SPIRITED AWAY -- or This Week In Acid Casualty Anime Fairy Tales That Will Haunt Your Dreams For A Long Time But Make You Want To Watch Them Over And Over Again

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Now, I know that John Lasseter oversaw that and the other recent American dubs, and I know that it kept a large amount of the original intact, fair enough -- but there were still a number of changes that grated horribly, I mean REALLY horribly. I particularly couldn't believe the final two lines of dialogue in the dub in the final few seconds, which from what I recall had absolutely no equivalent in the original version -- it changed the ending from a wonderful, beautiful and ambiguous meditation on what really 'happened,' as the car drives away to what's essentially an unknown fate, to a miserable Afterschool Special of the worst variety. I felt like I had been smacked in the face.

Huh. I have yet to watch the dubbed version, I am surprised to hear it turned out to be this bad. I guess it could be due to Disney's influence, though.

Leon the Fratboy (Ex Leon), Wednesday, 29 December 2004 14:48 (nineteen years ago) link

Unless I'm *very* wrong -- I really should just throw on the DVD and confirm it, maybe I will! -- the car drives off into the woods with no further word from anyone in it. No groan-worthy little bit about how school won't seem so scary anymore.

xpost -- Actually I'm lying and Dan is quite correct. Also, the Overfiend appears and...well, anyway.

Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 29 December 2004 14:48 (nineteen years ago) link

Whoa, that's weird, Leon, I thought you HAD seen the dubbed version! Way upthread:

The dub for this turned out to be surprisingly good, probably because John Lasseter was in charge of it.

-- Nicole (nicolew1...), May 12th, 2003.

I should say that it wasn't consistently and constantly horrifying or anything, in fact technically it's a superb piece of work in terms of matching words with characters' mouth movements, and most of the dialogue does match the subtitles while occasional changes for those technical reasons often are fine enough. But again, it's just those couple of moments that bug me -- and I think you're right, I could easily see some Disney hack saying "Just make sure it's a happy ending." Dorks.

Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 29 December 2004 14:52 (nineteen years ago) link

It ends with Chihiro saying: "Mommy, promise me you and daddy will become vegetarians."

nickalicious (nickalicious), Wednesday, 29 December 2004 14:56 (nineteen years ago) link

Hahaha.

"Mom, I'm not going to eat bacon sandwiches anymore."

Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 29 December 2004 15:00 (nineteen years ago) link

"Daddy, how come humans smell?"

Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 29 December 2004 15:01 (nineteen years ago) link

Whoa, that's weird, Leon, I thought you HAD seen the dubbed version!

Maybe I did, but I don't even remember even watching it now! My memory seems to be getting worse each day. :(

Leon the Fratboy (Ex Leon), Wednesday, 29 December 2004 15:28 (nineteen years ago) link

Oh I don't know, it's not as if "It's fun to move to a new place" is THAT offensive. I think it ties it up quite nicely. I guess it's the version you're used to though.

dog latin (dog latin), Wednesday, 29 December 2004 16:14 (nineteen years ago) link

But there's such a lovely Rip Van Winkle air of mystery about the return to the car and the sense that it seems years have passed. Perhaps it is just me.

Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 29 December 2004 16:53 (nineteen years ago) link

ned aren't you being a bit theatrical? I saw the dubbed version a few times and enjoyed it just fine, admittedly I had no other version to compare it to, but it's still such a minor alteration. i also think i was just so elated and schoolgirl-giddy that I wouldn't have even noticed if the last line was "i'm too old for this shit!!"

CROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW (Adrian Langston), Wednesday, 29 December 2004 16:56 (nineteen years ago) link

ned aren't you being a bit theatrical?

Isn't this like asking, "Do you like the Cure or something?"

Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 29 December 2004 16:57 (nineteen years ago) link

two weeks pass...
this week's new yorker has an big long article/interview (!) on Miyazaki, not available online though. It's the January 17 issue, black-and-white cover.

1. Nausicaä is being released on video/DVD in America with voices of Uma Thurman and Patrick Stewart. This will be a Miyazaki-approved edit with the option to watch the japanese version with subtitles, like Spirited Away. It will be released Feb 22 along with Porco Rosso and The Cat Returns.

2. The next Miyazaki film is an adaptation of "Howl's Moving Castle." Possible US release date of June 5.

teeny (teeny), Sunday, 16 January 2005 01:25 (nineteen years ago) link

"howl" is probably still in theaters in japan, anyone seen it or a bootleg?

Here is an interview with the author of the new yorker article:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/content/?050117on_onlineonly01

It was a really really good article, it made me want to have kids so I could take them to Miyazaki movies.

teeny (teeny), Sunday, 16 January 2005 01:27 (nineteen years ago) link

looking forward to the Porco Rosso release, but I wish they'd gotten Jean Reno to reprise his role as Marco from the excellent french dub. nausicaa is pretty marginal by miyazaki standards (ie. still very good), it was one of his early features and mostly suffers from attempting to streamline the massive, brilliant manga on which it was based.

the manga is really, really worth your time as well. serialized monthly for 12 years straight, he wrote and illustrated it himself (a rarity in the manga industry) and didn't actually complete it until 10 years after the movie was finished. some of the most beautiful and utterly berserk comics ever produced.

ade (Adrian Langston), Sunday, 16 January 2005 01:55 (nineteen years ago) link

and I'm pretty sure Howl isn't on DVD in japan yet, so any bootlegs available right now are probably of questionable quality. the US release date is supposed to be June 05, i think i can wait. oh, and peep this!!!

