Brazilian dubbing of The Transformers: The Movie

Brazilian dubs for Transformers The Movie

In Brazil, Transformers The Movie received two very distinct dubs, one for the home video release and another for when it was broadcast on television, in the very late eighties. The most probably reason for this is that the home video version is the one released in the United States and the television one was actually the one released in Europe, since it had the Star Wars type text in the beginning, and the narrator stating the return of Optimus wouldreturn. These dubs are different not only on the choice of some voice actors, but on the way the dialogues where translated as well. Brazilian fans usually debate among which dub is the best, but as many things in franchise, this is simply a matter of taste, because after all, both dubs have their share of problems.

But neither of them allowed Spike to swear.

The home video dub
The home video was released a few years before the Movie was shown on television, but a few years after the tv series had stopped being broadcast on Brazilian networks. Because of this, for years it was the only way the fans could have a little taste of the tv show. Here, all the pre-movie main characters are dubbed by the same voice actors that played them on the tv show. Megatron by the way, don't receive a new voice when he is transformed into Galvatron. This dub have the more localized of the two translations but is also the more "childish" of the two. For example, on the scene where Hot Rod and Kup are running toward Autobot City and see the Insecticons, when Kup says "The Insecticons are on the way" Hot Rod replies "Wrong, they're on their way to the hole!"... something that make no sense at all and the translator probably tought would be fun for the kids watching the Movie. However, when Kup and Wreck-Gar aretalking, both make references to Brazilian tv shows. Kup specifically says "plim-plim", which is a reference to a vignette of Rede Globo, the Brazilian Network that aired Transformers during the 80's. Another interesting point in the home video is the voice of Unicron. Instead of having an actor with a deep voice playing him, Unicron voice was heavilly distorted, making him sound incredibly menacing but at the same time, almost unninteligible. The same thing was done to the Quintesson and his servants. Since the voice actor who played Blurr could not talk as fast as  John Moschitta, his voice was also distorted, to make it sound faster. It worked, but it also made him hard to understand. Finally, the "mecanization" of the voice actors playing the robots was not the same used on the tv show. In here, they sounded more like characters talking through a radio or on the tv usually sound on Brazilian dubs. And Wheelie didn't rhyme here, which was for the best.

The television dub
The Movie was broadcasted only once during an special week dedicated to children, on Rede Globo. In here, most of the pre movie characters retained the same voices they had on the home video release, but all the new Transformers got new voice actors, including Galvatron. The translation in here is different too, it lost the "localization" the home video one received, making a lot of lines sound more like the original ones and making others lose all their sense to brazilian audiences. Here, the characters had the same "robotic" distortion on their voices that they had on the tv show, no kind of heavy modulation was used in this version. An actor with a deep voice was cast as Unicron, and no distortion was needed on him, which made possible for the fans to understand what he was talking about. On the other hand, no distortion was also used on Blurr, and the actor was forced to try and emulate John Moschitta impossibly fast way of speak... with debatable results... But the most amusing thing in this dubbing, was an error that ocurred when Hot Rod opene the Matrix at the end of the movie. The line "Light our darkest hour" was delivered by Optimus Prime's voice actor instead of Hot Rod's. For a long time, brazilian fans that only had watched the television version debated that at this moment, Optimus "spirit" was talking through Rodimus, aproving him becoming leader while inbuing him with his courage, stoicism and "passing him the torch", figuratively speaking. Of course, all this debate went down as the Movie was released on DVD on the US, which made it much more acessible to Brazilian fans. And Wheelie rhymed here... which made many fans cry...

A new dub?
There are no plans for the Movie to be released oficially on DVD in Brazil, but even if it was, a new dub would be done instead of using one of the existent ones (or both, like many brazilian fans have dreamed of). But since the re-dub of the G1 cartoon when part of it was released in home video in the mid 90's was humongously crappy, the quality of a new dub is open for (more) debate. Seriously... a single guy played half the Decepticons... it was horrible...