Could Square Re-Dub the "Final Fantasy" Movie? 228
Vegan Pagan asks: "A big part of the FF movie's appeal is how seamless it is, particularly the lip-synching. However, this movie has been synched only to English, and a traditional, audio-only, dub into other languages would ruin it. It seems that to entertain and sell to all audiences equally, Square must re-animate all of the characters' faces, and perhaps the rest of their bodies as well. But since they have already spent so much on this movie, can they afford to?" More thoughts on the question below, but I have to say...while some of you may have Episode 2 on the brain, this movie is something that I've been waiting on for a long time. I hope it's as good as it looks from the trailers.
I imagine, if Square has the money, time and desire, that they could also render a version in Japanese. I would guess that the dubbing is done using some manner of capturing the mouth movements on the voice actors faces, and then appling that data to the movement of their models. However, the issues of how they dub I think are secondary to the cost necessary in re-rendering those areas of the film for the other version. Would Square do something like this? It would be really cool if they did.
Re:Square will never make another movie!? (Score:1)
Not for quite a few years (Score:1)
ahem (Score:1)
Why not subtitles? (Score:1)
Re:nope (Score:2)
I mean, it's not a blatant plug if you asked me, right?
Crouching Tiger dub/subtitles. (Score:4)
This happened with Shrek. (Score:1)
Dyslexic.
Re:Square + On The Fly Rendering (Score:1)
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That's Easy (Score:2)
I doubt the movie would do as well if Square did the opposite: make a Japanese movie and then release it in the US.
Re:It could be done auto-magically... (Score:1)
Pixar has sort of already done this...(rumored) (Score:2)
Re:Subtitles preferred (Score:2)
the actual original actors are usually FAR more talented at vocal performance, than cheezy cheap ass foreign language actors used to "satisfy the euro and asian markets" - or vice versa; to break into the US market.
It's a bullet point on a brochure. The foreign language implementations are often just not as well-funded as the originals.
This is why the American Translation of Akira sucked eggs. The voice actors made me feel like I was watching a bad Scooby Doo or Flinstones episode.
When I watch the Japanese version with subtitles, I can read the script to get the meaning, but the japanese voices, which I do not understand, contain the original directed emotional content. The movie had MUCH more impact that way.
I believe that this problem could potentially be solved by better investment in the dubbing process, casting. Or, possibly, getting the ORIGINAL actors to say their lines in the foreign speech. (because maybe there's an American John Lithgow, but maybe a Japanese voice actor cannot be found that can match the way John Lithgow portrayed a given character) - in any case, even if you do it that way, it won't be the same, because no two performances from a given actor are going to be identical, especially when you throw a foreign language into the deal, because some phrases and jokes don't translate well, or the actor may not understand what's being said as well as a native speaker, so inflection and intonation won't be the same. But even that should be worked around as well.
My point is, just doing a cheapo dub just to get the asian or euro dollars is dishonest. It asks the foreign audience to pay the same 8 bucks for a product that simply doesn't work the way it would for an English-speaking audience, it's not of the same quality, and therefore, is NOT WORTH THE SAME TICKET PRICE.
If the studios want to charge the same amount of $ for tickets, they should put much more effort into the translation - and it cuts both ways, for foreign films going to the US.
Another example; Run Lola Run, (Lola Rennt), I rented the DVD, and I watched the first few minutes in English. Holy shit what a peice of crap! I then watched it in German with English Subtitles (luckily, I DO understand a little Deutsch) and the experience was MUCH better.
My message to foreign studios: If you want a better piece of the American film market, do a better job in the dubbing, and you'll totally kick Hollywood's ass.
Here's an exammple of how it was done right: Princess Mononoke. While it didn't to all that fabulous in the US market, it wasn't marketed as mainstream, it was an "art-film". And while the translation wasn't perfect, it was very well done. Let's have more of that, 'k?
Re:nope (Score:2)
If my boss told me we were re-rendering a video instead of dubing it, I would tell him not on my render farm.
A lot of production time and money goes into the rendering side of the production.
The amount of extra money a specific version for a language would produce would not be why anyone would do it.
If somebody was crazy enough to do this, it would be for arts sake.
