At 2/28/10 08:20 PM, Mendou wrote:
Also, Miyazaki and Ghibli does not allow his/their movies to be drastically censored, and whatever edits they put in, seem hardly noticeable.
Not after Nausicaa.
They only prohibit visual edits, not other edits.
If you look closely at the scripts for Porco Rosso and Spirited Away, for example, you'll notice that there were some significant differences regarding tone and plot direction (some of which was for political reasons). Plus they actually redid the music for Castle in the Sky (they recommissioned Joe Hisaishi and everything).
At 2/28/10 09:59 PM, MattTheParanoidKat wrote:
This, and once again Hibiscus you forget something called MARKETING! Disney is a business first and foremost, so yeah they're going to be evil in some of their practices. Disney is a business and their main market is children. This is why we have a rating system. Disney owns many companies so they can cater to all demographics of people. My god, they own Miramax and Touchstone pictures for the explicit reason of not just doing kiddy shit all the time. Hell, if you even look at some of the recent Pixar films there is a very dark atmosphere about them and are really more for adults than kids.
UPDATE: Miramax closed its doors a few weeks ago.
I hated them anyway, considering what they did to several imported live-action movies.
As for the theme song, well you really can't release a song or any thing foriegn to American audiences without dubbing it. They didn't cut out the theme song they just translated it into english and got Noah Cyrus to sing it. I watched Ponyo both subbed and dubbed and the Theme song was placed at the end in both versions. There are variations in the lyrics, but for song being translated you can't use a hard translation or it makes no fucking sense. Other than that the music is identical. So this is just stupid.
It's still disrespectful. Nozomi Ohashi set a record with the original, and for a bunch of bureaucrats to decide that her recording was "inappropriate" or "not good enough" for international audiences is beyond reprehensible. You notice how anime like Naruto and Bleach have been able to maintain thier original theme songs (regardless of all the other edits they've suffered)? Obviously Viz knew this to be true. Think about it: if you had composed/performed a song for a movie that was shown in its original form where you live and international licensors decided to scrap it because they thought it wasn't good enough for their target audiences, how would you take it? You'd be offended, right?
Oh and let me backtrack a bit, the localization doesn't exist in Ponyo as all the characters have the same names they do in the Japanese version all that's changed is the language and the there are REALLY no edits done to Ponyo in both the Japanese and American versions. Aside from maybe polishing it up.
I don't trust that. There was a particularly controversial scene in the movie and from what I've been able to conjecture, Disney modified the dialogue to take the focus off.
The nature of the Ponyo's English adaptation was a bit of a Jonas/Cyrus vehicle. I mean I hate both the Jonas Brothers and Miley Cyrus, but Disney is going with what's popular for them and are using the under siblings of both Jonas and Cyrus to increase marketability. MARKETING!!!
Respect for the integrity of the original work trumps marketability. The first Pokémon movie, for example, had about 25 to 30 minutes of footage cut for "marketability" reasons, and it was a multibillion-dollar success because in those days people did not readily have access to truthful information like we do nowadays. Now more than a decade later, more and more prospective fans are turning to independent watchdogs to make sure they're not putting money toward the butchery that once plagued the anime industry. I suggest you do the same. It's obvious Disney has little to no respect for the integrity of Miyazaki's works, so I no longer patronize them.
Also, because Disney can afford really high profile actors they could you the marketability and talent of the actors to make for a very exciting English adaptation. I mean, Liam Neeson, Tina Fey and Matt Damon what's not to like about THAT? Indeed, it was awesome.
I'm not one of those hiveminds who mindlessly watch something just because a particular actor was in it. I do my homework first and figure out where my money and attention are going to go: for example, I won't watch any of Jennifer Lopez's movies because of her campaign to forcibly inoculate people against pertussis. (It sounds like a good cause on the surface, but if you dig deeper, it's not.)
Plus you've explained that you do not like dubs.. or rather not trust them. We've argued about this before, but frankly I don't wanna repeat my long-winded arguments over the validity of dubbed anime. I could make further ad hominem about this, biut fuck it, it's not worth it.
I suggest you do some research before you dive face-first into whatever the licensing/dubbing companies throw at you. It makes a world of difference; trust me.
