Thursday, March 17, 2011

The awesomness of voice acting

What do,











All have in common? They were all voiced by one man. Peter Cullen to be exact. I find this amazing on so many levels that I had to share.

First lets start with Murky Dismal. For those of you who don't know (because you had a depraved childhood), he is the arch enemy of Rainbow Brite. His voice is whiny and extremely nervous sounding. A quote from Murky "I'll get that rainbow brat if its the last thing I do" In a nasty whiny voice.

Eeyore - okay if you don't know who Eeyore is I think you need help. BUT for the sake of argument, Eeyore is one of Winnie-the-Pooh's bests buddies. He is deeply depressed, always thinks the worst is happening. A quote from Eeyore "The sky is falling, always knew it would." in a very low downtrodden voice.

Optimus Fucking Prime. Okay sorry just Optimus Prime...leader of the Autobots. Very cool dude. Speaks with an commanding distinctive voice. Its deep, a little gargle, almost machine sounding. A quote from Optimist..."There's more to them, than meets the eye."

SO the same man did all three voices (and many others but those are the ones that jumped out at me). I think its is wonderful and amazing that he was able to convince the audience of three different characters. Three different personalities.

Ready for another mind blower?

Okay, so this is Splinter. He is the 'father' figure to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. His voice is scratchy, old and wise sounding. Never guess who this man is really famous for voice acting?





That is right friends! Our furry little friend Elmo is voiced by Kevin Clash. He also did the voice of Splinter in TMT. No joke. He is most famous for the work he does done with Elmo though ranging over twenty years voicing the little red monster that has entertained preschoolers for years.


Okay one more. I could go on all night, but really what's the point.

So here we have The man in the Yellow hat!



This sweet man was voiced by the same actor who did Megamind!!!


Incredibly hansom criminal mastermind and master of all villainy. (his words not mine).

So in case you didn't know the man who voiced these guys is non other then....

WILL FERRELL!!! 

I know right? But very true...Although to his credit Will Ferrell plays many rolls. But that is another story. 

My whole point to this ramble is how amazing voice actor's really are. They say its easy (yes I watched the meet the cast of Kung Fu Panda). They get to come in wearing only their PJ's, not have makeup done blah blah. BUT they have to make us BELIEVE that the panda is talking, feeling, thinking. They give the charactor life. Through only their voice. I just find this so wonderful. Wonderful that one man can make us think he is a twenty foot robot and a depresed donkey. Amazing. 

One last thing. Have you ever watched a movie...sat there watching it and the whole time you are saying "I know that voice!" It bothers you so much that you can't really enjoy the show? 
Well those are the masters. They are the ones that can desguise their voices SO well, that when you find out who they are you say OMIGOSH NO WAY IS IT THEM!!! I leave you with one of those....





General from Planet 51. Okay if you haven't seen it, go see it, its cute. But this man is voiced by the amazing, talented, and heh hem...hansom....


GARY OLDMAN!!

Monday, March 7, 2011

What shall be our demise?

Is it going to be asteroid or global warming? WWIII or over population? Husband and I have a long going debate going on when it comes to the future and its technologies. Personally I think we are going to enter an I-Robot sort of world. Robots taking out the trash, doing deliveries etc. Husband seems to think that Star Trek is where its at. I am skeptical at best.

Robots - They are not okay!
I believe this is the closest to what will happen. Think of it we already have some of them in place! And what better place for robots...then...the military. I mean I don't want MY son dying in a pointless war, and I can just imagine the vote now Vote yes for robots going into combat Vote no and your children go instead! Yea even I would have to vote no on that. As I said we are already using them to some extent:

Know what this is? Its called a Drone. Its not manned. See there in the front where a person should be? Yeah no one is there. The guy driving this bad boy is miles and miles away sipping on a slippery looking at video screen. True facts look it up. Heck I will give the website: Drone Program. There you go!


Okay so we went from there to here:

This is the hummingbird drone. Again, controlled remotely while it goes off and does whatever the government can think up for it to do. Doesn't it look precious!! Imagine seeing in your backyard...

Okay so this is the military stuff we KNOW about. Let me repeat...that we KNOW about. God (and the military) alone know what they have come up with now.

Okay so now I jumped from Drones to insect drones. Now at what point do we get to this:
Yes laugh, but seriously remember at the beginning when I asked your son or this guy? This guy right! Who cares if he gets blown to bits. And you know what this thing probably wouldn't do anything it wasn't suppose to do. Its just parts. What you have to worry about it is where this is getting its commands from. And that my friends is the point. They can't all be Johny Fives and Wall-e's

Allow me a side jaunt here. I love Short Circuit I cried in the second one. Bawled. I still get teary. And I cried during Wall-E too and if we are honest, part of me feels bad for the 'old' robots that Will Smith's character is mean to in I-Robot. I am not heartless. I love a defected robot as much as the next person. That being said...I don't like AI....






Because really its AI that causes all the problems. (Artificial Intelligence to you non-techies) If said Terminator was ALWAYS being run by a guy then there probably wouldn't be an issue. It would be game over for the robot, but not the end of the world. Maybe kid gets demotion if he destroys too many. IF, however, we have an AI running them, (think I-robot and Skynet), then we are screwed. I will tell you why. In the case of I-Robot at least, AI  is right. We suck. We are rotten to our plant, ourselves, etc. They would eventually come to that conclusion. Skynet scenario um, why take orders from weaklings? And the winner is...ROBOTS every time. Less you have John Conner around. Then we might stand a chance.

Space - The final frontier

Okay so husbands. "To infinity and beyond!" He is convinced that we are running out of natural resources and we have to find other worlds or we are screwed. Okay. I'll buy that to a point. He thinks now that NASA isn't running the shuttle program, that its all being privatized, things are going to start happening real fast. We are going to see some major advancements in space travel.

Yeah I gotta say bull on this. He went on and on and on about some space bubble. If we could bend space then we could just shoot from one place to another....and I was all huh?!

  
So pretending for a moment that space warping is possible, what new terrors does this yield? Let me start off by saying I am live let live kind of person. Now, if we found a planet that was not inhabited by ANYTHING. Fine. Go there, make home whatever. BUT if the planet we find is like our beautiful Earth, then there is a good chance there would be some form of life on it. NOW how would we feel if people from another planet came down here to mess with us? Take over our planet and all? "Hi sorry we destroyed our planet can we come share yours?" Yeah...and they say "sorry guys we like clean water/air". What do we do? Leave? Go find another Earth like planet? Yeah...right. We take over! 

Of course, its the only way. Disgusting. See this might not be the 'demise' of our planet or human race but our morals? Oh yeah! Defiantly! 

Thankfully, well hopefully, we don't have this technology. Either of them. I pray that we never do. I know, I know we want the latest thing, the greatest whatever. But there is a time to say stop, and I think before we hand over the military to A.I. or start doing space bubbles and taking over planets, we should ask ourselves, why don't we fix the root of the problem? We want to flee like rats leaving a ship because our lands are spoiled...start cleaning them. We want to have robots/drones what have you fighting our wars, stop having them. I may be stupid, I might not know politics, or environmental issues, but I do know that fighting doesn't have to be the answer. Fleeing isn't the answer. Change. That is the only answer. And not a change in technology, a change with ourselves and towards our Earth, and our fellow man!