I’m thinking about buying a copy of Fantastic Planet, but I have heard that even though the film is dubbed over in English, it isn’t possible to turn off the subtitles and also that the subtitles are translated differently to the dubbed dialogue.
I have the Anchor Bay DVD release of Fantastic Planet. With the English dubbing, yes, it still has English subtitles, and the translation between the two is different. You can also watch it in the original French with English subtitles, if you prefer it that way.
I bought the Fantastic Planet DVD right when it came out and was very excited to get Rene Laloux’s short films, which I thought I’d never see. The shorts alone make the disc worthwhile.
But the English subtitles are a different matter, and here is where Anchor Bay was dishonest. The playback options listed on the back of the box clearly state that you can view the film with French audio and English subtitles or with English audio. The English subtitles, however, are burned into the print of the film itself and cannot be turned off. So the second option should read “English with English subtitles” because that’s what you get.
I wrote to Anchor Bay at the time and asked whether they planned to correct this. They wrote back and said that the best print they could find had subtitles on it, so they used it and there will be no corrected edition. I wrote back and said that’s fine, but why does the packaging list a viewing option that doesn’t exist? They never replied.
I like the English audio track better than the subtitles, but when viewing it with the English audio my eye is constantly drawn to the discrepencies between what is being said and what the subtitles read. It is extremely annoying and, for that reason, I have hung onto my videotape copy.
Well, they are somewhat distracting, as all subtitles can be; whether I need to read them or not, my eyes seem to automatically be drawn to subtitles.
As for whether they obscure parts of the cartoon; all subtitles obscure the picture to an extent, of course, but in my opinion, the subtitles on this DVD are neither more nor less conspicuous than any other subtitles I’ve seen–they’re pretty typical in size.