Re:Pixar has sort of already done this...(rumored) (Score:2)
I don't know if we are doing it either.
The nice thing about rendering for NTSC vs. Theatre is it is smaller. So, rendering for video lets you preview what it will look like for the big screen.
But, our last sillysong, which was 16:9, was renered once, except for one shot where the cameraa did a pull/slide move. We rendered the 4:3 version with just the pull.
English coolness factor (Score:1)
There was a programme on BBC2 the other day about Japanese culture, and they covered this. It said there was a certain "cool" factor about the Final Fantasy films being in English and subtitled.
Re:English coolness factor (Score:1)
Er, "film" singular, of course :)
Re:Subtitles preferred (Score:3)
Does Bumblebee Man speak English?
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Doing the reverse (Score:1)
Now this would be cool... (Score:1)
Of course I understand that that would be horribly, horribly difficult. But it is a fun idea at least...
Re:Subtitles? (Score:1)
Dubbing is almost as bad as colorizing (Score:1)
Re:Subtitles? (Score:1)
TRON... (Score:1)
Jones was the same way and I'll not EVEN touch MichaelAngelo and company
Has anyone EVER seen a video game movie... (Score:2)
Re:what makes you say that? (Score:1)
Can you point to any trends, or figures, other then your own personal preferences to indicate why what you are saying might be true?
Given that
I hope they never do get rid of live-acted movies, and I hope speech synthesis never evolves to the point where it too can replace the real thing. At the same time, however, Final Fantasy: Spirits Within would likely have been cost-prohibitive, or at least looked crappier, if they had used live-action instead of CG rendering.
Just my two bits
--DanRe:Subtitles? (Score:2)
Me. Most other Australian foriegn-film buffs. Overdubs are generally regarded as something that gets done for illiterate Americans . . . :)
Overdubs can interrupt the sound effects, get in the road of anyone who *can* understand the original dialogue, tend to paraphrase far more than subtitles (check the difference between the overdub and the "literal translation" of Pricess Mononoke), and the lack of lip-synching is incredibly annoying.
Go you big red fire engine!
Another opera buff! (Score:2)
While it's essential if you want the audience to have some understanding of what's going on, it can be a bit of a PITA occasionally because you spend too much time concentrating on the titles rather than the action (such as action is in most operas).
Strangely enough, they also use the surtitle machine when operas are sung in English. I suppose it's because some people with partial hearing loss have trouble catching the diction of the singers sometimes.
Go you big red fire engine!
Lipsync irrelevant (Score:1)
So I'd rather watch a Japanese dub with subtitles, lipsync or no-lipsync: I can justify any script weaknesses as too-literal translation and I'll have no clue as to the quality of the voice acting so I'll just assume it's good
Many people equate bad-lipsync with good animation (Score:2)
The clients reiterated that it should be sync-ed to English. When we pointed out that this wouldn't the Japanese dialogue, they said "Of course, all high-quality animation has lip-sync that doesn't match the audio". At least in the mind of these clients, high-quality animation meant Disney animation, and they specifically wanted the lip-sync not to work 'correctly'.
There are many other instances of this; for instance doing animation at 24 fps instead of 60 fps and adding film grain to pristine animation.
thad
A few thoughts (Score:2)
BTW I prefer subtitles, as do, I'm guessing, most of the rest of the population. Theres so much missing many times when it is dubbed.
That's NOT how its done. (Score:2)
If "Jesus of Montreal" taught you anything (they were dubbing porno movies from English to French,) as long as the word sound believable, the lip synch doesn't matter that much.
The actors being digital doesn't make any difference. It might as well be Marylin Monroe (or Marylin Chambers) on the screen. You don't get a re-shoot. Just say the words in te right voice and it'll do.
Just don't get Hoss Cartwright's part spoken by a fouteen year old girl and you'll be okay.
Re:test (Score:3)
You know, I'm into retrocomputing as much as the next guy. I like to play the odd game of Chessmaster 2000 on my old 8086, but really, do you think that CGA's the best specification to use? It wasn't all that sharp.
