The reason for that is that Detelf Biersted who voiced Riker in TNG and Generations asked for more money. Thats why they used Tom Vogt starting with First Contact...but I think he did a great job and makes Riker sound very similar to Bierstedt. He does not sound like Tom Paris there at all. Okay..thats one precedence against the rule I guess...but on the other hand..when it comes to Tom Paris..neither the character or his actor are even anywhere near as popular in Germany as Data.
The episodes will most likely be shown dubbed in german within a day after each episodes premieres in the US, it doesn't take that long and at least some actors are already cast, so they're probably casting voice actors as well for those parts. There's no way not a single cast member has been signed if the show premieres in January, they cannot realistically wait with casting the leads until then. Of course they would, I think you are overestimating Star Trek's or Data's importance. Michael Pan is a popular, reliable, versatile and in demand voice actor and is the standard voice for several actors, they won't effectively blacklist him for work on Star Trek because he was Data. If for example David Hyde Pierce is cast as a regular on Discovery it is very likely Pan would dub him and should Brent Spiner show up in a guest appearance later he'd be the one getting a different voice for that appearance.
Nice post, but isn't it way to early for CBS to contact a German Dub Studio? It usually happens after the first trailer/footage is released.
Not really, the plan seems to be to release the series internationally more or less simultaneously, if actors have been cast it would make sense to have studios already looking for fitting voice actors for the various dubs. Keep in mind that the voice actors have schedules too, if they wait too long their first choices might not be available, so it makes sense to sign them on as early as possible.
Rather than pretending I know more about foreign voice dubs than you, I'd just like to ask a question. Is dubbing looked down upon in Germany, and/or is it much more popular than German subtitles on English audio? I know in English speaking countries, most people prefer subtitles rather than dubbing, but I can't compare that with non-English speaking countries when so many big films today are in English.
I don't know about popularity, but Wrath of Khan;s German dub makes the film ten times better. I barely speak German and it's magnificent.
Dubs are the standard, subs basically don't happen on tv or in theaters (major movies get like one or two original language screenings per week). That doesn't mean everyone likes subs, there are people who insist on watching everything in its original language but that is often seen as almost snobbish behavior. Dubs are generally (but not always) really good.
Yeah, dubbing is reaaallybig here, much to my annoyance. Thankfully our local theatre is playing most of the big movies here in English for a week or so. Anyway, a funny anecdote that us related to the topic: Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone both have the same German standard voice actor. Which wasn't much of a problem because they never show up in movies together. At least until The Expandables came out. But instead of recasting one of them the voice actor just dubbed them both... in the same scene no less. Talk about mildly confusing. XD
The idea of a German voice actor dubbing over Schwarzenegger's English is slightly amusing. Not to say his English is bad, I just think it's kind of funny that you have to hire someone to dub German over the English of a native German-speaker.Maybe they could pay Schwarzenegger a little extra and have him record his own German dub.
I heard Schwarzenegger offered to do so but was refused because his Austrian accent made him "sound like a farmer". I have no proof of this but it does sound like the kind of biased stuff TV execs would come out with
It's not biased, it's a fact! His accent is as thick in german as it is in english, I've never heard him speak standard german and that is essential for a dub, accents are rarely used. If they are used it's for very specific reasons, bavarian and austrian accents for example are often used for characters from rural areas even in german and austrian productions, the characters from munich and vienna almost always speak standard german, the reason for that is because they are supposed to be understood in all german speaking areas, that's also the reason why they only use accents and not full blown dialect. While it's not true in real life the heavy use of standard german in media has created a situation where the audience will perceive a character with an accent as "different" and in the case of Schwarzenegger it would make his characters sound like hicks who just wandered into the big city for the first time, because otherwise they'd speak standard german.
Well, I didnt know about the "reuse" of Tom Vogt. So I guess I learned something new here. Still...I think it does not happen very often. But I'm not in the buisness or a living wiki on who voiced whom where and when.
^So it's not "a fact", it's a media-manufactured bias (or shorthand if you prefer), the same as the Southern US hickey or Northern English simpleton. Sorry, I just find the use of accents to define someone's expected "role in life" to be ridiculous, no matter the source.
Well something like that happens from time to time. For example in "Das Boot"...if Im not misremembering this..the movie was filmed in Englisch and then the actors dubbed themselves for the german version.
Arnie's accent is just too much ... the Terminator with a his Austrian accent would be more like a comedy than anything else.