@Vegard:
"Freaking BORING"? And you're stating this as an objective fact and as THE reason why Disney didn't dub those films? Seriously?
Fine. Add in "one of them was made for tv rather than theatrical" and "one of them has women talking about their periods."
They released everything else they had licensed, the only reason NOT to do the rest of the catalogue is because they think
a) it won't sell
b) they think its not a good fit for the brand and target audience.
It's the explanation that was speculated ten years ago, and I haven't heard anything better since.
Once again, the fact that they released Cat Returns before Whisper of the Heart shows that yes, they prefer the whimsy and strange magical creatures and were trying to build a specific brand recognition stateside before the more settled down to earth stuff. So yes, even though Pom Poko has giant balls in it… it ALSO has talking racoons and a weird ass parade sequence and so yes, is much more fitting towards the audience they're generally aiming at, while Ocean Waves and Only Yesterday are slower paced films aimed at older women. (And that's not a knock... they ARE aimed at older women, one of them was based on a josei comic)
Disney seems to want the more fantastical kid-friendly stuff that's more in line with its brand. Stuff like Princess Mononoke was released under Miramax, and it's likely stuff like Poppy Hill is of more interest to an older audience than for kids. So might as well let some other distributor get it. It won't bring in the cash that something like Spirited Away, Howl's and Arrietty potentially can... but the Hayao Miyzaki stuff they still made an effort to get.
Oh and I'm pretty sure Disney did not do the subtitles for any of these films themselves.
They had an officially subtitled copy of the movie in their holding, they were able to air it on Turner Classic Movies. Somewhere along the way, Disney (or Ghibli) had someone do official subtitles for it.
At least I distinctly recall seeing "Subtitles by AURA" in the credits for pretty much all the Ghibli movies I own.
Disney is a huge corporation. They sub-contract. They also use Sony's surround sound system and often go to ILM for special effects and have a seperate division for releasing soundtracks. They also have a whole slate of films that say MARVEL and LUCASFILM on them now. That they had someone else do the work doesn't mean that the parent company Disney didn't get it done.
(Japanese release for the record, as I understand it Disney has this nasty tendency to dubtitle half of their movies… Yet not all of them for some reason... Seriously Disney, why did Laputa and Princess Mononoke have a proper translation the first time you released it, yet the more recent BluRay-releases have dubtitles only? And yet the same apparently did not go for The Wind Rises, and Kiki's Delivery Service kept the same terrible "dubtitles from an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT dub"-script that it's always had.)
The same reason the Lilo and Stitch Blu ray lacks all the special features of the dvd, including the commentary and 2 hour documentary? Because whoever is in charge of the blu-ray releases is just using what's handed to them and doesn't know better… and its just easier to use dubtiles because of the millions of copies sold, 99% of the audience won't know the difference and that covers the hearing impaired segment while they're at it? (And 93% of the audience won't listen to the japanese track to begin with.)
Mononoke needed a huge petition the first time around to even get a Japanese language version at all! They don't care about the purist part of the audience, they would be happy to just release them dubbed-only and pretend it was a kiddy film they made.
Oh and for the record, that's five movies. Out of 22 if you count Nausicaa which for the purpose of this series we clearly are being that Doug already reviewed it… and the latest of which has not yet seen a release anywhere outside Japan as far as I know. So that's about 1/4 of their entire catalogue. Hardly "no difference".
And of the Ghibli movies being left out, none of them are Hayao Miyazaki's. One of them isn't even theatrical. No, they aren't as relevant or important. (ANd Doug clearly laid down that criteria so people wouldn't start harshing on him about stuff that isn't even widely released yet, or start begging about Animal Treasure Island)
Given that Disney HAVE picked up other films in the time since their initial contract years ago, Howls, Earthsea, Ponyo, Arriety, and Wind Rises, its obviously not in their priority list to get everything. They let Kaguya go to someone else because… they don't care, feeling that the art style and subject matter will bore American audiences? And Poppy Hill for presumably, similar reasons? Grave of the Fireflies?
Takahata and Goro just aren't as important to anyone but an anime purist. (ANd yes, we could have a discussion all day about how important and influential Takahata is. I'm not denying how big and important he is and what he's done in the industry, but he's NOT Miyazaki.)