Can we talk about the Funimation Movie Soundtracks?

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Re: Can we talk about the Funimation Movie Soundtracks?

Post by MasenkoHA » Mon Apr 26, 2021 7:28 am

nato25 wrote: Mon Apr 26, 2021 1:06 am
MasenkoHA wrote: Sun Apr 25, 2021 8:46 am
nato25 wrote: Sat Apr 24, 2021 6:30 pm
Convince me the Japanese track on Trunks finding Future Gohan dead in the rain is better than the track that played on the dub version though.

Prelude by Slaughter is one of like two times I thought the American music was more efficiently than the Japanese score
What was the other?
In Gohan’s dinosaur friend episode when Gohan finds his friend been eaten by the T-rex the Japanese music plays “Apples for Gohan” which is such a disconnect from what’s going on in the scene given how goofy that music is. So I prefer the more appropriate sad tragedy Saban music that plays in the original dub.


I’d say the same for the Johnson score in the UUE but I just re-listened to it and already forgot what it sounds like.

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Re: Can we talk about the Funimation Movie Soundtracks?

Post by SuperSaiyaManZ94 » Mon Apr 26, 2021 2:00 pm

MasenkoHA wrote: Mon Apr 26, 2021 7:28 am
nato25 wrote: Mon Apr 26, 2021 1:06 am
MasenkoHA wrote: Sun Apr 25, 2021 8:46 am

Prelude by Slaughter is one of like two times I thought the American music was more efficiently than the Japanese score
What was the other?
In Gohan’s dinosaur friend episode when Gohan finds his friend been eaten by the T-rex the Japanese music plays “Apples for Gohan” which is such a disconnect from what’s going on in the scene given how goofy that music is. So I prefer the more appropriate sad tragedy Saban music that plays in the original dub.


I’d say the same for the Johnson score in the UUE but I just re-listened to it and already forgot what it sounds like.
Nathan Johnson's score in the UUE redub is very generic and bland, i thought the nu metal music in the movies was unfitting but this is even more so.
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Re: Can we talk about the Funimation Movie Soundtracks?

Post by Hellspawn28 » Tue Apr 27, 2021 2:45 pm

Robo4900 wrote: Tue May 26, 2020 3:23 pm Probably those bands were chosen because they were cheap talent Funi could easily contact from their Texas HQ.
They just picked whatever was popular on the radio at the time. The Digimon movie did the same thing a year before Funimation did their releases of DBZ Movie 4-5. I'm surprise Linkin Park, Creed, and Smash Mouth was not added to their soundtracks.
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Re: Can we talk about the Funimation Movie Soundtracks?

Post by MasenkoHA » Wed Apr 28, 2021 11:02 am

Hellspawn28 wrote: Tue Apr 27, 2021 2:45 pm

They just picked whatever was popular on the radio at the time. The Digimon movie did the same thing a year before Funimation did their releases of DBZ Movie 4-5. I'm surprise Linkin Park, Creed, and Smash Mouth was not added to their soundtracks.
If a DBZ movie had gotten a wide theatrical release in 2000 or 2001 you just know All Star by Smash Mouth would have played at some point.

I am surprised Linkin Park was never used given how ubiquitous In the End and Crawing and Numb seemed to be with the Toonami era fandom and AMVs

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Re: Can we talk about the Funimation Movie Soundtracks?

Post by WittyUsername » Thu Apr 29, 2021 7:51 pm

SuperSaiyaManZ94 wrote: Mon Apr 26, 2021 2:00 pm
MasenkoHA wrote: Mon Apr 26, 2021 7:28 am
nato25 wrote: Mon Apr 26, 2021 1:06 am

What was the other?
In Gohan’s dinosaur friend episode when Gohan finds his friend been eaten by the T-rex the Japanese music plays “Apples for Gohan” which is such a disconnect from what’s going on in the scene given how goofy that music is. So I prefer the more appropriate sad tragedy Saban music that plays in the original dub.


I’d say the same for the Johnson score in the UUE but I just re-listened to it and already forgot what it sounds like.
Nathan Johnson's score in the UUE redub is very generic and bland, i thought the nu metal music in the movies was unfitting but this is even more so.
I wouldn’t say Nathan Johnson’s music is more unfitting than the nu metal stuff. The problem with Nathan Johnson’s music isn’t so much that it’s unfitting, it’s that it just sort of drones in the background. Mind you, I personally think the Saban score has the same problem, but I know a lot of people would disagree with me.

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Re: Can we talk about the Funimation Movie Soundtracks?

