Slashdot Mirror
Princess Mononoke Released On DVD
Christopher Cashell writes: "The critically acclaimed Anime film by Hayao Miyazaki and Ghibli studios, Princess Mononoke, has been released on DVD. The DVD release was initially delayed due to the public outcry when it was discovered that the original Japanese dialogue wouldn't be included. In this case, the effort from people writing Miramax paid off, as this release does include Japanese language tracks. This movie was reviewed on Slashdot when released in theaters. More information on Princess Mononoke can also be found here."
and on AnimeFu (fwiw, that is Kurt The Pope & I's anime review site, check it out if you're curious). My copy hasn't arrived yet (Express.com fails me once again. When they stopped being DVDExpress, their UI went to poop, and now I have to wait weeks for titles.) but I hear they really did this disc up right; they've even got Gaimen's subtitles or Miyazaki's original script subtitles. I'm excited to see this disc. And hear Gillian Anderson again. I got to see the movie in an old local artsy theater. What a great movie.
But I seriously doubt the effectiveness of a boycott. If all the anime fans boycott the Mononoke DVD, will that block the DeCSS lawsuits? No, but it will probably convince Disney to import more Power Rangers next time instead of more Miyazaki-san.
Disney isn't a monolith; it's made up of various groups. The part of Disney that decided to import Mononoke and release it on DVD should be rewarded. I'm not happy with any part of Disney that sends money or lawyers to the MPAA to attack DeCSS, but it's hard to punish them by refusing to buy Mononoke on DVD.
If you would like to own this but you feel bad about supporting MPAA even indirectly, may I suggest that you send a contribution to the EFF when you buy a DVD. Feel free even to send a letter to Disney telling them you did this.
Princess Mononoke on DVD with a clean transfer and Japanese language and two English subtitles tracks? Yep, I'm gonna buy that.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
I will never buy a DVD with CSS. If that means I'll never be able to watch another movie for the rest of my life, so be it.
Don't buy it, don't go see their crap in theaters, don't watch their TV networks, don't give them your own money and time only to let it be used against you!
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
I somehow got my hands on a copy of the movie on Sunday, three days before the official release and have watched it twice so far, once with the English dub and once with the Japanese dialog and subtitles.
On the one hand, the literal English translation of the subtitled version is better than the spoken English version. It "sounds" more Japanese and is truer to the spirit of the film. The English dialog, tailored for a mainstream audience and to match the lip movements of the characters, seems hokey and forced in comparison.
On the other hand, if you are unfamiliar with the movie, reading subtitles interferes with viewing the great cinematography. The film is very pretty, and it's a shame to be reading when you should be enjoying the scenery.
Bottom line: the Japanese language version is much better, but first time viewers might want to view the English language version so they can follow the movie and see the stunning visuals more easily.
Also, for an excellent review of the film (from an animator), check out Don't Miss Miyazaki's Epic (contains some spoilers).
There's a lot of talk in this article about how buying a DVD is supporting the MPAA/DVD-CCA mess, and that as such you should boycott DVDs. I agree entirely with this sentiment, but not with the action taken. Don't let their stupidity take something you enjoy out of your life-- you can buy DVDs and still feel all warm and fuzzy by doing the following:
1. Make sure you've got the tools to do whatever you want (legally) with your DVDs. DeCSS, speed ripper, a region-free drive, etc...
2. Buy used DVDs whenever possible. Most movies I want to buy have been available for long enough that there are 10,000 copies of them on ebay for next-to-nothing. Used DVDs pay no additional "a$$hole tax" to the MPAA.
3. If you really want to get a new DVD (in my case, I ordered Mononoke in advance), make a matching donation to the EFF. Do this everytime. If the movie costs $25, send $25 to the EFF. This way, while the movie studio is making a bit of profit from the movie, the EFF is getting the full amount to use in their fight. (Thanks to the slashdot poster who suggested this many months ago-- I think it's an outstanding idea!!)
Is that Japanese for "bonus"?
"And like that
You're going to stop watching movies, possibly for the rest of your life, to spite CSS. Not to spite the DVD format, but CSS.
In other words, you are letting CSS control your viewing habits. You are letting the DVD industry take away something from you that you love: watching movies.
The irony here is so thick, I'm practically choking on it. CSS is supposed to control viewing habits, and you are letting it work! If you really want to protest CSS, you will encourage your friends to crack it. You will lobby Congress and the Senate to overturn CSS-friendly legislation. You will make copies of DVD's, encode them as 3ivx, and write them to CDROM's.
But quit watching DVD movies? Let them control my viewing habits? Why? Why take away something I love to do? Why cut my nose to spite my face?
"And like that
You're perfectly free to not buy the DVD, but think about it. Never in my life have I seen a big corporation listen to its fans like this before... sure, they might have thought they were gonna lose money if they didn't listen, but they went against their business instincts to not give the customer what they want. I believe that deserves some merit.
Second, it looks like they actually did a good job on this. Companies tend to like to crap out on Anime DVD jobs; pretty much the only decent Anime you can get is from companies that specialize in Anime. Also, Mononoke Hime is a dang good movie. The fact that they even brought it to America in the first place is worth of credit.
