 |
|
Eddie
Allen (voice of Emperor Desslok) |
by Tim Eldred
Derek Wildstar and his arch rival Emperor Desslok returned in
April, 2003, for a brief appearance on Planet Earth.
For the first time in over 20 years, actors Ken Meseroll and
Eddie Allen reprised their roles as the all-time fan favorite
Star Blazers characters Wildstar and Desslok in a special
project for Voyager Entertainment.
It was my distinct pleasure to help orchestrate this event, and
it was the first chance I'd gotten to visit with these
two gentlemen since conducting the interviews in 2001 that appeared
on the DVDs for The Comet Empire.
When Voyager asked me to participate in a special
project that would get me in the same room with Ken and Eddie
again, I naturally jumped at the chance. Like so many others,
I spent a good chunk of my adolescence watching, listening, and
digesting Star Blazers and ruminating on the show long after
turning off the TV. When the picture vanishes, you're left
with impressions, and the spoken word can echo very loudly. It's
the sign of a good performance indeed when the words can be remembered
as fondly as the pictures. The thought that I might one day be
in a position to personally extend the experience didn't
even enter my head, but here I am with this little story
to tell.
This project required
both Ken and Eddie, and also Amy Howard Wilson and Tom Tweedy (we
didn't leave anyone out) to recapture the roles that
made them famous, at least among Star Blazers fans, and record
all-new lines of dialogue. It was to be my responsibility to
write those lines and supervise the recording process. I spent
a happy weekend scanning through DVDs and building up mini-audio
archives onto cassette tapes that would serve as a guide for
both scriptwriting and voice inflection. This gave me a chance
to skim the first two Star Blazers series again, and pick out
lines that defined each characters' range. Once again I
was reminded of the craftsmanship that went into the show.
I also have a regular job in TV animation (as a storyboard artist
and director) and I've had some first-hand experience with
the ins and outs of casting and voice acting. It isn't
as easy as it looks or sounds. A good casting agent works hand
in hand with a good producer to find and identify exactly the
right people for the role. This isn't just based on a quick
impression or a gut feeling, there's also a lot to watch
out for on the technical side. Someone who delivers a good audition
may not turn out to have the range or professionalism you were
looking for. A very experienced actor who has done well in other
mediums may be completely lost when all the performance energy
has to go into the voice. Either way, a mistake can cost you
dearly once a production gets underway. Not having been there
for the casting of Star Blazers, I can only guess what it was
like in 1979, but the demands haven't changed that much,
so we can all be continually amazed at how perfect the choices
were and how well they hold up after all this time.
 |
|
Ken
Meseroll (voice
of Derek Wildstar)
|
Ken and Eddie may disagree; good actors tend to be humble and
to understate their past work. Plus, when that work goes back
far enough, re-experiencing it can be like opening up a high
school yearbook. This seemed to be the case, at least with Ken.
We had gathered in a little recording studio in Hollywood one
spring evening with the mission of recording a few minutes of
new material, all within the space of an hour. The first step
was to spend time listening to the cassette recordings I had
made, in order to get back into the old groove. It was the first
time Ken had heard himself as Wildstar in quite a while, and
he was rather amazed at how much younger he sounded. He and Eddie
also had a good time remembering little things about
the way Star Blazers was recorded, and the unusual demands of
lip-synching to a foreign film. By the time Ken took his place
behind the microphone, all the geezer jokes had been exhausted,
and he was ready to go.
It took a few trial runs to find the right range and pitch, which
oddly turned out to be lower than we all expected. When I scripted
the lines for Ken to read, I chose a lot of key phrases and specific
words that came up often in Wildstar's dialogue. They turned
out to be good choices, because when the pitch was finally found,
no doubt remained that this was the hero we all wanted to be
20-odd years ago. While voice-directing, it's often a good
idea to keep your eyes closed so you aren't distracted
by your surroundings, and it reminded me an awful lot of that
rumination I described earlier. It was bracing for all of us
to hear two decades dissolve away.
Eddie was next up, and he was visibly eager to sink his teeth
back into Desslok. It came out in our 2001 interview that this
was a singular role for Eddie, and the only over-the-top villain
he has ever been asked to play in his entire career. If this
was meant to be the case, then he could hardly have found a better
villain. Just as Darth Vader is the most popular character from
that other "Star" series, Desslok can't help
but emerge time and again as the fan favorite in Star Blazers.
Eddie's take on the voice was so unusual and brilliant
(and it came out of a whim, which is even more loveable) that
he added an entirely new dimension that even the original Japanese
voice didn't capture. I suspect Desslok's elegant
arrogance and genre-defying lilt will be fascinating viewers
for years to come.
It didn't hurt our project at all that in the years since
Star Blazers, Eddie has occasionally done the Desslok thing for
fun. On more than one occasion, someone or other has spotted "Desslok" on
Eddie's resume and looked at him with their mouth in the
shape of a perfect O. This is usually all the prodding it takes
to get a Desslok line out of Eddie for one basic reason: he likes
doing it. And who wouldn't, for gosh sakes? We all had
a blast listening to him, especially Ken, and it was evident
afterward that Eddie would like nothing more than to revive this
role again in some future time. I sure hope he gets the chance.
Anyway, long story short: Wildstar and Desslok had some new things
to say this year, and I was honored to hear them in person.
UPDATE: This article describes the recording of the Star Blazers telephone
cards, which were offered in 2003. Although these cards are no longer
active, you can obtain a deactivated one as a collector's item when you
order THIS PRODUCT from our online store.
