Movie subtitles that enhance your viewing experience!

Cafe Society
1

I live in Greece. Thankfully, foreign movies (which is most of the movies on TV and in theaters) here are not dubbed (ugh…) but subtitled, which is just perfect as far as I’m concerned.

The problem with subtitling movies is that sometimes the people who translate movies are not really familiar with some expressions that they hear, which leads to some unfortunate translations. This probably makes the movie going public in Greece that does not speak the movie’s original language wonder whether the filmmakers were on a diet rich on crack-cocaine when writing the dialog.

My favorite examples of bad subtitling:

The Poseidon adventure (the original, with Gene Hackman). Early in the movie, Hackman’s character, a priest, explains to some other passenger why he is on the boat. I don’t remember the exact words he used in English, but it went something like this:

  • They think they’re punishing me by sending me away. But they’re wrong. They’re giving me exactly what I need. Elbow room.

In the Greek text, Hackman actually said:

  • They think they’re punishing me by sending me away. But they’re wrong. They’re sending me exactly where I wanted. To El Baroom.

That’s right. Hackman’s character was shipped to the famed city of El Baroom according to the translators.

**
The A-Team**. This one is actually worse, cause the mistake was on the voiceover of the opening credits, so it was repeated on every single episode!

At some point, the voiceover said “These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground”

This was quite reasonably translated in Greek as “These men escaped from a maximum security prison and took the Los Angeles subway”
I was reminded of the above when watching the latest Harry Potter movie where at some point, early in the movie, Tonks angrily says to Moody “Don’t call me Nymphadora!” and the subtitles read “Don’t call me stupid!”.

I guess hoping that translations are made by people who actually have some knowledge of the source material is just wishful thinking.

2

There are a few infamous translation bloopers in the norwegian Star Wars subtitles.

For example, when translating the phrase “take your fathers Light Saber”, the translator misunderstood which meaning of the word “light” to translate, and so audiences were left with the impression that Anakin Skywalker had possesed a range of sabers, some light, some heavy. :smack:

Og course, this was a simple misunderstanding, and the translator probably just did’t grasp what a lightsaber was supposed to be anyway. However, the one from the prequels there is simply no exuse for. Palpatine claims that, in time, Anakin will become invincible.

The translator rendered it as “invisible”.

3

The original Leathal Weapon, Mel Gibson is rescuing Danny Glover and cracks a joke “What did the first shepherd say to the second shepherd ? Let’s get the flock outta here!”. The whole “flock” “fuck” thing sailed happily over French heads … “Let’s move the sheep.”

4

Do Not Want.

5

I’ve seen the phrase “I’m having a ball” translated into Swedish as “I have a ball”, as in “I possess a spherical object”. That was painful.

6

This sort of thimng goes back to book translations. Read Walter James Miller’s books on Jules Verne (The Annotated 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, for example) to get upset about what “translators” like Lewis Mercier did to the SF pioneer. Things like:
The Disagreeable Country of the Dakotas

The was really

The Badlands of the Dakotas

or

A Pressure of x pounds per square 3/8"

This was supposed to be

A pressure of x kilograms per square centimeter

Plus the guy cut out — without notice or explanation – fully 1/3 of the book. He did the same thing to From the Earth to the Moon.

And I still haven’t forgiven Scholastic for changing “Harry Potter And the Philosopher’s Stone” to “Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone”. I knew what the “Philosopher’s Stone” was before I was ten! You’re Scholastic books – let the kids LEARN!

7

Science of Sleep intentionally mucked up some translations for comedic purposes, creating words like “schizometric”. Not quite related, but a great movie for those of us who are entertained by this kind of thing.

8

Mr. Sparkle!

9

Not so much a subtitle, but the James Bond film “Die Another Day” in the Republic of Georgia was titled “Die, But Not Now”. Kinda loses something. :smiley:

10

I’ve posted this before, but here it is again.

In China, the DVD of the movie, The 6th Sense had the Chinese title underneath the English title.

The Chinese title was, “He’s a ghost!”

11

Booyaa morgûl jarjar…There is no life in The Dark Side. Only Death.

12

And that one doesn’t even make sense. They were afraid people wouldn’t know what the philosopher’s stone was, so they change it to something no-one’s ever heard of?

13

I have the US edition of Philosopher’s stone, and the UK editions of the rest of the books. I remember that in Philosopher, apart from the title. that they also changed and americanized some other terms, like crumpets into brownies.

Did the publisher continue this with the subsequent books in the US or did they keep the UK English?

14

They got better about keeping more UK terms and phrases as the series progressed. I think in maybe the 3rd or 4th book they started referring to Mrs. Weasley’s hand-knitted jumpers instead of sweaters. Some of the later books, like 5, 6, and 7, were virtually untouched IIRC.

But then, I wonder, not having both editions to compare. Like in book 5, when McGonagall is chewing him out for yelling at Umbridge, she says, “Have a biscuit.” But later in the scene, Rowling refers to the tartan tin of cookies.

15

The American publishers wanted the title to make it obvious that the book had a magical setting. Supposedly the first title they offered up was “Harry Potter and the School of Magic”.

16

Whoa. What a bummer.
Do the Chinese title for **The Crying Game ** was probably “She’s a dude.”

17

And then of course there was Agatha Christies “The murderer is Michael Smith”

18

Slightly off-topic, but I loved the Robot Chicken Spoiler-Sketch for this, which has a Barbie doll with a black bar across the groin, with the word PENIS imposed on it in large, obvious letters. Great stuff. :smiley:

19

I came in to mention Anthony Burgess’ translation of Cyrano de Bergerac - which enhanced my viewing experience no end, - but you’re being sarcastic.
Still it is worth a mention.

MiM

20

I hear the Chinese version of Citizen Kane was called “Rosebud the Sled”.