In this episode, Joe and Junior meet someone from the real world, like Joe and Silvia are, who is being pursued by Red Leader, another enemy from the first game made into his own character, like Bianco Billy. The name of the episode in English is The Fugitive From Beyond the Screen. Like Roamin' Holiday, it's a reference to what movie this episode takes inspiration from: The Fugitive. The part with the storm drain that Metal Gear Solid 3 also referenced is a dead giveaway.
When Joe and Junior are talking after Jefferson's introduction, Joe holding up his handsign telling Junior they don't need to ask for directions has a shot of Joe holding up his handsign as he says it in the Japanese version. Since editing his middle finger with all the foreground objects as he moves would be a huge pain to edit out, they replace the shot with one from a little later when it cuts back to them still walking.
After Joe transforms, you can actually see him flashing the unedited handsign in English because you only see it for a quarter of a second when the camera pans to his flowing scarf. It's edited in his next pose though.
In the Japanese version, Joe jumps at the Cromarties, flashing the handsign in both hands, and then hits his head on a tree. The English version cuts this out, likely for the same reason as his first Mach Speed charge in episode 2: the episode goes on like it didn't happen and it loses nothing cutting that out. It's a funny George of the Jungle bit though.
Interesting to note the bazookas are unedited. Firearms and bombs are commonly used in domestic terrorism, but bazookas are presumably just out of the ordinary for the everyman that they're not imitable. Besides that, their slim and completely black design doesn't make them look too much like real life bazookas in the first place, plus it shoots a big fireball instead of an anti-tank shell like in the game. However, the English version adds lazer sound effects to them firing when Junior attacks them. That wasn't necessary.
In the cabin Buick is in, in the Japanese version he flashes back to the part that was cut out of the English version, which is subsequently also cut.
The scene with Sprocket is barely cut, for once. The only edits are that her shirt is edited closed on the wide shot and a moment of her zipping up her dress is cut at the end. Lucky for the English editors a almost all of Sprocket's shots are close-ups. Worth noting that in the scene Hulk is definitely not voiced by his usual voice actor (IMDB says it's Jamieson Price, but I'm not sure) and it sounds like they got Bob Papenbrook for his few lines. This happens sometimes in animation, when you just need to get on with it, it's only a couple of lines and you have someone already in the studio.
Then Buick is remembering a war movie he saw, the Japanese version mentions the hero of the movie was able to defeat soldiers with hi-tech weapons and the camera shows the hero of the movie leaving dead bodies behind as he walks away. The English version cuts out the dead bodies and the mention of fighting soldiers, though since it still focuses on the hero having nothing but a knife, the hero getting into combat is implied.
In Japanese when Buick is caught, he remembers that at the end of that movie the hero was gunned down. It had a tragic ending. Again it shows a dead body so that's cut out. Instead of knowing that not all movies have happy endings, the English version still has him in the mindset movies having heroes winning and conveys his cynicism by saying life's not a film.
This might look like a lot of edits, but it's really not. A brief gag at the start for time (that they saved even more time for later) and two small bits of flashbacks to a war movie were the biggest cuts. I think keeping in that last moment of the war movie would've been another fun movie reference (not sure which one though), but it's not like it was a consistent theme for the entire episode.
I really like Buick's voice acting in the English version. I think intentionally he sounds a lot more like an ordinary guy than most of the other hammy weirdos in movieland, which is perfect because he's supposed to be from the real world. I wish I knew who voiced him.
In the next episode with have a clip show episode. In any other anime a clip show episode is something to dread, but this one has the best clip show episode of anything I've ever seen and makes me totally forget that it re-uses footage from previous episodes.
No comments:
Post a Comment