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Voice acting & the problem with Chris Pratt as Garfield · The Recess Bell

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  This production is brought to you by the Resiss Bell. Hi. Everybody,
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  my name is Justin Greenberg and this is Film Reel. And I saw the
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  new Garfield movie. Yay, everyone loves Garfield, the kids love Garfield?
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  Right, why did they make this movie? Well, I want to talk
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  about the casting. That was the big controversy going into this film is why
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  is Chris Pratt being cast as Garfield. We're gonna break down the importance of
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  casting when it comes to animated roles. Is it necessary to get a big
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  name attached. We'll also go over some of the all time great voice actors
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  and a whole lot more on this episode of Film Reel. I loved Garfield
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  growing up. I would read the comics every single Sunday. You know,
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  there were things called newspapers, and you could actually hold the newspaper and flip
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  the pages, and then you'd go to the funny section and you could read
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  your Peanuts and your Dilbert's. But the all time favorite of mine was always
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  Garfield, and I would get compilation books of all of Garfield's greatest hits.
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  I would watch his cartoon Garfield and Friends, one of my favorite cartoons.
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  So I've had a fondness for Garfield for quite some time, and when they
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  announced they're making another Garfield movie, I was a bit cautious going into it,
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  just setting my expectations very low, because I just don't think they could
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  transfer something that works in small, little twenty two minute episodes or in five
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  panel comic books. I just don't know if that could transfer to a feature
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  length film. Now, we saw they made a Garfield movie in the early
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  two thousands with Bill Murray, and there's such an interesting story with Bill Murray
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  getting that role as Garfield. And we'll do a little brief history, and
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  we got to go back to the mid nineteen eighties when a guy named Lorenzo
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  Music was doing the voice of Garfield and he would also be cast as Peter
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  Venkman in the Real Ghostbusters cartoon show Dangerous We're Not Raised in Trouble, and
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  we got to save him Janine. Peter Venkman was the character that Bill Murray
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  portrayed, and Bill Murray would watch this cartoon show and he said to the
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  producers of the show, I don't like this voice. It sounds too much
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  like Garfield. I don't want him representing my character. So they fired Lorenzo
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  Music, and Ghostbuster fans hate the replacement. Dave Coolier ended up replacing Lorenzo
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  Music, but all the real Ghostbuster fans, they love the Lorenzo Music era.
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  The irony of all this is Lorenzo Music dies. They make that Garfield
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  movie in the early two thousands and they cast Bill Murray to play Garfield.
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  So it's just weird how the world works. But those movies are trash.
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  And I was, like I said, a bit cautious into this upcoming Garfield
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  movie that came out in twenty twenty four. I really had no expectations for
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  it to be good. And Chris Pratt being cast as the role of Garfield.
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  I think the first warning sign that I don't think they're gonna do this
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  movie right. I actually love Chris Pratt. I think he's super funny.
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  I think he's super charming. I know a lot of people on the internet
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  don't like him these days. I don't know what that's about. It might
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  be some political reasons. I don't know why. I see a lot of
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  Chris Pratt hate, but I genuinely like him, and I think he's done
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  good work as a voice actor. I think his stuff in The Lego movie
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  is really good, and I thought he was cast pretty decently with super Mario.
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  But the character of Garfield is the complete opposite of what Chris Pratt represents.
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  Chris Pratt is very energetic, he's very happy, go lucky, where
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  Garfield is sarcastic and dry. So here's Lorenzo Music as Garfield. Whoever invented
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  Christmas trees should be drug out into the street and shot, And here's Chris
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  Pratt as Garfield. I see it on television a million times. We'll need
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  one hundred feet a row on the route, all right, and then timing
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  it just right, and we swing over as the train passes and land on
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  top of the car. And there's just way too much energy. So why
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  would this company that made the movie want to cast Chris Pratt? And here's
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  why I think it's wrong. So the reason why you hire a big name
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  stars to get publicity. You know, Chris Pratt has millions of followers on
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  Instagram and Twitter, and he could go on The Tonight Show and promote the
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  movie. But I'm gonna counteract that. So you're gonna pay Chris Pratt.
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  Let's just make him an imaginary number. You know, he's probably getting ten
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  million dollars for this movie, So you got to pay him ten million dollars.
