Why Celebrity Voice Actors in MLP?

[Splashee 28,537]

The "MLP The Movie" film introduced many new characters into the MLP universe, such as Tempest Shadow, The Storm King, Princess Skystar, Capper, etc.

Some of them became very popular, and were even mentioned or were slightly visible in episodes like "School Daze - Part 1", "Surf and/or Turf", "The Hearth's Warming Club", "Father Knows Beast", "Spring Breakdown", "Between Dark and Dawn", and probably many more.

There are other examples of new characters, like Countess Coloratura and the Kirin Autumn Blaze, which became popular as well.

They all have one thing in common: They were voiced by celebrity. Popular characters that cost a lot of money to voice seem to appear less in MLP than the normal voice actors that do most of the normal characters in an episode.

How much do you think it is worth to have celebrity voicing your favorite characters? Would you rather have the normal voice actors voice the characters like Tempest Shadow and Autumn Blaze to see them in more than just one episode or one film?

Can you even hear the difference between a celebrity's voice and a quote on quote normal voice actor like Nicole Oliver (voice of Princess Celestia and Miss Cheerilee) ?

If you were Hasbro, would you pay the extra to have celebrity do the voice of a character just once, or to try to cash in on the character being in several episodes using a regular normal voice actor instead?

 

This is my first poll, and it is a serious question that I want an answer to. I have seen way too many fans asking why their favorite character isn't coming back, and all I can think of is how important that one single celebrity was to someone. I don't even know who Emily Blunt is, but I know who Shadow Tempest is.

 

[Tacodidra 59,796]

For me, the most important thing is that the actors do a good job voicing the characters, regardless of how famous they are. I thought the actors in the movie were fine. But it's indeed quite sad not to see popular characters like Tempest appearing again for cost-related reasons.

Name recognition is obviously the reason why not only the MLP movie but many others as well use celebrities as voice actors. I guess it might play a part in the movie's commercial success, though I'm a bit doubtful about that – would people go see a cartoon just because of a famous actor voicing one of the characters (at least to the extent it happens with live-action movies)? Personally, that doesn't have an effect on me – like you, I wasn't even familiar with the celebrities making guest appearances in the movie (except for Sia, and Emily Blunt was a name I had heard before). On the other hand, I knew who Tara Strong was before watching a single episode of MLP.

All in all, the most important thing to me is that the voice fits the character and the performance is good. It can be fun to sometimes have a celebrity appearance, if it's someone I've heard of before (like William Shatner as Grand Pear), but in the end, it's not a priority for me.

Spoiler

I still can't help but find this a little disrespectful... The voice actors in the most significant roles have been ignored, while some of the others get top billing for less than five minutes of screen time...

 

[Pentium100 2,056]

I personally do not really care who the voice actors are, unless a character sounds like some other character from another show, then I sometimes go see if it's the same VA or not.

3 hours ago, Tacodidra said:

I guess it might play a part in the movie's commercial success, though I'm a bit doubtful about that – would people go see a cartoon just because of a famous actor voicing one of the characters (at least to the extent it happens with live-action movies)?

I'm pretty sure this is why celebrities were used, however, I don't think that it pulled in that many more people to watch the movie, since the audience for it was most likely the people who were watching the TV show and would go see the movie anyway.

[Emerald Heart 24,588]

@Splashee

I don't really mind either way. 

[Kyoshi Frost Wolf 40,289]

Companies want celebrities for one simple thing: Celebrity Worship Culture. Western society, especially in the US, has a massive worship culture around celebrities. They are basically seen as gods among us mere mortals. People obsess over them to the point of wanting to know what happens in their daily lives. That's why all of those incredibly stupid tabloids and magazines exist, because people want to know what their favorite rich and famous person is up to because apparently their own life is just so bland and pointless that they have to feed off of the life of people that have success that they themselves will never obtain. This is like how Dave Bautista is coming to Gears 5. He isn't playing a character, he isn't someone that will introduce new mechanics to the game, it is just him. He will play no different, he's just a celebrity being tossed in.

