Several Voice Actors Leave The Sonic Franchise

My point is that people say their voices and performances are better in Sonic Boom than in the games, but I just don't hear it. This isn't any less annoying to me than their in-game performances.

"We" aren't replacing anybody. I'm glad that Sega/Sonic Team has decided to replace the cast because I don't think they've sounded like the characters for the past ten years. If the new cast also doesn't fit the role(s), I can't do anything about that. But I can hope that this will lead to a good cast that will allow me to connect with the characters again.

 

I can tell you now that the chances of that happening are extremely small; obviously I'm not psychic and I can't really predict how people react to stuff. But something I've noticed is that fans tend to prefer the voices that they were first exposed to, and that serves as the foundation of what they come to expect from the cast.

This is exactly why there's so much controversy about the voice actors to begin with, because everyone has a different idea on how exactly these characters should sound; you got the typical Jaleel White, Ryan Drummond, Jason Griffith, Roger Craig Smith debacle etc etc etc People are coming into this franchise at different points, and will obviously latch onto the first voice, so when that voice inevitably changes and doesn't match what you've internalized in your head, that's when all of this stuff about "the voices don't fit the characters" start.

Mike Pollock is the only person to avoid this because Eggman is the only character who has had ONE voice change since 2003; outside of much older fans who might have been first exposed to Deem Bristow, Mike Pollock has always been Eggman for probably a significant portion of the fanbase, hence why its hard for anyone to imagine anyone else in the role.

So like I said, no matter who comes in to voice these characters next, there's gonna be shit over it. You might be satisfied with who we get, but I can assure you this is just going to be a repeat of the last two times this has happened.

And for the record, I'm speaking specifically about the practice of swapping out the actors, not the voices themselves. Whoever "fits the character" is an extremely subjective thing, and we can argue about it and neither of us would be wrong if we just had two different ideas on how these characters sound. Personally, I just kind of associate each of Sonic's voices with a specific personality tied that era, it's a lot easier for me to distinguish them that way. But this is the Sonic fanbase, where nobody can agree on anything so

 

I see everyone (perhaps rightfully) worrying about Mike Pollock getting replaced, but IIRC, doesn't he already have a working relationship with WildBrain, and is even in some of their current projects? Only way I see Sega replacing him is if they're going totally scorched earth on the game cast.

 

Considering Mike already survived the 4kids cull, I'd say there's at least some appreciation higher up for how great of a job he does and how much the fans value him. Though admittedly I feel it's a bit of a slap in the face to the rest of the cast in that case.

 

Agreed. I’d like to think Mike won’t be recasted based on precedence, but one time previous is a terribly small sample size. Really, it’s just a shame this is happening at all. While I have criticisms of some of the most recent voices, it’s still a shame to see them be cut loose. Taking the series in a new direction shouldn’t require cycling out the voice cast.

 

It's worth noting that Mike Pollock wasn't "kept", in the strictest sense, for the last cast change. He had to re-audition.

https://lastminutecontinue.com/sonic-news/pollock-re-hired-not-necessarily-retained-for-eggman-va/

 

Glad he's sticking around and re-auditioning proves he's still the best choice.

 

For clarity, I was referring to the previous cast change, when the 4Kids cast was replaced for Sonic Colours. Mike Pollock had to re-audition for Eggman, but got the part again.

It's currently unknown if Mike Pollock will continue to voice Eggman.

 

Oh my bad, I misunderstood.

 

Of course he would be, he tried to audition for Sonic X and actually auditioned last time before Roger was picked.

Unless he's left his union I don't see that happening though, as much as I would like it.

 

Or if Sega's more willing to play ball. Who knows, ten years is a long time, I wouldn't be surprised if some management shake-up has happened that'd make them more reasonable.

 

Thing is I'm pretty sure at this point they would've already locked in their VAs. Unless everyone made their statement that close to when they found out, which I kinda doubt.

 

Can they just make Sonic sound around his age for once? I understand that everyone latches onto the voice they first encountered when entering the series, and yes for me that is Jaleel... but I don’t need Jaleel, it doesn’t even need to be extremely similar, but Jaleel actually sounded like the age Sonic is said to be, and also sounded how one might expect a creature of Sonic’s proportions to sound. A lot of the voices for Sonic just sound too mature, I’d even go far enough to say objectively so. I was listening to the guy who does TailsChannel or whatever on YouTube about this very subject, and he actually naturally sounds like Sonic to me, more than any of the voice talent has, as of late. Some people may demand a certain voice actor, I think that’s silly, but it would be nice if Sonic had a voice that matched his bio, rather than an image that Sega wants to portray. “More edgy, more radical”, I feel like that’s how we ended up with Craig. Nothing against him or his abilities personally.

