Is It Time For A Redub? Movies and Specials

[Dragon Ball Gus]

Hey guys! Welcome to the last chapter of "Is It Time For A Redub?". Now I know what you guys are wondering, "Hey Gus, why haven't you made a thread talking about a Dragon Ball Z redub?" Well it's because we kinda already have a redub of Dragon Ball Z. It's called Dragon Ball Z Kai. Although, if you guys want a bonus edition for this series talking about Z, let me know. Now that I got that out of the way, let's get into the last topic of this series. Which are going to be the movies (not counting Curse of the Blood Rubies, Battle of Gods and Resurrection F) and the specials. Is it time for Funimation to put out more accurate, better acted with the Japanese scores dubs of the DB movies (once again excluding Curse of the Blood Rubies), The DBZ movies (once again excluding BoG and RF), the DBZ specials (Bardock and Trunks), and the GT special with Goku Jr., or do you think best to leave the old dubs the way they are?

[WittyUsername]

As far as the movies are concerned, that’s a bit difficult to answer, given that the movies varied in terms of how accurate their dubs were. Movie 8 definitely doesn’t need to be redubbed, but the dubs for movies 3 and 4 left a fair amount to be desired.

As for the TV specials, the Bardock special is the one piece of Dragon Ball material that I think desperately needs to be redubbed. Funimation’s dub of that special was so drastically off point that it’s just uncanny. The Trunks special wasn’t exactly what most would consider to be a good dub either, but that one at least had the same plot as the Japanese version, and there was one part of the dub (when #17 and #18 explain to Trunks why they kill people) that was a near perfect translation of the original.

[ulisa]

Personally the movies are some of my favorite pieces of media. I’m one of those people who actually like some of the dubs, for various reasons, even if they aren’t accurate. Movie 3’s dub is horribly inaccurate and yet I love watching it.

Having said that though, I really wouldn’t mind a redub of them. It doesn’t make the old version disappear if that’s your preference. Much as I prefer Nadolny as young Gohan, I still like Clickenbeard’s take and I’d really like to see how some of these scenes are accurately translated. Movie 8 is probably the best of them in terms of accuracy but it’d still be nice to see them revisit it now that they’ve got experience under the belt.

The Trunks special I’m divided on as it’s one of the few times I actually preferred the replacement music, especially during Gohan’s death scene. I have a hard time enjoying it with the original score, as good as it is. Regarding the dub itself, it’s a mixed bag as some of it is horribly off (even when I was younger, I rolled my eyes at “Chew Attack!”) but some is almost a literal translation. I DO prefer Future Gohan having a different voice than regular adult Gohan though.

[TheBigBoy]

Just give me a re-release of the old Pioneer movie dubs.

[sintzu]

With Z getting a re-dub in the form of Kai, I think the most likely of the list to get re-dubbed is its movies and specials which I and many others would love but despite that, there'll never be enough support to justify the $$$ and effort that'd have to go into it. I'd also like DB's 3 movies to get re-dubbed but if the show itself isn't getting it then I doubt the movies will, especially with them not doing it despite already working on the first one.

[OmegaRockman]

I already put down my thoughts on the OG DB movies in the DB Redub thread:

f nothing else, they should at least redub the other two movies in the original DB movie trilogy - while they're notable in that they're among Funimation's first in-house dubs and deserve to be preserved for history's sake, the fact of the matter is that they're kind of low quality. This isn't even talking about acting or writing, though they certainly leave a lot to be desired - I'm talking about noticeable differences in mic quality depending on the character speaking. Frankly, they should not be the go-to English dubs of these films, and redubbing them would certainly be more cost effective than redoing the whole show.

As for the other movies and TV Specials, YES. YES. YES. REDUB THEM YESTERDAY, ESPECIALLY THE TV SPECIALS. For Z movies 1 through 3, a rerelease of the Pioneer versions should be good enough, though it would be nice if they could fix some of the pronunciations and the Movie 3 script for the in-house dubs. Movie 8 doesn't need much work, either, even if I'm not big on Nadolny's Kid Gohan. Movie 11 is pretty much the same - just fix the instances of the H-word and we're good to go. However, the other movies need it bad, especially Movie 12 - they ruined Gogeta's signature line in that one, and having Ayres/Mills as Freeza would be a treat. I'd also like to give Andrew Chandler another shot at the Cooler movies. He's pretty great in the role, so it's sad that the scripts and everyone else's performances brought it down.

