The Westwood Media Dub

[JulieYBM]

Yeah, I remember the actors complaining about never having a consistent voice director. It was recorded at both Ocean Studios and Airwaves Sound Design, but since they are two of their busiest voice-over studios, they couldn't just pick one (well, not if they were to get it done as quickly as Westwood Media wanted it). The majority of the dub was recorded at Airwaves.

Yeah, that's basically the drift I was getting from the different sources. Some day I'd like to get somebody to sit a producer on the project down and get some nitty-gritty details on what was going on behind the scenes. Heck, even more anecdotes from the voice actors would be nice.

[MR.Mark]

Basically if he used a voice more like the one he used for Zechs in the Gundam Wing dub.

Exactly, I brought that up too, I'll take Sabat's Kai Vegeta any day over Drummonds westwood performance/voice. However if he'd Zechs it up and have good direction and script, Brian would smoke Sabat easily.

[Piccolo Daimaoh]

I thought that most of the people in the Westwood dub were good actors, but they were obviously rushed/phoning it in. I mean for the love of God, look at this comparison:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xh1cwsk4 ... re=related

What do you know, the FUNimation dub script and the Ocean dub script in that video were extremely similar. Hmmmmm........ what could have happened? *cough Ocean dub plagiarism cough*

[linkdude20002001]

I don't think it was stolen. Westwood Media probably payed FUNi for them, as I'm sure that would be much cheaper than doing their own translation (not that I'd consider FUNi's script a "translation"). And in case you haven't noticed, they even got the video from FUNi. Complete with visual edits for censorship and English title cards (except for the last few episodes, because they had gotten ahead of FUNi).

[Piccolo Daimaoh]

I don't think it was stolen. Westwood Media probably payed FUNi for them, as I'm sure that would be much cheaper than doing their own translation (not that I'd consider FUNi's script a "translation"). And in case you haven't noticed, they even got the video from FUNi. Complete with visual edits for censorship and English title cards (except for the last few episodes, because they had gotten ahead of FUNi).

Possibly, but nothing has been confirmed. I wouldn't be surprised if someone from Westwood Media watched the FUNimation dub with a pen and some paper, and just copied down the dialogue.

[linkdude20002001]

But how would you explain the video footage being the same as FUNi's censored version? Surely you don't think they recorded it and reused their video! I can't image a company doing that. I think we need to ask people and find out for sure.

[RazorX]

I love the Westwood Studios/Ocean Studios dub, even more than the Saban/Ocean dub. The first Ocean/Saban dub had very good voice work but was heavily edited, censored and had a not so good script. (Though it was not Ocean's fault). I recall they even rearranged some scenes. The Westwood/Ocean dub was significantly less edited, less censored, kept scenes in the correct order, kept the episodes exactly the same as the Japanese version and had much more variation in musical themes. New characters brought in new actors and wider range of voices/vocal talent. Teen/Adult Gohan is not Gohan unless voiced by Brad Swaile.

On the subject of music,I realise now that it was previously used in Megaman and Monster rancher (and some themes specially created for the Ocean dub), however when I was watching the Ocean dub I hadn't even heard of Megaman or Monster rancher, so all of the music was new to me, and significantly superior to Faulconer's keyboard mish mash. Faulconer's music irritated me as much (sometimes even more) than Funimation's rubbish voices and stale deliveries.

The Westwood/Ocean Buu saga is phenomenal. The quality increase made it the best English dub ever made, including Ocean's first 3 movies, Blue Water's Dragon Ball dub and FUNimation's Kai dub, the latter three being very good/good in their own right. Acting in the Westwood Ocean Buu episodes improved to the extent where deliveries were a joy to listen to. New music started to come here and there at the start of the Buu saga but arrived in droves from Fat Buu vs Evil Buu onwards. New musical themes took up almost entire episodes by the time Kid Buu arrived. Some of the new music was from Monster rancher and some was specially made for the dub. I wish it was brought in sooner, it's really good. But that music made the Buu saga stand out from what came before, not that the music used before was bad, some battle and calm themes were pretty awesome.

What do you know, the FUNimation dub script and the Ocean dub script in that video were extremely similar. Hmmmmm........ what could have happened? *cough Ocean dub plagiarism cough*

In that case, FUNimation plagiarised Ocean's Kid Buu saga

In actual fact, one or two of Ocean's actors were working on the script with FUNimation, and it's cheaper to share. Sean Schemmel mentioned this when he was talking about Ocean's dub of Kai. It's also stated in Funimation's credits.

However if he'd Zechs it up and have good direction and script, Brian would smoke Sabat easily.

