The Avengers Get Voice Acting Wrong
Released on 04/27/2015
I have a piece of gear for every member of the Avengers.
Ooh, these Black Widow undergarments
are really constricting.
Computer generated characters and comic book movies
look better every year,
now if only they could get the voices right.
I explain what I mean on this week's episode
of Angry Nerd.
First, your comments.
Vincent writes what did you think of the Watchmen comic
to movie transition.
Vincent, I thought it didn't quite live up to to source
material but there were some great performances
and some brilliant sequences.
What did you think?
Let me know in the comments.
Alfred Wong writes what's your favorite Marvel robot?
Alfred, that's easy, Vision, no wait, no,
Nimrod, no, Jocasta, Dragon Man.
Ah, can't decide.
Let me know your picks in the comments.
I'll try to nail down mine.
Oh and thanks Alfred, your comment reminded me
that I need to write a poison pen letter.
Dear Marvel, the sentient psychopathic robot Ultron
is one of my favorite comic book baddies
and I love the actor James Spader
but you should be banished to the negative zone
for combining those two things.
The CG version of Ultron in the new Avengers movie
has a fatal flaw, he sounds exactly like James Spader.
Anyone who reads comics knows that Ultron is supposed
to sound like an evil automaton not like James Spader.
Hey, this sounds really cool,
by your command imperious leader,
get the humanoid,
get the intruder.
Okay okay, I'll stop now.
Psyche.
I mean, have you read the comics,
Ultron's speech balloons had jagged edges,
jagged edges.
Hoary hosts of Hoggoth.
How much more obvious could they make it?
And it's not just about the treatment of the voice
with vocoder effects, it's also about snagging
a name celebrity.
This casting decision is part of a larger, extremely
lame trend of casting a-list actors as animated characters.
You need a swaggering rooster on a farm?
Hey, let's get Mel Gibson.
Thank you ladies and gentlemen,
you've been a wonderful audience.
Wise-cracking shark?
Let's cast Will Smith.
Yeah, exactly how it looks, that's how it is.
Voiceover isn't the same as being in front of the camera.
Peter Dinklage, really an actor, but
his voiceover on Destiny puts me to sleep.
[Peter Dinklage] The Hive haven't been on earth
in centuries, that wizard came from the moon.
Ugh, if we aren't supporting full-time voice actors
how will we find and nurture the next Mel Blanc,
June Foray, Billy West or Cree Summer?
If you don't know who any of those people are
I hate you forever.
But I mostly hate celebs playing CGI roles
because I find it distracting
when a familiar voice comes out of a CG character's mouth.
It pulls me out of the story
and it makes me think about the actor.
The sight of Ultron in the latest Avenger's flick
fills me with glee
but the sound of him has me mentally ranking
Brat Packers in order of how successful
their career second acts have been.
Sheedy versus Ringwald?
Too close to call.
Now I could forgive Vin Diesel as Groot,
anyone who heard his brilliant work on Iron Giant
knows that he is a voice actor at heart
who just happened to branch out into meat space performing.
Bradley Cooper as Rocket Racoon, over the line
but I'll allow it.
Yeah.
Josh Brolin as Thanos, just wrong.
And James Spader-tron is the celeb voiceover
that broke the camel's back.
No strings on me.
Marvel, Robert California should not be Ultron.
Fix this now.
If you hurry there's still time
to get Frank Welker overdubbed.
(whistles)
Oh you're still here, huh?
Um, oh what was your favorite scene
in the original Avengers movie?
Let me know in the comments.
Mine was the shawarma scene.
I liked it because it wasn't setting up the next
installment of the franchise, and because
it was a blessed moment of downtime,
for the audience as well as the Avengers,
after an orgy of action and destruction.
See, one key appeal of super team comics
that the superhero movies have generally shortchanged,
is these moments of respite,
the Fantastic Four just hanging out in the Baxter Building
before the signal flare goes up,
or mutants chillaxing in the X-Mansion
before the sentinels spoil everything.
You get to see what these characters are like
when they aren't saving the world.
The Marvel movies excise that,
they're like the equivalent of a workplace TV series
where you only watch people work.
Avengers 2 could be even worse,
with too many characters, too many bad guys
and too much expensive mayhem.
Downtime is important.
Which reminds me, I'm going to take some downtime
for a while too, I need to dust my memorabilia
before I pack it up, I need to re-bag my comics
and devise some blistering new superpowerful
rants about Michael Bay.
Let me know what you think of Avengers 2 in the comments
and keep watching the classic old school Angry Nerd
episodes while I'm on hiatus.
Hey, you know what would be funny?
We should get some celebrity guests to
overdub my heartfelt farewell.
I'll just lip sync it.
And then you get Alec Baldwin to say my lines,
no wait, Jack Nicholson, get Jack Nicholson
that'd be even funnier.
Bastard's better not cheap out on me
like you did with my side-kick Gary.
Okay...
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The Avengers Get Voice Acting Wrong