The single best example I've yet discovered for subs over dubs is Ghost in the Shell, an anime film from 1995 and one of the sources that The Matrix deliberately borrowed from a few years later.
The English dub job was absolutely horrendous. The voice actors basically read their lines in monotones, without any hint of emotion. By Wikipedia's account, the director was very frustrated over the result, since the Japanese voice acting took only two days to record and turned out quite well, while the English voice acting took three weeks and still ended up atrocious.
In a film with live actors, the idea of a dub job is even more terrifying. For reasons of self-protection, my brain refuses to imagine dubbed versions of Run Lola Run or Amélie.
I have never encountered dubbed versions of European films available in the US -- Asian movies, yes.
However, when I was in France, they had huge piles of American movies dubbed into French. Very, very poorly in most cases. I began to hate dubbing. Darth Vader should not be a high tenor.
Dubbing seems to discount the importance of the original actor's performance in the movie. Which seems dumb and rather insulting.
Or Gundam Wing, actually. The lead character's voice is in a complete emotionless monotone, which has led to misinterpretation of his motivations by American viewers for years.
i agree that most dubbing sucks, but i wish it were done better becasue i hate havign to read subtitles while watching a movie.
talk about undervaluing -- i tundervalues the actor's facial expressions, the director's vision, and the talent of everyone who contributed to the visual appeal of what is, primarily, a visual medium.
i would almost -- almost! -- prefer to watch it in the original language with no understanding of what's going on than put up with subtitles.
as for eilonwy's experience with Vader: i disagree. voice character is very cultural. it's entirely possible, from my POV, that in a different culture than mine, the correct level of strangely intimiating and nearly mechanical would be conveyed by a high pitch. In fact, I could hear it being acceptable in English, if the whole movie were in various British accents.
Dubbing for live films wouldn't be a problem for me, since I couldn't see the incongruities in how the mouth is moving and what is being said most of the time anyway. And then I could watch the movies, which would be nice.
Discussion (11)
I'm not sure on this one...hmmm
Although sometimes I like dubbed kung fu movies for the humor value.
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When watching a kung fu movie, I prefer dubbing over subtitles.Ooh, good call.
I used to.
There tends to be subtleties of language that I find English cannot capture/English dubbers are not willing to capture.
This holds true for anime and Japanese movies in particular.
The single best example I've yet discovered for subs over dubs is Ghost in the Shell, an anime film from 1995 and one of the sources that The Matrix deliberately borrowed from a few years later.
The English dub job was absolutely horrendous. The voice actors basically read their lines in monotones, without any hint of emotion. By Wikipedia's account, the director was very frustrated over the result, since the Japanese voice acting took only two days to record and turned out quite well, while the English voice acting took three weeks and still ended up atrocious.
In a film with live actors, the idea of a dub job is even more terrifying. For reasons of self-protection, my brain refuses to imagine dubbed versions of Run Lola Run or Amélie.
I have never encountered dubbed versions of European films available in the US -- Asian movies, yes.
However, when I was in France, they had huge piles of American movies dubbed into French. Very, very poorly in most cases. I began to hate dubbing. Darth Vader should not be a high tenor.
Dubbing seems to discount the importance of the original actor's performance in the movie. Which seems dumb and rather insulting.
Or Gundam Wing, actually. The lead character's voice is in a complete emotionless monotone, which has led to misinterpretation of his motivations by American viewers for years.
i agree that most dubbing sucks, but i wish it were done better becasue i hate havign to read subtitles while watching a movie.
talk about undervaluing -- i tundervalues the actor's facial expressions, the director's vision, and the talent of everyone who contributed to the visual appeal of what is, primarily, a visual medium.
i would almost -- almost! -- prefer to watch it in the original language with no understanding of what's going on than put up with subtitles.
as for eilonwy's experience with Vader: i disagree. voice character is very cultural. it's entirely possible, from my POV, that in a different culture than mine, the correct level of strangely intimiating and nearly mechanical would be conveyed by a high pitch. In fact, I could hear it being acceptable in English, if the whole movie were in various British accents.
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I think "tundervalues" should be a word.Although I agree with Rorek about the humour value of badly-dubbed Hong Kong classics: "Huh. You'll be dead soon!"
Dubbing for live films wouldn't be a problem for me, since I couldn't see the incongruities in how the mouth is moving and what is being said most of the time anyway. And then I could watch the movies, which would be nice.