Drummond's Westwood Ocean performance smoked Sabat easily and everywhere, including Kai. I wouldn't want Drummond to deepen the voice up, it may be in danger of sounding "generic tough guy like" if he did. The voice Drummond uses for Vegeta is extremely memorable and certainly fits the character.

[El Diabeetus]

Drummond's Westwood Ocean performance smoked Sabat easily and everywhere, including Kai. I wouldn't want Drummond to deepen the voice up, it may be in danger of sounding "generic tough guy like" if he did. The voice Drummond uses for Vegeta is extremely memorable and certainly fits the character.

I wouldn't say it's above his Kai performance; Drummond's Westwood performance was better than most of the other actors but it still showed of "I'm half-assing for the quick job". Which I know you can't blame him for; but, that's unfortunately what probably happened.

Deepening his voice wouldn't hurt in my opinion. I say put it in the middle of his Vegeta voice and Ryuk voice for a new Vegeta. I'm assuming that's what Zechs sounds like.

Oh, on the topic of Brad Swaile and Gundam, this may answer why he's been in every single one basically:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ct2H8Ux ... re=related

It may not be in that part specifically; but it is that convention.

[RazorX]

I wouldn't say it's above his Kai performance; Drummond's Westwood performance was better than most of the other actors but it still showed of "I'm half-assing for the quick job". Which I know you can't blame him for; but, that's unfortunately what probably happened.

I have to give Sabat credit for doing something which I thought would never happen; me tolerating, at times even liking, his Vegeta in Kai. Drummond is still much better though. Vegeta's eyes show pride, arrogance, anger and resentment, Drummond vocally captures these traits. I also like the actual sound of his voice.

Deepening his voice wouldn't hurt in my opinion. I say put it in the middle of his Vegeta voice and Ryuk voice for a new Vegeta. I'm assuming that's what Zechs sounds like.

I don't think it would work as well as his current voice. I see his current voice as unique, deepening it may change that.

If you want to see how Drummond's deeper voice would work; imagine his Pikkon voice on Vegeta.

Oh, on the topic of Brad Swaile and Gundam, this may answer why he's been in every single one basically:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ct2H8Ux ... re=related

It may not be in that part specifically; but it is that convention.

I liked how Brad Swaile illustrated how much he wanted the part of Gohan, he's mentioned his like of Gohan in other videos too. At least I can rest assured that Teen/adult Gohan probably won't be recast in the potential Ocean dub of Kai.

[linkdude20002001]

Brad Swaile was an excellent fit for Gohan. Hebert's sounded too ordinary, and un-Gohan-like.

And I feel that Drummond deepening his voice might not work. But he definitely needs to drop the evil/angry sound to his voice. He has the snarky attitude down, and he sounds like the right age, but he tries to hard to make him sound evil.

[Piccolo Daimaoh]

In that case, FUNimation plagiarised Ocean's Kid Buu saga

In actual fact, one or two of Ocean's actors were working on the script with FUNimation, and it's cheaper to share. Sean Schemmel mentioned this when he was talking about Ocean's dub of Kai. It's also stated in Funimation's credits.

Thanks for clearing that up.

On the subject of music,I realise now that it was previously used in Megaman and Monster rancher (and some themes specially created for the Ocean dub), however when I was watching the Ocean dub I hadn't even heard of Megaman or Monster rancher, so all of the music was new to me, and significantly superior to Faulconer's keyboard mish mash. Faulconer's music irritated me as much (sometimes even more) than Funimation's rubbish voices and stale deliveries.

But thankfully, FUNimation dub fans don't have to listen to Faulconer Production's score. They can watch Dragon Ball Z with Kikuchi's superior score.

[linkdude20002001]

Teen/Adult Gohan is not Gohan unless voiced by Brad Swaile.

On the subject of music,I realise now that it was previously used in Megaman and Monster rancher (and some themes specially created for the Ocean dub), however when I was watching the Ocean dub I hadn't even heard of Megaman or Monster rancher, so all of the music was new to me, and significantly superior to Faulconer's keyboard mish mash. Faulconer's music irritated me as much (sometimes even more) than Funimation's rubbish voices and stale deliveries.

The Westwood/Ocean Buu saga is phenomenal. The quality increase made it the best English dub ever made, including Ocean's first 3 movies, Blue Water's Dragon Ball dub and FUNimation's Kai dub, the latter three being very good/good in their own right. Acting in the Westwood Ocean Buu episodes improved to the extent where deliveries were a joy to listen to.

Swaile is a fantastic Gohan!

The Westwood dub's music is actually pretty good. It doesn't feel as out of place as most replacement music.

I think both FUNi and Westwood did better during the Majin-Boo arc as far as voice acting goes. Though, I haven't really seen a whole lot of either recently. I think the voice acting sucks incredibly for both dubs during the Cell and Cyborg arcs.

