In the end, there just aren't that many unique stories you can tell.
This, unfortunately, though it's still interesting to see what people come up with. I doubt we'll get really fresh ideas (I mean they happen, but it's pretty rare), but to come up with ways to tell a story and make it enjoyable is probably what makes story-telling that much more rewarding. DreamWorks is especially getting that much better at it even though at heart, they're a parodic, pop-culture kind of company. Outside of probably
Turbo (kinda feel bad for the director, it was his first directed movie), I can't really think of a DreamWorks movie that didn't make me laugh/entertained.
Meanwhile, I'm getting very worried over Pixar's next film,
The Good Dinosaur. The movie's having problems (which is why it got pushed back a year, so we don't have Pixar at all this year), but it also... doesn't look that good. Yeah, the poster's not official (that we know of) and we have seen concept art, but it kinda scares me. At least with the first
Cars, I still found a story to take away from, and
Brave was disappointing (albeit beautiful to look at), but I don't see what's appealing about this next movie outside of dinosaurs co-existing with humans--which I
thought was going to take place in
modern times.
It varies by dub. Cromartie High School has a pretty good dub, even with its, er, embellishments. But some dubs are really bad.
*quickly adds to "plan to watch" list*
I have this love-hate relationship with the dub of
Catnapped!, a rather obscure children's film that everyone should watch because it needs the love. The dub's good for the most part, it's got great voices such as Lia Sargent as ChuChu, Simon Prescott as HoiHoi, and Mary Elizabeth McGlynn as Buburina (I love this performance in particular), but I can't stand Sandy Fox's role as Miiko. Even in the original Japanese, Miiko's voice actress was still grating, but arguably not as bad as Sandy Fox's.
And I personally think
Neon Genesis Evangelion's dub isn't too bad. It's really narmy and jarring in places, yes, but I think the voice actors and actresses did a nice job by the time they did
End of Evangelion. Also,
Garzey's Wing's dub is so bad, it's good. It's probably the only way to watch that crappy OVA without going insane, though it helps to watch it with someone. And then there are the gag dubs... thus far, I think
Samurai Pizza Cats and to an extent Digimon (Adventure) are the successful gag dubs.
Well... granted, many anime from the mid-90s and earlier had dubs that were decent at best, though I'm pretty sure bad English dubs
still exist to this very day (I just haven't run into them outside of the obvious 4KIDS dubs--though there are some pieces of 4KIDS dubs I've enjoyed in particular some of the voice actors/actresses). Sentai Filmworks is one people like to point at, though I haven't really noticed outside of the dreadful subtitles (unless all of their DVD cases look like
this in which case they suck at it, though I hear the Blu-Rays are handled better).