This topic is meant to touch on a very controversial subject surrounding this movie. Disney made this movie available in 2003 with a all-star voice cast and, perhaps controversially, a fully powered-up remix of the musical score. Reaction to it, like any of the other Disney-Ghibli dubs, was mixed. Hardcore fans blasted this new dub for whatever reason, declaring it to be an insult to Miyazaki, while others found it to be a delight. I fall into the latter category concerning this dub. I do acknowledge that Disney's dub of "Laputa" isn't a perfect dub by any means--there's a considerable amount of extra chatter (some of it works well, others feel too superfluous) and the leads are considerably more mature, but those are really the only two faults that I can find with it. And to me, they are relatively minor compared to everything else about the dub. The supporting cast is among the best I've ever heard in any of these Disney-Ghibli dubs. The ADR script, despite being loose from the Japanese at times, is smoothly written, funny, and very entertaining. And Joe Hisaishi's rescore, despite laying over some of the more crucial moments of silence, is absolutely breathtaking and really enhances the movie in many ways. All these great strengths compel me to stand by the dub and say that it is a very fine, if not purst-material, English track which actually holds up pretty well even after all the years.
There was an earlier dub prior to Disney's dub, however; this one was quickly and rapidly produced by an unknown company commissioned by Ghibli themselves. Dubs produced this quickly and under circumstances like this do not translate to quality dubbing, and sadly, this older dub of "Laputa" is no exception. Funnily enough, a lot of the harshest detractors of Disney's dub say that this older version is supposedly superior, but I just don't see it. While I will attest that the old dub of "Totoro" was pretty good (mainly because it was produced in-house by Streamline, and not before it was licensed), this old dub of "Laputa" is an entirely different matter. Despite the argument that it maintains the original music and effects tracks and doesn't have as much extra dialogue, it fails on every other level. For one thing, the ADR script is not particularly good, with a lot of lines that come across as painfully stilted, choppy, or inept: "I'm as hard as a brick moppet" and "Now say bye-bye!". While Disney's script probably did go overboard in adding in extra dialogue in places, their dialogue is considerably better written than this, in that it sounds more fluent and less stilted. That and the voices themselves are just not very good; I've heard these Streamline regulars turn in far better performances than the stale, lifeless line reads that they all give off in this older dub. Even the lead characters in the older dub are disappointing; while James and Anna probably DID make them sound more mature, their chemistry is far more natural compared to their Streamline counterparts, both of who sound like they're sleepwalking their way through the show and/or overacting badly. The same applies to the rest of the cast: Muska, Dola, the pirate brothers, and Uncle Pom all pale considerably to their Disney counterparts. The General was the only voice that didn't sound too bad, but Jim Cummings trumped him.
So in short, despite what purists say about Disney's dub, I stand firmly behind the view that it is the better dub, despite its drawbacks. The JAL dub may have its advantages, but it hasn't aged very well compared to the newer version.
If you think I don't deserve to be called a Ghibli fan or a LAPUTA-phile for liking Disney's version over the JAL dub, well, sorry, but I find that argument ridiculous. For the record, I DO like the Japanese version too, but that doesn't mean I think Disney's version is inferior. On the contrary. Both the Japanese version and Disney's dub have their pros and cons, and neither is better or worse than the other. They're only, well, different. And they're certainly of better quality than the JAL dub. |