Post by SuperSaiyaManZ94 » Thu Apr 29, 2021 8:37 pm

WittyUsername wrote: Thu Apr 29, 2021 7:51 pm
SuperSaiyaManZ94 wrote: Mon Apr 26, 2021 2:00 pm
MasenkoHA wrote: Mon Apr 26, 2021 7:28 am

In Gohan’s dinosaur friend episode when Gohan finds his friend been eaten by the T-rex the Japanese music plays “Apples for Gohan” which is such a disconnect from what’s going on in the scene given how goofy that music is. So I prefer the more appropriate sad tragedy Saban music that plays in the original dub.


I’d say the same for the Johnson score in the UUE but I just re-listened to it and already forgot what it sounds like.
Nathan Johnson's score in the UUE redub is very generic and bland, i thought the nu metal music in the movies was unfitting but this is even more so.
I wouldn’t say Nathan Johnson’s music is more unfitting than the nu metal stuff. The problem with Nathan Johnson’s music isn’t so much that it’s unfitting, it’s that it just sort of drones in the background. Mind you, I personally think the Saban score has the same problem, but I know a lot of people would disagree with me.
Ok, so maybe it's not so much unfitting per se but certainly is just there. In the small handful of times i've watched that version of the early Z episodes dubbed with the Johnson score i didn't feel much overall.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xgzMKVz70sc

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_XDgLg5eW ... x5&index=4

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=80gGRRew6 ... x5&index=7
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Re: Can we talk about the Funimation Movie Soundtracks?

Post by Nosferatu93 » Sun May 02, 2021 9:59 am

Never heard more unfitting garbage
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Re: Can we talk about the Funimation Movie Soundtracks?

Post by Raki » Thu Jun 17, 2021 11:10 am

Nosferatu93 wrote: Sun May 02, 2021 9:59 am Never heard more unfitting garbage
Was any of that stuff added to later movie releases?
The series doesn't start with the arrival of Raditz. Stop being lazy and watch Dragonball.

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Re: Can we talk about the Funimation Movie Soundtracks?

Post by Nosferatu93 » Sun Jun 27, 2021 7:55 pm

No idea. I watch it original music as intended.
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Re: Can we talk about the Funimation Movie Soundtracks?

Post by Planetnamek » Mon Aug 02, 2021 12:07 am

Yuli Ban wrote: Tue Apr 20, 2021 2:24 pm I unironically like some of the music, and it does give the movies an "AMV" feel.

But by that same token, these songs give the movies a strong AMV feel. If that's really what you want out of them, more power to you. But at least back up and think about it this way:

Imagine when they're localized in some other country, the localizers used AC/DC, ABBA, Cheap Trick, Fleetwood Mac, Judas Priest, and KISS for the the original Star Wars trilogy's official soundtrack. Even if you like all of those bands.... GOD, that sounds jarring. I would not be able to take any of that seriously except as some tryhard's attempt to make the movies seem cool.
When you're a kid and don't know better, that's one thing. When you're grown up and DO know better, it REALLY comes down to personal preference, and at the same time knowing what they were doing and why they were doing it doesn't exactly endear me to their efforts.

If you REALLY want David Draiman edge-rapping over False Super Saiyan Goku, then more power to you. But at least separate that shit from the official release!

The only movie that really did licensed music decently was Broly movie 1. The tracklist was extremely varied (they REALLY dug underground for some of those choices rather than scrape the "modern radio rock/post-grunge/nü metal" playlist like they did for movies 4 and 5), they usually fit the scene well, and even the groove/nü metal tracks didn't feel extraordinarily out of place. It wasn't necessary and a better studio wouldn't have done it, but it could've been a lot worse.


That's not to say licensed music can't work in these movies at all. The issue isn't that they used Pantera in a Dragon Ball Z movie. I mean, fuck, one of my favorite '70s kung fu films literally used KRAUTROCK for its soundtrack. No, the issue is that none of this was intended and they used a lot of this music much the same way they used Faulconer's score: denying any and all silence to just soak in the ambiance and the scene playing out so that we can hear Drowning Pool, out of that sense that American kids can't handle even ten seconds of no music playing.

