Is it REALLY needed for us viewers? We know the studios spend and make a quick buck off them, but does it really make it a better film for us?

How else is an animated movie supposed to draw in an audience? Just on the pretty pictures alone?

I made a post in this thread about the Incredibles, so I'll just repost it here:

Popular Actors + Hot MTV Songs = SUCCESS

The Dreamworks Creedo.

I dunno - it seemed to work for BAMBI, SNOW WHITE...

When I was watching SHREK, I didn't necessarily think Cameron Diaz was the ultimate "princess" voice - but I forgot all about her as the movie played on.
They paid a lot to use her voice ($20 million, I think) - did it make that much difference with us viewers?

I enjoyed Monsters Inc with those Celeb voices. It really added an element in there that I think would have failed otherwise.

Even though you don't get to see the actor, you get to see the expression and the tone of that actor.

Like Joker. I would hate to see Animated Series Joker being played by someone other then hamill.

Well, in truth they were only paid half that much for the sequel. Their paychecks for the original were more in the range of a couple million a piece, while 10 mil a piece for the sequel.

Nonetheless, it all matters what works. Why the big names? Simple, marketing. You have a big expensive animated movie, and the movie star names in many cases does help. On the CG front, the first major CG movie was sold largely on the celebrity of its two voice stars, Tom Hanks and Tim Allen. So you can blame Pixar for starting it. Nonetheless, it all comes down to marketing. Sometimes you have more obvious stunt casting like Shark Tale, or more focused casting like a Pixar movie, but when you have the opportunity to have a star's name in there, it's obvious they do. Let's just not forget why ANY big actor gets massive paychecks, and it has everything to do with their marketing potential, and less to do with their acting talents. Granted, hopefully good iflmmakers only use good actors, but the big stars don't get 20 million cause their performance will be awesome.

Does it make it better? That all depends on who they hire of course. Shrek worked great in my opinion with its celebrity actors. Though I'd love to hear the original voice track with Chris Farley as Shrek.

And how long ago were those films? In today's age, it's about market recognition. Why do you think advertisers use stars' voices to market cars, phone services, banking services, etc? It's familiar to the public. So when they hear about the new Cayanne they say, "My god, Picard drives a Porsche!"

Not true, since their names appeared no where in ads for the original Toy Story.

Why do you single out Fox and give an example using Dreamworks?

Regardless, i thought Titan A.E. was fine, and Fox's Ice Age had perfect voice casting.

I got mixed up on who did Sinbad, so sorry. I didn't say anything about Ice Age, but I also think they got the voice casting right.

My point was that putting a big name/voice in a movie doesn't automatically translate to that movie being good, just as the same is true for live action films. I think that choosing the right person for the part is the best thing for the film, not just filling out a role with a big name to bring in an audience.

Yeah, but its strange since you word it as though Fox does this on a consistant basis when they pretty much only have those two films, Titan A.E. and Ice Age.

Hell I doubt casting in live action movies makes that much difference to the casual movie goer, so I doubt animated voices make much, if any difference. Ironically, Shark Tale is already in Angelina Jolie's top 5 grossing movies though.

Are you going to nitpick everything I post? You're taking my original post out of context here, the original discussion was about Pixar and how other studios measure up to them. I wasn't just attacking Fox here, I was comparing films other than Pixar's that use voice talent, whether good or bad. I just gave an example, Fox, and in this case I accidentally credited them with doing Sinbad. My fault. I just happen to think that these two films are examples where the choice of voice talent didn't necessarily help the film overcome a weak script.

If the film stinks, like Shark Tale, it doesn't matter a GOOD GODDAMN what 'celebrities' they get to do the voices.

Good voice acting is not dependent on the 'status' of an actor, and good animation is not dependent on what flavor-du-jour actor gets employed for a voice. It's the movie that has to sell itself. If you don't believe me, tell me how many "A-list" actors were in Finding Nemo or The Lion King.

All of this bullshit is a result of Aladdin--because it worked well for Disney once, all these other animation companies try to mimic it, and it doesn't work.

True, my mistake. But you have to admit that their presence was a part of the marketing, whether featured in the poster or not. Robin Williams was a major drawing part of Aladdin (and really the start of the stunt casting) and it didn't feature his name on the poster either. The marketing angle behind the casting though, is still a given.

Stop being so defensive. It's not my fault if your post is out of context; you reposted it here and it was inconsistent. Sue me.

When they made "Planet of the Apes" back in the late 60's poeple asked why did they needed such famous actor's when the faces would be covered. Well the answer was that they needed talented performers so that the performance would show through the masks/make up applications.

Tha same goes for animation and this is the reason talented...not simply well known but TALENTED... people are needed. Unlike Asian animators in the past we use the actors performance in the recording booth to flesh out the characters. In Asia, they draw the characters first THEN they get actors to match the animation. That's why even in the original lanaguages, the mouths hardly ever match the speech.

I think the woman in charge of the voicework for the DC cartoons, Andrea Romano?, has chosen the best people for the characters.

I was incorrect on one mark, and you brought it up twice, after I already explained what the problem was. I'm not being defensive, I've tried to explain what I was trying to say, but you keep confronting me and I don't understand why.

Again, stop being so defensive. I'm not confronting you. Geez. The first reply involved the wrong example, the second involved the works Fox has been involved in that would lead you to such a conclusion. Different matters.

Fine, but go back and look at these posts. First you point out my error, no big deal, I corrected myself and re-explained my point. Then you come back and point out that you had a problem with the way I worded my post. Again, I explain the context of my original post and how it applies here. I just don't understand where this is all coming from with you. I'm being "defensive" because I don't know you and you kept bringing this up, that's all.

Stupidest celeb casting was Vin Diesel as The Iron Giant. The voice was so processed, it might as well have been Hillary Duff.

The second post was attempting to clarify whatever point you were trying to make. What do you mean by "all this is coming from."? You make it sound like i'm launching an offensive against you. Stop overreacting, geez.

Well god ole Vin wasn't really a celebrity back then, so he probably got paid jack squat.

My problem is that you seemed to get on me about attacking Fox originally. I thought I had explained my post fairly clearly, but apparently not. This really isn't going anywhere, so I'm done posting about it.