Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind

[wdwswan&dolphin]

Has anyone seen this film? I thought it was beautiful! A great epic masterpiece! However, I

was dissapointed with the English dub. You see, it's not the voices that turned me off, it

was the horribly simplified English translation of the original screenplay. The English

translation for

the dub did not preserve the original intellectual brilliance of the Japanese. I am therefore

happy that the original Japanese audio track was included, with subtitles . Otherwise, it

is my favorite Studio Ghibli film, surpassing even Princess Mononoke, Grave of the

Fireflies, On Your Mark, and INNOCENCE: Ghost in the Shell 2 (a Ghibli co-

production). The animation and artwork is astounding for a 1980s, pre-Akira and pre-CGI

animated film, the storyline and characterization so very deep, in the same league as

LOTR or Dune (to a lesser extent).


Best Wishes!

 

[Ashitaka]

Overall, I think Disney does a really good job releasing the Studio Ghibli films on dvd. They put some time and effort into the dubs and include the original Japanese soundtrack as well. How I like to watch these films is to watch the Japanese language with English subtitles first (I don't speak Japanese) and later watch the English version. Taking in both translations (subtitle and dub) I find to be very helpful.

When Fox released My Neighbor Totoro they only included a bad English dub with no original Japanese. Ugh. Probably said, "Well, it's a kids film and kids don't want to read subtitles." And it is such a good film. It's such a disappointment Fox just dumped it out on dvd.

Naussicaa is a really good film (I voted it as Excellent), but I believe Miyazaki handled much the same enviromental themes better in the later film, Princess Mononoke (where, for those of you paying attention, I take my screenname, signature, and avatar from ). But is that the best Miyazaki film in my opinion? Nope. Spirited Away is by the far the best.

I'm glad Disney has the American rights to most of the Studio Ghibli films. They understand these films are art like Walt's animated films were art and treat them with the respect they deserve.

Now if only they get around to releasing Miyazaki's new film, Howl's Moving Castle, in the country.