Bungie Boots Dinklage, Nolan North Takes over as Destiny's Ghost

[Lizzy Finnegan]

Bungie Boots Dinklage, Nolan North Takes over as Destiny's Ghost

The role of Ghost has been recast, with Nolan North taking over - and re-recording all of Peter Dinklage's existing dialogue.

The Taken King [http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2015/08/04/destiny-recasts-its-most-important-character-with-nolan-north-9709.aspx]. In the interest of continuity, Bungie also had North re-record all of Peter Dinklage's existing dialogue.

"We wanted Nolan North's version of the Ghost to wake you up at the start of the journey at level one and follow you all the way to level forty," said creative director Luke Smith.

"They really wanted me to put my stamp on it," North said. "They let me bring what I wanted to the role. You have to give it your own spin. For that reason, I specifically said I didn't want to hear anything that someone else had done, so that I didn't have some preconceived notion of what it has to be. Instead, I just gave it my stamp, and let them direct me accordingly."

The Taken King will release on September 15.



[Source: Game Informer [http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2015/08/04/destiny-recasts-its-most-important-character-with-nolan-north-9709.aspx]]


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[Silentpony_v1legacy]

That actor came from the moon.

 

[Sarge034]

Now if they brought that mindset to the story narrative I might give a damn about the game again.

 

[SlumlordThanatos]

I'm fine with this.

To be honest, I always got the feeling that Peter Dinklage either didn't care about his role in Destiny, or he doesn't like voice acting. Nolan North does good work, so I know the new voiceover won't be bad, but I'll be sad that I can't call my Ghost "Dinklebot" anymore.

 

[Dreadman75]

Eh...kind of a shame they got rid of Dinklage but he did not bring any energy to the role. Just because the Ghosts are AI doesn't mean they can't emote, something numerous fan writings have taken into account.

Can't wait to see how Nolan North tackles the little glowing resurrection machine. Should be interesting after his performances as the Boss from Saints Row and The Penguin.

 

[totheendofsin]

I wonder how much money they flushed down the toilet by hiring Dinklage, hopefully Nolan North actually tries to do well in the roll unlike Dinklage

 

[Atmos Duality]

Oh, maybe this time they'll remember that thing called a "story" in their half a billion dollar franchise.

It's why I don't blame Dinklage for his bored performance; given the gobs of NOTHING going on in the story.
Just saying: can't waste potential that isn't there.

 

[TorchofThanatos]

Oh, maybe this time they'll remember that thing called a "story" in their half a billion dollar franchise.

It's why I don't blame Dinklage for his bored performance; given the gobs of NOTHING going on in the story.
Just saying: can't waste potential that isn't there.

I agree completely. I don't like his voice acting but I don't blame him for it. He had nothing to worth with. Kinda like Ryan Reynolds and the terrible Green Lantern movie. The DLC's have been getting better for actually having a story but we will have to wait and see if this $40 "expansion" (I use the term loosely) adds anything worth it. Bungie really needs to learn that they are not From Software.

 

[Fiz_The_Toaster]

Yeah, that's all kinds of bullshit.

Nothing against Nolan North since I like him as a voice actor, but that's really not cool. There were problems with Destiny, but I really doubt Peter Dinklage's voice performance was one of them.

 

[Lightknight]

Nolan North is a phenomenal voice actor but I can't help but think that Peter Dinklage got a rough deal. I think he was actually directed to voice act like the kind of emotionless robot that it came across as and probably could have voice acted in any number of other ways.

But hey, Nolan North, one of the titans of voice acting.

 

[EternallyBored]

Nolan North is a phenomenal voice actor but I can't help but think that Peter Dinklage got a rough deal. I think he was actually directed to voice act like the kind of emotionless robot that it came across as and probably could have voice acted in any number of other ways.

But hey, Nolan North, one of the titans of voice acting.

I remember reading somewhere that they had hired a comedian (David Cross? not %100 sure) to write dialogue for the ghost to give him personality back before the original release but not a single line he wrote was included.

Given the absolute gutting the story apparently took before release, losing their head writer and bringing someone on less than a year before release to write all the grimoire cards, this might be a case of Dinklage being brought on and then having all of his lines hacked up midway through development.

I like Nolan North, and this might be an overall improvement, but given the absolute shit show that was Destiny's development process pre-release, you might be right in that he was originally hired with a more robust script in mind then got his part severely changed right before recording.

 

[Tohuvabohu]

Yeah, that's all kinds of bullshit.

Nothing against Nolan North since I like him as a voice actor, but that's really not cool. There were problems with Destiny, but I really doubt Peter Dinklage's voice performance was one of them.

I don't think anyone is blaming Dinklage for the story in Destiny. The problem however, is that there's been 2 DLC addons for the game, and Dinklage has not provided a single line of new dialogue.

While Dinklage's performance was criticized, I think the bigger problem was getting Dinklage onboard with recording more lines alongside the release of more content. Given his involvement in all kinds of major acting roles, he must be way too busy (and probably even more expensive) to record lines of dialogue for the game.

It was bizarre playing through the entire game, hearing Dinklage's commentary from your Ghost on the various races you are fighting, from sharing wisdom about their history and even apprehension about meeting some of these hostile races head on...

...And then your Ghost being completely silent during an entire storyline centering on an offensive effort against a literal Undead Alien God from the beginning, all the way to the very end when you're face to face with a God of Darkness. Your previously chatty Ghost, says absolutely nothing throughout everything.

I appreciate Dinklage's work. But we need more dialogue from the Ghost in the series moving forward. This seems like the best thing to do.

Oh, maybe this time they'll remember that thing called a "story" in their half a billion dollar franchise.

