I never said he should have a heroic voice, but I do think he should at least have one that's balanced out. Even Vegeta, in all his moments of being an asshole, still has others where he's allowed to be terrified, distraught, or even legitimately shamed, and I don't feel that there was enough subtlety in Drummond's voice or performances to convey that better than current Sabat or Horikawa. Granted, Drummond never had the opportunities that Sabat or Horikawa did, and I've noted that, but because of those issues, his characterization suffered a bit. During the Saban era, it seemed as if he was told to play the character as obviously villainous as possible, resulting in nearly every line he spoke being drenched in hammy snark and deep growls. It also didn't help that he was given some really cheesy dialogue at the time. Despite the flaws of the Westwood dub, Drummond did finally get the chance to balance out the character for the better. Even so, the voice never sounded natural enough for me.NitroEX wrote:I will never understand this type criticism to Drummond's Vegeta, it's so nonsensical. You can't ignore the fact that Vegeta was an evil bastard all the way throughout Z, he did evil things in every single saga he was in. He was never a true "good guy" and thus never deserved the voice of a heroic person. Drummond played the character the right way in my opinion, despite only having one shot at Vegeta (and few years hiatus from the role after the Saban split) he did a better job than Sabat of analysing the character he was playing.Man-Child wrote:My only problem with him is that his voice for the character is just a bit too over-the-top villainous for my taste. You could swap Vegeta with a literal snake, and I wouldn't be able to tell the difference.
Sabat's voice sounds more regal than Drummonds but I never saw Vegeta as much of a regal personality anyway. King Vegeta was the only Saiyan who seemed to display that type of trait. Vegeta, not so much. This is besides the fact that I always felt Sabat was too deep sounding anyway (especially his Z voice). When Vegeta, a character who's close to Krillin in terms of height, has a deeper voice than a giant like Nappa, you have a problem (And yes I know some short people have deep voices but exceptions don't break a rule).
Sabat has always had more opportunites and benefits than Drummond, business-wise, which is why I never thought it was fair to compare the two. One was given four years of poorly managed productions to voice a character, while the other was given nearly TWO DECADES STRAIGHT to grow and improve with said character. For a while, Drummond was the better actor, even if they both started out a bit over the top. Well performed cheese is always better than poorly acted.
As mentioned though, Sabat has had a lot of time to to improve, and is currently doing great. You point out that you think his voice for someone Vegeta's size is too deep, and it likely is, but I think it works that it's closer to his actual vocal range than if he were to give a forced higher pitch and rasp like he did back in the original funimation dub. He's trying to sound as natural as he can, and that really comes through in the performance. As for the perhaps regal inflections in the voice, I never found it out of place. Even if he isn't King Vegeta, I do think that uppity nature is partially there, if only as an extension of his Saiyan pride and upbringing.
