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Is it me or is KH3 lacking a bit in the celebrity/Original VA department?



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MATGSY

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When KH1 first came out, it was remarkable for (amongst many other highlights) being 1 of Square's 1st voice-acted & the unprecedented level of acting talent involved. Many classic Disney characters had their VAs from their original films come back, even going to the lengths of bringing back Kathryn Beaumont as the voice of Alice & Wendy for the 1st time in 50 years!

& then there was the rather surprising amount of celebrity voices in the game, virtually unheard of in 2002. We had Haley Joel Osment kid as our hero, David Gallagher as Riku, David Boreanaz as Leon, Mandy Moore as Aerith, Billy Zane as the final boss, & even Sephiroth was voiced by Lance Bass of all people! & then of course there's the twofers: the celeb voices of Disney that returned for KH like James Woods or Gilbert Gottfried. Not every Disney character had their authentic voice mind you but the number of them that were was still impressive.

As the series went on there has been some recastings (mostly in the FF crew) but Disney/Square continued pushing for more & more star power. Pat Morita, Ming-Na Wen, Bruce Boxleitner, & Jason Alexander all reprised their respective Disney film roles. Even Jonathan Taylor Thomas & James Earl Jones got snuck in via archived audio. & so too did some of the new original characters with Jesse McCartney, Mark Hamil, Christopher Lee, Leonard Nimoy joining the ever growing cast.

But in KH3? Well it looks a bit stagnate if not outright receding. True that Sora/Riku/Aqua & one would presume Ventus/Roxas are still the same actors but even Kairi's been recasted & there hasn't been anything in the way of a new big name star being attached to the game. As for the worlds of Disney:

Tangled-Unconfirmed if Mandy Moore's returning
Frozen-Unconfirmed? Or did I miss the confirmation?
Toy Story-No Tom Hanks, no Tim Allen, maybe R. Lee Ermey, at least there's John Ratzenberger
Monsters Inc.-No John Goodman or Billy Crystal, likely no Steve Buscemi even if Randall shows up
Pirates-No ANYONE.......AGAIN
Hercules-Well there's James Woods at least, I think. We've only heard Hades' japanese voice so far right?

In no way am I saying the new voices wouldn't do a fine job mind you. & frankly if there are no new additional original characters I'd be thrilled, there's too damn many of those as is. But I do find the current casting to be...."out of sync" with the rest of the game. This is easily the biggest, most expensive KH to date & Disney has been more involved in it's promotion than they ever have before. The graphics are almost Pixar-level, the worlds are massive, Even the music department is bigger & more bombastic than before. & yet, the voices have not yet risen above the feeling of "more of the same". It's the one area of the game that seems underdeveloped compared to everything else.
 

Sign

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Josh Gad and James Woods confirmed they'd be reprising their roles as Olaf and Hades. In terms of original characters, there's Drake Bell as young Eraqus lol

We know that Pixar always approaches the original cast first, as they have the first right of refusal. Disney on the other hand seems to operate differently, such as how they specifically requested that the Japanese voices for Buzz and Woody be recorded by the substitute actors rather than the ones from the films. We have no idea if Disney approaches the original actors first, but if they did and they all refused, there's nothing anyone can do about that.

I think Chaser may have pointed out in another thread that John Goodman returned for Sulley in the recent Lego Incredibles game? So it may also be scheduling conflicts.

But casting famous actors isn't something you can really demand just because the project is notable. I feel like the complaint here doesn't really make much sense.
 

Launchpad

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Josh Gad is in from Frozen, Elsa and Anna both sound accurate but I'm not sure if they're from the movie. James Woods was heard in the most recent trailer, months after confirming his involvement via Twitter. The voice actors for Rex and Hamm are also returning in the Toy Story world. Randall is in, and viewers of the orchestra trailer have remarked that the voice is most likely Steve Buscemi, if not an eerily similar soundalike.

