Going at the movies (for people living outside USA or UK) — Forum Archive

16 Sep 2005, 21:24

Out of curiousity, in my quest of knowledge, today I want to know if in your country, they show overdubbed movies or movie with subtitles.. or only the original version of them?

In Quebec (obviously different than the rest of Canada), a movie CAN'T be shown more than 2 weeks if they don't have a french translation.

All major american movies are overdubbed and shown in french, and in some parts of Quebec, original versions are also shown. Subtitles are pretty rare. Usually you can see english version of the movies near the borders and in Montreal where is most of the english population of Quebec.

All translations are done in "international french", so "news reader" french, nothing to do with our local slang or anything.

Obviously, when you know english, dubbing is annoying.. but I went to a place where nobody speaks english in 1995 for university, and I *had* to start watching movies in french... thanks to the DVD who appeared a few years after, they had both languages. Now I'm stuck with dubbed versions because of my wife who doesn't want to "miss anything" and don't like to "work" while watching a movie.

Watching movies in english is mostly how I practiced and learned it, I never practice it, and i was told my english was very acceptable when I met NOOlers a few months ago.

Foreign movies (sorry, we're US market here apparently, so they are called foreign) are mostly subtitled than translated because less people go see them. Local movies are doing quite well over the last few years.

And for the trivia part of this post.. did you know it's "illegal" to put french subtitles in a french movie and to overdub a french movie in french? yes.. this was actually happening before when France received a few movies or TV shows from Quebec, they had a hard time to understand us.

You're lucky they never did that to Benny Hill or Mr Bean (though he doesn't speak much) :evil4:

16 Sep 2005, 21:59

Dubbing has to go.

16 Sep 2005, 22:08

I hate dubbing. When I bought the DVD of part of the Gravitation anime, I watched the episodes in Japanese and then out of curiousity watched an episode in dub. It was awful! The characters' names weren't even pronounced correctly by the American voices and the actual voices didn't fit the characters' personalities. It was more like watching a b-movie. Plus, a script usually doesn't work in translation.

16 Sep 2005, 22:48

Well I live "outside the US/UK" and movies don't really get dubbed here..

Although I do recall our Mad Max trilogy (Road Warrior in the US) was actually dubbed over for the US audience!

From English to, erm, English.

:\pimp3:

17 Sep 2005, 03:35

With subtitles over here. And we never dub movies. That's for the Italians and french only (I think).

17 Sep 2005, 05:16

Dubbing here. (Our movie theatre shows original versions of one actual movie a week). I'm not very into dubbing, but it's comfortable for people if you don't have to read subtitles (but I think most of modern people can't read anyway :) ). From time to time I feel like our dubbing actors are better actors than our usual actors...

We did a lot of holidays in Denmark when I was a kid. They have subtitles there, too. I think you get to understand the english language better (how should you learn that with dubbing?). I only buy DVDs including the german and the english language versions. You can do a lot of rubbish with dubbing. The "Garfield" movie e.g. suffered in germany from using the voice of germans greatest idiot: Thomas Gottschalk. I don't know if he is as well know in the US as he thinks he is...

A lot of children's movies are dubbed with so called stars, who have no experience in dubbing, but who are "very cool" in kids eyes. And so almost every animated movie is dubbed by aficionados.

17 Sep 2005, 05:34

depthcharge wrote: Well I live "outside the US/UK" and movies don't really get dubbed here..

Although I do recall our Mad Max trilogy (Road Warrior in the US) was actually dubbed over for the US audience!

From English to, erm, English.

:\pimp3:

I think it was only the first Mad Max that was overdubbed here, and it ruined it for me :nonono: But then I rented the DVD in all of it's Oz glory, and The Road Warrior was fantastic, but have not had a chance to see the last one (PG-13?! Pah..)

17 Sep 2005, 05:41

Bere wrote:

A lot of children's movies are dubbed with so called stars, who have no experience in dubbing, but who are "very cool" in kids eyes. And so almost every animated movie is dubbed by aficionados.

I forgot about the shild movies. Same here as in Germany then.

17 Sep 2005, 06:55

I heard that they dubbed 'Trainspotting' for North America, not sure if that's true or no.

I prefer subtitles, somehow they're less distracting than seeing people mouth words they're not actually saying on the audio.

17 Sep 2005, 07:15

I prefer dubbing everywhere. Subtitles are annoying - you have to read them quick instead of being absorbed into a movie.

As far as I know they overdub all foreign movies and TV shows in Mexico and Russia.

