Retroplayer- Many fans online believe that you are still the best Sonic voice yet, and would love to see you return to the franchise. Is returning to voice Sonic you might ever be interested in doing again?
Ryan- In a heartbeat! I never wanted to leave! But as most of you know, we were all let go by Sega and replaced for reasons too vast to go into right now. There was a glimmer of hope a while back when Generations was being cast. Sega asked me to come to LA and “re-audition” for the role of Sonic because they were doing the same thing to Jason and that cast that they did to us years before. So I went and they were very pleased to have me back and they actually said they were going to have me back and it was going to be this great reunion. Then when the actual offer came to my agent, it was a complete joke. They asked me to leave my union (which is how I make a living), do all kinds of work for no compensation, etc. It was a real slap in the face. I really don't see it ever happening. Sega is a huge corporation with zillions of dollars and they don't see any need to change the way they do things. There's a lot more detail I can't go into because of legal reasons, but let's just say that I wish I'd been voicing Sonic all this time, I would return in a heartbeat, but if Sega ever decides to hire me again the devil's making sno-cones. It's cool though, I would love to be Sonic again, but I have plenty of VO work without Sega.
This is really disheartening. Me personally I can't stand Roger. He's obviously expendable too.
This post has been edited by Tiranno: 17 September 2014 - 03:41 AM
It's shitty the way SEGA treated them and all, but I'm actually kind of glad he didn't return. I don't know what it was, but I didn't really like his work in Heroes. Something about the way he started sounding just bothered me. Regardless, there's no reason to jerk people around like that, it's really unprofessional.
Even Mike Pollock had to audition for the recast. There was never any guarantee ANY voice actor, whether it was Drummond, Griffith or anyone else trying out could have gotten the role as Modern Sonic.
Cyrus Parker, on 08 September 2012 - 04:06 PM, said:
It's shitty the way SEGA treated them and all, but I'm actually kind of glad he didn't return. I don't know what it was, but I didn't really like his work in Heroes. Something about the way he started sounding just bothered me. Regardless, there's no reason to jerk people around like that, it's really unprofessional.
I understand what you're saying. And I think it's because between SA2 and Heroes, Sonic was beginning to be depicted less as a cool character and more like a caricature of a cool character. Heroes was the beginning of the derpy modern Sonic, whereas before that, I think Sonic was still being depicted as a natural progression of the character we had seen from the classics, awkward writing aside.
So uh...I know Generations was in the works basically directly after Unleashed, but why would they have only asked him for Generations when SEGA knew they had Free Riders and Colors in the works as well?
Anyway, as much as I would have loved for Ryan to return I like the current voice cast as is.
I'm not happy that SEGA yanked his dick about the union thing, but I'm glad he never came back. He sounded like shit in Heroes. Roger Craig Smith is better anyway.
This post has been edited by Lobotomy: 08 September 2012 - 04:54 PM
For me, Ryan sort of soured after enough time went by, mostly because...
1. I never really felt the original cast hit the mark for most of the characters, Sonic included.
2. As much as it is true they are paid horribly, in light of all that the wants for him to return were doomed from the start.
3. He isn't as good at voice acting as Roger Craig Smith, they may not sound the same but the current voice actor is the first to really sound like a pro instead of "FILL THIS SPACE, GET SOMEBODY TO DO IT."
4. Even if he did come back, he might have been rusty and that wouldn't have been terribly good.
TheKazeblade, on 08 September 2012 - 04:25 PM, said:
Cyrus Parker, on 08 September 2012 - 04:06 PM, said:
It's shitty the way SEGA treated them and all, but I'm actually kind of glad he didn't return. I don't know what it was, but I didn't really like his work in Heroes. Something about the way he started sounding just bothered me. Regardless, there's no reason to jerk people around like that, it's really unprofessional.
I understand what you're saying. And I think it's because between SA2 and Heroes, Sonic was beginning to be depicted less as a cool character and more like a caricature of a cool character. Heroes was the beginning of the derpy modern Sonic, whereas before that, I think Sonic was still being depicted as a natural progression of the character we had seen from the classics, awkward writing aside.
Yeah, I'm in agreement here. I can pinpoint Sonic Heroes as being the point at which I stopped liking Sonic's personality until recently.
I think Ryan Drummond nailed it in SA2 and went downhill from there. On that basis I'm glad SEGA didn't rehire him for Generations but I don't agree with how they treated him.
As for why they only wanted to hire him for Generations - maybe the game was originally gonna feature three different Sonics :V
I wish he had the role...I don't like Craig Smith voice at all, not I like the personality they are giving Sonic since Colors. Too stupid for my tastes. Ryan sonic is the one I like the best ( excluding Classic Sonic)
I wouldn't mind hearing how he sounds now in comparison to how he sounded when he did Heroes, but I think I would rather see Griffith return, despite criticism. Drummond isn't a bad voice actor at all, but he wasn't that great neither at the time. He started to get better at Heroes, but it's still a mixed bag for me. While Griffith did pretty poorly at the beginning of his voice acting for Sonic, he did start to get better, especially when he voiced both Sonic and his Werehog form in Sonic Unleashed. Even his voice as Cilan in Pokemon is pretty good too. Smith does a good job at it as well but it does take a bit of time getting used to it. He does sound quite different than Sonic's previous voices.
Although I guess you have to consider who was the voice directors for these guys at the time.
Said it once, and I'll say it again, but I'm curious how would Sean Schemmel do if got the role instead...
This post has been edited by Jay T.: 08 September 2012 - 05:24 PM
00