And like I said, it resulted in the movies feeling like overlong AMVs. Nü metal and post-grunge are weird in that they, along with post-hardcore and J-rock, just FEEL like they were made for angsty anime music videos (to the point I used to call this collection of genres "AMV rock" before I learned "butt rock" exists). I'm not a musician so I can't explain why that is, but there's a reason you're more far likely to hear Breaking Point, Linkin Park, and Disturbed in an AMV than AC/DC, Nirvana, or Motley Crue. Not that there are no AMVs with the latter, but all those inner-demons/personal-struggles, wangst, "gotta rise above" lyrical subject matter and easily-editable mechanical anti-riffs of AMV butt rock fits loads of sappy shonen fight scenes far more than the party-rock of glam metal, bikes-bitches-booze-blues of classic rock, or Sabbathy disaffected ennui of grunge.

But at the same time, this is Dragon Ball Z we're talking about. It rarely if ever delved into that sort of thing in the first place; it's always been more of an outrageous kung fu fantasy. So even if it was built from the ground up to use AMV rock, it probably wouldn't have worked.

It's hard to do licensed soundtracks right in the first place, especially because in a lot of cases it can come off as "the director's favorite music badly jammed into unfitting scenes." And I think it goes triply so for kung fu and fantasy movies. Because using nü metal over superhuman martial arts wasn't unique to Dragon Ball.

A movie I distinctly remember really liking in my childhood but feeling vast amounts of secondhand embarrassment towards nowadays is 2001's The One. Sci-fi martial arts fantasy movie, led by Jet Li, with a soundtrack INFESTED by nü metal (no pun intended, especially considering two appearances by Papa Roach). A cowardly movie that was basically an overlong nü metal music video set to decent martial artistry (because it's fuckin' Jet Li). It's not like the music was added in years later in an attempt to make it seem cool. It's how it came prepackaged, in a movie all but designed around that sort of aesthetic and attitude, and it still felt out of place and tryhard.

Seriously, I'm not being a curmudgeon who hates replacement soundtracks or contemporary music choices in martial arts or anime movies, especially if the original score is unavailable, was badly composed itself, or if a new song just "fits" better with actual justification. It just happens that the music they replaced it with for DBZ was part of one of the shittiest trends in rock music. The literal only reason any of it was used beyond appealing to 19-2000s youths was "it sounds punchy, heavy, and actiony." And if that's your operating principle, there are so many better genres to use than fucking nü metal, even sticking to heavy music. I mean Christ, they used Dream Theatre in the Trunks special, didn't they? If you HAVE to do this, why not prog metal? Thrash metal? Sludge metal? SOMETHING other than motherfucking nü metal! Just about anything that used nü metal from that era suffered with age. Nü metal and second-generation post-grunge are the weakest part of the soundtracks of some of my favorite games and movies from the era. It's not even like hair metal or disco where it at least retained the charm of its era; it was always ugly and a guilty pleasure for everyone except douches, hence why I call that era "the Douche Age." And yet that's the music that people associate with DBZ movies, at least in America.

That whole era of music felt tryhardy, it's just how it was. In an attempt to update DBZ movies to be contemporary, Funimation severely dated them to everyone except DBZ fans who grew up with them... and even then...
I thought "The One" was a pretty damn awesome movie and not "cowardly" in the least and had a kick-ass soundtrack IMO, I thought it fit perfectly, though i'm admittedly a big fan of Nu-Metal so I love it whenever I play a game or watch a film that has a Nu Metal soundtrack. I VERY strongly disagree about it always being a "guilty pleasure for douches", that type of music was originally made to appeal to outcasts that didn't really fit into any of the social cliques, and I was one of those outcasts that got bullied a lot in school for no reason at all so I could relate to bands like Limp Bizkit(and they were not in fact happy to learn that a lot of asshole jocks were listening to their music and playing it while beating up others as they did not make their music for assholes) quite a bit as could many other kids who grew up being bullied just for being different.

I don't think films with that kind of soundtrack suffered at all, personally i'll gladly take Nu Metal over a lot of the shit that passes for popular music these days(I.E. Twenty-One Pilots, Imagine Dragons, Fallout Boy, blech!) I definitely don't think its fair to claim that ANYONE that likes Nu Metal is automatically a douche when that's blatantly not true.
MasenkoHA wrote: Mon Apr 26, 2021 7:28 am
nato25 wrote: Mon Apr 26, 2021 1:06 am
MasenkoHA wrote: Sun Apr 25, 2021 8:46 am

Prelude by Slaughter is one of like two times I thought the American music was more efficiently than the Japanese score
What was the other?
In Gohan’s dinosaur friend episode when Gohan finds his friend been eaten by the T-rex the Japanese music plays “Apples for Gohan” which is such a disconnect from what’s going on in the scene given how goofy that music is. So I prefer the more appropriate sad tragedy Saban music that plays in the original dub.