Wishful thinking (Score:2)
The time will come (in 2 years? five? ten?) when photorealistic CGI animation will look just as good as actors. Not that the public's apetite for actors will ever go away - just as movies and television didn't kill off the stage, CGI won't kill off acting. The superstars will still make $6 million per film. However, CGI will inevitably both take a chunk out of the middle of the market, and grow the market by making it possible (or just cheaper) to show things that live actors can't (ordinarily) do.
Whether an individual CGI costs more or less create than an actor (I'd guess it'll stabilize in the middle) is irrelevant, because the CGI will be able to go places the actor can't. Even to the point of something trivially simple like appearing in many feature films in one year. Even before taking into account the new things it makes possible, even for traditional roles the investment will be amortized over many more uses.
CTHD dubbed, Beast Wars (Score:2)
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"Read My Lips" -- Animation and Lipsynch (Score:2)
Western-produced animated movies usually have the voices recorded first, long before any of the animation is ever done. (Disney's Atlantis, for instance, features a character voiced by the late Jim Varney, who died a whole year before the film's release date.) This gives the animators a baseline to work from, and also lets them sync lip movements in the animation precisely to the pre-recorded voices. How much trouble they take to get it exact depends on the budget of the animation; Disney movies obviously feature much better lipsync than Saturday morning cartoons.
(However, in most anime, the animation is done first, with a few mouth openings and closings done when a character would be talking, and they don't worry as much about lipsync. So most anime is "dubbed" into its original language.)
Unlike anime or regular animated films, lipsync in computer-animated films can be exact and precise enough that you could literally read the characters' lips, just as you might a live actor. Mainframe's Beast Wars and Reboot and others featured this sort of lipsync, done by feeding the pre-recorded audio tracks through a phonic recognition program that provides the mapping for the lip movements, if I recall correctly. (You might call it lipreading in reverse--"reading voice"--since it is getting the lip movements from the words, instead of the other way around.) One of the Mainframe folks once posted in the Transformers newsgroups that they were looking into ways to use that technology to aid the deaf, in fact.
If a TV series could afford to do that, do you really think that Square's 9-digit-budget blockbuster movie, touted as being the most hyperrealistic computer animation ever won't bother?
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Re:Subtitles? (Score:2)
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Japanese Fractured English (Score:2)
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Jar-Jar Dies? Not Gonna Happen (Score:2)
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Re:I dare say... (Score:2)
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The solution (Score:2)
The obvious solution is to render the whole movie in real-time, right in the projector! "Just-In-Time Rendering". JITR. Hey, that's catchy, maybe I should patent it...
Chelloveck
Re:Subtitles preferred (Score:2)
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Square will never make another movie!? (Score:4)
Although I haven't seen the movie yet, I really hate to have them say they'll never make another film before seeing the fruits of their labor. Hopefully legions of fans will show them the light.
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Square + On The Fly Rendering (Score:4)
Re:How serious is this anyway? (Score:2)
thank you I will now return to my regularly scheduled lurking
Not to be off-topic, but... (Score:2)
...since the answer to this Ask Slashdot is a simple "They'll dub/sub, because they're not going to re-render the whole thing"...
As a fan of the Final Fantasy games, I'm extremely unimpressed with the bits I've seen and heard of the movie (rumors, finalfantasy.com trailers, etc.).
Final Fantasy is a franchise that has an almost unmatched recognition among console RPGamers. In a nutshell: color-coded mages, ninjas that can throw almost anything (9999 knife/spoon any one?), bare-handed martial artists that do more damage than the best-armed swordsmen, chocobos, moogles, Cid and his airship, espers, the concept of "pure/holy" spells (e.g. FFIV Pearl) and the "holy, yet evil" enemies that can't be damaged by them, etc. None of the games has ever taken place on Earth. These are what separate the FF series from every other Japanese console RPG. Which of these criteria does the movie match? Even the anime OAV series was in the true FF spirit, and that wasn't even produced by Sakaguchi Hironobu, while this movie is!
It looks to me like the movie is being treated as a showcase for what's possible in video-realistic CG with current technology, rather than an opportunity to expand the Final Fantasy mythos, or even just expose it to more people through the theater. It's as if it's being made by FF8 fans -- it's realistic and serious, but not fun. This is a shame, as the FF series has always (excepting FF8) featured great character design and in-game/cover art, not the photorealistically mundane designs in the movie trailers.