EDIT: mostly ninja'd by Sign. If it's such a big concern, a lot of information is already out there that isn't in your OP.

DOUBLE DIPPED EDIT: The voices for Mike and Sulley are the new official voices for the characters in the upcoming spinoff cartoon.
 

Zettaflare

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Honestly I'm not to bothered by the voice casting. If the original VAs don't want to voice the characters then they will find decent soundalikes. I though the replacements for Buzz and Woody did a fine job from what we heard of them.
 

Luminary

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Honestly, I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing to have new voice actors that will be excited to take on these iconic roles. It could actually turn out better than if they were to throw money at the original VA’s who would then just phone it in because they have no real interest in the project.

There are still plenty of characters left to be shown, so we could still have many of the more famous voice actors returning like the Tangled and Big Hero 6 casts.
 

DarkosOverlord

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I don't think Matgsy is actively complaining about the VA department like it'll make KH III a bad game, just that there is no "wow factor" compared to previous titles.
Which is a sentiment I kinda share. Apart from possibly Buscemi, I wasn't very... impressed I think it's the word I'm looking for.
Again, this has nothing to do with quality, not for me at least: it's about a personal emotional feeling tied with the game.

KH has been one of the first gates that introduced me to voice acting, understanding who voiced which character, and I remember being really amazed when learning about so many trivias such as the Alice one or learning Nimoy and Hamill's roles for the first time.
That being said, I feel like this is a discussion to have once the game is out. People are right in pointing out even as of now the cast is nothing to scoff at, and there might be more surprises.
Thing is, they gotta come mostly from the Disney side for KH III. Not a whole lot of new original characters, unless they bring and voice the Ux cast.
 

Alpha Baymax

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Somebody forgot that Birth by Sleep featured Mark Hamill and Leonard Nimoy.

Chill, we're bound to get more celebrity voices. Scott Glen is a perfect soundalike for Leonard Nimoy and he's yet to be in a video game (he already has that Disney-ABC connection through Marvel Netflix).
 

Chaser

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I think there's a certain disappointment around the celebrity voice actors because there's not really anyone new who is an original character that is being added to the game, meaning Square and Disney don't have to go around and find some star power.

The recasting for the FF characters make sense when you think about how the amount of projects requiring them would soon be increasing from 2005 onwards, and having these celebrities brought in every single time to record whenever needed is expensive and difficult due to conflicts of interest with other projects.

I think Chaser may have pointed out in another thread that John Goodman returned for Sulley in the recent Lego Incredibles game? So it may also be scheduling conflicts.
Yep! He recorded new dialogue, but nothing even remotely close to the scale that KH3 would require from their characters.

We will have the celebrities of Big Hero 6 returning (Jamie Chung from Once Upon a Time & Gotham, Scott Adsit from 30 Rock, Alan Tudyk from literally everything), we will have the original Tangled voices (Mandy Moore from This is Us, Zachary Levi from Shazam & Chuck, and no doubt Donna Murphy as she has previously expressed interest in recording for Kingdom Hearts III).

We might have David Tennett (Doctor Who, Broadchurch) as Scrooge McDuck, and there's a whole bunch of celebrity voices in Ducktales they can use if, for some reason, they decide to pull in a bunch of Ducktales characters (Danny Pudi from Community, Ben Schwartz from Parks and Recreation, and Bobby Moynihan from Saturday Night Live should voice Huey, Dewey, and Louie because the voices they had in the previous games were awful). Gibbs' actor has both hinted at and denied voicing that character for the Pirates so the Pirates world won't entirely be stand-ins.