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  How much money is he bringing in on his name value alone when it
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  comes to an animated movie, I don't think it's that much. Now,
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  when you hire a big name actor for an actual movie, you know,
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  a live action movie, yeah, I think that adds something. You know,
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  people want to see those actors on the big screen. Well, when
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  it comes to an animated movie, the main audience is children, and children
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  don't give a shit who's doing the voice of their character. They just don't.
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  They just like, oh, that's Cinderella, that's you know, Mowgli.
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  They just like cartoons. They don't really care who's behind the cartoon.
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  Case in point, Frozen, one of the biggest movies of all time,
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  has no A list stars to it. You know, you have Kristen Bell,
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  you have Josh Gad. They're not Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt there.
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  You know, they're B level, C level stars. And it made a
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  crap ton of money because it was an engaging story for children. So you
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  pay Chris Pratt ten million dollars, We're just gonna say that's what it is
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  he might bring in an extra million dollars, maybe two million dollars saw the
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  movie just because his name's alone. But you could have just paid a voice
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  actor. He could have paid somebody that encapsulates the spirit that is Garfield,
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  and you could have a better performance. It would receive less backlash from actual
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  Garfield fans. Kids wouldn't care. And yet, so what you can't put
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  Joe Schmoe the voice actor on the Tonight Show. But again, I think
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  too billion dollars might even be a push. I don't even know if it
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  would have changed the box office receipts. People don't care about movie stars the
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  way they once did. When I was growing up, there was a new
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  Will Smith movie, there was a new Leonardo DiCaprio movie. You had to
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  go see that. Now people are attached to franchises. What's the newest Marvel
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  movie, What's the newest Star Wars movie. It's not really about the star
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  power Now. Every now and then that changes when somebody gets really hot.
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  You know, everyone wants to see the new Sydney Sweeney movie or the new
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  z In Daya movie. But for the most part, this is a world
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  in Hollywood where it's driven by franchises, so I don't even think Chris Pratt
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  would add anything in my opinion as far as dollar amounts for the box office
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  receieds. But more importantly, you're just getting a bad performance. Again,
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  I like Chris Pratt, he does not work as Garfield. The movie was
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  crap, But I'm not gonna get this is not a movie review for Garfield.
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  This is just more of voice acting and why it's so important. Who
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  are some of my favorite voice actors? Well, I mentioned a few weeks
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  ago that I would love to interview Mel Blank. He was the guy who
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  did all the Looney Tunes voices. I think he's the gold standard when it
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  comes to voice acting. I'll tell you what I think Mel Blank's most genius
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  achievement was. And only if you're a voice actor do you realize how incredible
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  this is? When Bugs and Daffy are fighting over whether it's rabbit season or
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  duck season, and Daffy Duck comes out dressed up as Bugs Bunny doing a
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  Bugs Bunny imitation, Then Bugs Bunny comes out dressed as Daffy doing a Daffy
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  impressions up about any ducks? I know, just the darn minute. What
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  do you conduct You how hard that is to do? To take your own
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  character have it imitate another one of your own characters. It's almost impossible because
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  if you try to like combine two voices that you're doing, you kind of
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  just land in the middle. Like if I try to do Opua imitating Mo,
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  it'll sound just like Mo imitating Opu. There's no We tried it one
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  day at the Simpsons. We were talking about marveling at mel Blank's play to
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  do this, and we all tried to do one of our characters imitating another
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  one and have them sound different, and we couldn't do it. You don't
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  know what Another one of my favorites is a man named Frank Welker. This
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  is a guy that's been in the business for over sixty years. He voices
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  everyone from Fred from Scooby Doo to Megatron to Doctor Klaw, from Inspector Gadget
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  and everything in between. I mean, anytime you need a random voice in
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  a movie, it is Frank Welker. He did everything from the monkey that
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  is featured in Raiders of the Lost Arc to the voice of the Gremlins,
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  the evil Gremlins in the movie Gremlins Frank Welker is the man you find that
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  most guys who do voices and the cartoons all are can do many impressions of
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  people and sounds and all that. But other cartoon characters I do how baby
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  Kermit on them up at babies, I'm Skeeter forgot Skeeter. No, she's
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  a little girl, because he's a low shown hist frog here. And then
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  to go against Frank Welker, you gotta think of Peter Cullin. Peter Cullin
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  did a lot of voices, a lot of narration, of very stoic type
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  of voice, but you might recognize his most famous role as Optimist Prime,
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  and that that role is just perfect in that original nineteen eighties television show We're
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  Autobots, We're from Cybertron. Those who tried to harm you are called Decepticons.