I’d say the same for the Johnson score in the UUE but I just re-listened to it and already forgot what it sounds like.
Sailor Moon had a similar scene in the final episode of the first season where originally in the final battle against Queen Beryl they played the theme song which sounded horrendously out of place, whereas in the DiC dub they used an original song called "Carry On" which was so much better and more fitting as the song was written specifically to fit with the animation.
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Re: Can we talk about the Funimation Movie Soundtracks?

Post by GhostEmperorX » Sun Aug 15, 2021 10:29 am

Imagine, for one second, that they did this with Ghost in the Shell (which, BTW, had barely any tracks used for most of it).
Maybe it’s a different audience, but people certainly wouldn’t take it lightly.

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Re: Can we talk about the Funimation Movie Soundtracks?

Post by Kakacarrottop » Thu Sep 16, 2021 8:32 pm

P-Dot5XG wrote: Tue Mar 03, 2020 1:45 pm I mean not in any way of the background music, that was done beautifully.

I'm talking about the featured bands that where thrown in like Disturbed, Pantera, Nonpoint, Deftones, etc.

But, my main concern in this thread is Movie 8: Broly the Legendary Super Saiyan, and Movie 10: Broly, Second Coming.

Out of every DBZ film, those two have to have the most obscure bands I've ever heard of.

Bands like Tendril, Haji's Kitchen, Doosu, Slow Roosevelt, besides Pantera almost non of those bands have seen any stardom besides being local in Texas.

Tendril has 1 album.

Slow Roosevelt has 3 albums.

Haji has 2 albums. (3 if you count the Vince Mullens Demos for the Broly movie) (He was also working on Gravity Pool for the movie as well they only made 1 demo album)

The Pointy Shoe Factory has 1 EP (course they're still around they go by the name Pinkish Black now)

Doosu has 4 albums.


And, I.O.N (the band from Movie 10) has only 13 songs.

Why am I bringing this up, it's because I listened to all of this bands, and I just have to ask with the popularity of DBZ during that time, why didn't these bands ever receive more recognition then they what they originally got?

I'd like to discuss this, if You don't then that's perfectly fine.
I love metal and I've heard about Haji's Kitchen in a non-DBZ context. Someone who specifically searches for bands with a early 2000s sound might come across them by chance. It would have been extremely difficult for non-major label bands to get any exposure outside of their local scenes 20 years ago. But Youtube, Spotify, Google and Wikipedia make it easier for people nowadays.
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Re: Can we talk about the Funimation Movie Soundtracks?

Post by WittyUsername » Fri Sep 17, 2021 1:12 pm

The more I think about it, the nu metal soundtrack for the DBZ movies was almost like a spiritual predecessor to the approach that WB took with the 2016 Suicide Squad movie. The main difference is that FUNimation was using music from a lot of up and coming bands, while the soundtrack for Suicide Squad was a weird mishmash of pop songs from different eras.

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Re: Can we talk about the Funimation Movie Soundtracks?

Post by NitroEX » Fri Sep 17, 2021 2:00 pm

Hellspawn28 wrote: Tue Apr 27, 2021 2:45 pm
Robo4900 wrote: Tue May 26, 2020 3:23 pm Probably those bands were chosen because they were cheap talent Funi could easily contact from their Texas HQ.
They just picked whatever was popular on the radio at the time. The Digimon movie did the same thing a year before Funimation did their releases of DBZ Movie 4-5. I'm surprise Linkin Park, Creed, and Smash Mouth was not added to their soundtracks.
Funimation weren't really the ones who got the ball rolling with licensed music for the movies. As I understand it, that was basically all Dale Kelly and his connections with music labels from his time working in radio.

According to Dale, he was supposed to originally score all the movies and sell accompanying CDs which would include his score plus the licensed songs, meaning he would get a cut. Funimation loved the idea but they basically got into a dispute over not knowing if they had the rights to replace Toei's music for the movies, there was also apparently the issue of owing royalties for the bands which Funimation was refusing to pay. By the sounds of it, Funi basically screwed him over financially leading to him taking a hit over their mistake. Dale eventually was let go over the legal issues and the licensed songs were phased out of the movies soon after as the idea to make money on soundtrack CDs was a no go. By that point, they hired Menza and other composers to finish the rest of the movies.

The difference between what Funimation did with DBZ movies versus what 4Kids, Warner Bros and Saban were doing with Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh and Digimon movies was night and day. Funi didn't have much of a plan for the licensed music and seemed to handle their partnership with Dale very poorly. I doubt they would have used license music in the first place if it wasn't for Dale Kelly's influence.

