Board 8 > Charles Martinet stepping back from Mario voicing, will be Mario Ambassador

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://x.com/nintendoamerica/status/1693624002982314108

When I read the first sentence I thought for sure he'd died.

Wow theyre really promoting Chris Pratt to video game Mario voice now huh

I'm very proud to announce that I will be the new voice of Mario

Wow, end of an era, glad hell be sticking around for a bit at least. He has been doing the voice for 32 years though, this was always coming eventually.

I would actually be fine with Pratt though Im not sure he would want to haha.

I think this is Nintendo's decision to pursue a new creative direction for Mario. Charles Martinet was like a gleeful little kid any time he was in public; he never would have voluntarily retired from this role.

Really sad to hear. Those are gonna be some tough shoes to fill. I imagine he could do the Frank Oz thing and occasionally come back to voice him on special occasions.

I know Mario is his best known role because, well, its Mario, but one of my first thoughts when reading this was how Martinet voiced a lot of characters; Mario, Luigi, Wario, Waluigi, their baby equivalents This might just be a Mel Blanc style situation where they have to get multiple actors to fill in the roles that were all done by Martinet.

Mario's gonna become a fully voiced series under Chris Pratt

The September Direct is likely to have a large focus on Wonder and that would be a good time to announce the new VA as well

Would they even need to find a new VA right away for Mario and the other characters? Surely with all the years of recordings, they could get by with re-using old voice lines for these characters because it's not like the Mario series is known for its characters having fully voiced dialogue.

YoBlazer posted...

I think this is Nintendo's decision to pursue a new creative direction for Mario. Charles Martinet was like a gleeful little kid any time he was in public; he never would have voluntarily retired from this role.

I briefly met him last year at a con and yeah I agree with this take.

Yeah, that was my thought too. Unless they're going fully voiced like they did with WarioWare, I felt like they had enough recordings from the last 25 years that Martinet could retire and they wouldn't have to recast his characters.

They couldn't have Martinet voicing all of Mario's lines in Mario RPG

Eurogamer says Wonder will be the debut of the new VA.

UPDATE 5.15pm UK: Nintendo has now confirmed to Eurogamer that Super Mario Wonder will not feature Charles Martinet, with new voice talent taking over in the roles of "Mario and/or Luigi".
When asked why Martinet would no longer voice Mario, a Nintendo spokesperson told Eurogamer that "this decision was made after carefully considering a variety of factors".
"Regarding Super Mario Bros. Wonder, while Charles is not involved in the game, we're excited to honour his legacy and contributions, including looking ahead to what he'll be doing as a Mario Ambassador," a Nintendo spokesperson said.
"Character voice actors for Mario and/or Luigi in Super Mario Bros. Wonder will be credited in the game credits, so please wait for the game to be released."

https://www.eurogamer.net/nintendo-says-charles-martinet- no-longer-video-game-voice-of-mario

paulg235 posted...

Would they even need to find a new VA right away for Mario and the other characters? Surely with all the years of recordings, they could get by with re-using old voice lines for these characters because it's not like the Mario series is known for its characters having fully voiced dialogue.

My understanding is that this is not best practices for voice acting. They could probably get away with it in Mario without it sounding too terrible, but typically it sounds incredibly strange even in cases where you'd think it wouldn't matter (for example, there was one Simpsons episode where they had to reuse one of Homer's screams -- and even though it's just a contextless scream, it sounds incredibly out of place and "fake", even to fans who don't know it was reused).

Leonhart4 posted...

They couldn't have Martinet voicing all of Mario's lines in Mario RPG

...Why not? Or do you just mean with already existing recordings?

It was a joke because Mario has no dialogue

lmao my bad

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8sYvNtjXRI

10 minutes of Mario dialogue. I think this is the most he ever talked in a game.

really feel vindicated about buying into the rumors he was being replaced from like 2 months ago

although I was hoping they were wrong. makes sense to do this now, he ain't getting any younger

if they reveal they replaced him with an AI I'll be pretty mad. let someone new do the voice and define a new area of mario

I feel like people were saying Mario sounded a little different in the Wonder trailer, so this would explain it

Don't worry. We can still hear Charles Martinet in the spin-off games for another decade since they all re-use sound bytes for years on years.

