Why was the Westwood dub so bad? (Original by tvfan721)

[Ree]

Before I start i just have to say this to avoid starting any more fights or arguments:

If you are not a fan of the Westwood dub that is fine. But please try not to start or engage in any arguments. I will allow debates but just do not get out of hand

Original: http://www.kanzenshuu.com/forum/viewtop ... =7&t=25426

Now unlike the OP of the original thread......
I thought the music was great and was more in line with Peter Bering's music from BLT dub than the Saban tracks and they showed more range too.
I did hear some of it was recycled from other shows but that aside the actual songs were good.
The voice acting was still good even though some of them declined or were recast but in the Buu saga many of them found their groove again
The script may not have taken as many liberties as Saban and played it more safe but it was still good and this meant there was not much censorship to complain about.

A lot of people think its rushed but this debunks it (thanks to RazorX for this post:
Kirby Morrow said something interesting. He said he worked on Goku for 3 years. That is official refutation of the bullshit "produced in one year" rumour. Kirby joined the dub on episode 145 but Ocean's later dub started at episode 108, so if it took Ocean 3 years to dub DBZ from 145 onwards, then they took more than 3 years for their entire Westwood/Ocean dub run, which is more than the time I estimated.

[90sDBZ]

My main problem with it was the music being way too repetitive and lacking emotion. The same 5 or so pieces would get played to the point where it just got depressing to listen to. It was at its worst in the Android/Cell saga. There was the odd good piece like "The Army Theme", but it got played to death to the point that I didn't want to hear it anymore. It would literally play in every fight scene, transformation scene, and stand-off scene throughout the Android and Cell sagas. Even if the performances had been up to scratch, I still wouldn't have been able to enjoy it much with that music.

The performances were also rushed to the point were even the stronger cast members struggled to turn in decent performances. Peter Kelamis didn't sound the same as Goku anymore and Terry Klassen's Krillin went from good to annoying. Brian Drummond and Scott McNeil, while still decent, lacked the emotion and intensity of their Saban dub performances. Saffron Henderson was still good as Gohan, but left halfway through the Cell saga. Apart from that, a lot of the newly introduced characters like the Androids, Cell, Super Buu, Supreme Kai, Babidi, and Goten felt like imitations of their Funimation counterparts.

One thing I've always noticed about the Westwood dub is the huge jump in quality around the Fusion saga. They finally introduced several new pieces of music, many of which actually fit the show really well and brought back the emotion. From what I've read online, Ocean had a less rushed schedule when dubbing the Fusion and kid Buu episodes, and it wouldn't be hard to believe.

Overall I think what hurt the dub the most is that it was essentially a rushed copy and paste of Funimation's dub. It was only made to get around licencing issues in certain countries, rather than being intended as a love letter to fans of the early Ocean dub. AB Groupe, who are infamous for their poor handling of the franchise, most likely didn't want to invest in a high quality dub. As a result, the talented Ocean cast were completely underutilised.

[Nightmare Wheel]

While the dub may have been produced over a decent period of time, the individual recording sessions could have been rushed. I don't know how true this is, but some have said they could only do one take of many lines.

Besides that, the big problem was that they kept changing directors. Scott McNeil has said they went through 8 or so. Having so many different directors can make it hard for the actors to get a solid idea on what they're supposed to be doing.

[Kakacarrottop]

I liked the soundtrack, not as much as the Saban soundtrack, although i'd gladly take it over Bruce Faulconer/Mark Menza/Nathan Johnson etc

There were a few generic rock tracks that got played too frequently, but the score had a lot of moody atmospheric music (similar to the Saban soundtrack) which helped play up the darker aspects of the show, and also generally had better lighthearted & comedic music when compared to Faulconer or Saban.

The voice acting is no worse than FUNimation's early in-house efforts. The people who say the acting is terrible are usually ignorant YouTube 12 year olds who are only accustomed to Sean Schemmel and Chris Sabat.

[Naruto6583]

I liked the soundtrack, not as much as the Saban soundtrack, although i'd gladly take it over Bruce Faulconer/Mark Menza/Nathan Johnson etc

There were a few generic rock tracks that got played too frequently, but the score had a lot of moody atmospheric music (similar to the Saban soundtrack) which helped play up the darker aspects of the show, and also generally had better lighthearted & comedic music when compared to Faulconer or Saban.

The voice acting is no worse than FUNimation's early in-house efforts. The people who say the acting is terrible are usually ignorant YouTube 12 year olds who are only accustomed to Sean Schemmel and Chris Sabat.

This is why I stay out of dbz related comments on youtube because fights can and will occur

[TheGreatness25]

Every time I hear it, I cringe. That music is so terrible. And sometimes, the acting is hilarious. Like Trunks' in Episode 108. Holy cow!

