The Ultimate Uncut Special Edition - The Faux Saban Dub

[GokuDaimao]

Here's something I never see anyone bring up or discuss.

When Pioneer's contract with FUNimation completely expired and FUNimation was free to release 'that' portion of Dragon Ball Z uncut, their marketing for it was... interesting to say the least.

[APOLOGIES IN ADVANCE FOR THE INTERLACING IN THE VIDEOS]

The first voice clips you hear in the first trailer of the Ultimate Uncut Special Edition are soundbytes from 1999. Both from the Freeza arc. Even though they (especially in Vegeta's case) would sound next to nothing like that in the product they were advertising.

Trailer sample: https://muse.ai/e/KxecX1A

Origins of soundbytes: https://muse.ai/e/7rQhtgf

In addition to that, you actually do hear audio of Saffron Henderson as Gohan (you have to listen closely) in the original opening sequence that represented the UUSE: https://muse.ai/e/51CYQ47

Why did they do this? It's my contention that FUNimation vehemently, but also as subtly as possible wanted the casuals to believe that they were getting an uncut Ocean dub, or an uncut Saban dub, either way. And I believe that the music put together by Nath- I mean, Senator Johnson attests to this more than anything else.

Here are a few examples of how Nathan Johnson's score directly bit off Ron Wasserman's score from 1996.

https://muse.ai/e/rWd4mkk

https://muse.ai/e/NpCQeoS

https://muse.ai/e/8T2A7so

https://muse.ai/e/qt2KH9c

https://muse.ai/e/LYqwBcJ

Call it a stretch, but the fact that if the notes don't sound similar, at least the musical styles/fonts do, and they're plastered on the exact same sequences anyway, speaks volumes.

To be fair to him though, I think FUNimation mostly pushed him to do stuff like that, but all the same, it really is like comparing Dr. Pepper to Dr. Thunder. That's why Nathan Johnson's entire discography with the exception of the recap theme has been astoundingly unremarkable and bland. There's really nothing to say about any of his compositions. They're just there. But now I'm getting off base.

And I really don't even need to explain the almost word-for-word duplication of the Saban dub dialogue into the UUSE dub, so that speaks for itself.

If you guys have any examples to attest to this theory or comments or questions, I'd love to hear 'em. ^^

[MasenkoHA]

Funimation was pretty straight forward that they were releasing these episodes with their in-house cast. I believe they even went as far as saying "The voices fans know and love"

They weren't trying to trick anyone into thinking it would be an uncut version of the Ocean dub with the Ocean cast. The over reliance on the 1996/1997 scripts were probably done to save time and money. If Nathan Johnson score sounds similar to Ron Wasserman's score it's probably because they're both going for that pseudo dark atmospheric "everything is super serious and dire" music and "whimsical Mickey Mousing music when things aren't serious" Nathan Johnson has been pretty candid about his time scoring Dragon Ball Z in his interview with Dao of Dragon Ball and didn't give any indication he was told to do Ron Wasserman 2.0.


As far as that "Saffron Henderson soundbyte" ....I really don't hear it at all. Is it supposed to be her scream or something? I'll take your word for it that its her audio but if you have to really listen for it I'm gonna guess that whatever Funimation editor was responsible for slapping that together just accidentally grabbed audio from the Saban era episodes instead of the redub. That doesn't read as someone trying to trick audiences into thinking Gohan got his first English voice actress back.

[90sDBZ]

Yeah I'm not sure I buy that they were trying to trick fans.

By 2005 the US had the Texas cast for the vast majority of the series. Part of the reason for the redub was to make those episodes more consistent with the rest, and also to hype up the re-release as a new experience.

I'm mixed on Nathon Jonson's score. It can be bland, but there are some standout tracks like the recap theme, Vegeta vs Zarbon, the music when Chiaotzu dies, and Gogeta's theme from Fusion Reborn.