 

I just wanna point out that this post and the linked article are horribly misleading. Drummond is not in discussions with SEGA about voicing Sonic again. His agent reached out to SEGA to broach the possibility. That's all. It's like me dropping SEGA an email and saying I'm in discussions with them. It really doesn't mean shit.

That said, I think that Drummond still does a fantastic Sonic and I'd be happy to have him back. But that wouldn't soften the blow of SEGA dropping Smith and so many other English language VAs for bullshit reasons again.

Dreadknux over at Sonic Stadium wrote a much better article.

Moving on...

Smith sounded a teeny bit older as Sonic, but perfectly suitable for him. Drummond also perfectly suited Sonic in my opinion. Griffith and Schwartz also did fine jobs. They are all good at portraying Sonic as the age he's supposed to be in whatever medium it is.

What you're asking for here is no less subjective that anything else about VA opionins.

 

You’re right, “objective” probably isn’t the word since there is no truth about how a fictional blue hedgehog sounds. I suppose I mean to the extent that we can project anthropic assumptions onto the character with varying degrees of familiarity. For example, take Pikachu... little yellow rat, with a little high pitched voice, that seems to fit with what we would expect based on what we are familiar with in the real world, so then to cast his voice as Ryan Reynolds, or Danny Devito for that matter, just appears less plausible, and dissimilar. It seems like more modern iterations of Sonic are trying to portray him as older than what the bio indicates. Of course this is ultimately subjective because blue 15 year old hedgehogs don’t exist. But I’d still argue there are feelings about how this should be portrayed which are more and less “realistic” based on general assumptions.

Similarly, consider an artists depiction of a fictional fruit. One portrayal might be similar to an Apple, but more fauvist, whereas another could be a completely abstract flat plane circle. I would say one is more objectively accurate provided this fruit exists in a 3 dimensional world, like we are familiar with. So they are both “subjective” but with varying degrees of accuracy or “truth” as we would expect. This is what I meant by “objective”.

Ya, I know, just my opinion...

 

Personally I’m really down with the idea of Max Mittelman taking over. As well as voicing Ryuji, he’s also voiced Gray in Fire Emblem Echoes, Tee in Puyo Puyo Tetris and many others. I feel like he’s got the whole “excitable, free-spirited teenager” vibe down pat, though I imagine that the chat going round about such an idea would have absolutely no sway on things.

https://twitter.com/rybofiavin/status/1024714744568184832?s=21

Personally I’m very against the idea of Drummond stepping back into the role. I have huge amounts of respect for the guy thanks to his enthusiasm and involvement in the community, but I don’t like his voice for Sonic; in my opinion it’s too nasally and also sounds too old, much notably older than Roger ever sounded.

Furthermore, I feel like bringing Drummond back in would just be shallow lip service towards Adventure fans, and that’s not really a step up from the shallow lip-service towards Classic fans for the last decade (of course barring most of Mania and its related media). I think it’s dreadful how he was cut off at the time of the first recast, and then disrespected regarding his union at the time of the second, but I think if they’re getting rid of the current actor, they shouldn’t galvanise the tribalism that exists within the Sonic community by then bringing back an older one.

Edit: Regarding the SoaH article on Drummond, note the author. Don’t trust a thing Stritix writes. I knew the guy personally years ago and he’s absolutely off his rocker.

 

The reason you associate that type of voice with Pikachu is because that's literally what his voice has been since the Anime debuted in 1999; Ikue Otani has been voicing Pikachu forever, and has become the voice everyone associates with the character. She doesn't voice ALL Pikachu's mind you, but she voices the main one and is the definitive voice of the character.

Casting Ryan Reynolds as him is deliberate in getting that juxtaposition down of a grown adult male's voice coming out of an objectively cute design. Its the whole basis on the Detective Pikachu character, because its explicitly NOT the Pikachu that has defined the franchise up to this point.


Every Sonic voice actor gets the same complaints of "trying too hard to sound cool" or "sounding too old", but there's really no way to quantify that without comparing voice actors. So if you're someone who was first exposed to Jaleel White's take on the character, then of course anyone else is going to sound weird in the role. I still can't reconcile Dan Green's take on Knuckles after hearing Scott Dreir's for so many years.

This is just goes back to the issue of Sega refusing to give Sonic an established English voice for whatever reason, so the idea of what Sonic is "supposed" to sound like is a never-ending argument because not even Sega knows how he's supposed to sound when it comes down to it.

 

I'm still not sure what to make of all this. I actually didn't have any problems with the previous voice actors, except maybe Amy's, though she was fine in Boom. But, I must secretly want Ryan Drummond back, since last night I had a dream where I spent the day hanging out with him.