Princess Mononoke

I first saw this movie years ago at the rattiest theatre in town. even though it was the English dubbed version, it immediatly shot to the top of my favorite movies list. I saw it one more time in that trashy theatre, then rented it twice when it came out on video, aswell in English. I got the DVD that year for Christmas (at least, I believe it was that year) and we watched it as a family in English. So, before I saw the orroiginal Japanese with subtitles, I'd already seen the movie five times. Then I watched the orriginal, and the amazing English dub immediatly seemed trite and insignificant.
Dreamworks, in their interpretation of Miyazaki's script, added a few lines and altered some conversations, I suppose to make the characters, pacing, and dialogue more identifyable to a Western audience. These changes are, really, minor infractions as far as the scheme of dubbing sins goes. Added to that is the fact that Dreamworks can attract a lot of talent to their projects, they were able to assemble an excelent voice cast. Their Ashitaka loses some of his "mature before his time" personality, and Gillian Anderson is too identifyable as Scully to make Moro believable, but I don't really enjoy the male doing the voice in the Japanese, either, so it's a wash. Minnie Driver as Lady Eiboshi is actually a better voice, in my opinion, for the character giving her a sort of real-world do-it-yourself wisdom, but at the same time conveying an understanding of the burden of doing good. An that really is the theme at the heart of Princess Mononoke: the dichotomy of perspective. All these characters are doing what they feel is right, or at least in their best interest. Some, like Jiko, don't care a bout fight or wrong, just about staying alive and doing what's best for them; others are very concenred with right and wrong, but enforce their own opinion to the point of violence. It is a balance that we must find; a harmony.
I noticed on this viewing that the core character motivation is pointed out by one of the lepers, but this piece of dialogue is almost entirely changed in the english. He says: "The world is cursed. People are cursed. but still we wish to live."
Amazing.

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