[quote name='vherub'][quote name='swick']
I'm not going to tell people whether or not they should pick up Innocence on DVD, but I just wanted to get one thing straight. Do you have any idea how much they would have to sacrifice to localize the movie? Jesus, it wouldn't be be the same at all. I fail to see how anyone can watch a dub of anything - foreign movie, anime, etc - because it takes the director's original vision and throws it out the window.
Subtitle-only is fine for me, because that's the closest I can come to what was originally intended (without learning another language). Elitist? Maybe, but at least I'm not disrespecting the director because of my own ineptitude.[/quote]
if this was 5 years ago, then youve made a valid point, but dubs are SO much better now.
not to mention what always annoyed me about subs is- did the director translate his work into english and write the subtitles himself? because thats a hell of a lot of work. maybe its a team of good translators, then again maybe its some 22 year old out of college who knows both english and japanese (passably) hacking away with a verbal meat cleaver. the integrity is suspect.[/quote]
You have a very valid point with your very colorful metaphor, "verbal meat cleaver", but regardless, subs are still a better bet than dubs, no matter how well synchronized and well acted a la Princess Mononoke. Because with dubs, you KNOW the verbal meat cleaver has definitely been applied. The way I see it is that, the more akward sounding the subs are, the more literal and accurate they are. I am Asian, so I can still understand those akward sounding sentences in their proper context and not take they literally, which helps a lot.
And I do agree, Americans in general, should leant to watch FOREIGN movies in their repective languages. I've witnessed too many of my friends pass up excellent foreign movies because they didn't feel like reading. It is sad if you cant read a sentence of 7 or 8 words fast enough in the time it takes to say it.