Info Wanted: did anyone preserve the Japanese Dubs of the OT?

Were they ever preserved?

ANH has 5 dubs:

-Theatrical Version
-TV 1983
-TV 1985
-Software Version (VHS/DVD/Blu-Ray)*
-TV 2003

ESB has 4 dubs:

-Theatrical Version
-TV 1986
-Software Version (VHS)*
-TV 1992

(Software version was slightly redubbed in 2004 to accommodate the special edition)

ROJ has 2 dubs:

-Software Version (VHS/DVD/Blu-Ray)*
-TV 1988

I’ve also done some research on the LD releases, they only have Japanese subtitles on them. The dubs are only available on VHS. DVD and Blu-Ray were altered to accommodate the special editions.

If anyone has more information about this, please let me know. 😃

Thanks in advance!! 😄

• = Included on Harmy’s Despecialized Edition

CatBus said:

I’m excluding SE dubs from this discussion because I know nothing about them.

The Japanese GOUT discs have two dubs apiece for SW and ESB, and one for ROTJ. All of these are preserved, I believe, on a.b.starwars. That would be the theatrical and home video (VHS/Laserdisc) dubs for SW and ESB, and the home video dub for ROTJ, in two-channel Dolby Digital form. The home video versions of these are available in the Despecialized Editions. I typically don’t keep more than one dub around per language, so I no longer have the theatrical dubs.

I don’t know how many iterations of the home video dub there are–I don’t think the actual dub was ever done more than once, but there were other audio revisions for SW in 85 & 93, and ESB and ROTJ in 93, at least in the English releases. That means if you include the same dub overlaid on different soundtrack as a different dub, you get potentially four SW dubs, three ESB dubs, and two ROTJ dubs, not including SE dubs.

FWIW, the English 93 audio revisions for ESB and ROTJ had no significant content changes other than a missing sound effect in ESB, so it may not be worth collecting this particular variant.

I don’t know anything about a TV dub that’s different in any way from the home video dub. I guess it’s possible there are variations where the broadcaster dubbed over the crawl, etc.

Hey! Thanks for replying!! 😃

So, those “theatrical versions” were only made for those GOUT DVDs from 2006? They weren’t the “original” dubs that were released to theaters?

The Japanese 1990 version was slightly redubbed in 2004 as the scene with The Emperor was changed in the English version, so they accommodated for that.

All of the TV dubs have different casts from each other. Here are Japanese Wikipedia pages for the films:

ANH:
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/スター・ウォーズ_エピソード4/新たなる希望
ESB:
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/スター・ウォーズ_エピソード5/帝国の逆襲
ROJ:
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/スター・ウォーズ_エピソード6/ジェダイの帰還

The cast for all of the versions, TV and home media, are under “日本語吹き替え”

The TV dubs are marked as “日本テレビ版”, Theatrical Version is “劇場公開版”, and the Software Version (VHS/DVD/Blu-Ray) is “ソフト版”

As a side note in ESB’s VHS version, The Emperor was dubbed by 千葉耕市/Koichi Chiba. His recording was replaced in the DVD/Blu-Ray version with 小林勝彦/Katsuhiko Kobayashi (who dubbed the Emperor in the prequels.)

CatBus said:

simps said:

So, those “theatrical versions” were only made for those GOUT DVDs from 2006? They weren’t the “original” dubs that were released to theaters?

No, from what I can remember, they are at least supposed to be the same as the original theatrical dubs. My guess is that if they took the original dub and laid it over revised audio, it would be pretty easy to check. Just check the Star Wars cell block shoot-out scene for the sound of shattering glass. If that sound effect isn’t there, that is probably the original dub straight through. If shattering glass is there, then they took the original dub and laid it over revised audio.

Okay, that makes sense. 😃 I can’t compare the footage as I don’t have that dub. I only have the 1990 VHS dubs from the Despecialized Editions. If a copy is available somewhere, I would love to see it! 😃

CatBus said:

The only copy I know of is on the newsgroups (still? i dunno), and don’t ask me for any help regarding newsgroups

Okay, I’ll look into it. 😃

Thanks for helping!! 😃

^…^ said:

Don’t know if the latest WOWOW captures has the same dub found on BD or not… if you are interested, drop me a PM for a test clip, so you can make a comparison.

PM sent. 😃