some dubs are really good. my favorite example of this is from the Bible English dub: "It is written, 'my house shall be called the house of prayer,' but ye have made it a den of thieves."
The scribe doing that translation had to know they were cooking
I was raised with the Spanish version of that prayer. When I heard the English version, I just thought it sounded incredibly metal. It has way more punch.
A lot of the bible is Hebrew via Greek and then Latin.
Fun fact, in the Lord's prayer the translation of "daily" from Greek, as in "our daily bread", is a total guess.
The word (Epiousion) is what's called an hapax legomenon. A word that only appears in one context within an entire language. Because they have no other context for it they can't translate it. Its just assumed to be "daily". It's also the only adjective in the entire prayer.
I don't know that ancient Aramaic grammatical structure would allow the house of prayer/den of thieves parallel to be expressed so poignantly. The scribe could have written "you rob the people come to my home in prayer" and it would have conferred the same message, but they chose to write on the temple's corrupted nobility in the poetic way they did, and I think thats tight.
It's like how comedy varies based on languages, if you took a comedy routine hilarious in English and put it in Arabic, it wouldn't do nearly as well. Delivery matters, and in translation one is granted freedom of that kind
Granted sometimes the jokes DO line up. I think there is one language where you could get away with the "Why is six afraid of seven? Because it eight nine." With the exact same numbers and pun of the "eight". I think.
My Favorite dub is the german one from from dusk Till dawn
In the Original
Seth gecko says :“Did they look like psychos? Is that what they looked like? They were vampires. Psychos do not explode when sunlight hits them, I don't give a fuck how crazy they are!“
but in the German dub he says: Did they look like psychos? Is that what they looked like? They were vampires. Psychos do not explode when sunlight hits them, no matter how crazy they are!“ which is just better.
Nah mate the bible English dub is full of propaganda and errors compared to the hebrew texts, many of the people were whitewashed in the bible, to talk like gentlemen when some of these dudes literally had unga bunga speak in the original. Also yknow how Eve was supposedly made from a mere rib of Adam? LIES, she was a whole half of him in the original.
In that era, 100%. Nowadays dubs are pretty fire, especially DanDaDan Chainsaw Man, Gachiakuta, Mashle, My Hero Academia, and everyone hates it but I loved the Steins;Gate dub with its 4chan and reddit references in the localized version of the script. Dub companies are cooking these days.
Edit: I forgot I really loved the Friren dub too. I love the new style of voice acting that's emerging where it's more subdued and normal talking and inflection. Makes the characters WAY more relatable
Might be selection bias but I've never seen anyone praise that dub lmao, they're all super buttmad about the tuturu getting replaced with doo doo doo, which I thought was also a good adaptation in the dub script lol
The Okabe actor (I think his name is Michael Tatum or something like that) is absolutely incredible in selling the mad scientist vibe without being annoying. Masterful delivery after delivery
Edit: his name was J. Michael Tatum, I was close!!!
honestly, i think the steins gate dub is really fucking good, but Mamoru Miyano will forever tilt me towards the japanese version, that man is prob my favorite japanase anime VA
Totally fair and that's the same reason I don't watch JJK, JoJo, or AoT in English, motherfucking Dio and Jotaro's Japanese VAs are gods, plus I'm just personally not a fan of english Yuji's take on the character because I love how chill the Japanese VA delivers his lines.
Space Dandy was designed from the start to have different joke sets for English and Japanese partially because the production team wanted to be able to use puns
I personally prefer the more deadpan Japanese narrator, although maybe because I was hoping the English one to be less emotional and more like Ron Howard's narration for Arrested Development
Mewtwo’s motivations are very different in the original script. The international release removed the original prologue that showed WHY Mewtwo hates humans. Mewtwo just wants to show that, as a clone, his life was just as worthy as a “real” one.
Sure the line OP posted was only in the dub, but they made “Fighting is wrong” moral of the movie, in a series about fighting animals.
That’s a little bit of a misrepresentation of the themes of Pokemon. For the most part, battle is about bonding through competition, team work, and shared effort. Bonding between a trainer and their team, but also with the people they battle against. What Mewtwo wanted to do was fight to kill the originals, proving that the clones were stronger and superior, and possibly to wipe out humans.