Bottom line, this movie is not traditional Final Fantasy. If it were released under a different name, die-hard FF fans would probably enjoy it more.
BTW, does it strike any one as odd that this page [finalfantasy.com], linked from index.html (when viewed frameless), exists on the official site? Read that page with a frameless browser like Lynx...there's a link to some odd hentai FF site -- talk about fan service.
< tofuhead >
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animation always dubbed (Score:2)
-grendel drago
It works at the opera... (Score:2)
And besides, Final Fantasy will always remind me of opera houses. They'd better have opera... and chocobos... and Bahamut... and elemental crystals... and summoning sequences... and a mechanic named Cid... yeah.
-grendel drago
I dare say... (Score:2)
Machinima [machinima.com], projected real-time via a backroom server (using datafiles d/l'd or streamed from the net) onto the screen by an HDTV projection system, will take their place - it is even possible that such movies might take over the roles conventional movies fill.
Square has shown the level of realism a computer generated movie can take on - but what happens when you can generate it real-time, rather than pre-rendered?
Sure, you still need the voice actors - but with speech synthesis rapidly becoming very realistic - I can imagine a time when voice acting will go away for these type movies, and that dubbing will be a thing of the past - voice synthesis would just use another data file, after all.
Would voice acting transition to "phoeneme" (sp?) acting?
It isn't here now (outside of amateur efforts), but when it hits - it will be like the transition from silent films to talkies...
Worldcom [worldcom.com] - Generation Duh!
Re:what makes you say that? (Score:2)
Um - how about talent they control - and that they don't have to pay?
Certainly, the tech isn't there today - I don't have any trends (actually, even Machinima hasn't caught on greatly) - I am envisioning something happening many years into the future - I am thinking around 25-50 years away, not next year, or five years from now.
The whole thing about it being real time is that it could be manipulated in real time for the market - instead of sending out a ton of reels, you send out data files, and the data would say how to move the mouth and such, voices, sound, etc - for whatever language you need for the market - no dubbing, reprinting, anything needed - just select the language and go.
Worldcom [worldcom.com] - Generation Duh!
Re:I dare say... (Score:2)
Movie studios don't send out projectors right now - what makes you think they would for this kind of thing? Each theater would simply have a high end digital projector and massive (by todays standards, if it could be done) computer in the projection room (heck, maybe by the time this comes about there won't be such things as projectors, the screen might simply be a large OLED display).
As far as identifying with "stars" - I see your point. The sad part is so many people believe the stars are the people they play - when in reality the "stars" aren't much different from you or me, and many times are nothing like the characters they play... Pathetic, really...
Worldcom [worldcom.com] - Generation Duh!
Re:I dare say... (Score:2)
Right now they have to pay big bucks for the "stars", and they don't have any real control over them.
Studios would rather pocket that money, or use it for the film - imagine a film that grosses 100 mil - would a studio rather pay 25 mil to make it today with live actors, or pay only 5 mil for a machinima type film that looks just as good, and pocket the rest as profit?
No, it isn't possible today, and it will be a long time coming - but someday it will happen. We can already do very realistic films using computer animation non-realtime. It is only a matter of time before we can do them real-time. 15 years ago I would have laughed at you had you said in 15 years we would be able to play games that look as good or better than the graphics of "The Last Starfighter" or "Tron" - on home computers no less. Yet today, here we are!
As far as voice generation - where have you been? I had a voice synthesizer on my TRS-80 CoCo back in 1985, with a voice recognizable, even though it was machine-like, in real time.
The Kurzweil Reading Machine has a better voice, and it has been around for 20 years or so. The Sound Blaster use to have voice synth software that wasn't that bad. The best I have heard from today has been Festival [freshmeat.net] - which is quite natural sounding (but still not perfect).
When you say the voices for a movie takes 2 days - you mean for an animated film - for an actual movie, it takes as long as it takes to get each scene right, meaning numerous takes and cuts for each scene. With a machinima type film, you would just lay the words down from the script, and only have to worry about how the actor agents are moving the 3D models, etc - this could make for films that look as good as todays, to only take a few months for production, rather than many months or years for most mega-buck films...
