Taking a listen to a few clips people have leaked from last night's screening, I'm honestly really impressed with Nadonly. She sounds like she never left, which is great. Of course, waiting to hear the full episodes, but like I said, I'm impressed.
BootyCheeksJohnson wrote: Tue Nov 05, 2024 5:09 am
Stephanie Nadolny did her first post cast announcement interview (which you can watch here:
https://youtu.be/FhIULOEgtSE?si=OASRPF9sAG7XEESa) and in this interview she mentions several times how excited she was over the "whole new cast", and how excited she is that Crunchyroll casted a lot of new young actors for the show, and that she can't wait for us to hear them. She mentions that she was invited by Crunchyroll to re-audition for the role of Goku, and wasn't offered the role back outright. She also mentioned that Crunchyroll staff had received a great deal of messages asking them to cast her as Goku in Daima, which might have played a part in her being asked to re-audition. So there's 2 big takeaways from this. 1) It sounds like the entire English cast have been replaced for the "mini" forms, just like the Japanese version of the show. 2) Goku was being auditioned as well, so Colleen Clinkenbeard most likely had to re-audition for the part as well, assuming she was asked.
Not surprised she had to re-audition. She hasn't been part of any DB dubs since 2010 with the last video games she was in. It makes sense that she'd have to do that.
BootyCheeksJohnson wrote: Tue Nov 05, 2024 5:09 am
Something that stuck out to me was she mentioned having a great working relationship with "the director" and never mentions their name. (This could very likely be due to NDA's.) So that begs the question: "was Chris Sabat not hired as the ADR director for Daima?" A position he's held for English Dragon Ball localizations since 1999. Considering Nadolny's speculation that her not being part of "the clique" with Funimation's Dragon Ball team being a reason for her recasting, it kinda feels like Sabat isn't the man in the chair. But, I could be wrong, just like I was in assuming that Nadolny wouldn't come back since she hadn't worked with Funimation since "Dragon Ball Raging Blast". So I'll gladly eat my words if I'm wrong.
You've maybe seen the announcement by now, but Sabat wasn't the primary ADR director on this dub. The directing duties went to Jonathan Rigg. A bit odd as to why, but Sabat may have been busier with other things. From what I've heard, he's apparently moved to California & establish OkraTron West in the last few years, as well as is probably working on other dubs as an actor, so he might not have wanted or have been able to dedicate the time to directing the dub himself, so he probably stepped back into a producer role. I very much doubt that it was just him not being hired as the ADR director considering he still directs most of the dubs.
As for Nadolny not being part of "the clique," I don't think that's really the reason she was let go. It could just be that Sabat wanted to go a different direction with kid Gohan for Kai & since kid Goku only shows up in flashbacks & the video games, there wasn't a need to bring Nadolny back in. They'd already dubbed the other shows & films, so her services weren't required. Considering how many other actors were replaced for Kai onwards, I'm pretty sure this is what happened with her as well. Probably the most well-known Kai recast besides Nadolny was Chris Ayres as Freeza from Linda Young. Now, while I know some people actually prefer Young to Ayres, or at least like her in the role, but her being Freeza was a remnant of FUNimation in 1999 needing to find someone who could sound enough like the Canadian VA from Ocean so that the kids watching wouldn't notice the difference. It's also a VERY different take than the Japanese voice & unfortunately made Freeza seem less masculine than he already was as a result. And the explanation there was that they were initially going to have Young back (as evidenced by her providing Freeza's laugh at the beginning of the first episode of Kai, where they didn't have Ayres rerecord it for the home release) was that she couldn't read the scripts fast enough due to how they were writing the dialogue. Now, I think Sabat just wanted to go another direction with it, personally, & we got the best recast in Kai out of that.
And something I think needs addressing is the reason that cropped up 5 years ago. Chuck Huber saying, based on a (unsubstantiated) rumor he'd heard, that Nadolny was let go because she didn't wanna provide sexual favors for "FUNimation employees" which lead a lot of people to think that Sabat tried to get her to do that. Nevermind that no one's ever backed up those claims, Sabat denied it, & it seems Chuck said that to help defend Vic Mignogna because it was in his affidavit for his lawsuit. I think the fact that Nadolny didn't say anything of the sort happened & she was willing to come back also disproves that nonsense.
Just had to get that off my chest.