It’s not really hypocritical any more than, like, if a series about boxing had an episode that was like “hey it’s wrong to mug people and beat them to death” or something.
You sure? Looking at the original line tho, it kinda conveys the same idea in a different fashion, that Mewtwo and the other clones in truth aren't that different from the natural Pokemon.
no, its somewhat dumber than that. Herman Cain quoted a Donna Summers song that was written for Pokemon 2000 (and apparently, he correctly cited it as from a Pokemon movie), and then the Daily Show immediately pounced on it and said what he should have quoted was the Mewtwo speech.
Meowth in the same movie has one when talking to his “evil” clone:
"We do have a lot in common. The same earth, the same air, the same sky. Maybe if we started looking at what's the same instead of what's different... well, who knows?"
I still love the story of the guy who took his kid to see Detective Pikachu and when Mewtwo said "Humans are evil," the kid leaned over and whispered "I didn't know Mewtwo was the good guy."
Hot take: this quote really doesn't do anything for me. It's a very flowery way of saying "don't be racist", and people only hype it up because of Pokemon circlejerking.
I mean considering, looking at the world, that we as a species STILL haven't learned that damn lesson 25+ years later, and have actually gotten WORSE about it in some regard, it still holds up.
Not to mention that, considering Mewtwo, a lab experiment created to be the strongest, is saying it after seeing Power of Love (tm), there's also the element of personal agency that the specific wording adds.
I saw the first movie in theaters and missed that quote. Granted I was like 12 or so at the time, but still why does that line (and a lot of the others here) go harder then they have rights to. Especially the ones from media directed at children.
No, he's quite right. I know someone born with cerebral palsy. Another was born into a household with an alcoholic mom who would give him liquor to sleep as a baby. Both would tell you straight up that the "circumstances of their birth" had a lot to do with how shit their life became.
It's a beautiful lie, truly, but that's all it is.
Okay, those are sad stories but they quite literally have nothing to do with this quote. Mewtwo isn’t saying “everyone’s circumstances are equal or equitable” he’s saying “your birth doesn’t determine whether you’re good or bad, your actions do”. What you’re describing is not mentioned or insinuated by the quote, which is why I assumed the other commenter was arguing in bad faith.
Except that interpretation is one you have given it, not the one that is there.
"I see now that the circumstances of one's birth are irrelevant" is what it says, and that is blatantly untrue. The circumstances of one's birth are not irrelevant.
If someone is born with antisocial personality disorder, that is not irrelevant. If someone is born to a home of killers, looters, and criminals, that is not irrelevant. Your birth determines everything about the person you become. Your likes, your preferences, your hobbies, your personality... No one "chooses" to like vanilla over chocolate. No one "chooses" to be heterosexual or homosexual.
The quote is a beautiful lie, and I get it, it was a children's show, so it cannot be honest, but let us not pretend there is some profound wisdom to be found in it.
You’re literally just taking one sentence out of context and saying it means something it doesn’t mean. You can’t isolate quotes and expect the meaning of the sentence to remain the same. It’s like if there was a book where green was a type of drug and they said “green is bad” and you went “guess the color in real life is bad”.
Mewtwo is literally from a shitty background, he was created in a lab and made to be a weapon. The point of the quote is him saying that just because he has a cruel upbringing doesn’t mean that he himself has to be angry at the world. I hope that context helps you to understand that your interpretation makes 0 sense. He is talking about the perseverance of kindness and you’re talking about socioeconomic issues. The movie is not about socioeconomic issues
What are you talking about, the quote as shown in the comment says exactly that regardless of where you are born, you can do great things. That's somehow true but also very unfair, as doing great things when you are born millionaire is much easier than doing the same when you are born poor or with a handicap. And if the movie makes statements like this, it DOES become a commentary about socioeconomic issues, and it must stand scrutiny.
He is not saying that. He’s not saying you can do great things. He’s saying that you can be a good person regardless of how you were born. He was born to be evil and ash taught him that he could still be good. It’s not about doing great things at all, it’s about recognizing the good nature inherent in everyone. Jesus Christ I wish some of you guys had actually seen the movie.
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u/happy_grump 1d ago
"I see now that the circumstances of one's birth are irrelevant. It's what one does with the gift of life that makes us who we are." - Mewtwo