All too often animated projects cast big-name screen actors as a marketing gimmick rather than trying to find the voice actor who is actually best for the role.
Take Jackie Chan as Monkey in the Kung-Fu Panda movies: the guy is fantastic at physical comedy and one of the best martial artists to ever grace the big screen but he’s hardly one of the most talented English-language voice actors out there.
I reluctantly started watching Arcane, which uses some of these same tropes (but no dinosaurs). After one episode, I realized it was way more than just a violent kids show. Maybe Ark will be the same.
The recent movie Paws of Fury may be one of the most extreme examples of this phenomenon. I didn’t see the movie and don’t know anything at all about the plot, but thanks to aggressive marketing and prominent movie posters I do know that it features a huge number of A-list celebrities for the voice talent, including Samuel L Jackson, Michelle Yeoh, Ricky Gervais, Micheal Cera, Mel Brooks, George Takei, and a bunch of others.
I don’t think that it did especially well financially so hopefully the filmmakers will eventually learn their lesson that they actually still need to make quality movies regardless of who is starring in them.
… uh, OK, but from the trailer ARK pretty much looks like the kind of adolescent war story that gets animated a lot already
The element of “Hollywood amnesia,” where for some reason characters conveniently can’t remember important plot facts but are otherwise healthy and unimpaired, is not a good sign either
uh no… just no… if this anime wants to be taken seriously, the characters should look like they were created with the games character creator.
where are the grotesquely sized forearms or the giant hands with tiny heads? this is a disgrace… smh
I don’t think this will be an example of a mature animated series. Take Tuca & Birtey instead: looks very goofy, but it covers some very mature subject matter.
Arcane was great, but IMHO for younger viewers. And yeah, I bet this will be the same. Not for little kids but not for adults. It’s “Young Adult” fiction. Full of tits and violence and “adult issues” but almost always dealt with in juvenile ways.
Don’t get me wrong - I really liked Arcane. I bet I will like this too, but it’s still for kids.
(And stay off my lawn you whippersnappers!)
Anybody who watched the opening sequence of “Up” without crying is an inhuman monster. “Encanto” had me in tears as well. Animation can tug the heartstrings very effectively, thank you.