What Could've Been....But Wasn't!!!

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SuperSaiyaManZ94
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What Could've Been....But Wasn't!!!

Post by SuperSaiyaManZ94 » Thu Sep 16, 2021 5:49 pm

I was recently watching some of those "deleted TV scenes" clips included in the extras on the old Pioneer Dead Zone DVD and it was quite an interesting and eye opening curiosity for sure, seeing as aside from being the only subbed bits of the original Japanese version related to the series itself available in any form here at the time (outside of bootlegs and fansubs) it was also a small glimpse at how a potential uncut subtitled release of DBZ by Pioneer at the time might have looked like, along with what an uncut dub could have been back in 1997/1998 if it had come along or around the same time as the first three Z movies separate from the edited syndicated broadcast and home release. This makes me wish things had aligned to where the supposed uncut dub of the show that was rumored about back then could have happened with the Ocean cast still doing the voices based upon how well the movies' dubs turned out.

Wow...if only this could've actually happened in full, and a bilingual edition of the series released much sooner than what actually came from FUNimation which took like three years to happen.

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DB collection related goals as of now:

1.) Find decent priced copy of Dragon Box Z Vol. 4 (Done)

2.) Collect rest of manga

3.) Get rest of Daizenshuu (2-7)

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Re: What Could've Been....But Wasn't!!!

Post by Kakacarrottop » Thu Sep 16, 2021 9:04 pm

SuperSaiyaManZ94 wrote: Thu Sep 16, 2021 5:49 pm I was recently watching some of those "deleted TV scenes" clips included in the extras on the old Pioneer Dead Zone DVD and it was quite an interesting and eye opening curiosity for sure, seeing as aside from being the only subbed bits of the original Japanese version related to the series itself available in any form here at the time (outside of bootlegs and fansubs) it was also a small glimpse at how a potential uncut subtitled release of DBZ by Pioneer at the time might have looked like, along with what an uncut dub could have been back in 1997/1998 if it had come along or around the same time as the first three Z movies separate from the edited syndicated broadcast and home release. This makes me wish things had aligned to where the supposed uncut dub of the show that was rumored about back then could have happened with the Ocean cast still doing the voices based upon how well the movies' dubs turned out.

Wow...if only this could've actually happened in full, and a bilingual edition of the series released much sooner than what actually came from FUNimation which took like three years to happen.
If the uncut dub happened then there'd be a generation of fans on YouTube saying "rON WasSERman is better than Kikuchi!" rather than "brUCE FaulCONER is better than Kikuchi!"
"I will literally dress as Goku and walk around jumping up and down, pretending to fly, in public if this ever gets an official release"

- ShadowDude112 on Ocean's Kai dub

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Re: What Could've Been....But Wasn't!!!

Post by SuperSaiyaManZ94 » Thu Sep 16, 2021 9:25 pm

Kakacarrottop wrote: Thu Sep 16, 2021 9:04 pm
SuperSaiyaManZ94 wrote: Thu Sep 16, 2021 5:49 pm I was recently watching some of those "deleted TV scenes" clips included in the extras on the old Pioneer Dead Zone DVD and it was quite an interesting and eye opening curiosity for sure, seeing as aside from being the only subbed bits of the original Japanese version related to the series itself available in any form here at the time (outside of bootlegs and fansubs) it was also a small glimpse at how a potential uncut subtitled release of DBZ by Pioneer at the time might have looked like, along with what an uncut dub could have been back in 1997/1998 if it had come along or around the same time as the first three Z movies separate from the edited syndicated broadcast and home release. This makes me wish things had aligned to where the supposed uncut dub of the show that was rumored about back then could have happened with the Ocean cast still doing the voices based upon how well the movies' dubs turned out.

Wow...if only this could've actually happened in full, and a bilingual edition of the series released much sooner than what actually came from FUNimation which took like three years to happen.
If the uncut dub happened then there'd be a generation of fans on YouTube saying "rON WasSERman is better than Kikuchi!" rather than "brUCE FaulCONER is better than Kikuchi!"
That likely would've been the very complaints made from those hypothetical fans 20+ years later if FUNi had never moved the dub production in house back in 1998/1999, not letting the Ocean cast go in favor of cheaply hiring local voices (a great many of whom are still there to this day and had never done voice acting before at the time, it really showed) and never hired Faulconer Productions just to save money. Still the above had it happened would've been a by far better product than the god awful scripted and voiced dumpster fire one which actually came out. There was already precedent for a faithful dub with the amazing dubs of Z movies 1-3, it's just too bad the higher ups at FUNi didn't keep it going in that direction and put out a far worse product because they had a bastardized vision of the series in mind.