If we're being honest, though, the only things that DESPERATELY need redubs are the TV Specials. Those dubs represent everything that was wrong with Funimation's approach at the time, and while I'm proud of both my and Mugen026's respective fandubs of the Bardock Special, I would love to see the official cast rectify their mistakes.

[Gligarman]

If they redub them will they stop needlessly overlaying the Japanese credits and title screens? I mean, they're not even displaying the real titles for the movies on those blu-rays.

[Robo4900]

On one hand, I'd say all of them should be redubbed. Even the "Good ones" still had layers of Funimation's usual "Adaptations" on top of them, making them highly inaccurate and unfaithful scripts, and in many of them, the acting wasn't that good.
But, I get the feeling that a lot of them would be handled pretty much the same now, just with slightly better acting. Thing is, a good portion of the movie and special dubs were very badly handled, and stand out pretty badly for various reasons. So, I think they should definitely redub these ones, and if they're doing that, they might aswell redub the rest too...

DB movie 1 had its dub script based on the BLT dub, with the dialogue severely cut down, and another layer of Funimation's adaptations put on top. The problem is, with the amount of dialogue they cut, the dub ends up not making a lot of sense, and ultimately, while the BLT dub script was actually pretty faithful, Funimation did a massive disservice to the film with their alterations to the script, and the thing should get another go.
DB movies 2 and 3 sound awful; the quality of the recording equipment simply sucked, and their sound mixing was no good. On top of this, the scripts weren't very accurate, and the cast is inconsistent with the rest of their dubs(Even the ones who stayed on for the series dub and such sound very different here; remember, they were dubbed in late 1998, before Funimation did Z "Season 3" in-house. They were essentially a test to see if they could do an in-house dub), and the acting is rather poor in a lot of places. So, these two should be redubbed.
DBZ movie 3, like with the first two Z movies, were based on an existing Ocean dub script, with Funimation's typical style of adaptations put on top to make it less accurate, only unlike Z movies 1 and 2, instead of using the highly-accurate and faithful Pioneer scripts, they used the Saban script, and naturally, made it even less accurate and faithful than it was as-is.
I don't even know where to start with the Bardock special. Thankfully, Herms has already gone into a lot of detail on this dub's script problems, and many others have discussed it too, so I don't really have to go into it.
I've already talked about why I consider the Funimation GT dub to be the worst Dragon Ball dub, and the GT TV special was dubbed along with that material too, in the same style, so that's in here too.

Those are the most grievous cases in need of redubbing, but honestly, I think they could all use a redub. Even the very last ones they did weren't that great. IIRC, the "Ultimate Uncut" dubs of Z movies 1-3 were the last ones done, being released in about 2005/2006, and that was pretty terrible; first two were based on the Pioneer scripts, but with tons of "Funi-isms" added on top, and the third I've already gone into.
My ideal scenario is that the Pioneer team could have done all 17 movies and the 3 TV specials, or that AB Groupe could have contracted Ocean to do them in that style instead of doing Big Green. But, in the words of Austin Powers, that train has sailed.

If they redub them will they stop needlessly overlaying the Japanese credits and title screens? I mean, they're not even displaying the real titles for the movies on those blu-rays.

On the old DVD singles, if you selected the Japanese viewing option, the original Japanese video would play unaltered, so you'd get the original Japanese titles with the subtitles showing what the real titles were, and the credits and such played back properly. For some unknown(And probably stupid) reason, they stopped doing this after Ultimate Uncut. One of many ways in which Funimation's home video releases went down the toilet starting from the brick releases.

Just give me a re-release of the old Pioneer movie dubs.

Agreed.
In fact, while the movie BDs are pretty meh overall(I prefer the movies in their open-matte 4:3 presentation, and I think the degraining was still a tad too strong, and the way they handled the Funi dub tracks sucked, and they used the crap-quality masters of the Japanese audio, despite the original audio existing), if they'd included the Pioneer dubs of Z movies 1-3 on those Blu-Rays, I'd have bought them in a heartbeat.
So... Funimation, please do this!

