Of course, I make a living subtitling TV shows, so I do have a vested interest. Ours don’t have the problems Kayla mentions, though I know exactly what she’s talking about.
I just realised another exception: shows that are aimed at children under the age of about ten should be dubbed for general release, perhaps with an alternate subtitled version available. There would be too many kids who wouldn’t be able to read fast enough to keep up with subtitles.
(Maybe ten is too high an age there, but movies that are aimed at eight-year-olds are generally aimed at ten-year-olds too, so it works either way).
OH can you answer a question for me, then? Are subtitles based on a script of the show, or on someone watching the show? Some of the mistakes I saw seemed to be because they were going off a script that was possibly later changed, and some of them seemed to be because someone had maybe misheard something. It was very inconsistent and I found it baffling.
Two movies off the top of my head that were ruined by dubbing:
I saw Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon in the theatre with subtitles and the movie was very beautiful from the imagery and music to the costumes and choreography. The spoken voice added a ton to it as Mandarin is so distinctive.
Later I saw a dubbed version on DVD and hated it. It felt dumbed down.
Same for Kung Fu Hustle. Watch the subtitled version and you’ll laugh your ass off. It’s a riot.
Watch the dubbed version and it just feels immature and stupid.
I always prefer subtitles, except in cases where it’s a mindless action flick, or maybe if the original actors have redubbed their own lines.
However, since I see most movies here in English with Spanish subtitles, it does make me keenly aware of how bad subtitles often are. (Seeing Amelie here in French with Spanish subtitles was a bit disorienting as well. Although I read Spanish, its not as fast or automatic as in English, so by the end of the movie my head was spinning.)
I prefer subtitles, but I will also turn on the dubbing if the dubbing is good. For live-action movies, the dubbing is general poor, so it’s rare that I’ll have it on. Many animations have good dubbing, so I turn it on, while keeping the dubbing. The extra channel of information is good for clarifying what’s going on sometimes.
I’ll also turn on subtitles even if the movie is in English originally, simply because I don’t want to miss something simply because of random noisy disruptions (i.e. kids).
I go one further. I turn on the subtitles for all English language movies and TV. For me, reading has always been easier than listening, so having the subtitles on improves my understanding of what I’m watching.
True, and that seems to be shown in the results thus far. But you know they’re out there. Years ago I too saw Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in the theater with subtitles…I knew of lots of people who refused to see it because “subtitles are distracting,” etc. I would say that I didn’t find them to be so, and indeed, they would respond “Why would you go to a movie to spend all your time reading?”
Sometimes for kicks, I’ll switch over to HBOL, which is HBO with everything dubbed into Spanish. Knowing the original voices and what they’re saying, the Spanish dubbing often sounds quite ridiculous – like stereotype characters in a 1940s radio drama or something. If this is the kind of relative goofiness and total loss of context that I can expect from an English dub, I wouldn’t want anything to do with it.
Always, always subtitling, for both live action and animation. I go to foreign films aware that it’s a foreign film and I expect to see differences, so it’s very jarring to hear Americanized English-speaking voices.
The only downside to subtitles is I work at a place that does subtitles (and dubbing) and I can’t help but notice stylistic differences and mistakes.
I can’t read about dubbing without thinking of this NSFW scene from Jésus de Montréal. The Dubbing Scene
I’m sorry that this version broke up the scene so that you don’t hear the dialogue between the two actresses about how terrible it is that modern actors don’t care about diction, and how all they do is improvise. At any rate, Martin has to fill in for a missing voice actor in the dubbing studio…
I voted “refuse”, but it’s really “I don’t have the time or energy to watch movies in a language I’m not fluent in.” Dubbing is always obvious, and subtitles ruin it for me, so I generally do something else. I think the last foreign language movie I sat through was “What’s Up Tiger Lily” 20+ years ago.
I much prefer subtitles unless it’s Godzilla. Bad dubbing in Japanese B-movies is just part of the joy.
I really like many foreign films, ideally about half the movies I watch (which still isn’t all that many). The only problem with subtitles is that I can’t embroider while I watch–usually I like to have some handwork to do if I’m sitting in front of the TV.
I don’t really care one way or the other, mostly because I’ve rarely seen live action movies with dubbing. I think Nightwatch was dubbed, and there’s Gozilla, but…
No kidding. Nothing drags me out of a Spanish film faster than realizing that they just mis-subtitled something. Even del Toro’s movies have incorrect subtitles here and there, so it’s a bit frustrating.
With some anime, I prefer the performance in the English dub (Cowboy Bebop is a good example) to the original Japanese. But I would never watch a dubbed live action movie, it would be an insult to the actors. Plus it would annoy me that the lip movements didn’t match up.
I’d never considered differentiating between live action and cartoon; I’ll have to think about that. But for live action, give me subtitles any day. Like others, I’ll make exceptions for films like Das Boot.
That’s my main example of preferring the dub, too - and apparently someone major in the creative team for the series (I want to say Watanabe, but I can’t find the cite) agrees with us.
I’m the odd man out - I tend to prefer dubbing. Y’all act like dubbing is pure evil, while there are no drawbacks to (good) subtitles. But film is a visual medium. Maybe I just can’t multitask as well as most people, but if I’m reading subtitles, there’s no way I can truly appreciate the visuals. I also tend to miss subtle bits of action that may be crucial to the plot.
And I’m a pretty good reader - for someone who struggles to read quickly, as Cat Whisperer notes, subtitles could completely ruin the experience.
Does low-quality voice acting detract from the experience? Sure. Mismatched lip sync I don’t mind, but yes, dorky sounding acting sucks. But so does reading so much I miss half of what’s going on and have near-zero appreciation of the cinematography.
Ours don’t have the problems Kayla mentions, though I know exactly what she’s talking about.