Saw Ponyo a few nights ago. Highly recommended, but I do not want to give away plot details. Rather, I want to call attention to a murder that took place. A Disney-hired thug shot down this:
and replaced it with this monstrosity:
It’s hard to believe that they are (supposedly) the same song. The first is emotional, fun, bouncy, full of life. There’s expressiveness in the kid’s voice. The second sounds like I was sleep deprived and drunk and needed to turn in a song by the next day.. Sure, the first lacks “cool” (as if that’s what’s needed to make something kids like), while the second tries so hard to be cool, which only means that in 3 short years it will be worse than uncool. It will be like latter-era Elvis. FAIL
</rant>
Anyway, do watch the movie. Disney deserves credit for putting the effort (if sometimes misplaced) in bringing Miyazaki’s movies to the monolingual masses in America. I recommend watching it subtitled if you can read fast enough. If you’re watching it with kids then, yeah, you’ll probably want to dub it. Better yet, teach your kids Japanese! You know how kids have this annoying tendency to do things over and over again? Well, if your kid insists on watching this repeatedly, let them, but force them to watch it in Japanese with no subtitles subsequent times. That’ll teach ‘em.. Japanese, that is.
(read below for what I think of the movie, some spoilers contained)
Continue reading