Kai at least fulfills my need for a more faithful dub, but if the thing i mentioned above had come out back then...just imagine how different the Dragon Ball series would be over here.
DB collection related goals as of now:

1.) Find decent priced copy of Dragon Box Z Vol. 4 (Done)

2.) Collect rest of manga

3.) Get rest of Daizenshuu (2-7)

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Re: What Could've Been....But Wasn't!!!

Post by Demon Prince Piccolo » Fri Sep 17, 2021 12:31 pm

The Uncut Pioneer dubs for the first three movies are glorious, and are my favorite English dubs of any Dragon Ball work. Obviously we got Kai, but it's hard not to salivate at the prospect of an Uncut dub of the series as faithful as these were with this voice cast (ie. Peter Kelamis as Goku, Scott McNeil as Piccolo, etc.).
The story of DRAGON BALL starts from the moment Goku met Bulma. I don't really mind the Z, so long as it's understood that it's not the true beginning of the story.

I actually prefer the Goku vs Tenshinhan and Goku vs Piccolo Jr. rivalries to the Goku vs Vegeta rivalry.

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Re: What Could've Been....But Wasn't!!!

Post by SuperSaiyaManZ94 » Fri Sep 17, 2021 2:07 pm

Demon Prince Piccolo wrote: Fri Sep 17, 2021 12:31 pm The Uncut Pioneer dubs for the first three movies are glorious, and are my favorite English dubs of any Dragon Ball work. Obviously we got Kai, but it's hard not to salivate at the prospect of an Uncut dub of the series as faithful as these were with this voice cast (ie. Peter Kelamis as Goku, Scott McNeil as Piccolo, etc.).
Oh it definitely makes me wish things had gone different, and those movie dubs are prime examples of how an accurate and faithful dubbed adaptation of Dragon Ball animation could be done. It’s a darn shame that FUNimation didn’t continue with that standard of quality going forward because a series dub on the level of the former would be a world of difference.
DB collection related goals as of now:

1.) Find decent priced copy of Dragon Box Z Vol. 4 (Done)

2.) Collect rest of manga

3.) Get rest of Daizenshuu (2-7)

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Re: What Could've Been....But Wasn't!!!

Post by NitroEX » Fri Sep 17, 2021 3:06 pm

There's no doubt it would have been a far better uncut dub than the one we got on the singles or remastered sets. While the production of the broadcast dub was always going to sadly involve Barry Watson as producer, the uncut dubs produced by Pioneer were not, and were going to be better for it. I think the problem was that Funimation wasn't a large enough company to sustain that arrangement as they only controlled one anime license and were still not making any profit off of it. They wanted to milk DBZ quickly and their way of doing that was evidently to cut out as many middlemen as possible while imitating what those people did successfully.

I think there could have been a compromise made between Toonami and Funimation to either co-produce or help finance the continuation of the show but according to Jason DeMarco, he didn't have any say in the matter and also didn't seem to give a fuck about the dub quality either as they weren't receiving complaints about it. The whole thing becomes even more of a joke when you consider that the Ocean/Westwood dub was starting to air at the same time in 2000, leading to Barry Watson's cited travelling issues being a moot point. It was always about the money.

Toei honestly never should have trusted a company so new and inexperienced with this type of license, but it is what it is...
SuperSaiyaManZ94 wrote: Thu Sep 16, 2021 9:25 pm
Kakacarrottop wrote: Thu Sep 16, 2021 9:04 pm If the uncut dub happened then there'd be a generation of fans on YouTube saying "rON WasSERman is better than Kikuchi!" rather than "brUCE FaulCONER is better than Kikuchi!"
That likely would've been the very complaints made from those hypothetical fans 20+ years later if FUNi had never moved the dub production in house back in 1998/1999, not letting the Ocean cast go in favor of cheaply hiring local voices (a great many of whom are still there to this day and had never done voice acting before at the time, it really showed) and never hired Faulconer Productions just to save money. Still the above had it happened would've been a by far better product than the god awful scripted and voiced dumpster fire one which actually came out. There was already precedent for a faithful dub with the amazing dubs of Z movies 1-3, it's just too bad the higher ups at FUNi didn't keep it going in that direction and put out a far worse product because they had a bastardized vision of the series in mind.
I actually think Funimation would have tried to push Saban (and by extension, Ron Wasserman) out of the equation regardless. From what I've pieced together over the years through interviews it seems that Barry Watson and Gen Fukunaga were frustrated with the lack of control they had over the Wasserman score. He was basically allowed to score the show however he wanted with no direction from Saban or Funi. Saban didn't care enough about the production to give him any notes and I guess there was no ongoing dialogue between Wasserman and Barry (or Gen) to speak of, probably because Saban was protective of their musicians being poached.