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Re: Can we talk about the Funimation Movie Soundtracks?

Post by MasenkoHA » Sat Sep 25, 2021 9:50 am

Dale Kelly and Andy Baylor’s music was some ear bleeding crap so I can’t say I’m sad it didn’t work out. At least the Johnson and Menza music for the rest of the movies just kind of…sits there. I think even slightly prefer the Cakemix Studios music over Kelly and Baylor’s work.


Interesting that FUNimation wasn’t sure if they could even replace the music for the movies. I know for a while 4Kids and The Pokemon Company USA release of the movies was the only time the Japanese music was 100 percent kept, as opposed to the series where it got to the point the only music being kept was like Team Rocket’s theme and the title card music. It would make sense if for a while those companies didn’t have the legal option to do replacement scores for the films.

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Re: Can we talk about the Funimation Movie Soundtracks?

Post by Super Saiyan Swagger » Mon Sep 27, 2021 10:22 am

Movie 5's US soundtrack introduced me to Deftones and I am forever grateful for that. They've become my favourite band.

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Re: Can we talk about the Funimation Movie Soundtracks?

Post by Saiya6Cit » Mon Sep 27, 2021 12:08 pm

In Mexican dub we kept the original japanese battle background music.
Example goku vs cooler https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_ZaWNQfdzg&t=185s

It was until recently I found out what they had bads like disturbed for such scenes (Until last year (pendemics 2020) I watched english american dubs, it all started with TFS)


It still produces mixed feelings.

I mean, I lived trough those years, with korn, limp bizkit and creed, they were cool on MTV when I was in middle school, so they were pop stars of that music genre (alternative rap industrial metal hard punk-rock) I think it was OK that they did that. I remember there was britney spears and BSB mostly for the girls and such mentioned "hardcore" bands for the boys, so they did it to be appealing to such market.

In japan the openings and endings are played by popular J-pop and J-rock bands so it was somehow logical USA did the same in order to try to involve the youth with the animation. On the other side I feel bad for the people who have not watched dragon ball with the original OST. So that's why I said mixed feelings.

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Re: Can we talk about the Funimation Movie Soundtracks?

Post by KingVegetto » Fri Oct 08, 2021 3:29 pm

WittyUsername wrote: Fri Sep 17, 2021 1:12 pm The more I think about it, the nu metal soundtrack for the DBZ movies was almost like a spiritual predecessor to the approach that WB took with the 2016 Suicide Squad movie. The main difference is that FUNimation was using music from a lot of up and coming bands, while the soundtrack for Suicide Squad was a weird mishmash of pop songs from different eras.
That was a studio enforced decision though, David Ayer said he was not happy about the classic rock soundtrack for that film, saying his original cut of the film(which I hope sees the light of day eventually) had no licensed music whatsoever. DBZ movies by contrast felt like they at least put some thought into their selection of licensed music.

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Re: Can we talk about the Funimation Movie Soundtracks?

Post by MasenkoHA » Tue Oct 12, 2021 8:37 pm

KingVegetto wrote: Fri Oct 08, 2021 3:29 pm . DBZ movies by contrast felt like they at least put some thought into their selection of licensed music.
They did? It all feels pretty random and carelessly applied.

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Re: Can we talk about the Funimation Movie Soundtracks?

Post by GhostEmperorX » Thu Oct 14, 2021 12:20 pm

Saiya6Cit wrote: Mon Sep 27, 2021 12:08 pm In japan the openings and endings are played by popular J-pop and J-rock bands so it was somehow logical USA did the same in order to try to involve the youth with the animation. On the other side I feel bad for the people who have not watched dragon ball with the original OST. So that's why I said mixed feelings.
I’d have to say that it’s a bit more complicated than that, seeing as for a long time in Japan, OP’s and ED’s were performed by what are effectively in-house talents (some of which are veterans on par with or even surpassing Kageyama, like Isao Sasaki or Ichirō Mizuki), and even voice actors/actresses, and also composed by the people doing the soundtracks (70’s Kikuchi made lots of them, as did Michiaki Watanabe, for example). And it typically had something to do with the show.
This decreased in the 21st century though, largely becoming what you mentioned, and it was for reasons like this that JAM Project was founded.
Toei for their part still uses largely in-house anison talent wherever they can.

For what the US was retroactively applying the process to, they were done by in-house talent. Meanwhile if you notice, for US animation intros, it’s usually never the same person or people doing an intro for more than one different series (it’s almost always a one-off thing).

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