[GokuDaimao]

Funimation was pretty straight forward that they were releasing these episodes with their in-house cast. I believe they even went as far as saying "The voices fans know and love"

They weren't trying to trick anyone into thinking it would be an uncut version of the Ocean dub with the Ocean cast. The over reliance on the 1996/1997 scripts were probably done to save time and money. If Nathan Johnson score sounds similar to Ron Wasserman's score it's probably because they're both going for that pseudo dark atmospheric "everything is super serious and dire" music and "whimsical Mickey Mousing music when things aren't serious" Nathan Johnson has been pretty candid about his time scoring Dragon Ball Z in his interview with Dao of Dragon Ball and didn't give any indication he was told to do Ron Wasserman 2.0.


As far as that "Saffron Henderson soundbyte" ....I really don't hear it at all. Is it supposed to be her scream or something? I'll take your word for it that its her audio but if you have to really listen for it I'm gonna guess that whatever Funimation editor was responsible for slapping that together just accidentally grabbed audio from the Saban era episodes instead of the redub. That doesn't read as someone trying to trick audiences into thinking Gohan got his first English voice actress back.

Based on where you generally stand when it comes to FUNimation, I'm not going to attempt to sway you on anything.

But I will respond to key things just for the benefit of onlookers of this thread.

If the marketing was geared towards "the contemporary voices of the FUNimation cast that everyone loves," then why did they start off their trailer with 1999 soundbytes of Sean Schemmel and Chris Sabat. Double for the latter. What does that do? Especially if we supposedly know and love the current (for 2005) voices. How does showcasing the near opposite of what we 'love' get us excited for this?

Of course they are not going to say, "Yeah, the Canadian cast is in this!" That would be blatant and deliberate false advertising. But they can sneak in as little as possible to give certain fans who don't pay close attention to anything a certain impression. Especially if they're gullible and inattentive they can believe they're getting the same product they remember but uncut.

Saffron's voice is masked so much that I can't directly draw comparison, but I know her voice when I hear it. Plus it was placed on footage of Gohan. Not to mention stock audio of her voice has been used in FUNimation's dub in the past, so this isn't a crackpot observation.

As for everything else, you can believe what you want. Again, with everything you've posted, including what's on top of this, I really doubt I'll 'debunk' anything for you.

But to act like I have no basis for any of this, come on. 'Happy accidents' only passes as an excuse so much.

[GokuDaimao]

Yeah I'm not sure I buy that they were trying to trick fans.

By 2005 the US had the Texas cast for the vast majority of the series. Part of the reason for the redub was to make those episodes more consistent with the rest, and also to hype up the re-release as a new experience.

I'm mixed on Nathon Jonson's score. It can be bland, but there are some standout tracks like the recap theme, Vegeta vs Zarbon, the music when Chiaotzu dies, and Gogeta's theme from Fusion Reborn.

I mean, it is a theory to be sure. I don't think guys like Sabat or Justin Cook are going to just come out and say, "Yeah, that was the marketing strategy."

The Ultimate Uncut Special Edition at face value - meaning not factoring in their later plans to George Lucas the whole dub and do a Frankenstein-like job at that, was meant to line up with their original dub from 1999 to 2003. So, consistency I don't think was their #1 goal, showing the first batch of episodes unedited was.

Either way, like I told MasenkoHA, no reason to do things like throw pseudo-Brian Drummond Sabat and Saffron Henderson as part of the teaser material.

I probably could buy that a lot of the promotional content was coincidentally tied in if the music wasn't heavily ripped off from the original dub. There's only so much disbelief that can be suspended.

[MasenkoHA]

Funimation was pretty straight forward that they were releasing these episodes with their in-house cast. I believe they even went as far as saying "The voices fans know and love"

They weren't trying to trick anyone into thinking it would be an uncut version of the Ocean dub with the Ocean cast. The over reliance on the 1996/1997 scripts were probably done to save time and money. If Nathan Johnson score sounds similar to Ron Wasserman's score it's probably because they're both going for that pseudo dark atmospheric "everything is super serious and dire" music and "whimsical Mickey Mousing music when things aren't serious" Nathan Johnson has been pretty candid about his time scoring Dragon Ball Z in his interview with Dao of Dragon Ball and didn't give any indication he was told to do Ron Wasserman 2.0.