So, while you have some good reasons to buy the move, I have some good reasons to buy the movie. As a longtime Final Fantasy and RPG fan, I appreciate it when a company finally listens to their customers (HOW many times were we promised FFV?! >_<)
Evil? Maybe. Monopolistic? Possibly. But my "purchacing vote" goes for listening to us when we complained, even if that isn't "the Slashdot way".
Mainly because Japanese voice actors can actually act. The Japanese version of Mononoke was performed by some of the best voice actors in the industry. The title character in the English version was performed by someone who had never voice-acted before. I could hear the difference, and I can't even understand the Japanese tracks.
--
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I generally like anything by Miyazaki, but I need to point out several things about this disc. (First one to buy it on release day at the local Borders)
Just because the Mouse did this release does not mean that they slaughtered this movie. I couldn't be happier with the video quality, which is one of the best transfers I've seen for an anime. All the colors stay at their right levels, including all of Miyazaki's breath taking forest scenery.
Both audio tracks came off well, even though I'll personally only be watching this in Japanese w/ English subtitles, hey, it has both captions and good literal translation subtitles!
Go out and buy it today. You won't regret it, even if you aren't an anime fan.
I first saw the feature in the theater when it was out in limited release earlier this year. I was awed and impressed by the complex story and the depth and richness of the beautiful animation.
Miyazaki deserves much praise for his unique artistic vision. Here's a guy who can tell and visualize fantastic stories and entertain kids and grownups both without pandering or patronizing. I'm not really a big fan of anime in general, but you absolutely don't need to be, to appreciate this beautiful movie, and several others by the same director. His comic books are equally expressive and intelligent.
I had never heard the japanese language version, but I didn't like the English dubbed voices. They seemed inappropriate. Billy Bob Thornton and the voice of San were both completely wrong for the movie. I'm glad that Miramax included the original japanese language track on this DVD, even if I don't yet understand a word they're saying - that's what the subtitles are for. :) (There's naturally also the English dub track on the disc.)
The proper way to enjoy a movie like the film maker intended is to hear the voices of the original actors. You get appropriate inflections of the voices, you get lipsync, and you give the screen actors the dignity of not having half their performance erased and dubbed over by anonymous local actors.
Remember the scene from European Vacation with the Griswalds in Paris, where they watch an american movie on TV dubbed to French? That's how I feel about dubbing in general.
My English and German is pretty decent for a non-native speaker of either language, and I picked up both initially by watching movies in those languages, with subtitles. The more I watched as I grew up, the more I learned. Kind of like language lessons and entertainment at the same time. :)
I'm very thankful that it is not customary in my country to dub movies. It seems awfully emberrassing to hear the lines of well known screen actors spoken by nobodies with totally wrong voices.
The most important point about choosing sub over dub, is that once you begin to understand the language of the movie, perhaps thanks to the subtitles, you also 'get' the words spoken unfiltered by the translator's subjective interpretation or clumsy attempts at converting humor and untranslatable cultural references to your own language.
The DVD format allows the inclusion of multiple language, video and subtitle tracks, so at this point there's really no excuse to release a foreign language film to an U.S. audience with only the dubbed version included, when you can let the viewer choose which version to watch.
As for the subtitles, there's two English tracks to choose from - a literal translation from the spoken Japanese, and Neil Gaiman's translation of the screenplay. They're not so subtly different, since Gaiman had to fit words in that meant the same, but could be spoken in English in the same time and rhythm of the faster multisyllabic Japanese. Sometimes meaning was lost in that translation.
The literal japanese track makes the most sense even if it's kind of stiff. It's nice that they provided both tracks .. it is unfortunately still not universal standard practice among DVD makers to provide an English language subtitle track on all movies - it's really helpful to the hearing impaired to have the subtitle track going on the screen, even if you speak the language and can hear most of the dialog. Whenever there's a word you missed, you can just read the subtitles. And sometimes for whatever reason you might want to watch a movie with the sound off and just go by the subtitles. The flexibility of DVD in this regard is great.
The 5.1 digital surround sound track has identical mix on the Japanese and English versions, and it sounds GREAT. The surround effects used to great effect in the forest scenes, are scary-realistic. Even on my modest system the sense of being in the middle of the forest with things brushing through the undergrowth, was very powerful. There's mesmerizing moments of deep silence followed by subtle sound effects accenting the fluid, immersive screen action.
The picture on the disc is of nice quality, great color, super sharp detail and no digital compression artifacts to see, even in dark scenes. The widescreen presentation is anamorphic, i.e. the full vertical NTSC resolution, all 550 lines or so, are used to contain the widescreen image on 16:9 TVs.
Other than these amenities, Miramax didn't spend too much time and money on this release. Simple static menus, for what they're worth, and no extras except for the US theatrical trailer and interviews with the voice actors of the English dubbed version. It's a little bit insulting that they only thought to provide these interviews as if Billy Bob Thornton as gravely miscasted voice actor is any kind of authority on this Miyazaki masterpiece. I would much rather know about the film makers and how the movie was made, stills and special effects and storyboards and so on. But there's nothing like that on the disc.
I rank the movie among my 10 favourites, but the Miramax DVD is nothing more than mediocre; about on par with the disappointing Blade Runner DVD.
*sigh* I know, I know, don't feed the trolls...