The Energon Pub

News Credits: 5749 · by **El Duque** » Thu Apr 21, 2011 10:55 am

Shout! Factory's Brian Ward has shared some new information regarding their upcoming Takara Collections releases via Shout! Factory's Community forum. Many fans have been wondering ever since "Transformers Japanese Collection-Headmasters"'s announcement if they would include new dubs or possibly the old fan dubs. The answer is unfortunately no on both counts. Though Ward does say they tried very hard, but Hasbro ultimately said no.

I really can't make this any more clear. We've tried and tried to no avail. The brand team at Hasbro is dead set against including the dubs on the DVDs. They're not happy with the fact that the names of some of their most popular characters have been changed and find it confusing to their less hardcore fans in the United States. Furthermore, there are other things they've heard and find objectionable; content they feel to be detrimental to their brand name. As a result, they will not currently allow me to include the dubs.

the topic of fan dubs or new dubs has also been broached with the brand team. In order to have anything like this approved for inclusion on the sets, they want approvals over the scripts, the voice cast and then the final audio. We don't have the money required for a new dub. For starters, it takes studio time. Then, it takes paying the actors. Everyone asks the same question; would the original voice cast be able to come back and voice the characters? Simple answer: no. There are members of that voice cast that charge as much as $10k just to make a public convention appearance. That's a single person. Now multiply that by the number of voice actors. We don't have that kind of money. These guys aren't going to do this simply out of love for the show. For you, it's a passion. For them, it's a job. And once the voice cast completes their task, we then have to remix the entire show. This is all very expensive and incredibly time consuming.

so there you have it. It's not that we don't want it included. I very much want the option of the Japanese or English language tracks. But Hasbro is equally adamant about keeping them off. You're more than welcome to try to convince them otherwise, but believe me; when you have this conversation with them, you realize very early on how little love they actually have for the Takara shows, let alone the English dubs they find to be confusIng and offensive.

Brian

In regards to "Super-God Master Force" and "Victory", he says we will probably get them. Apparently the sales of "Transformers Japanese Collection-Headmasters" will be used to gauge interest in the project. It's still up in the air on "Scramble City" and "Zone".

I can say that you should expect follow-ups of at least Super-God Masterforce and Victory. I can't really make any promises, regarding Scramble City or Zone at this time. That being said, Headmasters will certainly be used as a rough gauge of the series' popularity. After all, it is the only one of the three that is a direct continuation from S3, so we wouldn't necessarily expect the same response to the subsequent series.

Hope to have more information for you guys soon.

Brian

Lastly, when asked about the possibility of all three shows in one set he had this to say:

Unfortunately, I can't reveal the release strategy, until that information is cleared by PR and Hasbro. But I will say that I'm currently working on all three sets, in hopes that the sales of Headmasters will prove the others are worthy releases.

Brian

News Credits: 456 · by **Sabrblade** » Thu Apr 21, 2011 11:25 am

Regarding no dub: Good. No dub could successfully capture the spiritual essence of this series to the same degree as the original Japanese version.

News Credits: 1 · by **Duke of Luns** » Thu Apr 21, 2011 12:02 pm

It's good to hear that there's a strong possibility of Masterforce and Victory being released. I'll buy all three, because I have really, really poor quality bootleg tapes and it'll be great to finally clearly see these series in full on a TV screen.

Scramble City and Zone can't be that hard to include in one of the sets. I mean, they're just two episodes!!

As for no dubs, I can't disagree with their choice. I never expected Fan Dubs or any kind of new dub either. Subs only I'm perfectly ok with.

But when they do get to Masterforce(and a lesser extent, Victory), will they use common American names in the subs, i.e. Snaptrap instead of Turtler, or the original Japanese names?

News Credits: 1 · by **Galvatron X** » Thu Apr 21, 2011 12:31 pm

Sabrblade wrote:Regarding no dub: Good. No dub could successfully capture the spiritual essence of this series to the same degree as the original Japanese version.

Yeah, I totally agree. I like hearing the actual Japanese words being spoken.

News Credits: 1 · by **Heavy B** » Thu Apr 21, 2011 4:33 pm

ah man. this means i gotta read...

News Credits: 456 · by **Sabrblade** » Thu Apr 21, 2011 11:20 pm

Dr. Heavy B wrote:ah man. this means i gotta read...

Yeah, ain't it great!

News Credits: 1 · by **Heavy B** » Fri Apr 22, 2011 7:13 am

Sabrblade wrote:
Dr. Heavy B wrote:ah man. this means i gotta read...
Yeah, ain't it great!

Pass. i dont watch tv to read. subtitles drive me crazy, and i cant speak japaneese.

although i did have an interesting idea. create a new fan dub. does shout factory have any idea how many fans would PAY (not be payed) to be a transformers voice actor?

by **CyclonusArmada** » Fri May 06, 2011 2:16 am

Dr. Heavy B wrote:
Sabrblade wrote:
Dr. Heavy B wrote:ah man. this means i gotta read...
Yeah, ain't it great!

Pass. i dont watch tv to read. subtitles drive me crazy, and i cant speak japaneese.

although i did have an interesting idea. create a new fan dub. does shout factory have any idea how many fans would PAY (not be payed) to be a transformers voice actor?

If you re-read Ward's explanation, the fan dub idea was already proposed to Hasbro. It has nothing to do with whether or not Shout Factory is aware of fans who would want to participate, it all comes down to the fact that HASBRO would have to approve everything person cast, every voice recorded, remix the entire series including music and sound FX and approve this new remix for release. This again is a huge time and money expense, not to mention a long shot that Hasbro would invest time and energy into re-recording an entirely new voice track for a 20 year old series in which they're not that interested and then hire professional sound mixers to remix it all to THEIR satisfaction. How hard is it to understand that a major company, not the small label who licensed the rights to release DVDs, would get total control over the look, sound, content and appearance of their own property? And all of this would cost more than what a group of fans would ever be willing to pay just to be a part of it.