Worldcom [worldcom.com] - Generation Duh!
YHBT, People (Score:5)
Re:Square + On The Fly Rendering (Score:4)
The 4 OAVs that originally comprised Armitage exist in both sub/dub format, and are going to be released later as an Armitage "Perfect Collection" by Pioneer (most likely).
Nope (Score:2)
Pretty much all of the film is rendered using the output straight from MTOR, not in layers. PRMan is really good with memory, so the gigabytes of gzipped geometry per frame don't cause a problem. The problem is the shaders, which form the inner loop of the REYES rendering architecture, which are written in an interpreted language. Rendering in layers would mean that you couldn't exploit occlusion culling and thus would have to do too much shading, which would blow your render time.
Having said that, it is possible that some shots were done in layers for compositing of 2D special effects. Shots without 2D special effects, however, were almost certainly done in one go.
Comment removed (Score:5)
Re:Why not in Japanese? (Score:2)
Another factor to prevent re-dubbing in Japanese is the "coolness factor" of English in Japan. Japanese people bend over backwards to use English, often with hilarious results. For example the Playstation game Parrappa the Rapper, though mostly aimed at the Japanese market, in the Japanese version features English songs with Japanese subtitles. Japanese pop songs are often peppered with English phrases, sometimes with wildly different pronunciations and meanings than we are used to, so a Japanese movie in English isn't much of a stretch. Think about the recent Disney decision to put Japanese into the US Princess Mononoke release, but the other direction, ten times stronger.
Re:Pixar has sort of already done this...(rumored) (Score:2)
A Look At How The Film Was Recomposed From Its Original Widescreen Presentation To A Full-Frame Presentation For Home Video Release
nope (Score:4)
CommanderTaco has friends? (Score:2)
Its an equal trade off (Score:4)
Czech dubbing ... (Score:2)
How it works? I remember that one of the techniques, they were using was to insert or remove some frames from the movie so the picture actually fits the voice better. Also, we have the luck of having one of the most bendable languages out there with zillions of synonyms, I am not sure how easy it would be for Japanese or other languages.
Tell George Lucas (Score:5)
doesn't make sense (Score:2)
Think of what the Barney-generation will be like! Blame parental over-protection.
Re:nope (Score:2)
I would say that Final Fantasy's situation is different. Usually when a video game is adapted to the big screen, it's due to the characters and situations that people have grown used to in the game. When Super Mario Brothers was adapted for a movie form, it was because of the characters of the plumbers fighting Koopa, characters people were used to. There have been a number of Final Fantasy games, but they've generally followed a different path, that each game is seperate from the other, that each is in its own world. Sure, there are a few common elements, like chocobos (and Cid), but each game, from a plot and character standpoint, is crafted with the idea that none of the other games existed -- they are fully standalone.
From what I've seen of the movie, it will do the same -- it exists completely independant from the video game franchise. In this respect, it is not a "video game translated to the screen," it is standalone, sharing only the name. People aren't going to go to this with the idea of the movie being like the game, they would go to go because it looks interesting, and the CGI is excellent.
Re:it's about the facial animation (Score:3)
I think there are a lot of misconceptions about what would be entailed. It's not just a matter or re-rendereing but on redoing the facial animation. And that is done by hand, no mocap, no magical software, nada. It's just a bunch of very talented character animators doing all the facial and scondary animation and lip synching. It would be akin to say, redubbing Mulan to chinese, in essence you would need to redraw all the film again. The same with CG, even with all sorts of blenshapes, morph targets, and animation controls, in the end it's up to the animator to use these controls to move and make every tiny facial pose. They might even have to pull vertices by hand. No matter how sophiticated software is now or in the near future, it will be still an automated process that will probably make characters appear stiff. That's why you need the animators, to bring the models to life. There is stuff like the tradionat animation principles, like squash and stretch, slow in and out, etc. (look for the documents of the old wise men of Disney or the animation notes from John Lasseter) that only animators would be able to impart. That's why you need animation supervisors, dailies, etc. Make sure the film has a consistent vision and animation style. They would have to redo most of the film, at least all face closeups. It simply is not feasable.