It's why I don't blame Dinklage for his bored performance; given the gobs of NOTHING going on in the story.
Just saying: can't waste potential that isn't there.

Within the actual disgrace of a story that's presented, sure. But the sad part is that there is potential for loads of interesting story content in the game's lore. One of Destiny's greatest weaknesses was the presentation of it's Story. It's unanimous, even among fans of the game, that the story was completely botched. There's all kinds of rumors regarding the existence of what used to be a densely written storymode, but some last-minute changes ripped everything out of the game (to be replaced by 'Grimiore Cards' that cannot be read or accessed within the game at all.)

It's hard to tell who was most responsible for the story being hacked out of the game. Probably Activision, but I doubt Bungie did much to defend itself in this regard. If this is indeed the case.

And fans of the game are the most frustrated by this, because anyone who takes the effort of reading some of these Grimiore Cards find a bunch of stories of really important characters and events that the game never even mentions. You never actually catch a glimpse of what could be an interesting story until you enter the Vault of Glass, which is an endgame raid and requires you to be with a fireteam of 5 other people. It wasn't until this point that you can see some actual thought and imagination to the whole thing.

Hopefully, this means that they're going to focus a lot more on improving in the story department. Because there is some interesting stuff there, but we shouldn't have to dig through CARDS outside the game itself for it.

 

[Aerosteam]

The boring and vague writing for Ghost was more of a problem than Dinklage's performance. Nice to know Bungie isn't changing any of the script despite this being the perfect time to do so.

 

[EternallyBored]

Yeah, that's all kinds of bullshit.

Nothing against Nolan North since I like him as a voice actor, but that's really not cool. There were problems with Destiny, but I really doubt Peter Dinklage's voice performance was one of them.

I don't think anyone is blaming Dinklage for the story in Destiny. The problem however, is that there's been 2 DLC addons for the game, and Dinklage has not provided a single line of new dialogue.

While Dinklage's performance was criticized, I think the bigger problem was getting Dinklage onboard with recording more lines alongside the release of more content. Given his involvement in all kinds of major acting roles, he must be way too busy (and probably even more expensive) to record lines of dialogue for the game.

It was bizarre playing through the entire game, hearing Dinklage's commentary from your Ghost on the various races you are fighting, from sharing wisdom about their history and even apprehension about meeting some of these hostile races head on...

...And then your Ghost being completely silent during an entire storyline centering on an offensive effort against a literal Alien God from the beginning, all the way to the very end when you're face to face with a God of Darkness. Your previously chatty Ghost, says absolutely nothing throughout everything.

I appreciate Dinklage's work. But we need more dialogue from the Ghost in the series moving forward. This seems like the best thing to do.

This is the most likely reason Dinklage was replaced,it might be because they didn't foresee just how popular (and expensive) he would become, or he, or his publicist, wanted to renegotiate his contract. Nolan North, despite how widespread he is in voice acting is still likely much cheaper to hire than Dinklage.

Bungie might have also originally planned the ghost to be much more central to the plot, justifying the cost of rehiring Dinklage before the rewrite.

Dissapointing, but Bungie probably should have taken a hint from Bethesda, if you are going to use a big celebrity to voice your characters you either need to have them killed at some point in the plot or use them in a way to where they don't need to be used again. Using a big expensive celebrity for the voice of a companion character that will inevitably turn up in the DLC and likely the sequel requires a lot of extra money to rehire that celebrity for each small release. At some point you end up spending way WAY more money than if you'd just hired a professional voice actor like Nolan North or Tara Strong.

 

[EndlessSporadic]

This is the most likely reason Dinklage was replaced,it might be because they didn't foresee just how popular (and expensive) he would become, or he, or his publicist, wanted to renegotiate his contract. Nolan North, despite how widespread he is in voice acting is still likely much cheaper to hire than Dinklage.

Considering how much they were trying to hype the game I highly doubt they didn't foresee the popularity of the franchise.

As far as I am concerned the writing is a disaster, the content team is a disaster, and the voice actors all ended up getting the short end of the straw because of it. Destiny is a prime example of how not to create, advertise, and sell a AAA game. I won't defend Dinkleberg's weak performance, but as many others have stated already I highly doubt the root of his poor performance was the actor himself.

 

[soren7550]

This makes me sad, as I love Dinklage's voice, and by the sound of things, Nolan is just going to be doing Nathan Drake yet again. You'd think with all the financial backing they have, they'd be able to get Dinklage back on.

Plus, we can't call him Dinklebot anymore.

 

[Makabriel]

Yeah, that's all kinds of bullshit.

Nothing against Nolan North since I like him as a voice actor, but that's really not cool. There were problems with Destiny, but I really doubt Peter Dinklage's voice performance was one of them.

Agreed. I actually liked the Dinklebot. RIP little guy!!

 

[sXeth]

Oh the ghost is going to talk again? I'm incredibly divided on whether that's a good thing.

Granted, bored Dinklage wasn't half as annoying as Eris EMO Morn hissing in your ear for a few hours straight about Crota and souls and screams and death. But he mainly just constantly spouted references to things you'd have no idea what he was talking about if you didn't hunt down dead ghosts obsessively and keep up on grimoire cards.

Petra was cool though, and Tanik's exposition was at least actual exposition instead of name drops, as grating as his Shang-Tsung impersonation in the Prison of Elders has gotten over time.

 

[laggyteabag]

Shame that Nolanbot isn't as catchy as Dinklebot or The Dinklage, but anything has to be better than the overwhelmingly bored performance of Peter Dinklage.

Shame they didn't rewrite anything. How about you actually explain what is going on this time around? No? Okay.