Recasting movies with more traditional voice actors

L

Lewie Bum Bum

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A number of voice actors have been critical of the trend, over the past decade especially, of having "bigger"-name actors provide the voices of characters in animated movies. With that in mind, what VAs would you cast in place of the A-listers in these movies?
 
The only anime that the big name casting bothered me was Castle in the Sky. Patsu and Sheeta weren't given justice when they picked Dawson and Rogue (can't think of their real names right now). The characters are supposed to be a lot younger than the actors. Anyone would be an improvement as long as they were younger.

I also disliked Claire Daines as San in Princess Mononoke, but that's just because I don't like Claire Daines. :p
 
For laughs, here's my cast for Shark Tale:

Oscar - Phil Lamarr
Angie - Rachael MacFarlane
Lenny - Greg Cipes
Lola - Grey Delisle
Don Lino - Maurice LaMarche
Sykes - Kevin Michael Richardson
 
That was Anna Paquin in Castle in The Sky? She also played the male lead in English version of Steamboy, which had a lot of name talent attached to it.

At the time when Mononoke was released in the US, a lot of purists and anime fans were saying it had one of the best English dubs ever produced for an anime. I mean this was before we started seeing lots of anime on Adult Swim and Cartoon Network on a regular basis. It wasn't quite as cool to be English dub fans at the time. Fans still hated DBZ's dub intensely even though it was very popular on Cartoon Network.
 
Yeah, that was her. :)

I really like Mononoke's dub (my japanese teacher must have too, because we watched the english in class). Moro's and Ashitaka's voices are really well done in english.
 
I thought Jigo in Mononoke was miscast; he shouldn't sound like Billy Bob Thornton; someone with his look ought to sound like Mako or James Hong, but I guess they just won't cast an Asian actor in an English dub of an anime. Gillian Anderson also sounded weird as the wolf goddess; she needed someone with a bit more gravitas and menace in her voice than Scully.

I used to think that the casting of big-name actors for Miyazaki's English dubs was cool, and a big part of me still does, but now I'm wondering if it wouldn't be better to cast regular voice actors who do this kind of thing all the time, like the Ocean Group for example, instead of big-name celebrities who do it as a side-project.
 
I thought Van der Beek and Paquin did OK jobs as Pazu and Sheeta, but personally believe that the rest of the cast in the Castle in the Sky dub outclassed them by far--Dola and Muska especially; those two were perfect and made the dub worthwhile IMO. There was a previous dub of this movie that had the leads sound less mature, but their performances were far, far weaker than even Van der Beek or Paquin. So I'm sorry but I stand behind the Castle in the Sky dub as a generally good, if not perfect dub that doesn't really need any recasting, especially where the supporting cast was concerned.

As for Claire Danes, she may have been one of the weaker parts of the Mononoke dub, but she wasn't that bad IMO.

I really can't understand the casting issues people have with the Ghibli dubs; I think they're all well done. Sorry, but I can't watch these movies in Japanese.
 
That cast would've made the film actually watchable,IMO....except I would've kept Jack Black as Lenny(the only decent part of the film)...I think the guy's funny (I love School of Rock,and Be Kind Rewind had its moments),and I like his voice...
 
I thought the English voice casting for the Disney dub of My Neighbor Totoro was extremely weak. I mean, Dakota Fanning is a great actress, but voice-overs don't seem to be a strong point for her. It was a nice touch to cast her real-life sister as Mei, but the voices were still very uninspired.

Also, what was the deal with casting Christian Bale as Howl in the English dub of Howl's Moving Castle? Could they have picked anyone that sounded less like his original voice? On the other hand, casting Lauren Bacall as the Witch of the Waste was nothing short of brilliant. I also loved Sophie's voices in the English dub.
 
Actually, I thought the Fannings did fairly well, particularly Elle. She had the right "little sister" spirit from the start. As for Dakota, there were a couple of moments where she didn't always hit the mark, but they were few. It's not the equivalent of the FOX dub, but like Castle, Disney's redub of Totoro is both underrated and controversial.

As for Howl, I had no major problem with the voices.

I think hardcore fans of Ghibi's films would bash any attempt to dub their work either way, because I've seen most of them do that to every attempt. Personally, I think it's a sad way to be a fan. I find it no fun at all to dislike something just because it has famous actors in it.

-Jon T.
 
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