×
  • remind me tomorrow
  • remind me next week
  • never remind me
Subscribe to the ANN Newsletter • Wake up every Sunday to a curated list of ANN's most interesting posts of the week. read more

Forum - View topic
ANNtv - Dubs That Time Forgot - Otakon '09 Edition (Part 2)


Goto page Previous  1, 2, 3

Note: this is the discussion thread for this article

Anime News Network Forum Index -> Site-related -> Talkback
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
TurnerJ



Joined: 05 Nov 2004
Posts: 481
Location: Highland Park, NJ
PostPosted: Wed Aug 11, 2010 6:02 pm Reply with quote
StudioToledo wrote:
Ranma87 wrote:
I have the original Porco Rosso, Castle in the Sky and My Neighbor Totoro dubs from the early 90's in my collection. (Before Disney licensed them)

Do you also have the original dub to "Kiki's Delivery Service"? That's the one I'm looking for. I want to see if it is as good as they say (done by the late Carl Macek who was also behind the Totoro dub). I haven't heard great things about the Laputa dub though, but it might be worth a listen. Someone outta just make MP3's of these available out there.


Carl Macek didn't do the older dub of Laputa; it was done by an independent company very quickly and very fast, and as such, it is pretty terrible. (Trust me, I can only listen to about as much as 30 seconds of it.) Disney's version of this movie has some minor faults but is a much better dub overall. Plus, you can't go wrong with Mark Hamill as the badguy.

Kiki's older dub is good and roughly about on par with Totoro's older dub, but I personally like Disney's version better.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message My Anime
ArsenicSteel



Joined: 12 Jan 2010
Posts: 2370
PostPosted: Wed Aug 11, 2010 6:30 pm Reply with quote
yamiangie wrote:
SuperJoe_Kujo wrote:
Is it just me or does Apollo sound rather a lot like The Cat from Red Dwarf - Danny John-Jules?

Not sure how well known Red Dwarf is in the U.S. but it was a UK sci-fi comedy that ran on for far too many seasons but started out pretty funny.


that's what I was thinking it's the Cat from Red Dwarf in fact in one clip all that was missing was a hologram and I would think i was watching an animated red dwarf.



Danny John-Jules? Well it does sound like him and off the performances he sounded the best. EVen if he is type cast as the cat again... Razz
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
StudioToledo



Joined: 16 Aug 2006
Posts: 847
Location: Toledo, U.S.A.
PostPosted: Wed Aug 25, 2010 12:20 am Reply with quote
TurnerJ wrote:
StudioToledo wrote:
Ranma87 wrote:
I have the original Porco Rosso, Castle in the Sky and My Neighbor Totoro dubs from the early 90's in my collection. (Before Disney licensed them)

Do you also have the original dub to "Kiki's Delivery Service"? That's the one I'm looking for. I want to see if it is as good as they say (done by the late Carl Macek who was also behind the Totoro dub). I haven't heard great things about the Laputa dub though, but it might be worth a listen. Someone outta just make MP3's of these available out there.


Carl Macek didn't do the older dub of Laputa; it was done by an independent company very quickly and very fast, and as such, it is pretty terrible. (Trust me, I can only listen to about as much as 30 seconds of it.) Disney's version of this movie has some minor faults but is a much better dub overall. Plus, you can't go wrong with Mark Hamill as the badguy.

I still would've wanted younger voices for the two kids anyway.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website MSN Messenger
TurnerJ



Joined: 05 Nov 2004
Posts: 481
Location: Highland Park, NJ
PostPosted: Wed Sep 01, 2010 11:02 pm Reply with quote
[quote=StudioToledo]
I still would've wanted younger voices for the two kids anyway.[/quote]

Yes the leads DO sound considerably older than they probably should in Disney's dub, but even that grew on me the more I watched it. The older dub uses Barbara Goodson and Lara Cody to play Pazu and Sheeta, and sadly, their performances are completely underwhelming. Oh sure, they don't sound as mature, but I found Barbara and Lara to be both devoid of any genuine emotion and artificial sounding--there was an obvious feminine quality to Barbara's Pazu that I found particularly distracting and Lara's Sheeta was so shrilly that it quickly turned me off. Even any so called moments of "emoting" are not as strong as they should be.

