Soundwave (ROTF)

The name or term "Soundwave" refers to more than one character or idea. For a list of other meanings, see Soundwave (disambiguation).

Soundwave is a Decepticon from the Revenge of the Fallen franchise in the live-action film continuity family.

Just wait till he tentacle rapes that satellite!

Soundwave, the Decepticon communications officer and one of Megatron's staunchest supporters, doesn't just master the frequencies that carry information across our planet, he revels in them. Stationed high in the upper atmosphere, he is fully capable of taking over communications on a planetary scale. Whether he uses this to direct civilization or destroy it remains to be seen.

Fiction

Titan Magazines Transformers movie comics

Starscream was in talks with Soundwave to get him to join in the attack on Earth and be in Michael Bay's next documentary. Soundwave is known for talking in several frequencies at once, apparently just to be annoying. #15's Star Screams Starscream doesn't trust Soundwave but notes his intelligence, and so views him as a worthy successor in the event of his death. #21's Star Screams

IDW Transformers movie comics

Soundwave was assigned by Megatron to take command of the newly built Nemesis with the sarcophogus containing The Fallen. Soundwave's task was to find a planet with a star harvester that could be used to free their mysterious benefactor. Soundwave left Cybertron just before the outbreak of war. Defiance issue 4

Alas, poor Dreadwing. I knew him, Ravage.

Presumed dead for years, Soundwave arrived on Mars one month after Megatron's death. He quickly took stock of the situation, scanning both Dreadwing's remains, and an imprint of Frenzy's body. He contacted Starscream after his battle with Wreckage, informing him that he had sent troops from his ship to Earth, with more waiting in stasis. As Starscream headed for the ship, Soundwave informed him he still had orders to follow. Alliance issue 2

As more and more Decepticons made planetfall on Earth's surface, Soundwave assumed the form of a satellite and silently observed their operations from orbit. Alliance issue 4

Revenge of the Fallen film

Voice actor: Frank Welker (English, Italian), Horst Lampe (German), Daisuke Gouri (Japanese)

Spoiler warning: Plot details follow. Please give an expiry date ({{spoiler|(story)|DATE}}) - either the date of the next episode/issue in the series or 30 days after release, whichever is sooner

Orbiting above Earth, Soundwave received a transmission from Wheelie, who was tailing Mikaela Banes, and instructed him to obtain a surviving shard of the All Spark in her possession. Soundwave encountered a satellite transmitting a conversation between NEST and the United States military. Tapping into it with his tentacles to listen, Soundwave overheard Theodore Galloway mention another shard of the All Spark in storage at Diego Garcia, and of Megatron's burial in the Laurentian Abyss. Formulating a plan, Soundwave ejected Ravage (who was equipped with Scalpel and the marble bots comprising Reedman) to Diego Garcia to steal the shard, which his minions used to resurrect his leader.

Soundwave remained in space, tapping into the satellite he had found. During the Decepticon strike following Optimus Prime's death, he tracked down Ron and Judy Witwicky in Paris (making a threatening phone call to Judy) and later blocked the NEST team's phone signals to General Morshower in an effort to block their back-up. Revenge of the Fallen (film)

Toys

Revenge of the Fallen

Deluxe Class toys

War fork!

• Soundwave (2009)
  • Japanese ID number: RD-04
  • Accessories: 1 Ravage missile

Part of the initial Movie Preview wave, Soundwave is a Triple Changer, transforming into a satellite and a Cybertron jet, which are not exactly what could be described as "distinct" from one another. In all three modes, Soundwave features a spring-loaded missile launcher which fires a missile intended to resemble Ravage, in reference to the scene in the film in which he launches the feline fiend down at Earth. In his (rather stocky) robot mode, Soundwave has blue light piping in his visor, but it is disabled, having been painted over in red; his other modes feature a second, armored version of his face. He features numerous red and gold paint applications which are very cleverly and subtly positioned around his body to replicate similarly-colored and -positioned details on the original Soundwave toy.

The configuration for the satellite mode depicted in the toy's instructions is not the way Soundwave appears in the film, featuring a different angling for the panels on his shoulders. It's not a big change, but transforming the toy in accordance with his movie appearance does help to distinguish the jet from the satellite a little, since otherwise, virtually the only difference is in the positioning of the large panel "wings".

• More information on Soundwave at TFU.info

Notes

A Soundwave-headed Blackout from an animatic.

• Soundwave was originally supposed to feature in Transformers; he fulfilled both Barricade and Frenzy's roles, hacking into the CIA headquarters as a portable stereo, then morphed into a Humvee to track down Sam Witwicky. Michael Bay's decision to minimalize the amount of morphing in the film resulted in a change to a helicopter who openly attacks the army. Soundwave and Ravage were changed to Blackout and Scorponok as the film's location was changed from a jungle to a desert. Soundwave's name remained attached to the separated portable stereo character for a while, but Hasbro felt the resulting character did not properly represent the original Soundwave—he was first renamed Soundbite, but eventually ended up with the name Frenzy.

• According to the trade paperback, Soundwave was a major character in the third draft of The Reign of Starscream.

• While not appearing in Revenge of the Fallen proper, the toy's robot mode is actually very closely derived from early Revenge of the Fallen concept art of Soundwave as a black Chevrolet pickup truck. The toy even retains a Cybertronian version of the Chevy grill and small headlights on the lower torso.

• Hasbro's description and arrangement of Soundwave's toy as a triple changer runs counter to the filmmakers' intent to introduce the technology in the next film. Aaron Archer acknowledged in Toyfare #140 (February 2009) they had altered Soundwave's Cybertronian form from the film for the sake of creating a decent toy.

• Even though Frank Welker returned to voice Soundwave for the movie, his voice was not vocoded, but rather synthesized in the same way all the other Transformer voices in the movie were. Because of this, the voice he uses is much closer to that of "The Cave of Wonders" from Walt Disney's Aladdin, also voiced by Welker.

• Even though Revenge features mostly domestic voice actors for the foreign market dubs, Frank Welker voiced Soundwave not only in English, but also in the Italian dub. As a result, in the Italian dub of the movie, Soundwave speaks with a strange, foreign accent. Welker is also incorrectly credited for voicing Soundwave in the German dub, even though Soundwave's actual German voice actor was Horst Lampe, who previously also voiced Ratchet in the German dub of Transformers Animated.