On top of that, we have the original voices for Hamm and Rex in the game. With those two and Josh Gad as Olaf, I think we've surpassed Dream Drop Distance's low, low usage of original voices :p
 

Elysium

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We might have David Tennett (Doctor Who, Broadchurch) as Scrooge McDuck, and there's a whole bunch of celebrity voices in Ducktales they can use if, for some reason, they decide to pull in a bunch of Ducktales characters (Danny Pudi from Community, Ben Schwartz from Parks and Recreation, and Bobby Moynihan from Saturday Night Live should voice Huey, Dewey, and Louie because the voices they had in the previous games were awful).
You mean.. Russi Taylor, the voice they've had since the original DuckTales? David Tennant as Scrooge would be alright--and it's not like there's much choice with Alan Young having passed--but hopefully Taylor returns to play both them and Minnie. I hate that Magica de Spell didn't get to appear in KH while June Foray was alive (same with Yzma/Eartha Kitt).

A shame Christopher Lee and Leonard Nimoy won't be around for the end of the saga. Maybe Nimoy at least could've appeared if the series hadn't been spinning wheels for so long.
 

Rydgea

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I honestly don't know why people get so caught up in the superficial value of star power.

A lot of these "stars" whose careers have waned for better or worse were not particularly trained for voice over anyways. While I generally think the VO work in KH is fine, we've received some pretty mediocre performances here and there for the sake of it. Disney betting "household" names on factoring sales is there prerogative, but it certainly doesn't impress me. Sorry, Lance Bass. I'm not really buying it no matter how many cool filters they use on you.

There were several instances where I was genuinely surprised that the actor's voice lent so well to the characters. Mandy Moore, for example, made a wonderful Aerith. Her delivery was nice and sounded natural. She's also had plenty of experience in the world of VO, and it'll be nice to see her return to the series in some form, almost full circle. (Who knows, if she's coming in to record already, maybe they'll let her record for Aerith scenarios if we have them. Don't read into this.)

In general, it's easier for me to sink my teeth into and accept an original character's voice, because pre-established Disney voices are typically engrained in our minds, whereas we only speculate how these other characters should sound (original or pre-FFX). If there's anywhere I'd prefer Disney to push "star power" casting, it'd be for these Disney characters. Then again, Anna and Elsa's voices aren't particularly spectacular. I'm not discrediting Kristin Bell or Adele Dazeem, but their voices aren't so distinguishable they can't easily be replicated.

It will be sad knowing that Leonard Nimoy will not return for a character he thankfully mastered, but we will have to wait and see if we get to hear someone who matches his performance for KHIII. Same with Christopher Lee, I savor what he gave us for KHII and Days, but Corey Burton has been doing a fine job with Ansem (and 5,000 other characters).

However, we've gone without many times, and the Disney cast are generally replaced by trained professional VO talent who have been recording for these characters for other projects for many years now among whole swaths of other VO work. I remember my initial shock at Dream Drop Distance's particular void of original cast members, but what we got were excellent substitutes. The original actors are more or less nostalgic novelties. "Yay!" if they want to come back or do, but, honestly, it shouldn't be a big deal if they don't. We don't neeed Olivia Wilde in the studio.
 

Chaser

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You mean.. Russi Taylor, the voice they've had since the original DuckTales?
Yeah, and it’s awful. Just like Donald they are so hard to understand, plus their sqwarking is at a higher pitch and it’s like “pls tone it down”.
 

DizneyXBirds95

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I honestly don't know why people get so caught up in the superficial value of star power.

A lot of these "stars" whose careers have waned for better or worse were not particularly trained for voice over anyways. While I generally think the VO work in KH is fine, we've received some pretty mediocre performances here and there for the sake of it. Disney betting "household" names on factoring sales is their prerogative, but it certainly doesn't impress me. Sorry, Lance Bass. I'm not really buying it no matter how many cool filters they use on you.

There were several instances where I was genuinely surprised that the actor's voice lent so well to the characters. Mandy Moore, for example, made a wonderful Aerith. Her delivery was nice and sounded natural. She's also had plenty of experience in the world of VO, and it'll be nice to see her return to the series in some form, almost full circle. (Who knows, if she's coming in to record already, maybe they'll let her record for Aerith scenarios if we have them. Don't read into this.)

