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IS DISNEY DOING A GOOD JOB WITH STUDIO GHIBLI'S WORKS ? POLL

posted 19 years ago by frippertronic81
16 replies | jump to latest

This poll would just like to check if Studio Ghibli's fans are happy or not with the job Buena Vista is making with the imported versions of Studio Ghibli's works ...
My personal opinion is that all we had is : terrible distribution , non-existent promotion , ridicolous dvd versions , amateurish dubbing , bad translations , deliberately changed dialogues . I sincerely hope that Miyazaki breaks this deal which is mutilating his artworks and ruining his career outside Japan .
You can just answer this post with "I agree" or "I don't agree" , obviously you can add your own comments too .
But please , give us your opinion .

[–] the_wainman 18 years ago

I agree. There's no reason Sprited Away shouldn't be on a pedestool of greatness here in the US. Personally tho in my own selfish way I'm glad these great movies aren't popular Disney moneymakers though because then the charm would be gone. As long as there are DVDs of all the works with relatively unaltered translations, im not too pissed off. Still, changing the original is a no-no and disney should be dumped.

[–] chunkreloaded 18 years ago

Disney has done great in terms of making the product more palatable for an american audience (example being the great english voiceovers), but they have failed in promoting the films. The average Miyazaki film is better than any given disney animated flick, yet makes little in box office and dvd revenue. Disney really needs to work on this, as Ghibli flicks could be intensly profitable for them.

[–] yami_kt 18 years ago

I beleive that Disney has done a wonderful job in not changing or editing the films than many could ever do (example: the original dub of Nausicaa *shudder*) I like the fact that they have used some really well-known actors and actresses as voices, this draws some people who wouldnt normally watch them in. Personally i think the dubbing has done the films justice, but i TOTALLY agree that they have been HORRIBLY under-shown. Even if they dont do a huge advertising campaign, it would have been nice to see the commercial for the release of at LEAST the dvds more than the two times i did (not counting the d-loads from the web) Limited release Howl's moving Castle? I mean...come on...I dont want them to become over-played, but a little spotlight would be nice. TCM's one-month spot was a nice start...

[–] HDcreepy 17 years ago

May be you instead should hate Disney for not doing a good job promoting this. Who cares if they become filthy rich because of Miyasaki's stuff? It is good art and it is okay for good stuff to be popular. This would improve people's taste too.

[–] Kehaar317 18 years ago

I disagree. While some of the dubbing has been bad (James Van Der Beek as Pazu... *shudder*), a lot of the translating has been pretty good. Most of the dubbing is above par. I do agree that they should some better advertising would be a very good thing.

MOVIE SIGN!!

[–] chunkreloaded 18 years ago

rofl....when I heard James Van der Beek....I nearly cried

[–] xbrianx 18 years ago

have you read what all neil gaiman went through writing the english version of mononoke?

he had to rewrite everything so that it matched the mouths of the characters and had to have the dialogue approved by ghibli. anything they were dissatisfied with was rewritten, again, having it match up to the movement of the characters mouths.

i am not complaining at all, though. i think they are right to make sure that everything lives up to their standards.

so i am pretty much satisfied with the translating and dubbing job that's been done. like others said, i don't think disney really pushes these films. there is no reason that spirited away didn't make the same kind of money as finding nemo or any other pixar hit.

[–] Advech 18 years ago

I agree. I don't really care about dubbing because I never watch it but I know they have digitally restored some Ghibli's like GOTF which is good.