While James and Anna probably were somewhat eccentric choices for these characters (not so for the latter, as she still does sound a bit childlike), I found that both did considerably better jobs overall. Granted, they ARE the least excellent voices of the dub compared to Hamill and Leachman (as well as everybody else--those guys are what REALLY make the dub so much fun), but at least they put more emotion and energy into their performances aside from a missed line or two.

The supporting cast in Streamline's dub are absolutely HORRIBLE compared to Disney's; Jeff Winkless's Muska is especially dreadful--so dull and monotonous, with absolutely zero emotion or charisma; every second of his performance is totally devoid of any genuine dread or creepiness. Mark Hamill is far better, both vocally and in terms of acting; granted he does sound like the Joker at times, but there really is no comparison over who does Muska better--Mark Hamill owns him from the start. Rachel Vanowyn's Dola either screams with no personality or comes across as a very stilted and emotionally flat--Cloris Leachman is a far better Dola. And likewise, all the minor characters sound a lot more livelier in Disney's dub; their Streamline counterparts are just lame (well, except for the General, but even then I liked Jim Cummings better).

It wasn't just the voices that turned me off from this older dub so much; the writing of the script is not very good at all, with inept-sounding or very bizarre lines that made me either cringe or groan. Oh sure, it DOES keep the last part of Sheeta's speech (which is something that Disney's version doesn't do), but that simply isn't enough to make up for the stale writing ("I'm built as hard as a brick moppet" and "Now say bye-bye!" in particular are embarrassments). While Disney's script probably does go overboard in adding in dialogue to certain scenes and omits both the last part of Sheeta's speech as well as the references to "Gulliver's Travels" and "Treasure Island", it is overall much more smoother sounding and never sounds choppy or stale.

There may be some fans who say this older dub surpasses Disney's, but I was very disappointed with it; I have never heard such a dull, shrilly, lifeless dub in such a long time since the old '80s Akira dub. If anything, it only showed me how far dubbing has come since the '80s. So Disney's version is the better dub for Castle in the Sky overall; it's not perfect by any means, but it's still grossly underrated and certainly deserving of a second look.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message My Anime
StudioToledo



Joined: 16 Aug 2006
Posts: 847
Location: Toledo, U.S.A.
PostPosted: Thu Sep 02, 2010 9:02 pm Reply with quote
This is why I stopped caring of what other people think (and besides, Streamline didn't work on Laputa anyway).
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website MSN Messenger
TurnerJ



Joined: 05 Nov 2004
Posts: 481
Location: Highland Park, NJ
PostPosted: Thu Sep 02, 2010 9:33 pm Reply with quote
StudioToledo wrote:
This is why I stopped caring of what other people think (and besides, Streamline didn't work on Laputa anyway).


Yeah, well, the reason why Carl Macek wasn't so happy with how Streamline's dub turned out was because he didn't do it. They simply picked it up from an unknown company. (Hence why he made the older dubs for TOTORO and KIKI; he wanted to show he could do better.) Nonetheless I will tell you that I have absolutely nothing against the actors in any of these dubs. But for this older dub, I will say that Goodson, Cody, Winkless, etc. all have done far better. While Disney's version probably does go overboard in adding in dialogue in places and has the leads as teenagers, it's still a lot more pleasant to listen to; at least nobody in the dub sounds like they're talking like a robot. (Certainly not Hamill or Leachman, or frankly, the rest of the cast for that matter.)

But seriously, yeah, it baffles me how ANYBODY can say the Disney dubs are inferior, not just for this movie, but for ANY of the Ghibli movies, period. Not that there haven't been good dubs, but it's really hard to get any better than these. Plus, since Miyazaki virtually has no issues with any of them, it seems curious to hear some so-called "fans" declare that they compromise his work.

That's why I choose to evaluate the Disney dubs on their own turf, not as comparison tools to the Japanese; and I've taken that view with ANY dub I listen to. And I've never regretted it.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message My Anime
Display posts from previous:   
Reply to topic    Anime News Network Forum Index -> Site-related -> Talkback All times are GMT - 5 Hours
Goto page Previous  1, 2, 3
Page 3 of 3

 


Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group