Ah, good-old Joss. Singlehandedly ruined decades of entertainment by inspiring thousands of untalented hacks. As much as I love Buffy and Firefly, I would very much prefer Whedon's writing style didn't get recognition.

but this actually happened a lot back when we didn't know

I actually remembered this interview because of a Xitter conversation on the Japanese side of it about the Pokemon movies being almost completely rewritten, including core themes and most of the dialogue: https://x.com/TeshimaKairei/status/2009642872874971622

Yeah, localization in that era (20-30 years ago) often completely rewrote the core themes. I’m lucky I can watch the originals in Japanese, but it’s sad that the international audience didn't get to experience the stories as they were meant to be told. At least the first movie became a global hit despite the changes, so I guess that’s a small mercy.

https://x.com/TeshimaKairei/status/2009205018793267546

Someone also linked these articles about it:

https://dogasu.bulbagarden.net/comparisons/movies/mov01.html

https://dogasu.bulbagarden.net/comparisons/movies/mov02.html

I recently listened to the audio commentary for Pokémon The First Movie "Mewtwo Strikes Back," the one that was included on the very first DVD release of the film in the United States. In the commentary Norman Grossfeld and Michael Haigney, the two men who wrote the English version of the film, talk about what it was like to create their version of the movie, what challenges they faced along the way, and why they made some of the changes they did. When all is said and done it's a pretty fascinating listen, actually!

But, hearing their side of the story also reveals so, so much about what went wrong with this dub. I'm sure both men have grown and mellowed out considerably since they recorded that commentary track a full quarter of a century ago, but at the time it really seems like 4Kids had nothing but utter contempt for the Japanese original. It appears as though it saw the Japanese original as this poor attempt at making a children's film, a movie with laughably low production values and an amateurish understanding of how to tell a coherent story, but don't worry because 4Kids is here and has the know-how and experience and money needed to "fix" this trainwreck of a movie. The entire commentary is absolutely dripping with condescension whenever the original is brought up, in other words. As someone who thinks the Japanese version is perfectly fine just the way it is, actually, I obviously disagree with this sentiment.

For instance:

Mewtwo Japanese (translated): "I was created by humans, but I am not one of them. I was created to be a Pokémon, but I'm not one of them, either."

"Who am I? Where am I? Who asked for me to be born? Who wished for me to be created? I abhor everyone and everything that brought me into this world. "

"This is neither an attack nor a declaration of war. No...to those of you who gave birth to me I will...strike back."

Mewtwo English Dub: "I was not born a Pokémon. I was created. And my creators have used and betrayed me. So...I stand alone!"

"Who am I? What is my true reason for being? I will find my own purpose...and purge this planet of all who oppose me, human and Pokémon alike."

"The world will heed my warning: the reign of Mewtwo will soon begin."

Some really dumbfounding stuff in there:

If you're watching the English dub of Mewtwo Strikes Back! via any of the official ways it's been released in the U.S. -- home video, reruns on TV, streaming, etc. -- then the version you're watching is missing the entire first ten minutes of the film.

For "Mewtwo Strikes Back," 4Kids replaces every piece of background music from the original soundtrack. Every. single. piece.

As opposed to the Japanese version, which uses a lot of stirring orchestral music, the U.S. version mainly uses dance and rap music, and there were many scenes where we thought "Are they seriously going to play such driving music here?" Some sad scenes would be accompanied by very upbeat sounds, for instance.

The English dub script has a significant larger number of jokes, with much of this being accomplished by adding them to what are otherwise meant to be serious scenes.

So right off the bat we get to see just how much more talky the English dub is compared to the Japanese version. Something that's only one or two lines in the original will get turned into this big rambling speech for the dub, with the overwhelming majority of this new dialogue not really adding anything to the story at all. Can't see a character's mouth on-screen? Why not give them extra dialogue! It seems like there isn't anybody in the English version of this movie who can go two seconds without rambling on about something or other.

General rule of thumb about this movie; if there are characters in the English dub talking from off-screen, 99.99% of the time there was no dialogue in the equivalent scene of the Japanese version.

---

The scientists in the Japanese version have no idea that Mewtwo is about to break free. The ones in the English version, however, are apparently monitoring its activity before it wakes up.

Mewtwo Japanese (translated): "Who am I? Why am I here? No, that's not right...I may be here, but I haven't been born into this world yet."

English Dub: Assistant: "Doctor! Look at this!" Dr. Fuji: "What!?" Assistant: "Its brain waves...they're surging." Scientist: "Let me see! She's right." Dr. Fuji: "Let's run another scan." Assistant: "Its mind is racing!"

Imagine if you found out some sociopath had been signing stuff with your name for decades.

This is actually a really great description of what SJWs have been doing to every one of their enemies for a very long time.

“Hey, we gamers are actually sexual predators and had done horrible things to women for all of our history. Signed gamers.” When it was actually SJWs doing all these terrible things.

“Hey, we gamers are actually using gaming as a way to indoctrinate and brainwash millions of people into hating each other and being evil. Signed gamers.” When it was SJWs doing this with every platform they control.

“Hey, we anime fans are actually weirdos who can’t separate fiction from reality. Signed anime fans.” When it was SJWs who keep treating real people like fiction and fiction like real as a tool to attack others.

“Hey, we anime fans culturally appropriate other cultures and take over and use these other cultures to spread our ideology.” When it was actually SJWs who do this to all other cultures, and especially to anime and manga now. While anime fans are the ones who want Japanese creators to remain with their own unique Japanese sensibilities.

It’s all so tiresome.

Funnily enough american companies get really pissy when it happens to them. Adventure Time had a latam dub that introduced regional jokes about mexican pop culture, CN told the mexican localizers to knock it off, in protest, Jake's va started doing a more toned down, almost robotic voice