[Super Sonic]

On one hand, I'd say all of them should be redubbed. Even the "Good ones" still had layers of Funimation's usual "Adaptations" on top of them, making them highly inaccurate and unfaithful scripts, and in many of them, the acting wasn't that good.
But, I get the feeling that a lot of them would be handled pretty much the same now, just with slightly better acting. Thing is, a good portion of the movie and special dubs were very badly handled, and stand out pretty badly for various reasons. So, I think they should definitely redub these ones, and if they're doing that, they might aswell redub the rest too...

While it's true some of the acting isn't as good, sometimes it's just better to leave the old things as they were instead of redoing them to have better acting. It would be like if Disney were to redub "Mr. Duck Steps Out" with Tony Anselmo as Donald and Tress MacNeille as Daisy. While the latter would likely sound better than Mr. Nash's voice he was using her Daisy (for those not familiar, Donald's voice actor does Daisy's voice here in her first appearance and sounds like Donald), it doesn't really need to be done. Similar would be if Warner redid some of the early Bugs cartoons when his voice isn't quite realized with Mr. West or Mr. Bergman doing the normal Bugs voice. Yeah, I know guys will say, "Classic western cartoons are different from anime and don't need new changes," but I still see it as the same kind of thing.

[8000 Saiyan]

Considering that it takes less time to dub the movies than the episodes, I'd say yes.

I can't think of anyone in the Dallas talent pool who could do a better Lord Slug than Brice Armstrong if they were to do a redub of Movie 4.

And yeah, Andrew Chandler should be kept as Cooler.

For a redub of Movie 3, fire Chris Patton and get Sean Schemmel for Turles. Since Nozawa played Goku and Turles flawlessly, Schemmel could do the same now with the better scripts and direction.

In a ideal world, Mark Acheson would voice Bojack but he works for Ocean and not Funimation, so...

[Gligarman]

On the old DVD singles, if you selected the Japanese viewing option, the original Japanese video would play unaltered, so you'd get the original Japanese titles with the subtitles showing what the real titles were, and the credits and such played back properly. For some unknown(And probably stupid) reason, they stopped doing this after Ultimate Uncut. One of many ways in which Funimation's home video releases went down the toilet starting from the brick releases.

Couldn't agree more. My philosophy has always been to give the viewer the option to see the films as close to their original Japanese theatrical releases as possible. Removing the original titles of all of the movies and in some cases not even crediting the production staff (I"m looking at you Curse of the Blood Rubies) pretty much goes completely against this.

[Robo4900]

While it's true some of the acting isn't as good, sometimes it's just better to leave the old things as they were instead of redoing them to have better acting. It would be like if Disney were to redub "Mr. Duck Steps Out" with Tony Anselmo as Donald and Tress MacNeille as Daisy. While the latter would likely sound better than Mr. Nash's voice he was using her Daisy (for those not familiar, Donald's voice actor does Daisy's voice here in her first appearance and sounds like Donald), it doesn't really need to be done. Similar would be if Warner redid some of the early Bugs cartoons when his voice isn't quite realized with Mr. West or Mr. Bergman doing the normal Bugs voice. Yeah, I know guys will say, "Classic western cartoons are different from anime and don't need new changes," but I still see it as the same kind of thing.

I mean, for the ones that are fine as-is(If there are any; I've only seen Funi's dubs of Z movies 1-5 and 8, all of which were quite some time ago -- especially #8 -- so I don't know either way whether any of them are fine, but I'll go with what people are saying, and assume many of them are fine), I wouldn't suggest redubbing them for the acting difference if it wasn't for the fact I was suggesting doing a total redub of all the movies. Even the ones that were "The good ones" could still almost certainly use better-translated scripts with less unnecessary adaptations, and it's probably just best to redub them all if you're going to be redubbing half of them anyway. The dub tracks on the "Season" releases of Z attest to why this is a bad idea.

For a redub of Movie 3, fire Chris Patton and get Sean Schemmel for Turles. Since Nozawa played Goku and Turles flawlessly, Schemmel could do the same now with the better scripts and direction.