From a 15 January Chinese news article:

----
Impressed by the success of the movie "Howl's Moving Castle", Studio Ghibli decided to make a "sequel": but this is no ordinary sequel. It will be a "Big Circus Show", with a story that begins with Sophie and Howl's thought of forming a circus together.

The "Big Circus Show" will be started in late April (27 April) and will last for about 100 days (till 21 August). Howl, Sophie, Witch of the Waste and all other important characters will jump out of the screen as actors and let the audience to experience a fantastic voyage of circus.

The nature of a "sequel" and a "circus" seem to be fundamentally different. What made Ghibli to come up with such an idea? Producer Suzuki explained, "Outwardly there seems to be no correlation between the 'sequel' and the original story. In the 'sequel', the characters will make you feel that they have feelings of isolation. But when we examine the outward appearances and the inner hearts of the characters again, you can find that it is related to the original story."

There will also be a gigantic "Howl's City" in the site of the show. All the characters in the story will be displayed as puppets. In the middle of the site, an old-style "tent house" will be built. There will be even more surprises waiting for the people. It will be a new record of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Tokyo that a movie-related show can occupy the museum for 100 days.

According to the the people in the movie industry, probably Director Miyazaki was influenced by the idea "Circus is the source of movies" which made Ghibli to come up with the decision of making a circus show. Producer Suzuki said, "we don't want to be limited to animation which is just a narrow form of creation. We hope that through the circus show, people can grasp the new charms of 'Howl's Moving Castle'."

ade (Adrian Langston), Sunday, 16 January 2005 02:03 (nineteen years ago) link

two years pass...

so ashamed to have only just watched this.

blueski, Thursday, 7 June 2007 23:02 (sixteen years ago) link

But you enjoyed it, right?

chap, Thursday, 7 June 2007 23:05 (sixteen years ago) link

I think my favorite bit is when the stink monster comes in, and it turns out to just be a polluted river.

kenan, Thursday, 7 June 2007 23:27 (sixteen years ago) link

it's all about the scene on the train and all the ghostly passengers getting on and off. i must watch this again soon.

the next grozart, Thursday, 7 June 2007 23:32 (sixteen years ago) link

Giant radish spirit!

Jaq, Thursday, 7 June 2007 23:33 (sixteen years ago) link

terrible film.

jed_, Thursday, 7 June 2007 23:41 (sixteen years ago) link

you mustn't say such silly things.

kenan, Thursday, 7 June 2007 23:42 (sixteen years ago) link

But you enjoyed it, right?

hell yeah, even tho it was the dubbed version. great fun - haters puzzle and sadden me. the 'domestication' of No-Face at Zeniba's amused me (amongst 99 other things) and i liked that Chihiro seemed to always have some new challenge to overcome every 5 minutes, and the general increase in scale of these challenges. now for My Neighbour Totoro i guess.

blueski, Friday, 8 June 2007 00:03 (sixteen years ago) link

I prefer the dubbed version, even of Mononoke, where the celebrity voices are a bit distracting. You get more information. The subtitles are so... terse.

kenan, Friday, 8 June 2007 00:13 (sixteen years ago) link

I tend to enjoy Miyazaki films a bit more if I don't parse for information so much, actually. Few of them make perfect linear sense.

chap, Friday, 8 June 2007 00:18 (sixteen years ago) link

Really NONE of them make perfect linear sense.

forksclovetofu, Friday, 8 June 2007 05:16 (sixteen years ago) link

re dubbed i enjoyed hearing Susan Egan's voice as Lynn. and i thinki recognised Principal SKinner's Mom as the voice of the twin witches.

blueski, Friday, 8 June 2007 09:46 (sixteen years ago) link

HEY if yr an adult and you expect good movies to make perfect linear sense then maybe you should watch more good movies amirite

strgn, Friday, 8 June 2007 10:27 (sixteen years ago) link

I never watch Myazaki films with subtitles. I don't like to have half of the animation covered with superimposed words, and some of the young Japanese girls voices are really shrill to my ears.
In any case, both the Japenese and the Western versions are 'dubbed' - they're cartoons not real people!

DavidM, Friday, 8 June 2007 11:52 (sixteen years ago) link

otm.

the next grozart, Friday, 8 June 2007 12:04 (sixteen years ago) link

wow i never realised

blueski, Friday, 8 June 2007 12:11 (sixteen years ago) link

hahaha! you dumb man!

the next grozart, Friday, 8 June 2007 16:32 (sixteen years ago) link

thirteen years pass...

Hm!

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hayao-miyazakis-spirited-away-to-get-stage-adaptation

(What's potentially all the more interesting -- though I'm finding it a little hard to believe -- is that it doesn't specifically say it's going to be a musical.)

Ned Raggett, Friday, 26 February 2021 21:36 (three years ago) link

this is the thread title huh

rob, Friday, 26 February 2021 21:37 (three years ago) link

one year passes...

It is indeed.

That stage production has launched

A stage production of Spirited Away has opened in Tokyo and it might be the greatest thing you’ve ever seen. ✨

Photos via puppet designer and builder @TobyOlie. pic.twitter.com/e1sRxqt0T7

— Letterboxd (@letterboxd) March 5, 2022

Ned Raggett, Saturday, 5 March 2022 18:25 (two years ago) link

two years pass...

Will be seeing this next Friday in London. Very excited!

willem, Monday, 6 May 2024 07:00 (three weeks ago) link

Yes! I'm going later in the month and I am psyched!

your mom goes to limgrave (dog latin), Monday, 6 May 2024 08:00 (three weeks ago) link

(Is that the play of My Neighbour Totoro, though?)

The start of this thread is the least grumpy I've ever seen jess!

Andrew Farrell, Monday, 6 May 2024 08:30 (three weeks ago) link


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