> I was watching the DVD of that movie last week in band class. . . (some kid got a bootleg in china) . . The only problem with subtitles is that they water them down, and leave out things that are included when you have the dubs on. For the last scene, we watched it in English and the voices were tolerable and we got a lot of dialogue I missed when I saw it in theaters with subtitles.

One of the reasons I dislike dubbed films is I'd like to experience the actor's performance. When you remove the actor's voice and replace it with someone else's, you're distancing yourself from the performance. It's not only what the actor says and what the actor is doing, but it's also how the actor reads the lines.

Another reason is I feel that subtitles are a more accurate translation than dubs are. When dubbing, the dialog has to be changed to match the amount of time the actor's lips are moving. This might require adding additional lines or removing lines. This also means that the phrasing has been changed from the original movie.

You don't get a lot of dialogue that you missed in the subtitled version, you get completely new dialogue that didn't exist before. In essence, you're actually watching a different movie.

For an example of this, try watching the DVD of Princess Mononoke with both English dubbing on and English subtitles. In places, it's like you're watching two different films.

-Faux "don't get me started on pan-and-scan vs. original aspect ratio" Pas