The Good kind of Voice Acting.

[max734734]

Boredom is a strange thing, you either find something to fix it, sleep it off, or trot along until something like this post happens.

For today I humbly ask the Escapist Forum folks, what makes Voice Acting well...good. Not just any kind of 'good', but the kind that actually sticks in your head for decades.

Reason behind this is that I've noticed a strange...lack of, well...'awesome' 90s era voice acting. Not that we should be sinking the standard boat that low, it's just that oddly enough, to me at least, I find it hard to recall anything memorable anymore. Most stuff is either so well performed that it gets overshadowed by the next new thing that takes over the memorable slot, kind of like a faster re-election, without the need to campaign for that seat.

Obviously something 'better' would replace things overtime, this stuff happens. But have games these days lost those iconic moments of short term cringeworthy god-awfulness that would be remembered for decades to come? Or we're just not gonna get those kind of performances anymore.

Share your thoughts guys, and also vids for such scenes if it exist. I'd love to study them.

 

[American Tanker]

If you want to talk about cheesy 90s voice acting, the one that comes to my mind is Star Fox 64. You know why...

 

[max734734]

Modern cartoons make me physically ill to listen to. At least the old ones had fairly normal sounding characters. Now I turn on a Saturday morning cartoon and it's literally noise pollution, or at least from what little I could stand to watch.

As for games and movies, as long as the characters and voice seems to gel and feel natural, then great. Naughty Dog excels most in this for games, and I really liked the new Jungle Book. Probably my favorite out of Disney's more recent efforts. Not just for VA but as a watchable movie.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

Modern cartoons make me physically ill to listen to. At least the old ones had fairly normal sounding characters. Now I turn on a Saturday morning cartoon and it's literally noise pollution, or at least from what little I could stand to watch.

Give me an example of a Modern Cartoon that is noise pollution to you?

 

[KissingSunlight]

I guess the kind of voice acting where you are not thinking about the voice acting during the game. Afterwards, you think back and reflect how great and immersive the acting was in the game.

 

[max734734]

Modern cartoons make me physically ill to listen to. At least the old ones had fairly normal sounding characters. Now I turn on a Saturday morning cartoon and it's literally noise pollution, or at least from what little I could stand to watch.

Give me an example of a Modern Cartoon that is noise pollution to you?

I didn't even bother to check what it was other than it was incredibly modern looking, as in unrecognizable in any way shape or form of characters, setting, etc. The characters were literally screaming every line back and forth in that "hey this is awesome ain't it kids?!?!" kind of way. The animation was also horrible and the colors were like a bad LSD trip. I don't remember even the worst of 90's cartoons being anywhere near that bad, and they were well on their way even then.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

Modern cartoons make me physically ill to listen to. At least the old ones had fairly normal sounding characters. Now I turn on a Saturday morning cartoon and it's literally noise pollution, or at least from what little I could stand to watch.

Give me an example of a Modern Cartoon that is noise pollution to you?

I didn't even bother to check what it was other than it was incredibly modern looking, as in unrecognizable in any way shape or form of characters, setting, etc. The characters were literally screaming every line back and forth in that "hey this is awesome ain't it kids?!?!" kind of way. The animation was also horrible and the colors were like a bad LSD trip. I don't remember even the worst of 90's cartoons being anywhere near that bad, and they were well on their way even then.

The only thing I noticed from your description is Colors like a bad LSD trip, so the Problem Solverz?

 

[Chewster]

I think the problem (at least that I've noticed) is that these days it's become popular to cast celebs in animated film and to a lesser extent video game roles instead of using voice actors or actresses who do different voices for a living.

If you listen to professional voice actors like the legendary late Mel Blanc or people working today like Billy West, Tress MacNeille or Maurice LaMarche, they're so much better and have much more range than just casting Jack Black doing his normal voice or whatever. Unfortunately, star power is all that seems to matter.

There are a few that straddle being both an actor and voice actor like Hank Azaria, Alan Tudyk and Seth MacFarlane but usually they start as one and slowly transition into the other.

 

[max734734]

Modern cartoons make me physically ill to listen to. At least the old ones had fairly normal sounding characters. Now I turn on a Saturday morning cartoon and it's literally noise pollution, or at least from what little I could stand to watch.

Give me an example of a Modern Cartoon that is noise pollution to you?

I didn't even bother to check what it was other than it was incredibly modern looking, as in unrecognizable in any way shape or form of characters, setting, etc. The characters were literally screaming every line back and forth in that "hey this is awesome ain't it kids?!?!" kind of way. The animation was also horrible and the colors were like a bad LSD trip. I don't remember even the worst of 90's cartoons being anywhere near that bad, and they were well on their way even then.

The only thing I noticed from your description is Colors like a bad LSD trip, so the Problem Solverz?

Actually it kinda looked like that but with different characters. Also was on a basic cable network I believe. It was quite a while ago, like a couple years so I have few specifics to recall.