With that being said, for pure nostalgia and curiosity purposes, I really wish there was a release with the Westwood dub. I'm just curious how the original OG cast handled it. Seeing a few episodes and bits and pieces isn't good enough; I want the thing! lol

[thomas1up]

I honestly like the westwood dub quite a lot, maybe I'm biased because I like the Ocean Actors. While I like the soundtrack it does get pretty repetitive; I feel like that's what brings down the dub the most, imagine if it was with the kikuchi score instead like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUmhtIQq3ZE

The acting is pretty hit and miss in the Android-Cell Saga, but I still enjoy the performances of Vegeta and Piccolo even there.

[Rockman X]

Because its done by Saban dubbing Group the same group that dubbed Digimon First season and that's one of the worst dubs i've ever seen! the actors might be decent but the music is atrocious which is recycled from god knows where and the script is dogsh!t to say the least!

Kai fans would appreciate the Z dub if they saw how awful Ocean dub is.

[Puto]

Saban had nothing to do with the Westwood dub.

[Rockman X]

Saban had nothing to do with the Westwood dub.

Wikipedia says Westwood /Ocean/Saban dub are all the same.. i mean what's the difference? its the same.. with the same voice actors and music.

[Puto]

The Westwood-Ocean dub and the Saban-Ocean dub had very different music...

[8000 Saiyan]

Rushed direction and a low-budget. Hence why the Ocean Group are deemed as losers who ruined DBZ. Fortunately, their Kai dub doesn't have any of those problems. Same with the Pioneer dubs of the three movies.

[Bansho64]

Rushed direction and a low-budget. Hence why the Ocean Group are deemed as losers who ruined DBZ. Fortunately, their Kai dub doesn't have any of those problems.

Ay, not all of their stuff is bad. Those Pioneer dubs for the three movies are so amazing, that I prefer to watch them over their original Japanese versions. They were directed very well for those three dubs.

Edit: I just noticed how far back the topic dates. My apologies for the necro posts.

[NitroEX]

Rushed direction and a low-budget. Hence why the Ocean Group are deemed as losers who ruined DBZ. Fortunately, their Kai dub doesn't have any of those problems.

Only by ignorant or misinformed people who don't know all the facts (or just nostalgia blind fanboys). The truth is, Funimation had a bigger hand in "ruining" DBZ. And if we're talking low budgets, Funimation's in-house dub was the perfect example of a low budget production, it was probably cheaper to produce than the Ocean/Westwood one just based on the actor's salaries alone. I mean there's a reason Funimation stopped using the Ocean cast early on and it's because they could no longer afford them. The hiring of (at the time) newbie actors and a no name composer like Bruce Faulconer is also a pretty big giveaway of the company having little to no funds. At least in the beginning.

The main thing that hurt the Westwood dub's production was the rushed schedule of Cartoon Network forcing them to start abruptly at episode 108 in order to keep up with FUnimation dub. It appears the Westwood dub was only created to replace Funimation's dub from circulation across TV in European territories, and eventually Canada. This obviously meant they needed to start up quickly and without the help of Saban to provide music like before it meant that they had to establish a totally new music score without actually having the time to create a new one. This is where the recycled Megaman and Monster Rancher tracks came in handy.

To save time Ocean also didn't translate DBZ's scripts themselves, instead opting to reuse the ones already made by Funimation. The problem is Funimation's scripts were (usually) poorly done, probably in part, due to the bad translations provided to them by Toei and/or the fact that they were resorting to translating directly from the Mexican dub as an alternate source. Either way Funimation were the source of the poor scripts, not Ocean. Ocean actually began translating very accurate scripts when the time came to begin dubbing DB and GT with the Blue Water cast, proving they had the means to do the job right. They also did a fantastic job on the first three movies.

I suppose bad directors were also a problem on Ocean's side but at least their casting decisions were no longer plagued by Barry Watson who often insisted on baffling choices all in an effort to make characters superficially sound "tough". Both dubs are pretty flawed overall but due to nostalgia blindness and heavy bias in favour of FUnimation's cast Ocean gets the most flack. It also doesn't help that Funimation's dub completely dominated the market in both uncut home video and videogame voiceover, this effectively made them the default English dub which most new fans are exposed to, sometimes not even knowing of the alternate dub's existence until years down the line. By that point their expected reaction is "this is different and censored, therefore automatically bad.

[8000 Saiyan]

Rushed direction and a low-budget. Hence why the Ocean Group are deemed as losers who ruined DBZ. Fortunately, their Kai dub doesn't have any of those problems.

Ay, not all of their stuff is bad. Those Pioneer dubs for the three movies are so amazing, that I prefer to watch them over their original Japanese versions. They were directed very well for those three dubs.

