Spider-Verse Fixed Ce**brity Voice Acting

while the animation of across the spider-verse has justifiably been getting a ton of Praise low-key the voice acting in the film is also outstanding and deserves more attention that's my little man the whole cast gives Great Performances showcasing fantastic chemistry in their Voice work oh you have a baby the Multiverse jumping film asks them to sell ridiculous lines it's like a ninja vampire Spider-Man but a good as well as more grounded emotional moments we're the same in the important ways you know the Stellar celebrity Voice work of spider-verse is even more impressive when compared with the other hugely popular animated movie that came out this year Mushroom Kingdom Here We Come even before anyone had heard Chris Pratt's mediocre Mario voice people were upset with the casting and it Sparks A Renewed plea to stop hiring celebrity actors in animated movies but while some celebrity voice acting is bad it's undeniable that other celebrities have actually given us amazing voiceover performances like Robin Williams Jack Black or Amy Poehler And even Chris Pratt himself gave a pretty good performance as Emmett in The Lego Movie so let's take a look at what exactly makes some celebrity voice acting bad what makes a celebrity voice acting performance good and what makes voice actors so special bad celebrity voice acting has been an issue for the past 25 years here are a couple examples to help illustrate how bad celebrity voice acting can be and why it's such an issue there's Matt Damon's flat performance in spirit though I Grew From cult to stallion racing with the eagle soaring with the wind a number of the Studio Ghibli dubs where the tone is totally off in fact I should be thanking you really you see I was caught in that battle and Beyonce's emotionless acting in The Lion King remake been alive all this time why haven't you come home what's ironic about the origin of bad celebrity voice acting is that casting Mega famous celebrities in animation only became popular after Robin Williams great performance as the genie in Disney's 1992 Aladdin Aladdin Williams Performance was amazing and Aladdin made a ton of money producers for other animated movies quickly caught on and along with an overall increase in the number of animated movies being made because of the new capabilities of computer animation all of a sudden celebrities began to headline a ton of animated movies Brad Pitt Catherine Zeta Jones Jada Pinkett Smith in fact just three years after Aladdin a new movie studio called Pixar released a little movie called Toy Story which starred Academy award-winning actor Tom Hanks as the voice of the lead character look we're all very impressed with Andy's new toy now while Tom Hanks was a fantastic Woody another film released in 1995 Disney's Pocahontas is an exam people of the other side of celebrity voice acting as it features a very uninspired Mel Gibson as the voice of Captain John Smith hello John Smith Oh goddess the tree is talking to me this is Far Cry from Robin Williams work as the genie just three years previous now like Robin Williams Mel Gibson is a talented actor but part of the reason Robin Williams is so good as the genie is because even though he hadn't been cast yet the film's directors wrote the part with Robin Williams manic energy in mind fairly early on I think we had the idea of using Robin Williams as the genie we took a comedy album of robins took a little stretch of Comedy Off the album as a sales pitch really but first before I do the play I'd like to talk about the very serious subject of schizophrenia no he doesn't shut up let him talk with Pocahontas Mel Gibson was just slapped into the role because he was a famous actor John Smith is the most basic white guy that could have been played by anyone now to be fair most voice acting parts weren't written for particular celebrities like it was in the case of the genie but a part doesn't need to be written with a specific actor in mind to be a good performance what makes a good celebrity voice acting role is one is there intention behind the casting does the actor have a unique delivery and or quality of voice that fits the character the great thing about Robin aside from his improv was that he could really come up with sincere emotion and I think it was important in this character as with all the characters to really uh get the audience invested in his plight thanks Genie oh well and then the second part is does the actor actually deliver a good performance so with Robin Williams Genie it's both of these things a considered casting choice and perfect delivery by Williams same with Haley Steinfeld in spider-verse but with Mel Gibson's John Smith it's neither and the same with Pratt's Mario but Pratt's Emmett was both now sometimes the casting isn't the problem like with Scarlett Johansson as Kaw in the live action Jungle Book movie seems like a decent fit Johansen is like an all-right casting for a manipulative and seductive snake character just you and me sweet thing but it just really does not click at all in the execution with the Mario movie people were upset because there's already a voice actor for Mario Charles martinet who has done the iconic voice for decades itemi Mario but they didn't use him for the movie because he isn't the famous name Pratt was clearly only chosen so that his name recognition could help Mark at the movie I also wanted to reveal our key cast members Mario who will be played by Chris Pratt he's so cool however I also don't think that people would have been as upset as they were with Pratt if Pratt had delivered a better performance here we come [Music] here we go like no one is upset with Ben Schwartz as Sonic because it's a solid performance it's a platonic look at the [ __ ] Mound also Sonic and also because the voice acting from the video games has been all over the place just ignore him is everyone here all right practice Mario is like not a terrible performance but especially when the original and beloved voice actor is available to play the role it's again clearly just for marketing and other countries had Mario voice performances that were way better than pratts obviously Italy had a good Mario but even French Mario which seems like it would be terrible sounds really solid but why you want to know why French Mario sounds good he's an actual voice actor other celebrity voice acting gigs that are particularly egregious are when the celebrity isn't the strongest of actor to begin with for example something like Taylor Swift's performance in The Lorax seriously and also there are actually songs in this movie but she doesn't sing in any of them or when they get super famous people for just a small role so that they can throw another Super Famous name in the trailer like LeBron James in the 2018 movie smallfoot questions lead to knowledge is power but honestly I don't blame the actors at all for taking these roles and the paycheck that comes with it as long as they try at them it's an issue with the movie studios casting the celebrities because they think it'll make the movie more profitable now as much as there is to complain about how celebrity voice acting can be bad there are also a lot of really amazing voice acting performances from celebrities obviously across the spider versus the most recent film that had great celebrity performances from top to bottom but there's been plenty of iconic celebrity voice performances