17 Sep 2005, 07:25

I loathe dubbing.

I just saw MADAGASCAR the other day at a Copenhagen theater, and they subtitled it in Danish with the original English soundtrack.

17 Sep 2005, 07:41

eddie izzard made a good point about dubbing:

on one of his DVDs he does two jokes, one using sean connery's voice and one using james mason's voice. when he performed the same show (in french) in paris, both jokes fell flat. after the show a french friend of his told him that no one got the jokes because few people knew what sean connery or james mason sounded like, as both men's movies were dubbed into french.

imagine not knowing what sean connery sounds like? his voice is so iconic. that's why when i watch non-english- language films i watch them with subtitles--i want to know what the actors sound like: the inflections in their voices and the tone of their voices. dubbing takes so much enjoyment out of watching a film, i will only watch a dubbed film as a last resort.

17 Sep 2005, 07:45

sweetness wrote: I heard that they dubbed 'Trainspotting' for North America, not sure if that's true or no.

I prefer subtitles, somehow they're less distracting than seeing people mouth words they're not actually saying on the audio.

people mistook the scene in the nightclub (where they show what the characters are saying, as the music is playing so loud) as dubbing. the film was not dubbed for american audiences.

17 Sep 2005, 07:53

AgentWood wrote:

sweetness wrote: I heard that they dubbed 'Trainspotting' for North America, not sure if that's true or no.

I prefer subtitles, somehow they're less distracting than seeing people mouth words they're not actually saying on the audio.

people mistook the scene in the nightclub (where they show what the characters are saying, as the music is playing so loud) as dubbing. the film was not dubbed for american audiences.

There was an amateur dubbing of this movie in the mid-90's in Russia. And actually that was the only way people could understand this movie since there was no official video release. And for the generation this dubbing's got a cult-like status. Even the names were translated that way so people would get the funny point. It was a great job indeed.

Later they released an official DVD - with the original English audio and proper dubbing - but it was a dissappoinment for all people I know over there.

17 Sep 2005, 13:40

Subtitles here... thank God!

17 Sep 2005, 13:50

Only subtitles here, dubbing sucks big time!

17 Sep 2005, 13:59

I hate dubbing. It's more distracting than reading subtitles.

Subtitles don't bug me at all. I once saw a version of Jesus of Montreal that was dubbed. I couldn't stop giggling at how bad it was.

19 Sep 2005, 08:50

sweetness wrote: I heard that they dubbed 'Trainspotting' for North America, not sure if that's true or no.

I prefer subtitles, somehow they're less distracting than seeing people mouth words they're not actually saying on the audio.

That one movie I'm happy to have seen in french.

Gee, I would have missed 90% of the movie... really! I do own the DVD, so I know.

19 Sep 2005, 08:53

AgentWood wrote:

imagine not knowing what sean connery sounds like? his voice is so iconic. that's why when i watch non-english- language films i watch them with subtitles--i want to know what the actors sound like: the inflections in their voices and the tone of their voices. dubbing takes so much enjoyment out of watching a film, i will only watch a dubbed film as a last resort.

Well, it is indeed anoying when you know the actor's voice... example, I used to watch the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.. and Will Smith's voice in french.. just isn't right.

One big problem we have with dubbing here in Quebec it's done several times by the same actors.. so you can recognize voices from movies to movies.

But they usually keep the same guy for the same actor, so it's not so bad, I must say it's done very well.

And when you are used to it, you don't mind.

But sometimes, voices don't fit at all. I saw Wedding Crashers in french, and they kept the same gagsta rap voice for Vince Vaughn than in Be Cool... :nuts:

19 Sep 2005, 12:40

What about foriegn pornos?

surely dubbing is better

err, I would have thought?

20 Sep 2005, 11:36

AgentWood wrote:

sweetness wrote: I heard that they dubbed 'Trainspotting' for North America, not sure if that's true or no.

I prefer subtitles, somehow they're less distracting than seeing people mouth words they're not actually saying on the audio.

people mistook the scene in the nightclub (where they show what the characters are saying, as the music is playing so loud) as dubbing. the film was not dubbed for american audiences.

Ah, that's it. Though I wouldn't have been surprised if they had dubbed some of the film, I had translation issues the first time I saw it!

20 Sep 2005, 19:07

I was thinking about this the other day. I have Downfall on dvd which I also saw in the theatre. Germna with English subtitles. But when I think about the scenes in the movie I hear their voices but hear them speaking English not the German in the film.