Match That Voice
By Nathan P. Butler

One of the greatest pitfalls of many fan film makers over the years has been the difficulty of using established characters in original Star Wars stories. Several films have unabashedly charged forward with “type-casting” to fill roles with actors of similar types, rather than direct likeness, as did Dark Empire: Transition. Others have made great strides in costuming (Bounty Trail) or voice recognition (Gary Mongar as Jango Fett). Rarely do all of the elements needed to successfully recreate a previously established character come together in one presentation.

For the participants of the fan audio genre, that task is, thankfully, a bit easier. Gone is the need for elaborate costumes or typecasting based on body build or ethnicity. Now, though, the emphasis has been placed upon the voice, which is both the easiest and hardest element of a character to capture, depending on one’s natural speaking voice.

Fan audio creators have found mixed results in capturing the vocal essences of Star Wars regulars. For Resurrection, Ted Alderman called upon fan film Vader extraordinaire Ben Fletcher, who performed with his usual aplomb. For that same production, Darths Sidious and Maul were also recreated, both of whom (performed by Nathan Butler and Ted Alderman, respectively), seem to suffer from the handicap of the natural voice: Butler’s Sidious captures the tone and cadence of the Sith Master, but lacks the aged raspiness of Ian McDiarmid’s performance, while Maul’s fury under a façade of stoicism comes across, but under an arguably think southern U.S. accent.

Dreamscape, the second episode of Star Wars: Anthology, attempts to recreate Yoda using the same performer as the early days of ChronoRadio and Alex Bobbs’ That Prequel Movie. It is a performance saved, one might remark, by brevity.

Short audio dramas are not the only ones to utilize this recreation practice, though. Of the two large-scale fan audio dramas out there, one strives to not only recreate established characters, but places them in the foreground of the action. Rise of Nobility brings back Jar Jar Binks, Qui-Gon Jinn, Shmi Skywalker, Anakin Skywalker, and, as its primary protagonist, Padme Amidala. After a series of reviews, it certainly appears that the dead-on Jar Jar was just as mind-bending as the original, while Elizabeth Ascot looks to be the "Ben Fletcher of Amidala." Other performances match cadence (Qui-Gon) or age (Anakin), but are more interpretations than recreations. In all, it is the most effective collection of recreations thus far in fan audio.

Now, arguably, one could say that I am a bit hard on myself and on projects I’ve been involved in. Artists are most often their worst critics, someone once said. But whether talking about Resurrection, Dreamscape, or even Rise of Nobility, one singular lesson emerges here: the key to recreating established characters in fan audio productions is not cadence, nor accent, nor specific vocal tone, but a package of all three of those, and an imbalance in any one area can be distracting. Don’t necessarily let that hinder your in your endeavors, but be conscious of what you’re getting yourself into. Suspension of disbelief will be your reward.