over the years Eddie Murphy and Mike Myers kill it as donkey and Shrek Tom Hanks is Woody John Goodman and Billy Crystal Monsters Inc Mark Hamill is the Joker I really have to congratulate myself on this one the list of celebrities that give amazing and iconic voice acting roles goes on and on and while Pratt isn't a good Mario jackpot actually makes for a great Bowser do you yield I do not there also should be a distinction when discussing celebrity voice acting it's not all celebrity voice actors that are the issue spider-verse does a great job casting non-a-list actors who give fantastic performances it's a hell of a freaking light show you're gonna love this for example technically a celebrity Jason Schwartzman gives a subtly outstanding performance as the spot in across the spider-verse and strikes a perfect balance of menacing and feeble as his character Arc progresses first of all I'm not even robbing you I mean this ATM machine doesn't even belong to you right this belongs to the bank they're the real criminal real criminal you're robbing me spider vs cast is full of lesser known celebrities like Schwartzman along with a couple really big names like Oscar Isaac but who above all were cast because they're simply right for the part not because of their Celebrity Status honestly also Disney and Pixar who have been the leaders in animated movies have done a pretty great job in the past 15 years prioritizing the quality of actors voices over how famous they are obviously they supplement these casts with famous celebrity voice actors but when they do hire celebrities for voice acting they're almost always cast for the qualities of their voice and the performances they can give not just because they're famous for example Amy polar's Joy Craig T Nelson is Mr Incredible basically everyone besides Chris Evans there seems to be no sign of intelligent life anywhere who are you talking to uh no one another subcategory of celebrity voice acting that generally works well is casting actors with distinctive voices my name is Peter Porker these are actors that you want for their tonal quality that it's hard to replicate for example Gilbert Gottfried as Iago and Aladdin where Danny DeVito is Phil and Hercules treat me my name's Earl Jones for The Lion King everything the light touches is our kingdom again Disney and Pixar have used this type of celebrity voice acting really intelligently like for inside out Phyllis Smith of office Fame is isn't a voice actor but they were cast because their voice fits the role perfectly and then they also happen to give a great performance crying helps me slow down and obsess over the weight of life's problems so some celebrities were bad at voice acting and some are good but what about real voice actors what makes their voice acting performances different part of it is that voice actors just have way more practice doing voice work and while celebrity actors sometimes reach the high bar the voice actors set celebrities are much more likely to give a dud of a performance when people think of voice actors they think of someone being able to perform a lot of different voices a la Mel Blanc the original voice of the Looney Tunes stuff that's all right over there on that sign you're so smart but that's not often a requirement for most animated movies where someone will be voicing one character what professional voice actors bring is a certain subtlety to their vocal performances for example listen to how famous voice actor Tara Strong describes the process for how she created the voice of Raven for Teen Titan initially I just thought maybe she'd be cool and down here and dark I just had this idea that since she is part you know devil that maybe there'd be some kind of odd texture to her voice and I just started reading her with this you know unusual rasp that sort of rotates as opposed to a boy rasp or you know if I'm doing a little bullet he's got a rasp here he's got like a rolling wrasse that's kind of strange and eerie and that's what book The Park it's a portal into my mind not a toy what sad is that there really haven't been that many true voice actors in big roles in movies they usually are contained to television due to celebrities Monopoly and voice acting in films I really couldn't find that many instances of voice actors playing big roles in movies the only two that really stood out were Peter Cullen as Optimus Prime my name is Optimus Prime who also played the character in the TV show previous to the movies Megatron must be stopped and Tim Cummings for the Winnie the Pooh movie Pooh Christopher Robin who also does the characters television Voice work yes piglet go and bring some honey here's what legendary voice actor Billy West had to say about celebrity voice acting back in 2005. Robin Williams understands Sonic performance he understands what it's like to change your voice up but what they do now doesn't make sense spend zillions on visuals and then have this totally [ __ ] flatlining voice track you know hey I'm Will Smith I'm a clam I'm Will Smith I'm a kangaroo all you bring to the performance is your own ego they're just being themselves I'm thinking to myself why would they pay four stars over 20 million a piece to do voices in a movie I mean they'd save a fortune if they used voice people and the magic would be back in those characters it's oh well we can use those stars on their bankable star power to promote the cartoon and do axis Hollywood interviews you know it's like they treat us like we're not actors stardom is the only thing that means anything we still audition for them if they call us but we know it's a joke I think in an Ideal World Hollywood would treat voice actors similar to how Japan does where many of the most prominent voice actors only do voice acting and they actually achieve National Celebrity Status purely for their amazing talents as voice actors arigato obviously anime is the larger part of mainstream culture there but it's still a system that would certainly work in the US and is a model to look at unfortunately the thing is that movies with mediocre or bad celebrity voice actors keep making money and boy do they make a lot of money animated films that are geared towards younger audiences are one of the more reliable money makers in Hollywood like that movie smallfoot that got LeBron for a small role it made 214 million dollars on a budget of 80 million and that's nothing compared to the billion dollars that the Mario movie just made unfortunately because these movies keep making so much money celebrity voice acting in some form is probably here to stay case in point Pratt was just cast as Garfield For an upcoming movie however across the spider-verse gives me hope that big budget animated films can thoughtfully cast celebrities and voice roles hopefully the cultural pushback to celebrity voice acting will lead to some changes in the industry and actual voice actors having a fair shot at Landing roles it's either that or hoping that Jack black voices every animated character from now on RAD I'm currently a small channel so if you enjoyed this video subscribing to my channel really does help me out [Music] let me know in the comments what celebrity voice actor I should have talked about in the video thanks for watching see you next time

Channel: Media Muse

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Length: 14min 15sec (855 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 12 2023