JL Dialogue/Voice acting

[neilf]

I just wanted to put my 2 cents in on the new JL pilot. I'm a huge fan of Timm's previous Batman/Superman adventures and needed to get this off my chest. One of the best parts about the Batman/Superman adventures beyond the great animation and beautiful look of the shows was the strength of the scripts and dialogue. The voice acting in the Justice League is just not up to par. Don't get me wrong - it wasn't terrible but it didn't come off like a real movie. When you watch the World's Finest movie you could show that to a non animation fan and they would say "wow that's not what I expected from an animated show". It had the dialogue, pacing and editing of a real movie. Superman and Green Lantern were terrible in Justice League. I don't know if it was the actors or the script or both. My Christmas wish is for Bruce Timm to get Tim Daly back as Superman. Superman just didn't command the same presence with this new guy (and I don't think it's his voice but the acting as well). Justice League was good but just didn't have the epic/movie feel that The World's Finest or some of the 2 part Superman or Batman episodes had. I'll stick around because I have the utmost faith that Timm and Co. will figure it out. It is a daunting task to have all these characters in one shot. My hope is that they'll get this show on track and smarten it up a bit. The appeal of their past work was the fact that adults could enjoy it as much as the younger audiences.

[DR. BELCH]

--Kevin Conroy is a veteran Batman of ten-plus years, so of course he was good (esp. when he tersely warns the para not to remove his mask!). And Wonder Woman had an unsure, nervous, innocent quality I liked--a first-timer in the booth, maybe, and very appropriate for a lass fresh off the island. What little I saw of Hawkgirl I liked--an edgy, even brutal woman--although the bit about "My world is a warlike place" did seem a tad sandwiched in. Flash is cocky as ever, John Stewart sounds like a weary, grizzled old veteraln with no patience for the "children" of the group, and admittedly I don't know enough about J'onzz/Martian Manhunter to say how well the actor captured him.
The new Superman actor is no Dailey, though. Didn't The Fugitive tank? What ever inspired him to try to remake a classic? Maybe he will consider a comeback. Still, maybe this new guy could work out....

[JL4Ever]

I enjoyed the voice acting a lot. I think each character was given a real personality despite the fact that some weren't given much time in the story. And I definately think the story was grand enough to be movie quality. Aliens launching a war against Earth is grand in and of itself, even though it's been done several times over. Finally, my wife, not an animation fan, enjoyed it and said she'd freely watch other episodes with me. :p

[Kal-el]

Overall, I was happy with the voice acting. More specifically though, I was not pleased with Superman. Tim Daly left some big vocal shoes to fill, and I hope George Newbern (sp?) will improve as the series progresses. MM was right on. I was thoroughly impressed with his voice and the voice acting behind it. Flash was great. Kevin Conroy is, and will always be, the perfect voice for Batman. He has set the bar so high for voice actors (as Daly did for Supes) that anyone else has to be very good to be in the same class.
Not enough info for Hawkgirl yet. WW was good and seemed to convey some of the inexperience and niavate her character has. I think GL has the perfect voice for his character.

[Ricochet]

I'm sorry, but Superman's voice made me shudder. It just didn't work for me!

[kid_flash]

I LOVED the voice acting.

Wonder Woman came off a little weak, but that's 'cause she's not a warrior yet! She hasn't been shown everything about the man's world! Uh, yeah....

Superman: I really enjoyed the performance. He was commanding and still very human. If we can't have Daly, this is the guy I want as Superman. Beats the heck outta McDonald.

Batman: Do you honestly think I'll say anything bad?

The Flash: Rosenbaum's got this. He's even better than the guy they got for "Speed Demons."

Green Lantern: Perfect. He sounds just like what he's supposed to be: a straight-arrow military guy. I look at him and hear the voice and I KNOW this is a space cop.

Martian Manhunter: Lumbly's got it nailed.

Hawkgirl: Sounds good so far.

As for the epic movie thing....how can you NOT say this was epic! INVADERS FROM ANOTHER PLANET CAME! THEY WIPED OUT MARS AND WANT MORE! The JL fought these guys all over the world! There was a personal battle with J'onn, LOADS of action, and more character interaction than you can shake a stick at! This felt like a movie! I have zero complaints here. JL rules.

[neilf]

Maybe I was being too picky. I'm happy they made the series obviously and I've already seen an improvement with the first episode of "In Blackest Night". The dialogue was more natural and not "announced" like it seemed in the pilot. I still can't get used to Superman though. Tim Daly was the man. Anyway it looks like they will be improving on it as they go along. With a 9:30 timeslot they certainly can be a bit more daring and don't have to dumb it down at all. I look forward to the voice actors settling in and getting more natural as we go along. I'd also wager that with the intros. out of the way with the pilot we'll get a lot more character development. Now - bring on the action figures and cool Justice League stuff!!! :)

[neilf]

By the way - has anyone heard about ratings for the show yet?

