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.
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 AS Grindor flies into Las Vegas He asks Soundwave what exactly he is looking for and Soundwave repliess by saying one of the lost. To Grindor it means nothing, but Soundwave tells him he is not to ask questions. Soundwave can see what he see`s, and Grindor asks him to go easy on the autopilot. Grindor arrives at an older part of Las Vegas and Soundwave tells him thatbeneath the shell of the area is ancient knowledge and that Grindor is to extract it. After destroying several cars Grindor is ambushed by the NEST team and Ironhide. Soundwave states that the hunters have become the hunted, and sates that the humans will soon realise that Earth first belonged to the Decepticons. He asks Grindor if he has secured the memory treee and commandss that it be brought to him. Learning Curve
IDW Transformers movie comics
Soundwave was assigned by Megatron to take command of the newly built Nemesis with the sarcophagus 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
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
Titan Magazines Revenge of the Fallen comics
Soundwave directed Grindor to Las Vegas to find some old car and cut it open to get its "memory tree". While he refused to explain things to Grindor, he referred to the car as "one of the lost", a redundant shell with ancient knowledge, and the "tree" appeared Cybertronian. Hmmmm. When NEST showed up, Soundwave appeared contemptuous of them and their whole species, noting Transformers owned this world long before mankind. To Grindor, he simply said to get the "memory tree" to him and not get captured. Learning Curve
Revenge of the Fallen film
- Voice actor: Frank Welker (English, Italian), Horst Lampe (German), Daisuke Gōri (Japanese)
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. He found 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 microcons 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, even as The Fallen led the Decepticons to Earth 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 during the battle at the Egyptian pyramids. Revenge of the Fallen (film)
Battle bios
Soundwave can fire bursts of destructive sonic energy with his Sonic Cannons. However, these cannons are not usable in the vacuum of space.[1] Hmmm...
Toys
Revenge of the Fallen
Deluxe Class toys
- Soundwave (Deluxe, 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".
- Gathering at Nemesis (Toys "R" Us-exclusive box set, 2009)
- Accessories: 1 Ravage missile
- A three pack (technically four pack if you want to count Ravage), also featuring The Fallen, and a silver Voyager Class Megatron from the first movie toyline. Soundwave will be redecoed in predominantly blue as an homage to the original Soundwave. It is unknown at this time if this The Fallen will have color differences.
- Soundwave Black Ver.[citation needed] (Deluxe, 2009)
- Accessories: 1 Ravage missile
Merchandise
Burger King
- Seeking Soundwave (2009)
- Accessories: 2 blue solar panels
- The Burger King version of Soundwave is a representation of the communications satellite which Soundwave hacked into in the movie. The dishes have tendril details added to them. Peering into an opening in the top gives a sort of periscope effect, although as there is only one mirror, everything looks backwards.
Notes
- 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.[2] 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.[3][4] 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.
- In early drafts of Revenge of the Fallen, Soundwave came to Earth and scanned a black Chevrolet Silverado pick-up truck form. Hasbro based the Cybertronian satellite form's robot mode on this abandoned concept, particularly a Cybertronian version of the Chevy grill and small headlights on the lower torso. Josh Nizzi's heavily G1-esque head design was also used (although the final head design was also incorporated in a manner akin to anti-kibble). 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.[5]
- 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. However, in the Revenge of the Fallen video game, Soundwave's voice (Peter Jessop) is vocoded in a manner similar to that of Animated Soundwave's first voice, only with a more musical tone.
- 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[6], even though Soundwave's actual German voice actor was Horst Lampe, who previously also voiced Ratchet in the German dub of Transformers Animated.
- Soundwave is unique among the Decepticons introduced in Revenge of the Fallen because he survives (Scalpel's fate is ambigious). All the others are presumably killed, meaning if all our information only came from the films, then the only Decepticons alive are the original triad of Megatron, Starscream and Soundwave, along with the oft-overlooked Barricade.
References
- ↑ Soundwave's Battle Bio at Hasbro.com
- ↑ Details from an early script draft summed up here, confirmed as authentic by Roberto Orci here.
- ↑ Roberto Orci confirms that Ravage was replaced by Scorponok at the official movie boards
- ↑ Roberto Orci confirms that Ravage would have appeared in a different terrain at the official movie boards
- ↑ News from TFW2005.com on September 23, 2008, detailing Roberto Orci's confirmation that there would be no triple-changers in Revenge of the Fallen.
- ↑ List of German dubbing voices