As far as that "Saffron Henderson soundbyte" ....I really don't hear it at all. Is it supposed to be her scream or something? I'll take your word for it that its her audio but if you have to really listen for it I'm gonna guess that whatever Funimation editor was responsible for slapping that together just accidentally grabbed audio from the Saban era episodes instead of the redub. That doesn't read as someone trying to trick audiences into thinking Gohan got his first English voice actress back.

Based on where you generally stand when it comes to FUNimation, I'm not going to attempt to sway you on anything.

But I will respond to key things just for the benefit of onlookers of this thread.

If the marketing was geared towards "the contemporary voices of the FUNimation cast that everyone loves," then why did they start off their trailer with 1999 soundbytes of Sean Schemmel and Chris Sabat. Double for the latter. What does that do? Especially if we supposedly know and love the current (for 2005) voices. How does showcasing the near opposite of what we 'love' get us excited for this?

Of course they are not going to say, "Yeah, the Canadian cast is in this!" That would be blatant and deliberate false advertising. But they can sneak in as little as possible to give certain fans who don't pay close attention to anything a certain impression. Especially if they're gullible and inattentive they can believe they're getting the same product they remember but uncut.

Saffron's voice is masked so much that I can't directly draw comparison, but I know her voice when I hear it. Plus it was placed on footage of Gohan. Not to mention stock audio of her voice has been used in FUNimation's dub in the past, so this isn't a crackpot observation.

As for everything else, you can believe what you want. Again, with everything you've posted, including what's on top of this, I really doubt I'll 'debunk' anything for you.

But to act like I have no basis for any of this, come on. 'Happy accidents' only passes as an excuse so much.

Again, you're trying hard to turn into something it's not. Like if you're dead seriously arguing that they purposefully used Henderson's Gohan to deceive fans BUT ALSO acknowledge you can barely hear Henderson's voice in said clip (again I don't hear at all, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt) maybe you should comes to terms with it being a crackpot observation.

[90sDBZ]

I just assumed they used those old season 3 lines in the trailer because they hadn't actually finished redubbing it yet.

If they really wanted to trick fans then why not go all in and have Ian Corlett and Brian Drummond's voices be heard in the trailer? Also I'm listening to that intro and can't even hear a voice from Gohan. It's just part of the music.

Even if your theory was correct, fans would realise they'd been fooled as soon as they watched episode 1. It would have achieved nothing.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

I think if anything Funimation were trying to trick kids into thinking their voice cast didn't change in 1999 because they hired actors on the basis of how well they could imitate the previous cast.

For the Ultimate Uncut dub there was already an established fanbase with the inhouse cast and Funimation was consolidating that by having them dub the remaining episodes they hadn't recorded.

I don't think Funimation would have been interested in trying to convince fans they were getting an uncut version of the Saban dub. Considering how much Funimation avoided acknowledging its existence post-2005 (with the exception of the Rock the Dragon box set) it would have been counter productive to do anything that would make fans think of it.

I will say your right about music similarities, they are there, although like with the near identical scripts it was probably a case where it was easier to just copy what was there than build something new from the ground up.

[TheGreatness25]

I never thought Funimation was trying to trick anime with this. IF they used soundbites from the original Saban dub, I'd imagine that it would be just like how they used the Japanese theme for GT before going all "extremeeeeee" on it. "You think you know the beginning of Z? YoU d0N't kNoW Zeeeee!"

[GhostEmperorX]

Well the commercials for the first 3 movies (Ocean dub) had some clips with the Japanese voices, so considering how low level the company generally was, not sure it's worth thinking too much about other than that they weren't careful with what they were doing.