Phase3 said:
I finished watching this dub today, and wanted to say thanks for sharing it – it’s a fantastic dub! It was a nice surprise to hear the different foley work done for this dubbing, alongside the actual voice dubbing itself.
Out of curiosity, was this dub only ever done for the 1988 Japanese TV broadcast, and not released on LaserDisc, VHS or DVD?
If so, I imagine that the only way to obtain this dub would have been via recoding it onto a blank VHS tape when ROTJ was broadcast?
That is correct. The data on the tape from the first broadcast was given to me by an acquaintance; it was of lower quality than Return of the Pug, but it was well worth it to edit this dubbing to 35mm standards. After its last broadcast in 1997, this dubbed version was neither rerun nor sold on VHS or other formats. The 2006 DVD was my last hope, but it contained only the VHS version with the narration removed and the dubbed versions of the 1980 and 1982 theatrical releases.
I am the same age as 2006 DVD, so I honestly don’t know the detailed situation back then. But, well, this is probably the only restoration of a dubbed TV version in this way in the world. I hope this will be the beginning of a day when the Japanese dubbed versions of the past can once again take center stage.