Anyone interested in checking out the the principles of animation, here are some links:
12 Principles of Animation [cg-char.com]
Couldn't find Lasster's paper but here is the reference:
Principles of Traditional Animation Applied to 3D Computer Animation [tayloru.edu]Lasseter, John, "Principles of Traditional Animation Applied to 3D Computer Animation," SIGGRAPH '87, Computer Graphics, Vol. 21, No. 4, pp. 35-44, July, 1987.
Tricks to Animating Characters with a Computer [tayloru.edu]
Animation Notes from Ollie Johnston [tayloru.edu]
Fool (Score:2)
Re:Fool (Score:2)
Re:I dare say... (Score:2)
As for voice generation, its not being done yet at all let along realtime. There is no reason for it eighther, the voices for a movie takes like 2 days, why would anyone spend a fortune on R&D to cut out such an easy element of production. They won't. Not that your the first to think of it, but there's a reason its not being dealt with very much.
Re:I dare say... (Score:2)
Of course I have played with voice synth, but nothing as ever even come close to sounding real, and I don't see the progress being made in realism. I think that it will be possible eventually to render realism in realtime, it is the evolution of things after all. An voices will probably be synthesized and sound real too by mimicking human voice anatomy, but why?
In 10-15 years things will be very different and I think that what you are talking about could happen, but it won't happen to movies. 25-50 years the internet will be a thousand times more important than it even is today, and if all you want is a movie, downloading and playing it should be a piece of cake. As for interactive movies, where you watch it with goggles, maybe in a theatre, maybe in your own house and you can rotate the angle, but not affect the animation, and sound is generated depeding on the events you voted or otherwise influenced to happen, we'll see. Realtime movies will come, but a paradim shift will come with it. Imagine a mystery movie where all the pieces are there, you just have to be looking at the right thing. Imagine a movie about someone's life where you influence, what happens, the possibilities are endless as they always have been.
Thoughts On Cyberthespians (Score:5)
Anyway, here is something she Emailed me about our discussion, which /.-ers may find interesting:
Ain't talking bout dub (Score:2)
In Holland we only dub children's cartoons, because these children can't read undertitles. But even Cartoon Network is mostly English here. Some of the Dexter, Powerpuff girls etc. cartoons have been dubbed, but these versions are only displayed early in the morning when children watch.
The network operators are very hesitant when it comes to dubbing these cartoons, and for a good reason. It just ain't popular here.
I recently tried to view "Back to the Future" on a German channel. "Sie mussen Zurueck nach dem Zukunft!". Yeah, right! I turned it off immediately.
As the FF movie will not be for children, I hope they do not plan to dub it here. Otherwise I'll take the English version anyway, and I guess a lot of folks will do the same.
[1] I am not even trying to spell my German correct. Apologies for that
It's... It's...
Re:animation always dubbed (Score:2)
It's been a few months, but I seem to recall that the two translations were pretty close. There were, however, several instances of a character saying something in English that was completely different from the literal translation. But many were more subtle, such as the "forest spirit" becoming the "deer god."
On the other hand, what guarantee is there that the subtitles are any good? One of my Chinese-speaking friends has commented that sometimes even the subtitles on Chinese movies aren't very accurate.
Re:Subtitles? (Score:2)
Reading subtitles on current televisions sucks. With most movies, it's fairly tolerable, and it's usually preferrable to a dub, but it still sucks.
On the other hand, I don't even notice subtitles in the theatre -- when people ask me after "were there subtitles?", I usually can't remember.
Hopefully, improvements in television resolution will significantly improve subtitles in movies.
Re:Subtitles preferred (Score:2)
it was dubbed, and it sucked! i saw the dubbed version on a friend's computer after i had seen the subtitled version on the big screen. subtitles are so much better-- gomers who complain about having to read instead of watch need to learn how to read faster, that's all. dubbed translations always try to fit the words to the character's mouths, which is pointless anyway but leads to some really bad translations.
i don't know if any of you remember the old dubbed version of akira, where masaru (the little blue kid in a bubble) says "this chapter's finished" instead of "to the east of here". what the hell? what, i say, what the hell?
to try to get back on topic, i think the japanese people deserve a true japanese language version, but if that can't happen, don't bother dubbing it...
www.grizzo.com [grizzo.com]
it's 100% grizzo
Its not only the cost. (Score:2)
dumbass (Score:2)
Honestly, the idiocy of some people never ceases to amaze me.