JonThePenguin posted...

When I read the first sentence I thought for sure he'd died.

I knew what the message would be about and I still panicked

YoBlazer posted...

I think this is Nintendo's decision to pursue a new creative direction for Mario. Charles Martinet was like a gleeful little kid any time he was in public; he never would have voluntarily retired from this role.

What if it's a health issue

Confirmed with IGN that it is a new voice for Mario & Luigi in SMB Wonder.
https://www.ign.com/articles/nintendo-confirms-charles-martinet-is-not-involved-in-super-mario-bros-wonder

YoBlazer posted...

I think this is Nintendo's decision to pursue a new creative direction for Mario. Charles Martinet was like a gleeful little kid any time he was in public; he never would have voluntarily retired from this role.

That's what he shows to the public. Like what, you expect him to be a grumpy old man if he suddenly no longer wanted to voice Mario?
I don't deny that he loves his role as Mario, but let's not act like we really know him.

Nanis23 posted...

I knew what the message would be about and I still panicked

What if it's a health issue

I could see doing that voice professionally for 3 decades putting some serious wear on the vocal chords.

Is Mario a country now? why tf it need an ambassador

foolm0r0n posted...

Is Mario a country now? why tf it need an ambassador

Is the 3DS a country?

foolm0r0n posted...

Is Mario a country now? why tf it need an ambassador

It's likely a fancy contract to pay him be retired and not run around doing the Mario voice anywhere they don't want him to.

I assumed that this was just due to him getting old and maybe not being able to do the voice anymore. He obviously wouldn't have quit for no good reason, and I don't think that Nintendo would have reason to terminate him when he's been such a staple for them (plus how little he actually needs to do for each new game considering how many clips get recycled). So it seems likely that this is happening out of necessity because he's no longer able to perform the role for whatever reason.

The new job title is basically what they did for Miyamoto too, it's hardly anything but their way of keeping him at the company out of tradition/respect, while he hardly has to do anything and still gets paid.

if anyone wants to hear more on this, would really recommend the NetLore episode that summarized the conspiracy theories that Martinet was on his way out way before the news ever broke:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1IDoRbvzgc

really cool to have this little time capsule of theories that turned out to be (mostly) true

I'm not sure why it's so hard to imagine that Martinet might just be ready to step away from the role. He's 67

He was definitely on his way out soon, it seems he might not have been 100% ready though and Nintendo possible helped him out the door a little faster than he wanted

he may have also been burned by not playing mario in the movie, idk how true that is but there's anecdotal evidence one could presume is linked to him being upset about that whole thing, but we will never know the whole truth

ZenOfThunder posted...

he may have also been burned by not playing mario in the movie

I find this incredibly unlikely, Charles Martinet has been a professional voice actor for decades, he understands how shit works in the industry and he knows he's not an A-list celebrity

I feel like if he was so upset about it, he wouldn't have done that cameo role.

Yeah, plus Nintendo was respectful enough to find a role for him in the movie that, now, seems pretty perfect for him. I think it's more likely he's just grateful to have been Mario for so long and for him to be considered for the movie.

Nintendo didn't need to ever get him in the movie, they didn't need to make this press announcement, and they didn't need to do whatever video is going to come out soon. But they went out of their way to do so because I think they genuinely appreciate Charles Martinet.

PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

Nintendo didn't need to ever get him in the movie, they didn't need to make this press announcement, and they didn't need to do whatever video is going to come out soon. But they went out of their way to do so because I think they genuinely appreciate Charles Martinet.

It could be that combined with Nintendo having enough sense to realize they'd face a ton of blowback if they unceremoniously dumped the guy. Isn't that what happened with Konami and David Hayter?