[The Guard]

I really thought the voices improved. Maria Canals as Hawkgirl was great, and she and Michael Rosenbaum really bounced off each other well...George Newburn started to come through...except that really stupid line: "We're sorry to interrupt these proceedings, but John Stewart is our FRIEND."

[Tim Drake]

Am I the only one who thinks Wonder Woman seriously sucks!!! She's monotone. When Batman is supposedly killed wonder woman delivers the weakest No.... I've ever heard. And "Hera give me strength." Sounded horrible. Plus whenever she uses her super strength it sounds more like shes slightly constipated then shes lifting heavy objects.

Superman isn't as good as the old one but he's definitely not bad. He can act but doesn't have the same deep authoratative voice. But he's trying and a lot better than Superman from Batman Beyond.

I like Flash, Bats, Hawkgirl, MM. Green Lantern is a little Shaft but its not too bad.

Some of the dialouge was weak though. My home planet Thanagar is a warlike world. There you must strike first or die. There were several lines that seemed to be placed to allow us to see character dimensions that were thrown in out of place. I think its just to give some background to all the characters before the pilot was over.

And the music!! Well that's another thread.

[DataCable]

My notes on the vioce actors:

Supes: While fairly close to Daily's voice, I quickly picked up that it wasn't. I briefly thought it might be Patrick Warburton (the new live-action Tick), who also voiced the Man of Steel in an Amex ad with Seinfeld. No real objections to Newbern's performance, though for my money, having grown up on SuperFriends (cheeze and all), Danny Dark will always be THE voice of Superman. :p

Batz: Conroy is DA' man, period!

Flash: It wasn't until somebody pointed out that Rosenbaum was also Smallville's Lex Luthor that it clicked in my head why the voice sounded so familiar. Now all I can see whenever Flash opens his smarter-than-his-feet-are-fast mouth is that bald head under the red cowl. (Maybe to complete the loop, we can get Clancy Brown to play the Flash on Smallville. :D) While I think his performance as the not-(yet)-so-criminal boy genius is generally decent, his voice-acting could use a little work.

GL: When I first saw LaMarr's name on the cast list, I was a little iffy, but not for any negative reasons. Since he's one of the original cast members of Mad TV and does numerous voices for Futurama, I tend to think of him as a comedic performer. Though he's quite talented with accents and vocal manupulation (I'd never have guessed in 1.2 zillion years that he was the voice of Hermes Conrad), I'm also quite familiar with his normal speaking voice. So, whenever I hear GL speak, I hear not a guy with a deep voice, but Phil doing his "deep voice." It'll just take some getting used to. I keep thinking what an actor with a true "deep voice" could do with the role, such as Keith David (who does the "We'll be back/We now return to" bumbers) or Avery Brooks. Not that I think Brooks would actually take such a part, but his narration work for The Discovery Channel's "Walking with Dinosaurs" was absolutely excellent, better than some of his performances on DS9.

MM: Lumbly seems to fit the part, though I'm completely unfamiliar with the character. (My knowledge of comic characters and stories comes largely from TV and Film adaptations. Only briefly was I seriously into reading comics, mostly the Marvel "mutant" titles in the early 90's.)

WW/HG: Well, they're there, at least. Can't say I've really been impressed with either of them, though they haven't had much exposition in these first few eps.

Whew! Sorry for the novellette... ;)

[Snake Plissken]

cheesy voice acting

[Vin]

Originally posted by DataCable
My notes on the vioce actors:

GL: When I first saw LaMarr's name on the cast list, I was a little iffy, but not for any negative reasons. Since he's one of the original cast members of Mad TV and does numerous voices for Futurama, I tend to think of him as a comedic performer. Though he's quite talented with accents and vocal manupulation (I'd never have guessed in 1.2 zillion years that he was the voice of Hermes Conrad), I'm also quite familiar with his normal speaking voice. So, whenever I hear GL speak, I hear not a guy with a deep voice, but Phil doing his "deep voice." It'll just take some getting used to. I keep thinking what an actor with a true "deep voice" could do with the role, such as Keith David (who does the "We'll be back/We now return to" bumbers) or Avery Brooks. Not that I think Brooks would actually take such a part, but his narration work for The Discovery Channel's "Walking with Dinosaurs" was absolutely excellent, better than some of his performances on DS9.


Let's not forget that LaMarr also voices Jack on "Samurai Jack." He also voices Static on "Static Shock!" although, I never liked that show anyway.