Rate me [picture-rate.com] on picture-rate.com
what makes you say that? (Score:2)
Can you point to any trends, or figures, other then your own personal preferences to indicate why what you are saying might be true?
Rate me [picture-rate.com] on picture-rate.com
Ah, good point (Score:2)
So while autolocalization might be nice, It's probably something better done by hiring local actors, and re-rendering the mouths and faces.
Rate me [picture-rate.com] on picture-rate.com
Why not in Japanese? (Score:3)
Re:Subtitles? (Score:2)
Subtitled movies are not that much of a problem. Everytime I watch a movie with subtitles after 10 minutes I forget the subtitles are there, it feels like I know the language after a while. Don't forget that when you're reading the subtitles you are still seeing the movie screen. Our field of view is bigger than you think.
Re:Fool (Score:2)
First off, subtitling changes a film as well -- so it's not exactly the filmmaker's intent. So does viewing it on a TV screen, or watching a bad 4th-generation VHS copy, because that's all you can get.
But more importantly, why does it matter what the filmmaker's intent was? What matters is how you enjoy it, and what you get out of it. If a dub corrected some stilted dialogue, or errors made in the original filming, it could be an improvement. Besides, at times it's easier to listen to a dub, rather than read subtitles, especially for some people. (Don't tell me you've never got confused in a sub when multiple people are talking at once.)
I'm personally of the opinion that subs are generally better, but there's no reason to be elitist just because of that. Dubs have their place too, and they're not necessarily evil.
Re:Has anyone EVER seen a video game movie... (Score:2)
Deux Ex (Score:3)
Why are they manually animating the mouth anyway? (Score:2)
Re:Why not in Japanese? (Score:2)
But then they kind of realized that this was going to be a Hollywood-style blockbuster thing, so they decided to do it the other way around -- English first, then Japanese.
I could be wrong, but I seem to remeber reading this on more than a few FF fansites.
J
Sure they could afford it! (Score:3)
Sure they could! But they would have to spend alot of time at the Chocobo Casino to raise the money...
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Re:Thoughts On Cyberthespians (Score:2)
I don't doubt it takes millions of dollars to create a CGI actor, but that's only with present-day technology. In ten years I'm sure I'll be able to do it on my home computer, and popular CGI "actors" and "actresses" will be re-used for movie after movie, bought and sold and licensed between companies with only their voice needing to change.
I'd prefer FF9 for PC over a FF movie (Score:2)
I love the FF series and find it highly annoying that in order to continue playing them I will have to buy a PS2 (which I normally would feel no need to do).
Re:Subtitles? (Score:2)
Actually, I like subtitles. I like reading though.
Geek dating! [bunnyhop.com]
Re:Tell George Lucas (Score:2)
Re:nope (Score:2)
--CTH
Re:Subtitles preferred (Score:3)
Re:Subtitles preferred (Score:2)
There's really only one segment of the market that's dubbed, and that's children's material, aka Disney flicks. However, even though we have the best actors available and occasionally manage to surpass the original (even Disney themselves admit to the characters Timon and Pumba in ''The lion king'' being better i.e. funnier in Swedish) you'll see those in their original english with subtitles later in the evening at theatres in the major cities.
The benefits are several of course, it really motivates the children to start reading, if the want to understand what's on after the small childrens segment on TV they'd better be able to read. It's not the only reason our litteracy rates are among the highest in the world, but it is IMHO an important one.
It also teaches english (the American variant unfortunately, but it's better than nothing). Which plays no small part in putting our proficiency in the english language on par with the dutch. And an added benefit is that you can watch TV in bed w/o disturbing your (sleepy) spouse, just turn the sound real low, or off altogether.
The reason it's done is of course one of economy, it's a tenth of the cost compared with dubbing. But belive me, if you had had any exposure to it, you wouldn't know it was there. I don't anymore, I've been surprised more than once when a show was cut off after a few minutes with the announcement that they were working on getting the subtitling machine working again.
