So here I am after another go-around with this movie, and after my one and only diversion to the Pioneer dub, this is yet another with the original Streamline dub and you can betchorass it's how I'm gonna be watching this movie from now on. It's far more entertaining and far more quotable and, for my money, the voices fit the characters better. Cam Clarke's Kaneda is far tougher and far cockier - he sounds like a tough guy from New York right from the first scene, which is how I always imagined the character sounding - where Johnny Yong Bosch sounds a little too much like a punk from Paine College trying to
act tough for my liking; opinions differ, sure, but I know which Kaneda I'd want leading me into battle against the Clowns. Another thing is that, to my ear, Jan Rabson's Tetsuo sounds more like someone in pain during the mutation and other scenes where that's how he's supposed to sound. Another thing is that Lara Cody's Kei sounds more like a teenager than Wendee Lee's, who sounds 40. Tony Pope's Colonel immediately reminds me of my late paternal grandfather, a sergeant in the Army who served in Vietnam and served for 20 years overall from 1962-82, something Jamieson Price loses in the new dub. The scene where he, in a fit of rage, picks the scientist up and throws him on the ground reminds me of a story Dad told where my grandfather held a very annoying lesser officer out the window by his tie while all the soldiers in the room said "Drop him, sarge! Drop him!" Like the Colonel, he was also a big man at six-one and 280; I know it's not six-eight and 203, but still. And yes, my grandfather did in fact have a growl every time he spoke. Just imagine Pope's Colonel saying "f--k" and "s--t" a lot and you've got a pretty good idea of what my grandfather sounded like. If you want my honest opinion, the new voice actors in general don't bring the characters to life the same way the originals do, except for Matthew Mercer's Kai and Michael Lindsay's Yama, who match Bob Bergen's and Pope's, respectively. The original dub doesn't translate the Japanese dialogue as literally as the new one does, but this is for the better as far as I'm concerned since the new dub often translates it so literally that it's completely unnatural in English. No one I've ever known says, "And now you're a boss too... Of this pile of rubble." They say, "Now you're king of the mountain, aren't ya, but it's all
garbage!" No one says, "It was a dream that I saw." They say, "I had a dream." (which is actually the more accurate translation in this case according to Funimation's subtitles which were translated directly from the Japanese dialogue by Kodansha in 2013) And "You're gonna kill him, Tetsuo. You want that?" just doesn't have the same force and emotion behind it as "That's
enough, Tetsuo! Are ya tryin' to
kill him?!" (again the more accurate translation in this case according to those handy subtitles) And give me "Stupidity! Utter stupidity!" any day of the week. Besides, it fits better with how cocky Tetsuo's gotten to be at this point. Also, it's eerie how much Neo-Tokyo looks like the real world. On this viewing, I was struck by how reminiscent its dark, dirty, grungy alleys and rundown, deteriorated buildings are of Atlanta from the months I spent there in a buddy's apartment and the bad part of Augusta (really all of Augusta) from riding through there in the backseat of Dad's '91 Lexus (and Mom's '92 Buick) as a kid. In any case, this is a movie I could watch over and over again for sure. It's a fun and exciting movie, while dealing with religion and just how much can go wrong simply from a scientist doing crap he shouldn't be doing, that's gotten easier to get into with each viewing and that's a sure sign of a classic as far as I'm concerned. Well, I'm done and I'll see you guys later.
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