Making a Case for Dubbed Animated Films

I can't even tell if this a controversial stance anymore

I’ve been working in theatrical exhibition for 15 years. That’s long enough to see a pronounced shift in the way people watch anime. When I first started working in film programming, it was a given that the majority of people wanted to watch animated films in their original language. Demanded it even. Over the last decade and a half, though, thanks in large part to the younger audiences that have been raised on the medium, I have seen a pronounced shift in the demand for English-language dubs for animated films. Now, if a theater puts both a dubbed and subbed version of an anime on sale, it’s a coin toss as to which will sell better. A double-sided coin. Dubbed sells better. Every single time.

Personally, when I watch an animated film, it’s dubbed all the way. Not to put on my “Well, actually” shirt, but all animated films are dubbed, really, and - when it comes to it - I’d rather see an animated film and be able to take in every inch of the frame with my hungry eyeballs than have to split my time between reading subtitles and absorbing the artistry on screen. My eyeballs can only do so much. Moreover, studios seem to be doing an incredible job lately of casting dubbed voice actors. I remember watching dubbed anime in the ‘90s, and there was a certain theatricality behind the voices that took me out of what was happening on screen. Nowadays, a lot of time (and money) is going into English language dubs, and the results speak (literally) for themselves.

Last night I watched ARCO, a new film from French filmmaker Ugo Bienvenu. The film, released almost exclusively in a dubbed version in America, features the vocal talents of Natalie Portman (who also produced the film), Mark Ruffalo, Will Ferrell, Andy Samberg, America Ferrera, and Flea. The movie is a beautiful, poignant piece of science fiction, about a young boy who accidentally travels from the far future of 2932 into the not-so-far future of 2075. Now, stuck in the past (but our future), Arco must figure out how to get home with the help of a young girl who longs for human connection in a world where parenting has been outsourced to robot nannies.

Quick tangent - but France is killing it lately with animated science fiction films. MARS EXPRESS, APRIL AND THE EXTRAORDINARY WORLD, and I LOST MY BODY are all all-timers from France that have been released in the last decade.

ARCO would have been a great film in any language, but I appreciated the chance to really absorb the wild animated swings the movie takes - from breathtaking apocalyptic dangers to exaggerated character facial animation that would make Tex Avery stand up and salute. The film is quite beautiful to look at and, thanks to the dubbed language track, I was able to really take it all in. More so, the English language dub introduced a subtle but compelling science-fiction twist that works as well as it does only because of its dubbed cast. Iris, the young girl who befriends Arco, is under the parental guardianship of Mikki, a robot whose voice is a dual-language track with the voices of Mark Ruffalo and Natalie Portman overlaid ontop of each other. Portman and Ruffalo also voice Iris’ parents - the conceit being that the robot nanny’s voice is a vocal portmanteau designed to bring comfort to a child who misses their parents without favoring one parent over the other. Without ever actually drawing attention to this detail, this nice little touch gave me a mental spin-off movie in my head about all the couples counseling that happened before this dual-voice nanny robot technology was invented.

ARCO is a great film, full of hope and sadness and regret and fate. It’s a movie I hope more people take the chance to see, especially since it’s nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Film this year. I’m glad I got to see it, and I’m especially glad I got to see it with a well-directed and well-acted English language dub. There are shots in the film that I just would not have wanted to have split my attention on. My brain is only so nimble.

As we look towards our own future, I wonder if society will eventually get to a point where we’ll enjoy (and accept) well-directed and well-acted dubbing on foreign live-action films, too. Every time I bring up my preference for dubbed animated films, I’m met with either agreement or subdued acceptance. Anytime I try to suggest there may be a market for dubbed live-action films, though, you’d think I was telling people I enjoy eating garbage. Dubbing used to be very popular (there was a reason why kung fu films were so huge in the ‘70s), and dubbing for live action may eventually find its popularity again, but it may take getting to 2075 before the Letterboxd crowd accepts watching the new Park Chan-wook dubbed.