Yeah, but Hayter made it pretty clear that he was unceremoniously dumped and wasn't happy about it. I guess maybe Martinet would keep quiet about it and not make a fuss.

if I was going to play devil's advocate here:

1. Nintendo/Illumination would not want there to be fan backlash from Martinet voicing displeasure with the Pratt thing, and they would have just had him sign an NDA and paid him a shitton to voice his two small cameos
2. Charles Martinet, very active on Twitter, did not tweet any promotion for the Mario movie despite being in it as a cameo, or even like a single tweet by Nintendo/Illumination promotion the movie
3. Charles Martinet did not attend the Red Carpet premiere of the Mario movie, despite being in it as a cameo
4. On the above, Charles Martinet was doing a fan convention in Florida the weekend of the premiere. I really depends on how you feel about Charles' personality; either he went to the fan expo instead because he was salty OR he went to the fan expo because he has a loyalty to his fans. Either way, it is crazy that Charles Martinet did not attend the film premiere for a movie starring a character he has defined for decades (again he is IN THE MOVIE)

There's some other stuff that has been happening the last few months, like Charles' friends in the industry tweeting that he was having a tough time and to send him love and support, but that could have been something else

It all kind of lines up as "Charles Martinet is not happy about this" but again, it's all anecdotal. There is something there, and yeah, maybe it's all a coincidence, but you'd have to be nuts to look at everything and say "0% chance he's not a little upset"

But Martinet is being given a much more cordial and generous send-off, so he wouldn't have as much of a leg to stand on if he did decry Nintendo's decision. According to the press statement, it sounds like he really is gonna get paid to just chill. It's a nice gesture from Nintendo - I'm just saying I'd first presume that their motives in doing so are more self-serving than anything.

want to add an addendum to the above and say that I really do not give a fuck about any of this and I am happy Charles Martinet is stepping back

I also want to say everyone can believe whatever they want to believe and however we have reached the point of "charles martinet does not voice mario" point of history does not really matter because here we are

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/9/0/9/AAHLcRAAExZd.jpg

ZenOfThunder posted...

Charles Martinet, very active on Twitter, did not tweet any promotion for the Mario movie despite being in it as a cameo, or even like a single tweet by Nintendo/Illumination promotion the movie

Lmao dude scroll through his Twitter again and tell me he's very active on it.

This is silly shit man.

It wouldn't surprise me that Martinet would have wanted to continue voicing Mario. It's just a matter of how much of this is Nintendo wanting to move on versus Martinet feeling the need (for whatever reason) to move on.

I'd consider him active enough on Twitter to post about a movie he's in yeah

I'm really not arguing about this though, I'm just posting some interesting stuff about this whole thing. I really do not care if Charles Martinet got carried away from the VO box kicking and screaming, I am just saying there's more to it than just "everyone decided it's time amicably. hands were shaken and cheeks were kissed"

I think it's even more telling that people had seen this coming months ago and recognized that Martinet had already been cut out and only now are Nintendo putting out a statement, not even with the video ready to go, just saying that there will be one

this business is messy and not everyone is always happy. we're never gonna know the truth tho

If this all leads to Link being voiced by a Hollywood funny guy in a few years, I'm quitting video games forever

Link WILL be voiced by Chris Pine, Zen has called it here

Grimlyn posted...

Mario's gonna become a fully voiced series under Chris Pratt

How is that going to work? Mario falls into lava, "OH JESUS FUCK THE PAAAAIIIINNN..."

ZenOfThunder posted...

I'd consider him active enough on Twitter to post about a movie he's in yeah

My guy, he didn't even care enough to post about showing up for people to hand him money at the FanExpo I went to in November. And that's personal advertising to let people know he will be there to take pictures and sign stuff.

He has like a dozen posts this year, and most of them are from him being on vacation.

YoBlazer posted...

If this all leads to Link being voiced by a Hollywood funny guy in a few years, I'm quitting video games forever

*pulls the Master Sword from its pedestal and is immediately thrown into a bleak and devastated future while being unnaturally aged 7 years*

"Well that just happened."

ZenOfThunder posted...

I am just saying there's more to it than just "everyone decided it's time amicably. hands were shaken and cheeks were kissed"

ZenOfThunder posted...

we're never gonna know the truth tho

If it turns out that the truth is "he decided to step away due to his age and/or trouble with his voice", then I feel like that's exactly what they'll say in the video and we will know the real truth. I just hope that you (or other internet people) won't stick to some conspiracy theory where you claim that whatever they say in the video isn't true.

The only reason Nintendo would want to move on from Charles Martinet unnecessarily quickly is money, but I doubt that Martinet commands an unreasonable price for a voice actor, and out of all the things that Nintendo is shitty about, not paying top dollar to retain their best talent is NOT a common sin for them