Review: Headmasters 4-DVD Set

[Blitz-Wing]

Robert Stack FTW

[Goktimus Prime]

Weakest or not, I identify..say...Ultra Magnus with his voice from TFTM.

You all know that Robert Stack only played Ultra Magnus in TFTM right? Because throughout Seasons 3 and 4 of the G1 TV series, Ultra Magnus was voiced by Jack Angel. :)

 

Any other voice, especially a completely different language, sound wrong to me

Considering that Robert Stack has passed away, I guess there will never be any pleasing you! :P

[Breaker]

Puh...then Headmasters shall remain non existent to me. My anime policy has always been dub-only with zero tolerance towards subtitles

 

Your loss. A lot of great animes are way better with subtitles then their cruddy english dubs.

[Lord Atmo]

I'm sorry, what I meant was any other voice that sounds completely different will come off as wrong to me. If the VA can sound close enough to the original VA, then it's fine by me. In this case, Jack Angel and Robert Stack. So yes I'm ok with the voice as long as it sounds good, not lazy like the Omni dubs...

 

The anime fanbase is ridiculously hostile and rabid of dubs. I've seen dubbed anime that was said to be horrible (Dokuro chan, for instance) and I've found that they sound just fine to me. The fanbase simply purges it for not being in Japanese....

[AnimatedPlastic]

So I picked this setup at Fry's Electronics. I haven't opened it yet, but what I am reading makes me wonder if I should or return it. I have found that Dubbed voices tend to make it bad. I am okay with japanese voices and subtitles. I guess I'll find out. :)

[Goktimus Prime]

I don't hate dubs for not being Japanese, I hate dubs because:

+ It just looks/sounds stupid to me. (especially live action dubbing)

+ It's an inherently less accurate translation because you have to change words to match lip sync. Subtitles don't have to do this.

+ Sometimes when you can hear the original dialogue, you can detect discrepancies or nuances that subtitles can't translate - like Sixshot using samurai-period Japanese. The could try to approximate it by translating it Middle English or something like that, but it still wouldn't be quite the same. Ditto various accents etc.

+ Various nuances of speech are also hard to translate or lost in dubbing. For example in Car Robot Gigatron uses a different speech mannerism in each of his transformations. As Giga-Bat he talks like a gangster boss whereas as Giga-Dragon he uses booming scary voice. When I saw the RiD dubs, Megatron just sounds the same when he speaks in each mode.

+ I personally find it disrespectful (JMHO) to the original piece of film literature. I think films and shows should be watched as the author originally intended.

 

I speak Japanese, so I actually watch my anime raw. I've seen some English language stuff dubbed in Japanese (e.g. Return of the Jedi, first season of Beast Wars, US G1 etc.) and I much prefer them in English. Oh, I've also watched G1 dubbed in Dutch and Fellowship of the Ring and Transformers Animated dubbed in German. I only watch this stuff on a rare occasion purely for the novelty - but 99% of the time I'll watch them in English as they were originally done.

 

I have lots of movies in languages I don't speak that I enjoy watching with subtitles, like Deepa Mehta's Elements Trilogy... those films are primarily in Hindi (although "Earth" has a mix of English, Punjabi, Urdu and Persian (Parsi)). The Three Colours Trilogy is another set of movies I enjoy, even though Three Colours Blue (Trois couleurs: Bleu) and Three Colours Red (Trois couleurs: Rouge) are in French and Three Colours White (Trzy kolory: Bialy) is in Polish. Seeing these movies dubbed over in any other language than what they're meant to be would completely ruin them for me. 'El Mariachi' is my favourite of the Mariachi Trilogy even though it's the only one that was filmed in Spanish and the sequels in English.

 

There's also the issue of pluralism... as an English speaker, I would prefer to see avid fans of an English language franchise (e.g. Harry Potter) enjoy the films in the original English language format. Likewise I think fans of non-English language literature should also try to enjoy them in their original language(s).

 

Also, dubbing isn't really necessarily for Japanese G1 considering that it's being marketed at adults. I don't think too many kids these days would be really interested in watching a 24 year old cartoon series, even if it were dubbed. :P Considering that dubbing is substantially more expensive and time consuming that subbing, I don't think it'd be worth the effort/expense. The only justifiable reason I can think of is for the visually impaired. But then again, my US G1 DVDs don't have any English subtitles for the hearing impaired. Neither do my Beast Wars DVDs. Only my Beast Machines and Animated DVDs are in English language with English subtitles.

[Lord Atmo]

The nuances make little difference to me really. I care only about the storyline and the characters themselves. To me, the sound of japanese voices on these TFs is even more off-putting and hilarious than the really bad dubbing.