Edit: I just noticed how far back the topic dates. My apologies for the necro posts.

Oops, I forgot about the three Pioneer dubs and they're amazing. Sorry about that.

[DBGod]

Rushed direction and a low-budget. Hence why the Ocean Group are deemed as losers who ruined DBZ. Fortunately, their Kai dub doesn't have any of those problems. Same with the Pioneer dubs of the three movies.

Deemed by who exactly? You? Just because you made that assertion doesn't make it true. Refrain from bias please.

The earlier episodes were of much lower quality than the later. The production later on in the show was significantly improved and it showed with the newly introduced BGM pieces and all around better acting. No dubbing company really ruined the show, it is a thriving cash cow that continues to make money.

[DBZAOTA482]

Because the Ocean group didn't have the funding of Saban to back it up like they did the Ocean dub so they pretty much just phoned it in whatnot with the recycled scripts from the FUNimation Dub and recycled soundtrack from the Megaman cartoon.

[8000 Saiyan]

Rushed direction and a low-budget. Hence why the Ocean Group are deemed as losers who ruined DBZ. Fortunately, their Kai dub doesn't have any of those problems. Same with the Pioneer dubs of the three movies.

Deemed by who exactly? You? Just because you made that assertion doesn't make it true. Refrain from bias please.

The earlier episodes were of much lower quality than the later. The production later on in the show was significantly improved and it showed with the newly introduced BGM pieces and all around better acting. No dubbing company really ruined the show, it is a thriving cash cow that continues to make money.

I wasn't calling them losers. In fact, I am a big fan of them. I was just saying that they're deemed as losers by fans of the Funi dub, that's all.

[Adrian Malacoda]

Saban had nothing to do with the Westwood dub.

Wikipedia says Westwood /Ocean/Saban dub are all the same.. i mean what's the difference? its the same.. with the same voice actors and music.

It's Wikipedia, anyone can edit it, and while normally this sort of thing might be reverted or at least disputed, for something as niche (or "fan-crufty" as Wikipedians would put it) as the different English dubs of DBZ there aren't really people who know about it or care enough to dispute it.

This is probably one of the main reasons I'm not really fond of the term "Ocean dub" (the other reason being that it gives people the impression that Funimation had nothing to do with the original dub). They're really two different productions that happen to share voice talent. The so-called (Saban/Funimation) "Ocean dub" is really much closer to the season 3 Funimation in-house dub than to the so-called (AB/Westwood) "Ocean dub" but they are conflated together due to the shared voice talent. Also, I think it's kind of unfair that the bad stigma of both these dubs is attached to the Ocean Group rather than to the producers (Saban, Funimation, AB Groupe, &c) as they are arguably the least at fault here.

I consider the first "Ocean dub" in fact to be seasons 1 and 2 of the original US DBZ dub (and therefore season 3 to be a continuation of it, rather than an entirely separate dub). The separation that makes the most sense to me, from a production standpoint, would be the original US dub, remastered US dub, and alternate/Canadian dub.

[Kakacarrottop]

Saban had nothing to do with the Westwood dub.

Wikipedia says Westwood /Ocean/Saban dub are all the same.. i mean what's the difference? its the same.. with the same voice actors and music.

It's Wikipedia, anyone can edit it, and while normally this sort of thing might be reverted or at least disputed, for something as niche (or "fan-crufty" as Wikipedians would put it) as the different English dubs of DBZ there aren't really people who know about it or care enough to dispute it.

This is probably one of the main reasons I'm not really fond of the term "Ocean dub" (the other reason being that it gives people the impression that Funimation had nothing to do with the original dub). They're really two different productions that happen to share voice talent. The so-called (Saban/Funimation) "Ocean dub" is really much closer to the season 3 Funimation in-house dub than to the so-called (AB/Westwood) "Ocean dub" but they are conflated together due to the shared voice talent. Also, I think it's kind of unfair that the bad stigma of both these dubs is attached to the Ocean Group rather than to the producers (Saban, Funimation, AB Groupe, &c) as they are arguably the least at fault here.

I consider the first "Ocean dub" in fact to be seasons 1 and 2 of the original US DBZ dub (and therefore season 3 to be a continuation of it, rather than an entirely separate dub). The separation that makes the most sense to me, from a production standpoint, would be the original US dub, remastered US dub, and alternate/Canadian dub.

It is Seasons 1 and 2 of the original US DBZ dub. Most people understood this until around 2004-2005ish when FUNimation started re-recording everything and distancing themselves from it. People then started blaming all of the dub's shortcomings on other companies that were loosely involved, such as Saban, Ocean and Pioneer. The weird in-house Ocean dub of the Cell and Buu arcs just made things even more convoluted and gave people the impression that Seasons 1-2 were part of some complete dub that first aired in Canada during the 90s or something.