This isn't always a bad idea. Weird Al for Cheese Sandwich was a perfect choice, but that's because he actually brought something to the table, he was actually wonderful. As for the movie, they instead mostly just went with whatever, just to make sure recognizable names were recognizable names. Storm King was good, but Tempest's voice acting was....only adequate. That's just one example. Of course there is the issue that you mentioned as well, where those people won't return to the show itself so the characters are one-offs. All just so they can have the big ol celebrity points on their marketing to appease this culture. Pisses me off that there are probably so many people that could potentially nail the voice acting, but they don't have the celebrity god status so they are ignored.

I view celebrity worship culture as a disease. Something that only hurts this society but it will only ever become more prominent. Whether it is an MLP movie or anything else.

[Splashee 28,537]

While most of you don't care either way, and it is quite obvious that we want a celebrity when they bring something unique, like singing really good for example, I think the poll so far is still expressing what I want to see.

I took it rather bad when the show promoted the movie as canon (in the beginning of season 8), but that's my own opinion. But then to see no movie character coming back except for mentioning them (or in the case of "Between Dark and Dawn", showing a character very far far away so that the movie style couldn't be recognized) just hurts. It hurts because I still see people (blind reactors on Youtube) believing the characters will come back just because they are canon, and not realizing it is just a promotion to make them see the movie (which they already did because they know about the characters). I don't want to reflect negativity on this subject (which is difficult), just to see what others think.

[Patty Thundersnow 4,129]

One reason that shows get one off celeb appearances is to get more eyes on their product and boost ratings for the show. Same concept is used in sports and wrestling.

[BornAgainBrony 2,395]

No. It's probably not only bad for the show but also for the fandom. Imagine how much more expensive it would be to run a con that brings in guests.

[Misty Shadow 7,084]

I don't give a hoot so long as the voice acting's good. MLP does not need celebrities, but that doesn't mean it should not have celebrities period. Honestly, I feel MLP does a great job handling celebrities. I like how that creative restriction with it not being a realistic cartoon forces them to actually create colorful characters that subtly convey what makes their real-life personas charismatic instead of just creating bland caricatures of real-life people. Isn't that right, today's Simpsons?  

[SharpWit 2,472]

If MLP never brought on celebrities we'd never have the wonderful John de Lancie playing discord. They shouldn't go out of their way to have a ton of famous people on the show, but having one every once in a while is nice, especially when they're well suited for the role.

[Dawn-Sunlight 1,228]

If the voice actor is good, it doesn't really matter if it's a celebrity or not for me, especially since I don't recognize a lot of them(I live under a rock ).

[Sepul-Coloratura 756]

If the quality of their performance is identical, I prefer non-celebrities. It can be easier to schedule them and pay them.

There could be a situation that the celebrity actors can't find a time to record in a same room with others, or they are forced to make a worse compromising choice, or the show runners start considering reducing the celebrity's role because of the budget. (I suspect Starlight and Sunset's role is because of this.) They can be harder to handle.

But as long as the outcome is good, I wouldn't mind anybody actually. There is a reason for them being famous. I think MLP the Movie's better parts were the celebrity voice actors performance.

Edited September 11, 2019 by Sepul-Coloratura

[EpicEnergy 22,082]

I'm fine with the voice actors that were in the show.

[Splashee 28,537]

I think this is quite relevant now when G5 will have different voice actors for the show, than the movie.

[Courageous Thunder Dash 7,809]

I still think that celebrity voice actors do really well in these kinds of roles. That being said, they have schedules of their own. Sure we remember their voices but they can’t be readily available all the time….

[Steve Piranha 28,781]

I’m not going to complain for them, but for what I’ve seen, they aren’t feasible. None of the pony movie celebrity characters spoke since, and the Mane 5 are getting replaced

[Tom Gallagher 33,521]

I think FiM was one of the few occasions where celebrity voices were used relatively well and didn’t get overbearing, like certain other shows. 

I’m okay with the G5 movie having celebrity voices but it’s nice to see new character actors taking their place.

[ExplosionMare 18,007]

I think it’s useful for characters that won’t show up much like how Tempest did but it negatively affects main characters since it sets them up for disappointment like it did in G5.