North America has a very different comics tradition. The director is a former Pixar animator and watching this movie was like seeing the comic book come to life in claymation. . The ways the forms and shapes changed in hand animation has unfortunately not really arrived yet. I'm so glad these guys got to do another one - they really deserved it. I can even badly sing and love the Asterix song.
It's still good when translated, of course, but I just don't think anyone can match the originals there. I think that is an apt comparison. I watched it multiple times with subtitles and it is great! Such fantastic attention to detail, amazing humour, and --ignoring all the deliberately anachronistic things in the series-- you even learn a thing or two about the Roman Empire in the process. The original pun in French was nothing like it, or mightn't even have existed in the original. I guess i'd prefer the style from hand animated movies but i guess that's not making a comeback yet.
I mean, I read them in Dutch my native language , and the humour was translated really well from the original French comics. This coincidentally was the first Asterix book I ever got for my 10th birthday and I read it cover to cover. I loved the traditionally animated films tho. Tajemnica magicznego wywaru Portugal Astérix: O segredo da Poção Mágica Romania Asterix: Secretul potiunii magice Russia Астерикс и тайное зелье Serbia Asteriks - Tajna čarobnog napitka Spain Astérix: El secreto de la poción mágica Sweden Asterix: Den magiska drycken Turkey Turkish title Asteriks: Sihirli Iksirin Sirri Ukraine Астерiкс i таeмне зiлля Vietnam Astérix: Bí Kíp Luyên Thân Duoc World-wide English title Asterix: The Secret of the Magic Potion. It's still good when translated, of course, but I just don't think anyone can match the originals there.
Everything - the fighting, dogmatix, the menhirs, the boars. Yeah, I remember reading one of the books about the writing of the comics, and they really put in not just linguistic translations, but cultural ones too. The last one i saw was Asterix Conquers America and i've never seen the newer computer animated ones. Literally everyone in my country grew up reading Asterix comics and watching the movies. It's just that the English ones I've seen didn't look very promising eg - the puns in the names are a lot more heavy handed than the French ones.
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