I don't think it needs to be Schemmel just because it was Nozawa in Japanese. Just get someone who will do a good job. Piccolo Daimao and Piccolo Junior were voiced by different actors in Japanese, but Sabat voiced both in the Funi dubs; the narrator and Kaio were the same actor in Japanese, but weren't in Funi's dubs; Freeza and Frost are the same actor in Japanese, but not in Funi's dub...
I think the thing is, while Schemmel is a good actor, and specifically a good voice actor(And, even more specifically, a good dub voice actor), no actor is suited to absolutely every role. Even the legendary Mel Blanc didn't voice all the Looney Tunes; Elmer Fudd was Arthur Q. Bryan, and Stan Freberg voiced Pete Puma, among many many others.
So, they should just cast whoever they think will do the best job in the role. He's not a clone or relative of Goku's, so it is pretty odd that he'd have the same voice anyway.

In a ideal world, Mark Acheson would voice Bojack but he works for Ocean and not Funimation, so...

Well, Brian Drummond was in Super... And Scott McNeil appeared in one or two somewhat recent Funimation dubs too IIRC... So, guests from Ocean aren't out of the question. In fact, the movies are the perfect place to do it. Since Bryce Armstrong is retired now, they could bring in Scott McNeil to play Slug, and while they're at it, do a bunch of other cool things like Lee Tockar as Coola, Peter Kelamis as Dr. Wheelo, etc...
Just doing it for the sake of doing it would be a bit dumb, admittedly, but I think bringing in some Ocean guests for the movies if they think a few of those guys could be awesome as certain villains could really set them apart, give them distinct voices that don't just try to mimick whoever they got to do a given voice before if they can't get that voice back, and be a neat bone to throw to the fans.

On the old DVD singles, if you selected the Japanese viewing option, the original Japanese video would play unaltered, so you'd get the original Japanese titles with the subtitles showing what the real titles were, and the credits and such played back properly. For some unknown(And probably stupid) reason, they stopped doing this after Ultimate Uncut. One of many ways in which Funimation's home video releases went down the toilet starting from the brick releases.

Couldn't agree more. My philosophy has always been to give the viewer the option to see the films as close to their original Japanese theatrical releases as possible. Removing the original titles of all of the movies and in some cases not even crediting the production staff (I"m looking at you Curse of the Blood Rubies) pretty much goes completely against this.

Abso-goddamn-lutely. And it's not like they don't have usable masters of this stuff; the FunimationNow versions of -- as far as I'm aware -- all the Dragon Ball media they have include the Japanese titles if you watch subbed, so I have no idea why they didn't do that for the BDs/DVDs aswell.

[8000 Saiyan]

I don't think it needs to be Schemmel just because it was Nozawa in Japanese. Just get someone who will do a good job. Piccolo Daimao and Piccolo Junior were voiced by different actors in Japanese, but Sabat voiced both in the Funi dubs; the narrator and Kaio were the same actor in Japanese, but weren't in Funi's dubs; Freeza and Frost are the same actor in Japanese, but not in Funi's dub...
I think the thing is, while Schemmel is a good actor, and specifically a good voice actor(And, even more specifically, a good dub voice actor), no actor is suited to absolutely every role. Even the legendary Mel Blanc didn't voice all the Looney Tunes; Elmer Fudd was Arthur Q. Bryan, and Stan Freberg voiced Pete Puma, among many many others.
So, they should just cast whoever they think will do the best job in the role. He's not a clone or relative of Goku's, so it is pretty odd that he'd have the same voice anyway.

You're right that Schemmel shouldn't voice Turles just because Nozawa played him, but it's just something that I'd love to see.

Well, Brian Drummond was in Super... And Scott McNeil appeared in one or two somewhat recent Funimation dubs too IIRC... So, guests from Ocean aren't out of the question. In fact, the movies are the perfect place to do it. Since Bryce Armstrong is retired now, they could bring in Scott McNeil to play Slug, and while they're at it, do a bunch of other cool things like Lee Tockar as Coola, Peter Kelamis as Dr. Wheelo, etc...
Just doing it for the sake of doing it would be a bit dumb, admittedly, but I think bringing in some Ocean guests for the movies if they think a few of those guys could be awesome as certain villains could really set them apart, give them distinct voices that don't just try to mimick whoever they got to do a given voice before if they can't get that voice back, and be a neat bone to throw to the fans.

Oh, yeah, right.

