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Me too. I've No Time to Die for this. Stubbornness and tantrums are not my thing. I'll rant and then I'll go (good song lyrics, these, btw). Hey, @DarthDimi, let's have a pint elsewhere and discuss the decline of civilisation ;)
When Jean-Paul Belmondo makes his guest appearance as a French Legionaire, in the original version, he speaks french, and has to use a dictionary to translates what he's saying to David Niven. In the french version, he speaks english, and has to translate what he's saying in french to David Niven.
TWINE: "We all have to pay the payper sometine, right Q" is translated as "Es más letal que el flautista de Hamelin, verdad, Q?" (This is more lethal than the Pied Piper of Hamelin). Christmas Jones is literally translated as "Navidad Jones".
AVTAK: "I'm Dick Tracy and you're still under arrest", Dick Tracy is replaced by Cantinflas.
LALD: Mr. Big is known as "El Jefe" (The Boss).
FYEO: St Cyril is literally translated as "San Cirilo".
DAD: The Delectados are dubbed as "Delicados".
QOS: Mathis is given a distinct Italian accent, even though in CR he sounds natural.
TND/Skyfall/SPECTRE: M, Q and C are pronounced in English (instead of "eme", "qu", "ce"). Apparently this was asked by Columbia to the dubbing studio. Strange.
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Not that I dislike the Spanish title for AVTAK we got in Latin America, but the title you got in Spain is the perfect translation. Very cool.
When I was in Czech Republic I caught a glimpse of Pulp Fiction on TV and it was simply bizarre to see Samuel L. Jackson speaking czech.
Italian westerns and giallo/horror films are only films in which I can stomach obvious dubbing.
I must admit that in the German versions the dubbing isn't that bad. Some translations aren't perfect. But mostly it is very good, a very few times even better than in the original. For instance, Stacey Sutton's screaming is not as annoying as it is in the original version in AVTAK. Sometimes translations are just impossible. For instance, when Mayday says: What a view .... (In German "Was für ein Blick.."), Zorin responds in German "für eine große Sache" which means "for a great business". It doesn't make sense but neither does the original.
One must however also mention that many international actors have dubbed their own character in their mother tongue like Carole Bouquet in the French version of FYEO and Gert Fröbe in the German version of Goldfinger, Christoph Waltz in the German verisons of Spectre and No Time to die, Gottfried John in the German version of GoldenEye and many more.
Furthermore, many international actors have also been dubbed in the original version of the Bond films, especially in the 1960s. Hardly anyone complained about that.
Well, interestingly these are always people from either northern countries or the Netherlands who criticise dubbing. I guess because they all have no experience with dubbing and get overly confused when they don't see any sub-titles on screen. People might also hate dubbing because they saw a Bond film in English and later on in a dubbed version and got confused. It is all certainly a matter of the experiences.
In Germany, people get confused when they watch Gert Fröbe obviously dubbed in the originla version. French audiences might be surprised seeing Claudine Auger or Carole Bouquet's characters speakig with different voices.
I wonder if those who complain about dubbing also criticise if books are transated in another language. Really wehere is the difference? Of course you cannot always translate everything perfectly but that is part of bringing pop culture to different countries.
To that end, dubbing for the likes of the German-, French-, Spanish- or Italian-speaking markets makes sense because the respective audiences are large enough, and consequently accustomed for the last more than 90 years to see movies, even foreign ones, in their own language. But that doesn't necessarily apply to smaller countries (or language areas), like the Netherlands plus Flanders with far less than half of the population of the countries above, and especially to the Scandinavian countries where only Sweden passes the ten-million mark (same as Portugal, by the way, regarding the earlier discussions), while the others are only in the five-to-six million range. If there were a sufficient market for Finnish language versions of international movies, they would produce them. But there isn't (exceptions probably notwithstanding).
I've always been saying that the somewhat lower English-language proficiency of Germans (as compared to Dutch or Scandinavian persons, who seem to be naturally fluent in English) is largely influenced by this fact. But if your TV (not to mention cinemas, but they play a minor role, I guess) almost exclusively shows films or other broadcasts in your own language, you don't become fluent in another one. I regret that, but I do not expect the majority of my countrymen and -women to suddenly change course.
And neither do international film producers who have only one goal: Make the most money possible out of a film. If the considerable expenditure for professional (and mostly quite high-quality) dubbing is likely to increase the profit, they will keep on doing that.
Something always gets lost in translation. But a book and movie are not the same things. Take Sean Connery. He had a distinct voice. Another man's voice doesn't belong in that body. And Bond is 99% of a Bond film; the rest matters less. I don't care if Ursula was dubbed; Connery's perfect voice means a lot more to me. Screwing with that is just terrible.
