On the most recent TCGS it was reported that the reason for Bayonetta being recast was a scheduling clash for Hellana Taylor (something we now know not to be true) but for all we know that is what Jennifer could have been told too as to why she was being offered the role instead.
Truk_Kurt wrote: October 18th, 2022, 9:11 am
On the most recent TCGS it was reported that the reason for Bayonetta being recast was a scheduling clash for Hellana Taylor (something we now know not to be true) but for all we know that is what Jennifer could have been told too.
Exactly. Voice roles are recast all the time for all sorts of reasons.
Truk_Kurt wrote: October 18th, 2022, 9:11 am
On the most recent TCGS it was reported that the reason for Bayonetta being recast was a scheduling clash for Hellana Taylor (something we now know not to be true) but for all we know that is what Jennifer could have been told too as to why she was being offered the role instead.
Yeah, I don't expect for one minute she was told the previous actor had rejected their offer.
ThirdDrawing wrote: October 17th, 2022, 4:49 pm
scab - Jennifer Hale.
From the article you shared:
"Tweets Jennifer Hale has been liking recently suggest she was not informed about Hellena's situation before she took on the role of Bayonetta."
Don't be calling people nasty names on here when you're not necessarily in full possession of the facts, please.
I find it hard to believe when Hale claims to care about treatment of VAs as much she does that she wouldn't even have investigated the reason for the replacement.
And it's fascinating to see the online community, who normally cries foul about poor treatment of employees by the games industry, so ready to throw someone under the bus and victim blame them because the accused is a company they like and not Activision or EA.
ratsoalbion wrote: October 18th, 2022, 9:40 pm
Quite. No-one here is victim blaming. We're just asking that people don't badmouth Hale based on spurious supposition.
In fact I think PG and Kamiya in particular are coming out of this looking terrible so far.
I think it's incredibly naive to think that a VA of Hale's stature and someone who is supposedly so pro-union/pro-VA rights wouldn't have at least investigated why she was replacing another actor in such a high profile role.
Well I think it's incredibly naive to think that freelance/contract workers have the time, wherewithal and incentive to launch an investigation into why every role they're offered has become available. Pure fantasy.
I expect she simply believed what her agent told her in good faith, which was presumably that negotiations had broken down between PG and Hellena, as is now being reported, or that there were scheduling conflicts, as was previously reported.
As I said earlier, voice actors take on existing roles all the time, it's generally circumstantial.
I don't see Leon as defending the poor treatment of workers at all. Just that we shouldn't cast assumptions and call people names when we don't know the full facts of the situation. I also totally agree with Leon that it's naive to think any voice actor would investigate why a role has become available to them, and even if they did would Platinum really tell her it was because they low balled the previous voice actor? I guess if she had enquired, she could've then gone to Hellena to confirm the story but again, that's just making a huge assumption and likely not to have happened given that, as far as I'm aware, Hellana has not said in her statements that Hale got in touch with her to talk about why she rejected the role but Hale decided to accept it anyway.
Plus there's the emergence (corroborated by independent sources but denied by Taylor), that she may actually have been offered around $15K to reprise the role which - according to other voice actors - would have been a reasonable to good offer at market rates (even if those market rates should be better, and VAs deserve a more effective union than SAG-AFTRA).
I'm absolutely not taking sides here. I would much prefer Taylor to return to the role. I am a fan of her work and while Hale is also a terrific VA, she isn't Bayonetta.
I enjoy some of Platinum's work, but they are a patchy studio with an increasingly shaky rep and - while I find Kamiya's Twitter persona entertaining - he can clearly be a difficult dickhead.
The point is, the full story simply isn't clear to anyone here, and as such I take issue with Hale being cast as the heel.
Taylor said that she didn't mind Hale taking the role, just that she shouldn't sign merchandise as Bayonetta because she didn't create the character. I don't think I agree with that, but it's worth mentioning as there's a misconception that she attacked Hale.
"Gamers have largely beaten back efforts to incorporate blockchain tokens into new releases, a rare win against the industry’s efforts to wring more money from its customers:"
A few sites reporting the current gen version of Witcher 3 will release on December 9th. Can't wait to play this again. Originally 100% it on PS4 without the DLC, but grabbed the Xbox version yesterday for £6.99 which comes with all the DLC ready for the free upgrade. It's going to be good to be back in that world (although I've still not played the second game beyond the prologue, so might go through that first).