In general, it's easier for me to sink my teeth into and accept an original character's voice, because pre-established Disney voices are typically engrained in our minds, whereas we only speculate how these other characters should sound (original or pre-FFX). If there's anywhere I'd prefer Disney to push "star power" casting, it'd be for these Disney characters. Then again, Anna and Elsa's voices aren't particularly spectacular. I'm not discrediting Kristin Bell or Adele Dazeem, but their voices aren't so distinguishable they can't easily be replicated.

It will be sad knowing that Leonard Nimoy will not return for a character he thankfully mastered, but we will have to wait and see if we get to hear someone who matches his performance for KHIII. Same with Christopher Lee, I savor what he gave us for KHII and Days, but Corey Burton has been doing a fine job with Ansem (and 5,000 other characters).

However, we've gone without many times, and the Disney cast are generally replaced by trained professional VO talent who have been recording for these characters for other projects for many years now among whole swaths of other VO work. I remember my initial shock at Dream Drop Distance's particular void of original cast members, but what we got were excellent substitutes. The original actors are more or less nostalgic novelties. "Yay!" if they want to come back or do, but, honestly, it shouldn't be a big deal if they don't. We don't neeed Olivia Wilde in the studio.

I absolutely agree with everything that you said in your post.

Personally, I'm indifferent if the original actors who voiced the Disney characters from the Disney/Pixar films don't return to the KH games since usually, it happens all the time with most actors. As either they:

  1. Have a busy work schedule and want to do other projects
  2. They don't want to do it.
  3. They're expensive
  4. They passed away.

As long as the voice actor who's filling in for this Disney/Pixar character (e.g. Chris Swindle, Erin Cotrell, Phil LaMarr, Jess Harnell, Cam Clarke, Mike MacRae, etc...) sounds very close to the original actor from the film without sounding out of place it can work really well and I can't tell the difference, for others not so much (e.g. James Horan as Scar).

Regarding the Disney voice actors in the series, The biggest surprises for the voice cast in Kingdom Hearts II, is when they brought back most of the original cast from Mulan (except Eddie Murphy and the late Miguel Ferrer) along with bringing back the original voice actors for Hercules (Tate Donovan), The Mayor of Halloween Town (Glenn Shadix), and especially Prince Eric (Christopher Daniel Barnes).

So looking forward to seeing the voice actors for KH3.

Also, anyone remembers these videos?:
  1. [video=youtube;O8Nd3_mmyOU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8Nd3_mmyOU&t=0s&index=2&list=PLA6B34BFF8C26D293[/video]
  2. [video=youtube;gagS2GORMJ8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gagS2GORMJ8[/video]

I definitely would like to see Disney/Square Enix do videos featuring interviews of the actors from the game (both the original, Final Fantasy, Disney/Pixar characters) just 2-3 months before the game comes out, now that I would buy a ticket to that.

Josh Gad is in from Frozen, Elsa and Anna both sound accurate but I'm not sure if they're from the movie.
I'm fairly certain that's Kristen Bell voicing Anna, as for Elsa I'm on the fence if it really is Idina voicing her, cause it has a similar timbre in voice but is a lot higher than Idina's original voice.

I would be surprised if Idina Menzel doesn't come back to voice Elsa in Kingdom Hearts III, as she pretty much has been the official voice of Elsa in most of her appearances including the Disney Infinity games, the Lego Frozen tv special, the shorts (Frozen Fever, Olaf's Frozen Adventure) and every Frozen related merchandising along with the forthcoming films, Ralph Breaks the Internet and Frozen 2.

But it wouldn't be the first time she didn't come back as Elsa as there was a storybook app called Disney Princess: Royal Celebration where Anna and Elsa were guest characters in the Frozen portion and Elsa was voiced by someone else in place of Idina.