[–] Shadow1517 18 years ago

i agree that the promotion is not good
however
although the only choice to see these films in theatres is dubbed, i dislike that

as far as i know, the films are unedited
so when they are released on dvd, you just put the japanese audio on and english subtitles

the subtitles as far as i know are pretty well translated and also unedited
so i think that they do a decent job then
and surprisingly, although i dont usually watch the dubs, the dubs are actually not bad, crudup did well i think as *beep* although i prefer the undubbed version

anyway, if anyone has more information about editing done to the subtitled dialogue or to the actual film content, then ill be angry at disney, but if not, i think they do a decent job just making it possible to see thing slike nausicaa finally and to be able to easily get the miyazaki films on dvd

[–] Suka-chan 17 years ago

Actually, I'm fairly confident that there were prints being distibuted to some theaters for at least Howl's and possibly also Spirited Away that had Japanese dialogue w/subtitles. It was just the case that more theaters received English dubbed copies. Art-house theaters were more likely to receive the subtitled versions I'm sure.

Edit:
Whoops. For the record, I think they're doing a fine job with the US versions. I haven't seen Pom Poko or the Yamadas yet though.

[–] paperbullet 18 years ago

Spirited Away: Good
Princess Mononoke: Good, possibly better than original
Castle in the Sky: Good
Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind: Good, but could have done better.
My Neighbor Totoro: Good

I haven't seen any others by Disney, but I think they should have done Grave of the Fireflies.

edit #1: Now I have seen 4 other movies dubbed by Disney.

Kiki's Delivery Service: Basically the same as the original.

Porco Rosso: Much better, no swearing.

Howl's Moving Castle: Good.

Whisper of the Heart: Good, as far as I know. I only saw the Japanese version and a small section of the English version. The voices in the small section were great.

[–] ghaleno880 17 years ago

I have never been disappointed by a Disney dub of a Ghibli movie, even when they change the words. That said, I always recommend buying the DVD, so that you can watch both and appreciate each one. The voice acting is by no means amateurish - they each have their stronger voice actors (eg. Baron in The Cat Returns is better in English, in my opinion, as is Muska in Laputa). I thought they did a very good job of promoting Howl's Moving Castle and Spirited Away (I still remember the ads for that one), but not so much with the earlier films. And I was really disappointed that they didn't cover Grave of the Fireflies, since it's absolutely a deserving film, and it took me forever to find it.

[–] paperbullet 17 years ago

They really need to get around to "Only Yesterday" already. But they're dubbing "Tales from Earthsea" and the new one, "Ponyo on a Cliff", and they're making a live-action "Kiki's Delivery Service", so maybe they'll finally dub "Only Yesterday" while they do all that. And someone needs to dub "Ocean Waves" soon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpXwPdJIOJY
Best thing ever.

[–] JTurner82 16 years ago

<<I have never been disappointed by a Disney dub of a Ghibli movie, even when they change the words. That said, I always recommend buying the DVD, so that you can watch both and appreciate each one. The voice acting is by no means amateurish - they each have their stronger voice actors (eg. Baron in The Cat Returns is better in English, in my opinion, as is Muska in Laputa). I thought they did a very good job of promoting Howl's Moving Castle and Spirited Away (I still remember the ads for that one), but not so much with the earlier films.>>

I'm pretty much in the same boat as Paperbullet and ghaleno880; I have no problems with any of the Disney dubs--sure, some of the vocal choices are eccentric, but even a so-called "lesser" performance in their dubs is still better than 99% of the weakest dubs around. Furthermore, while some of the changes in the dialogue are a little questionable at times, they don't compromise the movies in any way.

I would, however, like to see a better promotion for all these movies--Ghibli's movies deserve to be seen, and Disney could do a little better in improving their marketing for them.

-Jon T.

[–] Independence76 16 years ago

I disagree.

[–] Kawada_Kira 8 years ago

I don't like the way Disney handles Ghibli movies. I never watch the dubs, so I can't comment on those. But their sub translations suck most of the time. It seems like Disney, at least in the movies i've seen, only puts the subtitles for the English dub version, which is way off from the Japanese audio. Ghibli should put its own subtitle translations on the discs and Disney should just stick to the dub. Although if I had my way they'd never be dubbed at all; it's sacrilegious to remove the voices of Ghibli's actors and replace them with foreign ones. If people can't read, that's their own problem.