Recently, a bizarre trend has begun to arise. Animated movies seem to more and more often star unnecessarily big names that do not fit the characters they are voicing. This has become especially apparent on the internet recently, where many have been complaining and are complaining about celebrity voice actor, Chris Pratt’s two recent animated roles. First it was the Mario Movie, where Chris Pratt took the role of the beloved italian plumber.

Just seeing him casted instead Charles Martinet, the man who had voiced Mario in games for 29 years, upset many fans.

Though at the end of the day it made sense, Charles Martinet, though an essential aspect of Mario’s identity, had only voiced Mario for short in-game lines he would say while the game played out, it’s Martinet’s specialty. The performance needed for the Mario Movie would be much longer than the recording sessions Martienet was used to, and since the producers of the Mario Movie, Illumination and Nintendo, wanted the movie to reach all audiences, having a popular voice actor as the main character made sense, for publicities sake. Plus, no one could know for sure. Maybe Chris Pratt would pull off his role well.

Well, his voice for Mario was… well, not italian. Many agreed that Chris Pratt’s voice acting for Mario was just him doing his own voice, with a subtle, Italian undertone. Which, obviously, does not fit Mario, who is literally characterized as Italian. But it doesn’t stop there for Chris Pratt. More recently, he was casted as Garfield in the Garfield Movie. He once again did his iconic Chris Pratt voice, and common consensus is that he does not capture the laidback, sarcastic voice of Garfield. Though as the movie is yet to release and the only impression we have to go off of so far is the trailer, it’s possible Chris Pratt’s Garfield voice could be better than what we were shown,

At the end of the day, Chris Pratt is just the tip of the iceberg. His are the most well known cases of celebrity voice actors that don’t fit their characters, but it seems that over time more and more casting choices are made like this. And though it can indeed work, like with Charlie Day as Lugi, many times it turns out mediocre like Chris Pratt’s Mario.

SRA Junior, John Del Real, shared his thoughts on the matter. “Popular folk have their place in any media, except when they’re unwarranted.”