Amiable-Akuma wrote:MajinVejitaXV...wow, that was one hell of a reply you did. Thanks.
And I agree with/appreciate everything you said.
After reading some of your replies - it seems like you and I both are a bunch of home theater enthusiast wackos. That's good. Yeah, I too panicked like a true elitist nut when I heard the Toei discs would remain letterboxed. I'm such a whore for complete versions that often I'm triple-dipping and going to dvdcompare.net to make sure I have the best of one particular DVD even if I have to order it from some uncharted region of the planet.
Yeah, I find myself waiting these days if I hear anything about a special edition down the line with a 'more complete' version. Damn studios...at least Peter Jackson and New Line were upfront about it...
You bring up some good points.
Audio! I forgot about that. That's a big advantage of the Toei movies. I love how great the sound on the Dragonboxes is - and maybe I'm crazy, but to my ear it's just a really huge improvement over what Funi has. Funi JPN audio tracks are so bad that if you listen with headphones they become unwatchable due to the audible and very loud "hiss" in the background. I play the Toei discs using the "All Channel" setting on my receiver/7.1 speakers and it's the coolest thing ever.
I live in an apartment, so I only have a 'Home Theatre in a Box' Sony 6.1 system. You've made me feel inadequate ;p
Yeah, the audio definitely is better on these releases. I've gotta toss a disc in my computer and check the stats to see what the story is, but everything I've played sounds amazing on my system.
What you said about quality checking also shocked me as that was something I did not know. Wow, what a case for me to be timing my own subs (again, it's something that I would do no matter what anyway)! I'm sure it's not always that bad but now that I'm doing it myself with the Toei discs I know I'll get what I want.
The QC thing primarily comes from two discs I bought:
Trunks: Prelude to Terror and Movie 9. In the former, one line of dialogue had the subtitles formated incorrectly, and the first line of dialogue was on the bottom and then text-wrapped to the top of the screen. It kinda put me off on FUNi (moreso because they offered no exchange and did a stealth re-release, basically asking us to pay again). Then, I bought Movie 9 years later and not even 5 minutes in, Goku says to Kaio, "So, they still think Cell defeated Cell?"
These may be isolated instances and I just have shitty luck, but it's one factor among many others that makes Region 1 DragonBall something for me to avoid. On the other hand, I love FUNi's Fruits Basket DVD's (and I hope they haven't messed with them in terms of color balance and such).
Finally, man, it's been a while since I've heard the Ocean Group you're so fond of. I sold or lost my original three DBZ movie DVDs long ago. I'll have to check them out again just to remember what they sound like. Naturally, I hate the current cast...but is the Ocean Group really that good or do you just like their voices/tracks for nostalgia reasons?
Oh, it's definitely nostalgia. The Ocean Group dub (the first one, mind you, not the 2nd UK dub) was my intro to DBZ, and I loved hearing Scott McNeil's Piccolo, Brian Drummond's screams ("I'LL GET YOU FOR THIS! YOU WON'T ESCAPE,
MY WRATH!"), and even Ian Corlett's Goku (I know, sacrilege). And need I even mention their Captain Ginyu and his awesomeness? I'd buy it just to relive those Saturday mornings when I woke up at 7am to watch DBZ.
The Pioneer movies are the best example of their talent though, and a sad glimpse at what *could* have been for English DBZ. A close script (add back in the attack names, take out the occasional added in SFX and you've got a solid dub), original BGM and solid acting.
-Corey