A book doesn't come with sound. The voice of the author is silent. It's just written words. Translations lose the intended poetic aura of the prose, but that's still not as bad as when some French dude ruins Dalton's or Moore's voice. Even then, I read English books in English.
I'm from Flanders (and thank you, @j_w_pepper, for your high opinion of our English pronunciation ;), that's very kind of you) and I was raised Dutch. Even when I was young, I watched English films in English with Dutch subs; that way, I picked up a lot of English fast. The next step involved watching films without subtitles, which helped me to pick up even more English. And since most films I watch are in English, I now have the advantage of being able to do so without needing any subs or dubs or whatever; the issue has effectively eliminated itself through practice. The only other language I might survive without assistance from subs or dubs is French, but I won't be able to understand everything. Still, I can handle Dutch and Englisch films, books, games, comics, ... with ease; I think I've got a huge chunk of my target catalogue covered that way.
I'm a bit of a Japanophile too, but alas, I need subs. Why no dub? Because the Japanese convey half of their message through how words are spoken, rather than the words themselves. I can easily read English subs while I hear the Japanese being spoken. Years of training and experience got me there. Watching a dubbed film (which isn't the same as watching an original film with a few of the actors' lines dubbed) feels like having an ice cream snack that tastes bitter rather than sweet.
I consider myself at a huge advantage. Those who resort to dubs (often by necessity; I'm not pointing fingers) lose the opportunity to learn a new language. Too bad.
Not to disagree, but I'll never forget the event I witnessed where the speaker exclaimed: "The translation is better than my own words!"
I know people who claim that Jules Verne reads better in English than in French. ;-)
For some Japanese films and others if dubbed and subtitled versions are available, I may watch both.
Well, I think music and films are separate kinds of art. You can listen to music without the need to understand the lyrics entirely. The same applies to opera. With regard to films it is someting completely different. In many cases you need to be able to follow the plot and the dialouge and that can become difficult if you have to read and watch at the same time, especally if you don't understand the language spoken in the film at all. Watching a film with sub-titles is fine if they are just a support and you can mostly understand the characters on screen. However, completely relying on sub-titles make a certain film less popular.
I once read that non English spoken films contribute less than 1% to the American box office. That is very little. I guess, in the UK it is not very different. And I guess in Scandinavian countries or the Netherlands, films in English are also very dominant on TV and in cinema. Or am I wrong?
No, you're absolutely not wrong. Just two things:
1) I watch Japanese, Chinese, Brazilian, Russian, ... films without any sort of understanding of the languages apart from, perhaps, a few isolated words. Subtitles allow me to follow the plot, dialogue close to 100%. If something gets lost, I'm willing to accept that. Seeing a Japanese film by Kurosawa, Sion Sono, Miike Takashi, ... with Japanese people in a typical Japanese setting but with the powerfully sounding Japanese language replaced by flat English speak means I lose a whole lot more.
2) Again, you are right! :-) From a commercial POV, dubbing is probably the only way you can knife through an entirely domestic film market. If I had to sell a 300 million dollar film to the world, and if dubbing secured many more millions in BO returns, I'd probably have to yield, despite my principal objections.
It is because in Sweden the short story collection bore that title. The translator didn t know better, but just copied the title of the book.
It is shame i have two animated movies who are official Spanish product but not including original Spanish dub. One of them only is avaible in Dutch dub. The other one (with only Original English and Dutch and Flemish dub) sequel is from Paramount and that include Original Spanish and Original English.
But mabey Spanish version never be plan like there is also German / Dutch animated produced movie who is English and Dutch focused. German version only be made for German speaking country's. Thom Hoffman did English, Dutch and mabey even German voice for his chacter.
With some animated series i have seen there not even exist original dub from country where it is made (Buur en Buurman) or not viewed in my country (Ducktales and a lot of other Disney / Warner things). Some movies i have seen as young child i prefer Dutch versions from 80's (Aristo Cats, Oliver and Co) and some movies i don't have because it not including original Dutch voices from 80's or don't know or it include.
De Smurfen and Kuifje are original French Belgium comic books, but animated series are Dutch/Flemish Belgium produced. In this case Dutch/Flemish voices are original and any other ones dub versions.
In my opnion you have Original English (French, Spanish, Italian, German) and Original Dutch (Dutch/Flemish) for example. Ducktales i count as original Dutch (& English), whyle
Dutch voice of Shrek as Dub. With The Lion King i prefer English, but count both. Aladdin English.