So, it will largely depend if Disney/Square Enix asks her first and IF she's available to do it, cause Idina's currently has been doing trips the last couple of months and she is scheduled to do a tour with Josh Groban this Fall.

We will have the celebrities of Big Hero 6 returning (Jamie Chung from Once Upon a Time & Gotham, Scott Adsit from 30 Rock, Alan Tudyk from literally everything)
I'm definitely expecting Scott Adsit, Ryan Potter, Jamie Chung and Genesis Rodriguez to return as Baymax, Hiro, Go Go, and Honey, in regards to Fred and Wasabi more than likely they will use the actors from the Television Series (Khary Payton and Brooks Wheelan).

As for Alan Tudyk, depending if we get to see these guys in some capacity:
latest

latest

That would be something I love to see it happen, 2 Tudyk roles in one game. However, it will depend if we get to see both of them or one of them and whether or not they are relevant to the plot of the world, cause the previous KH games have been infamous (well maybe not infamous just selective) on certain Disney characters from the films they originated resulting in having them removed or written out either due to software limitations or relevancy for the plot of the Disney world (e.g. Zazu in Pride Lands, Clopin in La Cité des Cloches, Gibbs in Port Royal (KH2 only), The Troubadour for Country of the Musketeers). Of course, that will be a discussion for another thread, but I definitely would like to see them in the game.
 
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Patricier

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I think there's a certain disappointment around the celebrity voice actors because there's not really anyone new who is an original character that is being added to the game, meaning Square and Disney don't have to go around and find some star power.

The recasting for the FF characters make sense when you think about how the amount of projects requiring them would soon be increasing from 2005 onwards, and having these celebrities brought in every single time to record whenever needed is expensive and difficult due to conflicts of interest with other projects.


Yep! He recorded new dialogue, but nothing even remotely close to the scale that KH3 would require from their characters.

We will have the celebrities of Big Hero 6 returning (Jamie Chung from Once Upon a Time & Gotham, Scott Adsit from 30 Rock, Alan Tudyk from literally everything), we will have the original Tangled voices (Mandy Moore from This is Us, Zachary Levi from Shazam & Chuck, and no doubt Donna Murphy as she has previously expressed interest in recording for Kingdom Hearts III).

We might have David Tennett (Doctor Who, Broadchurch) as Scrooge McDuck, and there's a whole bunch of celebrity voices in Ducktales they can use if, for some reason, they decide to pull in a bunch of Ducktales characters (Danny Pudi from Community, Ben Schwartz from Parks and Recreation, and Bobby Moynihan from Saturday Night Live should voice Huey, Dewey, and Louie because the voices they had in the previous games were awful). Gibbs' actor has both hinted at and denied voicing that character for the Pirates so the Pirates world won't entirely be stand-ins.

On top of that, we have the original voices for Hamm and Rex in the game. With those two and Josh Gad as Olaf, I think we've surpassed Dream Drop Distance's low, low usage of original voices :p

Where did you hear that from?
 

WhinyAcademic

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I voiced this opinion in the past as well. Feels like we’ve gotten less and less original voice actors back. A-listers like John Goodman and Tom Hanks are more understandable, of course. But it always feels weird when they can get Billy Crystal for a brief skit at Disney World, but can’t get him for a game. Of course the skit doesn’t take as much time to record for as a video game, but still. Yeesh.

I had held out hopes that they’d be able to grab some bigger celebrity voices if just for the star power. Like the press releases where they’re like “featuring an all star voice cast of James Woods, Leonard Nimoy, Mark Hamill, etc”.

I think there's a certain disappointment around the celebrity voice actors because there's not really anyone new who is an original character that is being added to the game, meaning Square and Disney don't have to go around and find some star power.

The recasting for the FF characters make sense when you think about how the amount of projects requiring them would soon be increasing from 2005 onwards, and having these celebrities brought in every single time to record whenever needed is expensive and difficult due to conflicts of interest with other projects.