I don't see any reason to replace R. Bruce Elliot as Dr. Wheelo. He was no Ward Perry, but he was okay.

And I think there are much better choices at Ocean for Cooler and Lord Slug.

[gokaiblue]

Maybe.....not sure. Some of the movies dubs are better than others. I think the first three movies could definitely use a redub using the more accurate Ocean scripts, but not sure about the others. The specials could definitely use a redub

[WittyUsername]

Maybe.....not sure. Some of the movies dubs are better than others. I think the first three movies could definitely use a redub using the more accurate Ocean scripts, but not sure about the others. The specials could definitely use a redub

As far as the first three movies are concerned, the only one that’s particularly inaccurate is movie 3. Movies 1 and 2 actually did borrow a fair amount from the uncut Ocean dubs, but the movie 3 dub was primarily based on the edited TV version that Funimation did back when Ian James Corlett was still the voice of Goku.

[Robo4900]

I don't see any reason to replace R. Bruce Elliot as Dr. Wheelo. He was no Ward Perry, but he was okay.

And I think there are much better choices at Ocean for Cooler and Lord Slug.

Well, just because Elliot did a good job, doesn't mean there isn't someone better they could get. Hell, if they could get Ward Perry in to reprise his role, it'd be a neat casting gag, and a cool bone to throw the fans.
In general, it seems there's a massive fear in Funimation-dubbed DBZ of recasts... If there's someone who'd do a better job, then the role should be recast. Quite a few roles in Kai were recast -- not enough, in my opinon; I think they should have done what Ocean did, which was to re-audition everybody, and recast anyone deemed unfitting -- so I don't see why they couldn't recast a bunch of the movie-only characters for a redub, if someone better is out there, especially given how much better the castings are for the recast characters in Kai.

As far as the first three movies are concerned, the only one that’s particularly inaccurate is movie 3. Movies 1 and 2 actually did borrow a fair amount from the uncut Ocean dubs, but the movie 3 dub was primarily based on the edited TV version that Funimation did back when Ian James Corlett was still the voice of Goku.

While that is mostly true, Funimation did a number on the scripts for 1 and 2, so really, all three are pretty problematic.

[Super Sonic]

So do you think that they should re-do those Disney and WB examples I listed above on that same logic?

Also from what I mentioned with other examples with why some guys weren't recast was due to legacy. Similar to how whenever Mr. Conroy replays Batman, or with the Hanna-Barbera Superstars 10 movies from the 80s or Ducktales Reloaded game. Only recasts were guys whose original vas had gone to the great beyond by then.

[Robo4900]

So do you think that they should re-do those Disney and WB examples I listed above on that same logic?

Also from what I mentioned with other examples with why some guys weren't recast was due to legacy. Similar to how whenever Mr. Conroy replays Batman, or with the Hanna-Barbera Superstars 10 movies from the 80s or Ducktales Reloaded game. Only recasts were guys whose original vas had gone to the great beyond by then.

I mean, this is an anime dub. No one working on this is the original voice of the character, so it's rather different.
Plus, the only thing you'd gain from doing a redub that you're describing is to replace those voices, so it'd be pointless. If you're already redubbing something to fix one of numerous flaws, then you might aswell see if some of the more iffy castings should be replaced while you're at it.
And, a lot of these guys were cast in Dragon Ball out of convenience, due to the way Funimation's dubs were produced back then... Remember Sabat being cast as Vegeta, Jeice, Burter, Yamcha, and Piccolo? And remember how the voices many of these were recast to in Kai made things better?
And remember how good Chris Ayres is as Freeza, compared to how meh Linda Young's was?

I don't want to just mercilessly slag off Funimation's castings, since a lot of these guys are fine actors, but there are so many meh castings in Funimation's older dubs that either were replaced by someone much more suited in Kai, or haven't had the chance to be redubbed with the larger casting pool and greater timescale of the modern dubs.
A "Good enough" voice will do for a quick dub done on the cheap in 2003, but nowadays, you want excellence.

[WittyUsername]

While that is mostly true, Funimation did a number on the scripts for 1 and 2, so really, all three are pretty problematic.

As far as movie 1 at the very least is concerned, I wouldn’t say they “did a number on it”. The biggest change I recall was cutting out Gohan’s song.