But aside from the creative disagreements, I've suspected the control of royalties was another reason Funi wanted to cut themselves loose as that was a known practice that Saban would engage in. They would essentially hire lesser-known Hollywood musicians to compose music for TV so long as they signed away all credit to both Shuki Levy and Haim Saban in order for them to collect royalties for every show produced under Saban. Funimation probably either saw none or very little of the music royalty money as a result and would have been annoyed and eager to try the same strategy out for themselves with their own in-house musician. It matches both Faulconer and Dale Kelly's accounts of producing music for them and how they were basically paid with royalties.

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Re: What Could've Been....But Wasn't!!!

Post by SuperSaiyaManZ94 » Fri Sep 17, 2021 3:29 pm

NitroEX wrote: Fri Sep 17, 2021 3:06 pm There's no doubt it would have been a far better uncut dub than the one we got on the singles or remastered sets. While the production of the broadcast dub was always going to sadly involve Barry Watson as producer, the uncut dubs produced by Pioneer were not, and were going to be better for it. I think the problem was that Funimation wasn't a large enough company to sustain that arrangement as they only controlled one anime license and were still not making any profit off of it. They wanted to milk DBZ quickly and their way of doing that was evidently to cut out as many middlemen as possible while imitating what those people did successfully.

I think there could have been a compromise made between Toonami and Funimation to either co-produce or help finance the continuation of the show but according to Jason DeMarco, he didn't have any say in the matter and also didn't seem to give a fuck about the dub quality either as they weren't receiving complaints about it. The whole thing becomes even more of a joke when you consider that the Ocean/Westwood dub was starting to air at the same time in 2000, leading to Barry Watson's cited travelling issues being a moot point. It was always about the money.

Toei honestly never should have trusted a company so new and inexperienced with this type of license, but it is what it is...
SuperSaiyaManZ94 wrote: Thu Sep 16, 2021 9:25 pm

That likely would've been the very complaints made from those hypothetical fans 20+ years later if FUNi had never moved the dub production in house back in 1998/1999, not letting the Ocean cast go in favor of cheaply hiring local voices (a great many of whom are still there to this day and had never done voice acting before at the time, it really showed) and never hired Faulconer Productions just to save money. Still the above had it happened would've been a by far better product than the god awful scripted and voiced dumpster fire one which actually came out. There was already precedent for a faithful dub with the amazing dubs of Z movies 1-3, it's just too bad the higher ups at FUNi didn't keep it going in that direction and put out a far worse product because they had a bastardized vision of the series in mind.
I actually think Funimation would have tried to push Saban (and by extension, Ron Wasserman) out of the equation regardless. From what I've pieced together over the years through interviews it seems that Barry Watson and Gen Fukunaga were frustrated with the lack of control they had over the Wasserman score. He was basically allowed to score the show however he wanted with no direction from Saban or Funi. Saban didn't care enough about the production to give him any notes and I guess there was no ongoing dialogue between Wasserman and Barry (or Gen) to speak of, probably because Saban was protective of their musicians being poached.

But aside from the creative disagreements, I've suspected the control of royalties was another reason Funi wanted to cut themselves loose as that was a known practice that Saban would engage in. They would essentially hire lesser-known Hollywood musicians to compose music for TV so long as they signed away all credit to both Shuki Levy and Haim Saban in order for them to collect royalties for every show produced under Saban. Funimation probably either saw none or very little of the music royalty money as a result and would have been annoyed and eager to try the same strategy out for themselves with their own in-house musician. It matches both Faulconer and Dale Kelly's accounts of producing music for them and how they were basically paid with royalties.
Interesting behind the scenes info, anyway it’s just a shame they couldn’t do it that way and ended up putting out a far worse product once they had transitioned to doing it all in house.
DB collection related goals as of now:

1.) Find decent priced copy of Dragon Box Z Vol. 4 (Done)

2.) Collect rest of manga

3.) Get rest of Daizenshuu (2-7)

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Re: What Could've Been....But Wasn't!!!

