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REVIEW: Night on the Galactic Railroad Blu-Ray




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Brand



Joined: 30 Jan 2006
Posts: 1028
PostPosted: Wed Feb 03, 2016 10:46 am Reply with quote
One of my first anime, I'll be picking this up soon. I've been waiting years for this. I had a VHS tape but that disappeared some time ago. I even tracked down a copy of the sound track on CD. I have a few other goodies, like a scrip book, and the movie theater pamphlet.
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Angel M Cazares



Joined: 23 Sep 2010
Posts: 5406
Location: Iscandar
PostPosted: Wed Feb 03, 2016 11:24 am Reply with quote
Unfortunately I am not a child, but I watched this film. I found most of this movie underwhelming. There were some neat ideas, but the pace is too slow to the point of boredom, and the production values are super cheap.

I am interested in the commentary track, but my level of enjoyment from this film was too small to justify spending $20.
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Spastic Minnow
Bargain Hunter
Exempt from Grammar Rules


Joined: 02 May 2006
Posts: 4595
Location: Gainesville, FL
PostPosted: Wed Feb 03, 2016 12:01 pm Reply with quote
I had the CPM release. I do find the movie more fascinating than pleasurable though.

I fell asleep the first time I watched it, and I am not the type of person to usually do that.

Yet, I am tempted to pick this up and watch it again. For one thing, I figure the video transfer has to to be better than the previous one. The film has a lot of dark scenes but my old DVD was just ridiculous. The beginning in particular just seemed like black on black, faint movements on the screen, occasionally all I could really discern were dull cat eyes and vague cat shapes.
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omiya



Joined: 21 Sep 2011
Posts: 1823
Location: Adelaide, South Australia
PostPosted: Wed Feb 03, 2016 12:40 pm Reply with quote
Brand wrote:
I even tracked down a copy of the sound track on CD.


You did well. Joe Hisaishi released an album inspired by it, but I didn't try secondhand/auction sites for the OST by Haruomi Hosono.
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Minimimiau



Joined: 06 Oct 2013
Posts: 194
Location: somewhere on this planet.
PostPosted: Wed Feb 03, 2016 1:10 pm Reply with quote
Long ago I watched this movie and I can say that I really enjoyed it.
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zawa113



Joined: 19 Jan 2008
Posts: 7357
PostPosted: Wed Feb 03, 2016 7:55 pm Reply with quote
I watched it for the first time somewhat recently (with the DVD release). It's a rather odd duck, that's for sure, and damn can it move slow. But you know America could never make something like this, it's too slow for them to justify it. I'd consider getting Bluray, but only if it's worth it over the new DVD (the new DVD would clearly be more worth it over the old one, which I've heard is problematic). Also, I shall have to check out that commentary track at some point, methinks.

What rather throws me off about the dub, while I find it to be fine, is that Veronica Taylor is using her Ash Ketchum voice, and it's very distracting coming out of anyone except Ash Ketchum. Maybe people who don't know that voice already will be better off in this case, but most everyone my age has probably seen some of classic Pokemon, so we've already been ruined. But dammit, I know Veronica Taylor can do other voices! She's Ash's vastly different sounding mom, and is somehow May too, after all (the Pokemon dubs are clearly fans of having voice actors talk to themselves).
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EricJ2



Joined: 01 Feb 2014
Posts: 4016
PostPosted: Wed Feb 03, 2016 9:13 pm Reply with quote
Or as I liked to joke, "You can tell the characters really are cats, because they also like to spend large portions of the movie staring wide-eyed at something for a very long time for no apparent reason." Laughing
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bemused Bohemian



Joined: 09 Jun 2009
Posts: 404
Location: central Mizzou (Moral Oralville)
PostPosted: Wed Feb 03, 2016 10:40 pm Reply with quote
I found the show poignant. Having never been a gamer nor one immersed in earlier works of anime aimed straight at tweens or the younger groups it held my attention span all the way through without fail. The Mike Toole and Justin Sevakis commentary was quite informative, actually made the BD cost worth the price imho. I really appreciated their insight. Your review is icing on the cake, thanks.

Do hope more works like this one be brought to the surface and adapted into anime for audiences outside of Japan.
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fathomlessblue



Joined: 28 Mar 2012
Posts: 340
Location: Manchester, UK
PostPosted: Thu Feb 04, 2016 3:17 pm Reply with quote
Spastic Minnow wrote:
Yet, I am tempted to pick this up and watch it again. For one thing, I figure the video transfer has to to be better than the previous one. The film has a lot of dark scenes but my old DVD was just ridiculous. The beginning in particular just seemed like black on black, faint movements on the screen, occasionally all I could really discern were dull cat eyes and vague cat shapes.


According to Justin, the US transfer should be better than even the Japanese release, so I think it's as good as we'll ever get it (I'm still waiting for it to be sent to the UK so I haven't watched it) - https://twitter.com/worldofcrap/status/666734824913154048
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miken



Joined: 08 Mar 2008
Posts: 52
PostPosted: Fri Feb 05, 2016 9:30 am Reply with quote
any idea if the bluray is region-locked?
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MarshalBanana



Joined: 31 Aug 2014
Posts: 5294
PostPosted: Fri Feb 05, 2016 10:57 am Reply with quote
If the dub is listenable, as you put it, that is what you would rate as passable. So why then rate it A?
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belvadeer





PostPosted: Sat Feb 06, 2016 3:55 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
This release contains both a subbed version and the 2001 Central Park Media dub. It's listenable, although the main actors, Veronica Taylor (Giovanni) and Crispin Freeman (Campanella) are at times unconvincing as children.


So would you say it's better to watch it in Japanese? Because something about this movie's design would make watching it subbed kind of a major turnoff for me.
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relyat08



Joined: 20 Mar 2013
Posts: 4125
Location: Northern Virginia
PostPosted: Fri Mar 04, 2016 11:11 pm Reply with quote
That was a very strange movie. I'm not unused to strange things, and I generally really like them, but I really don't know if I enjoyed this. I bought the Blu-ray and started it last night, but about an hour into it, I was nodding off. It didn't really feel like much of anything was happening. I finished it this afternoon, but I'm still not sure what to think. I want to like it more than I did. I'm going to have to watch it with the commentary track now. Maybe Justin and Mike can shed some more light on specifically what people like about it beyond what Gabriella has covered.
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varmintx



Joined: 31 Jul 2006
Posts: 1197
Location: Covington, KY
PostPosted: Sat Mar 05, 2016 12:14 am Reply with quote
MarshalBanana wrote:
If the dub is listenable, as you put it, that is what you would rate as passable. So why then rate it A?

The rating is for the overall film when watched dubbed. However, there is a problem as there is an overall rating of A and also an overall rating for the sub of A-. Something has to have gone wrong somewhere there.
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