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  We must stop them before they destroy your world. He's a hero,
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  but he's not your typical I want to destroy everything hero. He has morals.
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  He he'd preferred not to fight, and in that age in the nineteen
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  eighties when everything was all about fighting, fighting, fighting, Optimist Prime just
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  wanted p for all the Transformers. But he's not afraid to throw down.
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  He's not gonna turn down a fight, but he's only gonna fight when it's
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  necessary. And I think that is something that's missing in a lot of those
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  eighties cartoons. And Peter Cullen's voice just lends so well to that character.
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  He does sort of a John Wayne thing. But I know he's talked about
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  he's been inspired a lot by his brother, and that's the beauty of voice
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  acting. You could take things that inspire you. And I know there's so
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  much controversy these days about people voicing certain different races and different genders, and
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  I just think when it comes to voice acting, you should be able to
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  play outside your comfort zone. A guy could be able to play an old
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  woman, you know, a woman should be able to play a young boy.
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  Like that's the beauty of voice acting. It is acting. People were
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  up at arms because Brian Cranston was playing a man in a wheelchair. They
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  should have hired a real guy in a wheelchair. Well, you know,
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  I saw the movie because Brian Cranston's in it, because he's a you know,
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  an actor that I'm recognized, and you just won a bunch of emtyes.
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  So I went to go see that is acting. Are we gonna hire
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  only people that have been in the military to play military people? You know,
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  at that point we're just making documentaries. Now, I'm not for people
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  being in blackface like shit like that. You know, we've moved on from
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  that. But when it comes to acting, I think we need to step
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  back and understand that these are people playing pretend. And do you necessarily have
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  to hire somebody that's gay to play a gay person. It would be nice
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  if but in my opinion, whoever is the best at the job that can
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  make audiences feel and emotion should be the ones that get hired. I wouldn't
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  be upset of, you know, somebody that's gay playing a straight person.
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  Like it goes both ways. Everybody should be able to play pretend. That
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  is the beauty of acting, and I think when it comes to voice acting
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  that is amplified to an extreme. I mean, one of my favorite roles
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  Samurai Jack. He's a samurai Japanese samurai played by Phil Lamar, who is
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  a black man, and he does such a good job. It's voice acting.
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  That's what you're doing. You're using your voice to play a character.
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  And Phil Lamar is one of my favorites Now we mentioned how Chris Pratt was
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  not cast well as Garfield, but there have been celebrities that have done amazing
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  jobs with voice acting. The one that jumps to mind is Robin Williams.
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  Robin Williams as the Genie. He was made to be a voice actor.
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  His improv skills, his ability to do various impressions, and so energetic.
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  I mean, he is a living, breathing cartoon and he was cast perfectly.
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  I think Pixar has done a great job with a lot of their cast
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  thing. I mean, Toy Story, you can't go better. There's no
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  one role in that movie that was cast wrong. And now you got some
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  big names in there, Tom Hanks and Tim Allen. But the beauty of
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  that and the luck that they had when they had these voice actors record their
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  roles, it was years before the movie was actually released, and it was
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  years before these guys blew up into megastars. I mean, Tim Allen was
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  a, you know, a well known comic and he just started the sitcom
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  Home Improvement. But by the time the movie comes out, it's the number
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  one sitcom on television. And when Tom Hanks records his role as Wood,
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  he you know, He's a well known actor. He was in beg he
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  was in a league of their own. But he wins oscars in between you
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  know, them doing the CGI and creating the actual movie. You know,
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  the first thing that gets done with these movies is the voice acting. So
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  you know, he wins for Philadelphia, he wins for Forrest Gump, and
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  then by the time the movie gets released you have a list stars. But
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  they were cast brilliantly. John Goodman, Billy Crystal in The Monsters Inc.
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  Movies amazing casting. Albert Brooks in Finding Nemo another amazing casting. So I'm
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  not against celebrities getting the role, but it needs to work. You need
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  something that fits the character, especially when it's a well established character like Garfield.
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  And that is why Hollywood failed by casting Chris Pratt. I'm Justin Greenberg
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  and this has been film real