Post by Kakacarrottop » Fri Sep 17, 2021 3:40 pm

NitroEX wrote: Fri Sep 17, 2021 3:06 pm I actually think Funimation would have tried to push Saban (and by extension, Ron Wasserman) out of the equation regardless. From what I've pieced together over the years through interviews it seems that Barry Watson and Gen Fukunaga were frustrated with the lack of control they had over the Wasserman score. He was basically allowed to score the show however he wanted with no direction from Saban or Funi. Saban didn't care enough about the production to give him any notes and I guess there was no ongoing dialogue between Wasserman and Barry (or Gen) to speak of, probably because Saban was protective of their musicians being poached.
I'm pretty sure that Funimation didn't even know Ron Wasserman was doing the music for their dub.

It seems like they just let Saban handle all aspects of the music, and Saban in turn let Wasserman handle everything from home. He had already left Saban in 1995 due to being overworked, and just did DBZ as a small favor for the company.

Funimation likely assumed it was Shuki Levy doing the music, since it was standard practice for him to be credited as the composer in every single Saban show, when in reality there were ghostwriters such as Wasserman. When he contacted Funimation about continuing to score the show for Season 3, he didn't get a response, which again supports the theory that they had no idea he was their composer.
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- ShadowDude112 on Ocean's Kai dub

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Re: What Could've Been....But Wasn't!!!

Post by MasenkoHA » Thu Sep 23, 2021 12:25 am

Kakacarrottop wrote: Fri Sep 17, 2021 3:40 pm [

Funimation likely assumed it was Shuki Levy doing the music, since it was standard practice for him to be credited as the composer in every single Saban show, when in reality there were ghostwriters such as Wasserman. When he contacted Funimation about continuing to score the show for Season 3, he didn't get a response, which again supports the theory that they had no idea he was their composer.
It’s just as likely, if not more so, that Funimation ignored Wasserman contacting them because they didn’t want to use him. Fukunaga had outright stated they didn’t like the music Saban produced for them. They gave Bruce Faulconer the cold shoulder too when they decided to go a different direction for GT.

There’s also the fact that Ron Wasserman and Jeremy Sweet do get a “Music Produced By” credit for season 1 and 2 so Barry had to have an idea .

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Re: What Could've Been....But Wasn't!!!

Post by Majin Buu » Thu Sep 23, 2021 10:02 am

NitroEX wrote: Fri Sep 17, 2021 3:06 pm Toei honestly never should have trusted a company so new and inexperienced with this type of license, but it is what it is...
Agreed. As much as Funimation's bad decisions prevented the dub from being as good as it could have been, it's ultimately an extension of Toei's attitude of not caring about Dragon Ball on any kind of artistic level.

If they had simply bothered to implement standards for the oversees licensees to follow, this wouldn't have happened. They could have provided guidelines for dubbing the show such as "don't replace the score" or "don't alter the dialogue if you don't have to" with the threat of taking the license away if they didn't comply.

The dub being bad is just as much Toei's fault as Funimation's.
Last edited by Majin Buu on Thu Sep 23, 2021 10:36 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: What Could've Been....But Wasn't!!!

Post by SuperSaiyaManZ94 » Thu Sep 23, 2021 10:19 am

Majin Buu wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 10:02 am
NitroEX wrote: Fri Sep 17, 2021 3:06 pm Toei honestly never should have trusted a company so new and inexperienced with this type of license, but it is what it is...
Agreed. As much as Funimation's bad decisions prevented the dub from being as good as it could have been, it's ultimately an extension of Toei's attitude of not caring about Dragon Ball on any kind artistic level.

If they had simply bothered to implement standards for the oversees licensees to follow, this wouldn't have happened. They could have provided guidelines for dubbing the show such as "don't replace the score" or "don't alter the dialogue if you don't have to" with the threat of taking the license away if they didn't comply.

The dub being bad is just as much Toei's fault as Funimation's.
Indeed, and considering that most overseas dubs didn’t do replacement scores (or script rewriting on the level of FUNi or worse though some did to varying degrees) it was pretty much an exclusive thing over here.
DB collection related goals as of now:

1.) Find decent priced copy of Dragon Box Z Vol. 4 (Done)

2.) Collect rest of manga

3.) Get rest of Daizenshuu (2-7)

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