Listening to episode 223 of the Westwood dub now... And ugh... Majin-Boo sounds SO annoying (possibly more so than the FUNi version!), and Bibidi sounds so much like Kulilin that I though it was him as first (I'm listening to an audio rip). The acting seems decent enough, however.

[omegacwa]

I honestly like Drummond as Vegeta, during the Saiyan and Namek stuff, but in the Majin clip he sounded really off, pretty much horrible.

He sounds like he is talking like this:

IWASTHEPERFECTWARRIORCOLDANDRUTHLESSILIVEDBYMYSTRENGTHALONEUNINHIBITEDBYFOOLISHEMOTION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It sounds like he is reading a script, correction, yelling a script. It's like the words mean nothing and he is just yelling, cause you know, Vegeta yells a lot. He also reads, yells, the lines way to fast.

Sabat didn't sound great there, but he sounded good, and he acted it at least well enough that you could tell he understood what Vegeta was saying.

Also, Jesus, that ocean music is horrible.

Does anyone know what happened to the guy who did the music during the Saiyan and Namek arcs? Because his stuff was at least way better than that recycled Megaman and Digimon crap.

Also both McNeil and Sabat sounded off in that Android 17 fight. The Batteries line especially sounded awful.

[Zep]

Drummond's reading of that bit was a bit bad, but after that when he gets into the "slowly, over the years..." part I think he gets a lot better.

If there's one problem that the Westwood dub had, it was reusing voice actors a bit too much when they clearly weren't capable of making their voices diverse enough. Klassen's Babidi is a good example of that... In fact, pretty much every character Klassen played sounded far too similar, including the Cell Jrs. Also Funi's Dabura is leagues ahead of McNeil's attempt, mostly because it's so obviously McNeil putting on his Dinobot voice that it doesn't seem all that threatening. I liked their Mr Satan too, even if he was basically a somewhat more goofy version of the Funi one minus the Texan accent. Trunks was absolutely awful though... I didn't think he sounded bad, but his acting had to be the most stilted in the entire cast.

I'll admit one of my favourites was Cell's voice actor (Dale Wilson, I think). He could be a bit stilted at times, but more often than not he hammed the role up to high heaven, but I think that actually fit the character. He had this weird, almost gargle-like scream that he made, mostly when he was getting aggravated, that I thought almost became a trademark.

[theoriginalbilis]

Does anyone know what happened to the guy who did the music during the Saiyan and Namek arcs? Because his stuff was at least way better than that recycled Megaman and Digimon crap.

Shuki Levy? He worked for Saban (at least during the period when they were working on DBZ), so when there's no easy way they could have gotten him to work on DBZ for the remainder of the series since both FUNi and Westwood cut ties with Saban to dub their own material.

[MR.Mark]

I love the Westwood Studios/Ocean Studios dub, even more than the Saban/Ocean dub.

Than I'm afraid you just don't know good acting when you hear it then. Can you really prefer such voices like Kibit, who sounds like Cookie monster choking to death?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITjyqy3dynE

He sounds like he is talking like this:

IWASTHEPERFECTWARRIORCOLDANDRUTHLESSILIVEDBYMYSTRENGTHALONEUNINHIBITEDBYFOOLISHEMOTION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

To-me-he-talked-like-every-line-had-the-same-halted-pause

[VegettoEX]

C'mon, folks. Is this really necessary? Do you really need to be flinging "Well you're just stupid!" accusations around like you're six years old?

I'm perfectly content to warn and ultimately ban user accounts if you want to act that way, but we could make it a whole lot friendlier if that wasn't necessary and you acted like the adults you think you want to be.

[MR.Mark]

I'll admit one of my favourites was Cell's voice actor (Dale Wilson, I think). He could be a bit stilted at times, but more often than not he hammed the role up to high heaven, but I think that actually fit the character. He had this weird, almost gargle-like scream that he made, mostly when he was getting aggravated, that I thought almost became a trademark.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56ZA0dza3JY

[linkdude20002001]

Than I'm afraid you just don't know good acting when you hear it then. Can you really prefer such voices like Kibit, who sounds like Cookie monster choking to death?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITjyqy3dynE

He wasn't just talking about the voices and/or voice acting. The FUNi/Ocean dub has a large number of problems, even if the voices and acting are actually pretty good.

[MR.Mark]

Than I'm afraid you just don't know good acting when you hear it then. Can you really prefer such voices like Kibit, who sounds like Cookie monster choking to death?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITjyqy3dynE

He wasn't just talking about the voices and/or voice acting. The FUNi/Ocean dub has a large number of problems, even if the voices and acting are actually pretty good.

Well the point I was trying to make is that neither have any real advantage over each other, both English dubs for DBZ are terrible.