Laputa: Castle in the Sky: Muska (Minori Terada)

Comments for death : Laputa: Castle in the Sky: Muska (Minori Terada).

I've seen the American dubbed version with Mark Hammill as Muska. He voices it most awesomely. The death is okay, could've been better.

oh, and he more of fell into the water below, lol. If you look really good, you can actually see him falling. There is a point where there is debris of Laputa falling into the ocean and if you look carefully, you can see him (he is very small from the view) clinging onto a piece of fallen castle.

Yeah, Mark Hamil aside, this would have to be the worst dub of a Miyazaki movie I've seen, and probably the only one that I totally refuse to watch again, just for that line change at the end.

Love the movie though, and this scene in particular - it's good to know that Miyazaki can do utterly irredeemable villains just as well as his usual Grey and Gray Morality approach.

I disagree; I think the "Castle in the Sky" dub is pretty fantastic and watchable on its own right, even if the line change of Sheeta's speech at the end is out of place. Still, I really liked it a lot and I honestly don't find much wrong with it. Yeah, the leads sound like teenagers and the script sometimes too chatty in places but the enthusiasm the actors show for their characters and the gorgeous music rescored by Joe Hisaishi more than made up for those two faults. Mark Hamill is not the only good thing about the "Castle in the Sky" dub either; Cloris Leachman is also excellent as Dola, the film's other interesting character. I can't imagine anyone else but her doing that role. The supporting cast was also quite entertaining; it's not often you get a dub where Jim Cummings, Mandy Patinkin, Andy Dick, Mike McShane, Tress MacNeille, and Corey Burton are all in the same show. It may not be the most accurate of the Disney Ghibli dubs and is not perfect, but it is in no way abysmal. Taken on its own, it's a brilliant listen in its own right once you get over its faults.

I personally say the worst Miyazaki dub is the older 80s JAL version of "Castle in the Sky"—it's more accurate than the Disney dub, true, but its actors sound practically lifeless and detached from their roles. Even if Pazu and Sheeta sound younger, I found their actresses in the older dub to be much lamer. James van der Beek and Anna Paquin are not perfect by any means, but compared to their '80s counterparts, they are nowhere nearly as wooden or lifeless. Yes, there is the occasional missed line and the off-again-on-again accent issue of Paquin, but their performances sounded more natural to me than the '80s dub. Then there's "Warriors of the Wind"; which basically turned "Nausicaa" into a 90-minute kidfest. Disney's dub of CASTLE IN THE SKY may have more dialogue and music, but at least it doesn't cut anything from the film and is certainly far better than those two.

Don't get me wrong I like the Japanese version, too, but Disney's dub also has its charms. Mark Hamill is one of them. Yes, it has its weaknesses, but that doesn't mean it's worse.

Another reason why I feel that Hamil is simply perfect for Muska; the character looks just like him, too. Ditto for Cloris Leachman's Dola, and, perhaps to a lesser extent, Anna Paquin's Sheeta. That is to say, Sheeta looks rather close to what Anna Paquin did when she filmed Fly Away Home.

The important part of the above comment being "that I've seen." I've never watched Warriors of the Wind nor heard any of the Streamline dubs, nor do I really want to. And to be fair, I actually tend to agree with your review on the cast, the added dialogue, the score etc - it's just that one line that breaks the whole thing, making it impossible for me to show to anyone in English (Unlike Princess Mononoke, Nausicaa or Spirited Away), because it's nonsensical whether or not you've already seen it in Japanese and really sticks out like a sore thumb thanks to the accurately translated poem immediately before. If they'd changed that to fit the moral they wanted to push, it would have been... well, worse, but far less distracting.

Meh, it's not a big deal to me. Yes, I could have done without the line change, but in the end, it's just one second of a two hour film. It doesn't have to be perfect to be enjoyable. Even with that weakness, I still love the dub a lot and can easily watch it any day, and I'm not alone. To each their own of course, but I think both versions are fine in their own right.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/31/2011 09:01AM by Jon.