All articles tagged with #transformers
Peter Cullen, the legendary voice of Optimus Prime, died at 85 in Los Angeles. His death certificate lists cardiac arrest with a respiratory arrest as the immediate cause, with the underlying condition noted as malignant neoplasm in the lower lung. Cullen, also known for voicing Eeyore, is set to be buried at Forest Lawn on Sept. 9 and was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2023 Children’s & Family Emmy Awards.
Hackaday explains Gold Plastic Syndrome (GPS), a degradation of gold-colored ABS plastic in toys and gadgets that causes yellowing, extreme brittleness, and sometimes powdery residue, making shells (notably Transformers figures and Nintendo DS enclosures) crumble or become impossible to disassemble. Replacing affected DS shells with third-party options is a common workaround, while the underlying cause remains unknown. Recent discussions highlight metal additives (like titanium and chromium) as potential contributors to degradation under UV/oxidation, with GPS observed across products from the late 1980s to the 2010s. Preservation may be limited to replacement parts or careful handling as restoration remains challenging.
After Peter Cullen's death, Hasbro will screen a 12-minute animated short, Optimus Prime: Awakening, as a post-film tribute following select screenings of The Transformers: The Movie; the piece serves as a love letter to the Transformers community, with Frank Welker revisiting Megatron, and ties into the 40th-anniversary 4K theater run Sept. 17–22, though exact screenings including the short are not yet announced.
Peter Cullen, the Canadian voice actor best known as Optimus Prime in the Transformers franchise, died at 85 in Los Angeles; he also voiced Eeyore and provided the Predator creature’s vocal effects, leaving a four-decade legacy in animation and film.
Peter Cullen, the veteran voice actor who gave Optimus Prime his iconic baritone, has died. No cause of death was disclosed in the initial reports, and tributes have poured in from fans and colleagues who remember the actor for defining the Transformer’s voice across decades of films and TV.
Peter Cullen, the Canadian voice actor best known for Optimus Prime in Transformers and Eeyore in Winnie the Pooh, died at 85 in Los Angeles. His career spanned decades across TV and film, including roles in Knight Rider and other animated series, and he received a lifetime achievement award at the 2023 Children's & Family Emmy Awards.
Peter Cullen, the Canadian-born actor famed for voicing Optimus Prime in Transformers and Eeyore in Winnie the Pooh, died at 85 at his Los Angeles home. His family said he passed away peacefully and asked fans to honor his legacy by helping others and choosing kindness. With more than 200 acting credits, Cullen's career spanned Transformers, Pooh, Knight Rider, Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers, and even provided vocal effects for Predator; he also served as the announcer on The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour. He described voicing animal characters as a joy and urged young people to pursue what they love, a philosophy that cements his place as a beloved figure in animation.
Peter Cullen, the longtime voice of Optimus Prime and the mopey Eeyore, died at 85 in Los Angeles, surrounded by family. He originated Optimus Prime’s deep, calm voice in the 1980s Transformers series and later reprised the role in films, series, and games, earning a Daytime Emmy nomination for Transformers: Prime. Cullen said the voice was inspired by his brother Larry, a U.S. Marine, and he also voiced Eeyore in Winnie-the-Pooh projects.
Peter Cullen, the Canadian voice actor famed for voicing Optimus Prime across Transformers films, TV, and games, has died at 85 in Los Angeles. A versatile performer, he also voiced Winnie the Pooh’s Eeyore and created signature creature sounds, leaving a lasting legacy in animation and sci‑fi. His career spanned The Transformers: The Movie (1986), the live‑action Transformer films, and numerous animated series, earning him enduring recognition among fans and peers.
Transformers (2007) tops the July 4 holiday with a $29 million one-day gross (unadjusted for inflation), according to Rentrak figures cited by The Hollywood Reporter, ahead of other familiar franchises and even indie titles like Sound of Freedom. The piece notes the mix of films that perform on the holiday and discusses different ways to measure box office over the frame (5-day openings, midweek frames), providing historical context for the holiday’s grosses.
Hasbro announced Sixth Wall, an AI studio that will license its character IP—including Optimus Prime, Mr. Potato Head, Cobra Commander, Megatron and the Clue cast—for AI-enabled experiences. Working with original voice actors and partners like ElevenLabs, the initiative aims to offer authorized, guardrail-governed character interactions across interactive storytelling, games, connected devices, and brand engagement, rather than producing films or TV. The platform uses a CharacterOS “golden record” to set personality and behavior guidelines, ensuring authentic, on-brand appearances in licensed experiences.
Researchers tested frontier LLMs (GPT-5, Claude Opus 4.1, Gemini 2.5, GPT-4o) with the Stroop task and found their ability to inhibit automatic word-reading collapses as sequence length grows, with accuracy dropping sharply on longer or mixed lists. The results show transformer attention lacks sustained executive control compared to human cognition, revealing a fundamental architectural gap in long-context decision-making.
Hasbro and Fathom Entertainment will theatrically rerelease the 1986 Transformers: The Movie across U.S. cinemas from Sept. 17–21 in 4K to mark its 40th anniversary, aiming to leverage its cult status with nostalgia-driven merch and a broader audience; the film’s notable voice cast includes Peter Cullen, Orson Welles, Judd Nelson, and Leonard Nimoy.
A weekend of Iranian strikes against Gulf electrical infrastructure coincided with outages at major AI platforms (Claude, ChatGPT, Google Gemini), revealing that data-center capacity hinges on high-voltage transformers that are scarce, hard to replace, and exposed in open yards. The disruption exposed how a stressed regional grid can stall multi‑billion‑dollar AI initiatives in the UAE and broader Gulf (e.g., Stargate UAE, Khazna, Microsoft’s Gulf investments), since replacements take years and insurance/financing hinge on grid reliability. The piece argues that the Gulf’s AI ambitions are now tightly coupled to the resilience of power transformers and the electricity system, not just computing hardware.
Elon Musk has urged his followers to cancel their Netflix subscriptions over a new Transformers cartoon he criticizes for promoting 'woke gender identity propaganda,' specifically citing clips involving non-binary characters and pronoun discussions.