Yep! He recorded new dialogue, but nothing even remotely close to the scale that KH3 would require from their characters.

We will have the celebrities of Big Hero 6 returning (Jamie Chung from Once Upon a Time & Gotham, Scott Adsit from 30 Rock, Alan Tudyk from literally everything), we will have the original Tangled voices (Mandy Moore from This is Us, Zachary Levi from Shazam & Chuck, and no doubt Donna Murphy as she has previously expressed interest in recording for Kingdom Hearts III).

We might have David Tennett (Doctor Who, Broadchurch) as Scrooge McDuck, and there's a whole bunch of celebrity voices in Ducktales they can use if, for some reason, they decide to pull in a bunch of Ducktales characters (Danny Pudi from Community, Ben Schwartz from Parks and Recreation, and Bobby Moynihan from Saturday Night Live should voice Huey, Dewey, and Louie because the voices they had in the previous games were awful). Gibbs' actor has both hinted at and denied voicing that character for the Pirates so the Pirates world won't entirely be stand-ins.

On top of that, we have the original voices for Hamm and Rex in the game. With those two and Josh Gad as Olaf, I think we've surpassed Dream Drop Distance's low, low usage of original voices :p

I take it you have confirmation of the BH6 And Tangled cast returning?
 

Chaser

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I take it you have confirmation of the BH6 And Tangled cast returning?
It just makes sense since they both casts are:
a) more recent than a lot of other Disney properties
b) have returned to voice the characters in a number of projects since the film
c) are currently contracted by Disney to voice the characters in the Television series

I'm just saying, if Mandy Moore was not returning to voice Rapunzel then we should have heard her replacement in the E3 trailers.
 

Leaferian

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They literally only don't have Leonard Nemoy because he's dead. They have James Woods again, almost certainly have Mandy Moore, definitely have Josh Gad, and if they don't have Kristen Bell or Johnny Depp then they seem to have gotten ridiculously good impersonators. And didn't Scott Asdit basically say he wanted all potential Baymax roles because he was fun to play? Plus, the title character is literally Hailey Joel Osment. I don't know how much more "star power" nonsense y'all want. The only thing that should matter is the voices sound right, and so far they're doing pretty well.
 
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kirabook

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I only get disappointed when certain celebs don't return for various reason, most of which are legitimate (death, work schedules, too expensive, or other personal issues)

I've been trying not to be sad over Hayden not returning for Kairi apparently (yes, I already know the likely reason why and I completely understand). Sometimes, there's something about having OG people reprising their roles, even for original characters.

Like some I don't really care about. Like the guy that replaced Leon's original VA is great for example. On the other hand, you have a great one like Mandy Moore to... KH2's Aerith. (I wonder if she's reprise Rapunzel)
 

Bejabbers

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Many classic Disney characters had their VAs from their original films come back, even going to the lengths of bringing back Kathryn Beaumont as the voice of Alice & Wendy for the 1st time in 50 years!

It's a minor nitpick, but Beaumont occasionally played both characters in the decades before Kingdom Hearts' 2002 release. She voiced Alice for an update to Disneyland's Alice in Wonderland attraction in 1984 and Wendy for Fantasmic! in 1992. She also played Alice in the 1999 computer game "Villains' Revenge".
 

Patricier

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I only get disappointed when certain celebs don't return for various reason, most of which are legitimate (death, work schedules, too expensive, or other personal issues)

I've been trying not to be sad over Hayden not returning for Kairi apparently (yes, I already know the likely reason why and I completely understand). Sometimes, there's something about having OG people reprising their roles, even for original characters.

Like some I don't really care about. Like the guy that replaced Leon's original VA is great for example. On the other hand, you have a great one like Mandy Moore to... KH2's Aerith. (I wonder if she's reprise Rapunzel)

If you don't mind me asking, what is the exact reason why you think Hayden didn't return?
 
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