 

Why isnt it necessary? Some adults prefer dubs. I'm a slow reader and I like to be able to get a feel for how the character is emoting WHILE they're talking and not have to read a whole subtitle underneath the screen at the same time. THAT isn't necessary

[Goktimus Prime]

I'm a slow reader and I like to be able to get a feel for how the character is emoting WHILE they're talking and not have to read a whole subtitle underneath the screen at the same time.

Well I did say that I can understand the preference for dubbing for children (or people otherwise unable to read at an average adult speed).

 

Btw I've been watching Transformers Animated this week -- Jeff Glen Bennett who voiced Ultra Magnus did a pretty good approximation of Robert Stack. If they wanted to dub Japanese G1 with G1 voice actors and other voice actors to replace those who are no longer with us, I reckon they could use Jeff Bennett for Ultra Magnus. :) They'd also need to replace:

+ Scatman Crothers for Jazz

+ Chris Latta for Wheeljack

 

Now here's a question... what about the names of individual characters? When would you use their Anglophone names and when would you use their Japanese names? I think with Masterforce, Victory and Zone they should absolutely stick with their Japanese names. Using their Anglophone names is confusing since they're not meant to be the same characters -- I watched Japanese G1 dubbed before I saw it in Japanese, and the dubs confused the crap out of me. :( With The Headmasters though, I think in most cases you should use the Anglophone names, but the exceptions would obviously be with Japanese-exclusive characters (e.g. Twincast, Soundblaster, the Trainbots etc.) -- but what about Fortress Maximus?

 

Because in the Hasbro toy we have:

Spike --> Cerebros --> Fortress Maximus

But in the Takara toy we have:

Cerebros --> Fortress --> Fortress Maximus

And remember that Spike Witwicky exists as a separate character in The Headmasters, since in Japanese continuity the Headmasters and Targetmasters are binary bonded to smaller robots and not humans or Nebulans. Having said that, the Japanese cartoon never distinguished between Cerebros and Fortress; both were kinda collectively referred to as Fortress... so I guess the dub could collectively refer to both of them as Cerebros. But maybe if they wanted to distinguish the smaller Headmaster unit (Spike) they could call it "Buster." That'd be cool. :)

 

Although I shudder at the thought of listening to Anglophone voice actors trying to pronounce very Japanese-sounding names like:

+ Yukikaze (they might say "Yoo-kee-kah-zee" instead of "yoo-kee-kah-zeh")

+ Kaen (pronounce it like 'cane' instead of "kah-en")

+ Shouki ("shoo-kee" instead of "show-kee")

+ Getsuei ("get-suu-ee" / "geh-tsu-ey" - the 'ts' consonant is hard for some English speakers)

+ Raiden would invariably be called "Ray-d'n" instead of "righ-den"

+ Dino Force -- a lot of English speakers find it difficult to pronounce "ryu" properly, they might pronounce it as "ree-yoo" (which is too drawn out) or "righ-yoo" (which is just plain wrong!).

+ Rairyuu would probably be called "Ray-ryuu" instead of "Righ-ryuu"

+ "Leo" (as in Leozak and Victory Leo) would most probably be pronounced as "Lee-oh" instead of "leh-oh" (léo)

 

Also if they did the dub, I'd hope that they pay attention to other phonetic nuances, like Lio Caesar and Road Caesar -- the "Caesar" in Lio Caesar is pronounced according to Classical Latin pronunciation (hence why it's usually Romanised as "kaiser") and the Caesar in Road Caesar goes according to English pronunciation ("see-zer", which is a 'corruption' of Vulgar Latin). I've always thought it was cool how the two rival gestalts in Victory sport names based on the Classic and Vulgar versions of Caesar's name. ;) And of course the Dino Force gestalt is "Dino King" which fits along with the gestalt name theme (Caesar = emperor = monarch = king ;)).

 

Of course, this is all purely hypothetical - I highly doubt that anyone is going to the trouble of dubbing over a 24 year old cartoon where the predominant market/audience is adults. Back in 1993 when they were thinking of doing it there was more justification because the average G1 fan was still in school (I know I was) - but now those kids are adults (some of us with children of our own! :eek)... the majority of whom would be able to read at the speed of an average adult and thus be able to cope with subtitles. Japanese TF series have only ever been dubbed when they're marketed at children (e.g. RiD, Unicron Trilogy) -- even the horrid Omni Productions dubs were done in the late 80s and thus aimed at kids.

[Lord Atmo]

phewww that was informative. I agree...That's about all i can say lol

[AnimatedPlastic]

Um...I'm going to keep mine. I have never seen any of these episodes, so this will be nice. I have ALL of the US released DVD sets as well. I still have to watch part of season 2 through 4 as I have never seen any of those either. I must have focused my attention on girls after the original TF movie because I can't remember anything past Generation 1 and after the TF Movie. :D