Prime other than the legendary Peter Cullen, with Chris Hemsworth taking over the role. We recently sat down with Transformers One director Josh Cooley (Toy Story 4), who addressed the change head-on. 

“Peter Cullen is Optimus Prime,” Cooley said, adding, “he’s my Optimus Prime. That’s what I grew up with. That’s the iconic voice. And Chris and I talked a lot about that early on. And even before Chris came on, I was, you know, how, how are we going to do this? But the thing that really clicked for me was that this is Orion Pax. So it’s before he becomes Optimus Prime, which means he doesn’t need to have all the knowledge and the power yet to be Optimus.”

Indeed, much of the film revolves around Optimus in his early days, when he’s still just a miner (without the ability to transform) opposite his best pal, turned archenemy, D-16, later to become Megatron. Yet, as the film continues, Chris Hemsworth’s voice starts to take on a more Peter Cullen-like cadence.

“When I heard Chris’s voice, he’s got the weight to it,” said Cooley. “He’s got that power in his voice naturally. And so when we first met, we talked about it a lot, and we’re like, okay, Orion can be a little looser. He can be kind of a little more naive, a little more kind of, you know, shooting from the seat of his pants. And then Chris just brought that super charm that he has into the voice. And, I remember that moment when he’s, you know, we were reading through the script. And he, I think it was the speech that he’s giving to the miners that even in his performance, he was standing up a little straighter chest out and just kind of had, you know, the cadence of the power and just had the rhythm of, of starting to sound like Optimus. I got goosebumps because I thought it worked so well.”

Cooley also weighed in on the movie’s vibe, which shifts dramatically throughout the film. As it starts, Orion Pax and D-16 are like the Tango & Cash of Cybertron, only for their relationship to take a much darker turn. “When I first thought about this film, I just loved the idea of going from friends to enemies, I was thinking of Cain and Abel. And Ben-Hur, Spartacus, Ten Commandments. I love those movies, and they had this epic feel to them but with a very specific relationship to the core, and I was like this could be that. We can do our Cybertronian Ben-Hur.”

What do you think of Chris Hemsworth’s voice acting in Transformers One? Let us know in the comments!