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David Anthony Pizzuto (Tanno Vik voice actor)


HollyUSEC

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https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0686257/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cl_t46

As most people know, Mr. Pizzuto passed away, and this is supposed to be the main reason that the character Tanno Vik was written out of the SWTOR story.

But I just learned something that might have been common knowledge, but I myself didn't know. Mr. Pizzuto passed away before the Knights of the Fallen Empire expansion came out. IMDB lists the date of his death as February 10, 2012, while KOTFE came out on October 27, 2015, having been announced in June of that year. Obviously, this means a different voice actor was employed for Tanno Vik for his part in the KOTFE story.

Maybe the voice wasn't quite the same, but it was definitely very close. Was it ever discussed why the new voice actor wasn't offered a contract for future SWTOR related work? Was the decision to retire the character a gesture of respect for Mr. Pizzuto? I can relate to that, if it was the reason, I just never took part in any discussion about all this, that might have taken place on the forums during the KOTFE days.

 

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I think it's assumed that Tanno Vik was lost when Arcann attacked Asylum. Then again, we never saw any body, and people have this weird thing about coming back when they are thought dead.

I mean just look at Malgus, we thought he was dead after False Emperor FP, and he came back...

Edited by Otowi
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On 12/25/2022 at 8:18 PM, FlameYOL said:

I believe that the new VA didn't kept working on it because the team wished to respect the original VA and not recast the character, hence why you don't recruit him on Asylum.

See, the thing is, The dev team was willing to hire a replacement VA for RotHC, and GSF, the same VA that voiced Vik in KotFE. So... Clearly, either something changed, or Vik was just forgotten about, much like

Spoiler

Khem Zash.

Hell, at this point, I'll take an ingame letter from Vik, just as a final goodbye.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 12/24/2022 at 9:51 PM, HollyUSEC said:


As most people know, Mr. Pizzuto passed away, and this is supposed to be the main reason that the character Tanno Vik was written out of the SWTOR story.

Wait. What? Why. This is why Tanno Vik wasn't recruitable after asylum? The actor died? This is so...sad. Why am I always the last to know this thing? :(  (whispers: its because I don't watch the news...much)

Man...I feel bad now. I've been playing trooper among other classes. It feels so wrong now to use the "option" on him now... >>_>>

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 1/5/2023 at 6:59 AM, greenhor said:

Wait. What? Why. This is why Tanno Vik wasn't recruitable after asylum? The actor died? This is so...sad. Why am I always the last to know this thing? :(  (whispers: its because I don't watch the news...much)

Man...I feel bad now. I've been playing trooper among other classes. It feels so wrong now to use the "option" on him now... >>_>>

This will catch you up.  Other notables listed on that site besides Tanno Vik's voice actor:

Adam Leadbeater, who voiced several characters in the video game Star Wars: The Old Republic, passed away on November 19, 2020.

Tony Armatrading, who voiced Xalek in the computer game Star Wars: The Old Republic, passed away at age 49 from cancer on May 10, 2021.

 

Edited by xordevoreaux
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There's another in-universe factor; Tanno Vik was one of the first casualities not of the Eternal Empire, but of Consequences For Actions. Since a player could chose to pick a fight with and kill Vik, it would involve two parallel sets of events being programmed, one where Vik lived and was recruited and the other where he died. There was already Koth, Arcann, Senya, Torian, Vette, etc. that would be taken into account, so just letting Vik fade away meant that was one less character that had to be kept track of.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Sadly it's something that's always going to befall characters over time. In some cases the decision is taken to retire the character out of respect- sometimes to recast, sometimes to just use archive audio. 

I guess in this case it was probably a combination of everything people have noted. For a start, he was kind of the poster child for there being Consequences in Fallen Empire, the first "Look, here's an old companion... and he can end up dead!" moment. Then, with, as you say, the need to keep track of the path taken with regards to the potential deaths of all those other characters- and whilst there have been sadly more losses since, I believe Vik may have been the first? So, again, all of those might lead to a feeling of "Better to retire him" which wouldn't necessarily always be followed for every subsequent death.

Recasting may be an option in some cases, although of course by virtue of the needs of the profession, actors who do well as voiceover artists are likely to have very distinctive voices. 

To choose a non-companion example, for instance, even among those Sith Warriors who chose to merely

Spoiler

behand

 

Overseer Tremel, and get to

Spoiler

see him turn up later as one of your supporters and allies

it's tragically unlikely we'll ever hear him speak again, with the unmistakable acid tones of Paul Darrow no longer with us.

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12 minutes ago, SteveTheCynic said:

I think you meant to say "Kerr Avon" in that sentence.

Ahh, Blake's 7. What a fun BBC sci-fi show :)

Doctor Who, Red Dwarf, and Blake's 7. The classics

Edited by DWho
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6 hours ago, DWho said:

Ahh, Blake's 7. What a fun BBC sci-fi show :)

Doctor Who, Red Dwarf, and Blake's 7. The classics

Absolutely :) I still found my most fun Smuggler play through to play her completely against type, and basically be indifferent/chaotically useless with credits, only really caring about them as a means of keeping the ship fuelled, and essentially with a mindset rather closer to the Doctor- out to explore the galaxy, to avoid being responsible to or tied down anywhere, to have fun and wild adventures, and probably save a few planets along the way out of a mix of kindness and the desire for excitement.

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