Here's the reason:
A lot of hardcore fans detested the added in dialogue for Laputa as well as the newly commissioned reorchestrated soundtrack done by Joe Hisaishi. (The former is understandable, although to be honest, I didn't really mind all of it; I thought a lot of the added in dialogue was funny and gave a lot more character while others I thought were a bit much. The latter, however, is absolutely unjustified; while the original score of Laputa was, and still is, a classic, the newer version is arguably the superior of the two by far. It's more fitting and complimentary to the movie than the admittingly more sparse and electronic original version.) That's why Disney reissued it on BD with the dub modified as it is. The sound effects you hear on the BluRay are also the original Japanese sound effects as well. Again, Disney upgraded the sound effects for the dub in their initial guise. But purists were so ridiculously nasty and relentless that the reason why those revisions were made was simply because of that.
It should also be noted that on the US BluRay, the reorchestrated music from Joe Hisaishi is unfortunately gone, replaced with the original. Luckily, the Japanese, UK, and Australian BDs still contain it.
Personally, I don't mind the Disney version of Laputa. It's certainly more chatty than the original Japanese version but I never found it offensive or "wooden" or "unforgivably unlistenable" at all. On the contrary. Compared to the hideously lifeless, robotic 80's dub by Magnum/Tokuma, it's quite enjoyable, especially Dola and Muska -- those two are the real big hitters of the dub. The supporting cast is generally good too, and while the leads are probably a bit too mature, they still perform competently and are at the very least superior to their wooden and blah counterparts on the '80s English dub.
You can read more about my thoughts on it at my website:
http://animeenglishdubreviews.blogspot.com/2009/09/castle-in-sky-disney-and-streamline.html
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foebane72
9 years ago
Thanks for your thoughts, JTurner82!
I've just now seen Kiki's Delivery Service on Blu-ray, and it has similar changes: a lot of the dialogue is cut out and it seems they've used the original Japanese music for the English dub, which doesn't bother me as I liked it more anyway, for the most part.
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JTurner82
9 years ago
Again, that was done for similar reasons; lots of people HATED Phil Hartman's Jiji. And the extra lines he did. I personally feel that the only extra line I could've done without was the last one at the end where he says "Kiki, can you hear me?", but I'm not an advocate of taking out ANY of his other lines. They were hilarious. Particularly annoying was the scene when he describes the crows cawing to Kiki after she crashes into the crows' nest. In the original version of the Disney dub, Jiji says "They're calling you an egg stealer and you don't wanna know what else!" In the newer one they chop out the second part of that line, which IMO, dilutes the humor from the scene. Yeah, I know Jiji in the Disney dub was more Phil Hartman than Miyazaki, but so what? For me, it MADE the film. Now the part I can agree with is that the incidental background music added to the Disney dub was unnecessary. It's not BAD music, per say; some parts of Paul Chilhara's rearrangements I did enjoy, like the addition of percussion instruments to the bike scene gave it more of a "cool" up-tempo feel. That said, I think the scenes where Kiki walks across town after leaving the park and after her date with Tombo work better silenced.
I also have a personal fondness for the Sydney Forest songs. Perhaps this is because I saw the Disney dub first, but even though I DO enjoy the original Japanese songs, I do not prefer them to the Disney ones. I like them equally. That's a rarity coming from a Miyazaki fan considering that most I've seen only want to see it one way and one way only, dismissing any change of any kind as unacceptable no matter what the reasons were at the time. (The Forest songs, incidentally, were done because back in 1998 Disney couldn't get the rights to use them at the time.)
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