Even with subtitles (or terrible dubs courtesy of the Fanning sisters or Kirsten Dunst), I don’t always know what’s going on in the animated films of Hayao Miyazaki. So, I don’t really mind that our first glimpse of his latest, Ponyo on the Cliff, features no English translation. All we need is that cute theme song and footage of Ponyo, the odd “goldfish princess” creature, floating inside of a jellyfish. And that’s basically all we get, for now.
A few weeks ago, it was announced that Indiana Jones producers Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy are working on the U.S. version of the Little Mermaid-inspired film, but few details have been released. If you don’t want to wait around for them to decide on a release date, though, and you understand Japanese, you can travel the distance and see the film when it opens in Japan on July 18.
Update: the above video is no longer working, but this copy might.
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I don’t really understand why people complain so much about foreign language dubs on animated fare. It’s not like you have the realism issues that arise with dubbed live action movies. And the differences in language between the two are often so slight, and the voice talent often adds to the dub (as Phil Hartman did in the same dub that you complain about Dunst working on) that I greatly prefer the dubs. I’d rather spend my time watching the animation in a movie rather than spend my time focusing on the bottom 1/4 of the screen.
I don’t always mind them, Mike, but Dunst’s voice is really unbearable in Kiki’s Delivery Service. I wasn’t that into Claire Danes on Mononoke, either.
Oh, I didn’t mind Dunst, but that might be because Kiki is my favorite of the Miyazaki movies thus far - and I only discovered it by happenstance while flipping by the Disney Channel one evening.
Though, my favorite has been Daveigh Chase from Spirited Away, whose work in that and Lilo & Stitch were both excellent. It’s a shame she doesn’t do more voice work.
I just think there’s a real discussion to be had about the merits of dubbed animation, as there are a number of people who claim that it isn’t authentic enough. Though, considering how little of the actual spoken text is written in subtitles, it’s not like that’s purely authentic either.
That is a valid point. It’s worth noting, too, that sometimes the dub on an animated film is completely authorized and even directed by the filmmakers, as in the case of the Persepolis dub.
Christopher, thanks for engaging in this conversation - this is fun.
It’s funny that you said that about Persepolis, as I thought some of the choices made in the Persepolis English dub were really bad. Sean Penn’s a great actor, and I’m sure he brought some name recognition to the selling of it, but I thought his job of voicing the dad was pretty bad. In many ways I think I kind of preferred it back when voices were cast for cartoons for their voices and not for their celebrity.
I haven’t seen the dubbed version, so I can’t say. I’m just saying that the filmmakers actually directed the dub themselves and even retained the lead, which I don’t know is common.