[Kal-el]

Originally posted by DataCable
I keep thinking what an actor with a true "deep voice" could do with the role, such as Keith David (who does the "We'll be back/We now return to" bumbers) or Avery Brooks. Not that I think Brooks would actually take such a part, but his narration work for The Discovery Channel's "Walking with Dinosaurs" was absolutely excellent, better than some of his performances on DS9.

You never really know. Michael Dorn voiced Kalibak on a few S:TAS eps. Dorn and Avery Brooks have incredible voices that would work and have worked very well in the animated universe.
Also, was it just me or was the Prosecuter guy from "In Darkest Night" voiced by Rene Abourjonois (I butchered that spelling I know)?

[Toddman]

Originally posted by Kal-el


You never really know. Michael Dorn voiced Kalibak on a few S:TAS eps. Dorn and Avery Brooks have incredible voices that would work and have worked very well in the animated universe.
Also, was it just me or was the Prosecuter guy from "In Darkest Night" voiced by Rene Abourjonois (I butchered that spelling I know)?

Rene Auberjonois voiced Kanjar Ro and one of the Guardians of the Universe. Kurtwood Smith (Agent Bennett in "The Zeta Project" and the dad in "That 70's Show") voiced the prosecuting alien.

Toddman

[JL Man]

Excuse me for being and idiot, but who is Jason Marsden( Snapper Carr's voice).

[Jimmy Kustes]

Originally posted by JL Man
Excuse me for being and idiot, but who is Jason Marsden( Snapper Carr's voice).

I second that motion! Is he from Unhappily Ever After?

[Maxie Zeus]

Originally posted by JL Man
Excuse me for being and idiot, but who is Jason Marsden( Snapper Carr's voice).

For what it's worth, here's his page from imdb (http://us.imdb.com/Name?Marsden,+Jason)

[TerryMcGuiness]

Having seen the pilot and first ep now, I really dont have any problems with the voice acting.

Supermans voice is a touch different but still a at once noble but freindly voice. Its got alot of Daly had but its counterbalanced with something else unique to Newbern, but I think that somethign actually works in the context of what Clark is when we catch up to him in JL.

Batman, well its Conroy for god sake. To hell with Keaton,Kilmer,Clooney,West, Kevin Conroy is *the* greatest actor to ever play Batman.

Wonder Woman. I dont get the complaints. I love her voice. Theres a great balance of royalty and naievete. I also dont think shes anywhere near as flat or dead-pan as people have been saying. She conveyed the emotion of the scenes just fine in my view.

Martian Manhunter. Carl Lumbly could be Martian Manhunter in live-action to!! The voice matches the character perfectly.

The Flash. I miss Loren Lester, but honestly Michael Rosenbaum made me totally forget the difference. The attitude adn the cadence is still there, only now he doesnt sound like a cocky Dick Grayson. :p

Green Lantern. The only time I had a problem with his voice is the line "I've seen stranger things". For a second John was a little more funky sounding than he needed to be. But overall, the voice is great! That GL is one bad mutha...

Hawkgirl. I like her battle yell, and the actress does a good job of portraying the charcter and selling her interaction with the Flash. "Down boy." I think we may have our first relationship angle here, and if so whats "Hawkboy" gonna say if he makes it to Earth. ;)

[Toddman]

Originally posted by TerryMcGuiness

The Flash. I miss Loren Lester, but honestly Michael Rosenbaum made me totally forget the difference. The attitude adn the cadence is still there, only now he doesnt sound like a cocky Dick Grayson. :p


Actually in the Superman episode "Speed Demons," the Flash was voiced by Charlie Schlatter, not Loren Lester.

Toddman

[DisneyBoy]

I felt the voice acting could have been better. The worst moment had to be in the scene where Wonder Woman calls out "HE-RA-GIVE-ME-STRENGTH" as she tried to topple the alien creature. It was just soooo corny and stiff. GL's "We have to stop them before it's too late!" comment and fist gesture when the team was in the mountains was a little much. I was even disappointed by the Justice League unites ending, where Flash just sounded really silly. I know Rosenbaum was pretty good, but his last lines were totally scripted. They just didn't sound natural.

On the other hand, Batman was great (and looked great too), Martian Manhunter (who's superhero name needs to be explained) was really great, especially at the sounds of pain, which other actors had trouble with. Since I don't have Cartoon Network, I probably won't be able to see the rest of the season, so that's about all I can say. Help me, my friends :(

[Dravin]

Tim Daly

[Kal-el]

I'll give George Newbern a chance. Daly was awesome, but even his voice seemed a tad strange at the beginning of S:TAS. I think he'll get better as the series goes along.

[dc-marvelite]

I agree that no one can compare with Daly at this point for Supes but I did detect a noticable difference between Secret Origins (1-2-3) and the latest episode. Hopefully, it's more a case of getting accustomed to the role and it will continue to improve??? We can hope. At certain times, it was like a Daly impersonation and just as good...