P.S. I'm of course discussing real subtitles here, not the awful closed captioning you have in the states, that really is distracting, and I'm not sure anyone could ever truly get used to it. Not that it doesn't help the hearing impared, it's a tremendous aid I would imagine, but it's not for general use in it's current form, I'd say.
Re:Subtitles preferred (Score:2)
Also, a dub changes the voices of all the actors. Often the dubbing voice sounds nothing like the origional... and it looks very strange when a 20 yr old has a 40 yr old voice. Plus you loose the characters origional personality when you do a new voice.
Subtitles? (Score:2)
Square might have made the best looking amination ever, but, apparently, they also made the least unwatchable but non-English speaking peoples of the world.
Voice dubs might have to be forced, because redoing the movie will be much too expensive to do and is not worth it. Redoing the movie in Urkanian for a profit of 12 thousand bucks is not worth a multi-million dollar project, Square will have to bite the bullet and do voice dubs.
Re:How serious is this anyway? (Score:2)
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon for example was shown here dubbed in German only, and I had to get it #elsewhere# to see it like it's been originally conceived. Quite simple, actually: if I go watch a film starring Sean Connery, I want to hear Connery's voice, not some german daily soap star's.
As for Final Fantasy, I've seen the trailer in both german and english versions, and the dubbed version was just horrendous, but not because of sync-ing issues, it was the translation that made it sound like a New Age B-movie: There is a lifeform in here! for example ended up as Hier drin ist eine Lebensform!, which may be a simpleton's literal translation, but not at all the same concept. I get this terrible feeling they'd ruin the film by showing it in its localized form only. What use is recruiting all that major voice talent for the english version anyway if they drop it on the first occasion? My 2 cents.
Re:Subtitles preferred (Score:3)
That's an excellent point, one I certainly didn't consider.
Now that you mention animation, I'm thinking back to my last trip to Mexico and watching "Los Simpsons" in Spanish for the first time. They dub over the animations and guess what... it does work (mostly). (And yes, I do speak Spanish).
Now, the lip synch in FF is probably just a *little* better than the Simpsons, so as the lip synch in the original language gets better and better, dubs in other languages are going to be more and more off. Judging by the trailers, the lip synch in FF is pretty damn close to perfect, so the dubbing is really going to suffer.
As for re-rendering, it probably isn't feasible. There's a little more to lip synching than just re-rendering, methinks.
Ryan T. Sammartino
Subtitles preferred (Score:5)
Imagine how stupid Crouching Tiger would have been had it been dubbed. This is a two way street: watching English movies on the French channel (here in Canada) that have been dubbed is just silly. Something about Bruce Willis saying "merde" that's just a bit off...
Ryan T. Sammartino
I don't see why not (Score:2)
This same thought had occured to me a while back, I just assumed Square would do a special Japanese dub if only out of pride. Granted that the Japanese market is half the size of the US, and most people who are interested will probably see it regardless of which language it's in, but it just seems a slap in the face to the Japanese consumers to only do it in English. There is just as much brand loyalty in Japan as there is in the US and Square's fan base would have kept them afloat even if they never exported a game.
Of course, they would've done it by now if it was easy to do. The movie is modeled on the real actors, so the visuals and the voices aren't completely seperated. But still, it seems like there are enough tricks one could do with a little facial morphing and creative dubbing. And from the looks of the previews, the most expensive scenes to render don't seem to have a lot of focus on mouth movements.
Square continues to impress me with the exceptional quality of their games, but there is more they could do. While releasing Final Fantasy's in the states 6 months after their release in Japan is impressive, I still don't see why they can't do both versions simultaneously. In this modern world we live in, any company that can develop for multiple languages at the same time will certainly be several steps beyond their competitors.
A matter of art, not science (Score:2)
If you've ever seen Macross II, you'll know what I mean. There are scenes where the mouths keep moving and the English voices have long since finished their lines. And to try and teach a director how to re-edit their work dependent on a language they don't understand is a real challenge.
It seems kind of silly, but the artistic vision is the element most hurt by that kind of thing.
Not to say that we're not trying to get around it...