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Dubbing 007 - The James Bond films in different languages
PropertyOfALady
Colders Federation CEO
How does each 007 picture differ in languages other than the original languages? The goal of this thread is simple. In order to understand the subtleties and slightly different words (including the meaning of jokes) used on international releases that we who speak English and only English seek to understand, I am creating a spot for each of the 25 films below! Whether you're Norse, Chinese, Japanese, Dutch, French, German, or any other international language, please share the differences here.
Dr. No
From Russia with Love
Goldfinger
Thunderball
You Only Live Twice
On Her Majesty's Secret Service
"He was very brave" (Norway)
Diamonds Are Forever
Live and Let Die
"Quite revealing!"
Spanish: "¡Qué descarado!" (How shameless)
The Man with the Golden Gun
The Spy Who Loved Me
Moonraker
For Your Eyes Only
Octopussy
A View to a Kill
The Living Daylights
Licence to Kill
GoldenEye
"This is not one of your games, Boris.
Real people will die!"
Cette fois tu ne fais pas joujou avec le clavier Boris, il va y avoir des morts!" (Don't play with your keyboard this time Boris, people will die!
Tomorrow Never Dies
The World is Not Enough
"There's no point in living if you can't feel alive".
French: La vie ne vaut pas d’être vécu si on ne la vie pas comme un rêve
"Life's not worth living if you can't live it like a dream"
Die Another Day
Casino Royale
Quantum of Solace
Skyfall
Spectre
Bond 25
Dr. No
From Russia with Love
Goldfinger
Thunderball
You Only Live Twice
On Her Majesty's Secret Service
"He was very brave" (Norway)
Diamonds Are Forever
Live and Let Die
"Quite revealing!"
Spanish: "¡Qué descarado!" (How shameless)
The Man with the Golden Gun
The Spy Who Loved Me
Moonraker
For Your Eyes Only
Octopussy
A View to a Kill
The Living Daylights
Licence to Kill
GoldenEye
"This is not one of your games, Boris.
Real people will die!"
Cette fois tu ne fais pas joujou avec le clavier Boris, il va y avoir des morts!" (Don't play with your keyboard this time Boris, people will die!
Tomorrow Never Dies
The World is Not Enough
"There's no point in living if you can't feel alive".
French: La vie ne vaut pas d’être vécu si on ne la vie pas comme un rêve
"Life's not worth living if you can't live it like a dream"
Die Another Day
Casino Royale
Quantum of Solace
Skyfall
Spectre
Bond 25
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Comments
To have guts isn t an expression used here, so it was simply texted as "He was very brave." Makes no sense whatsoever. They could have come up with something more clever.
Dubbed Bond films are terrible.
Well, do you guys have subtitle differences?
So, differences? Hmmm...
Overall I must say the translators did a great job, the only notable difference I remember of (which is quite slim in the end) is Natalya's line "This is not one of your games, Boris.
Real people will die!", translated by "Cette fois tu ne fais pas joujou avec le clavier Boris, il va y avoir des morts!" (Don't play with your keyboard this time Boris, people will die!). Though if you want the translation of specific lines/jokes just ask me.
Anything dubbed is terrible to me. Best to watch anything in its native language with subtitles.
Now I do not intend to bash German dubbing. Once you decide you wish for dubbing in the first place, it's probably excellent. I remember with revulsion seeing American-dubbed Godzilla movies while I was an exchange student in Illinois (1974/75). No, German dubbing is better, and maybe an art in itself.
Still, I prefer seeing the original version. But I really only started having a chance when DVDs came up, as regards buying them from German sources. OK, I could (and did) buy VHS tapes from England before that. But that also means I cannot show the film to people who are used to seeing it in German, and maybe do not understand enough English to enjoy it, and the VHS tapes also had no subtitles, unlike DVDs and up.
Anyway, I think that I've seen more Bond movies in the original version only than I had watched dubbed in German before, due to the fact that I saw many on VHS purchased in Britain or DVDs later on for the first time, since the 90s.
I definitely prefer the original. Hell, any original. In the meantime I bought stuff like Italian movies, sound in Italian, and even Italian subtitles, rather than settle for the German-dubbed version. And no, I never learned Italian, but based on having had several years of Latin and French at school and a few years of Spanish in voluntary courses I think I understand most of it. So anything is better than having Monica Bellucci "speaking" German.
And the same goes for the Bond movies. But I can't really report any goofs that are derived from German dubbing since I would have to watch then all in the dubbed version, and I don't want to.
A fair warning: every time we filipinos do a Bond dub, the bad guys always sound like drug lords. And call 007 "Mistah Bahnd" for some reason.
Are Sir Roger's brilliant one liners different at all?
It's the "bad guys are always drug lords" syndrome.
- English : There's no point living, if you can't feel alive.
- French : La vie ne vaut pas d’être vécu si on ne la vie pas comme un rêve (The life don't worth to be lived if you don't live it like a dream).
I think they are probably some additional humor lignes in Roger Moore movies. I know that in The Persuaders, the french dubber add extra humor to it.
I enjoy dubbing. In terms of faithfulness to the original film, subtitles are better but they do force the viewer to look down and away from the faces of the actors. Dubbing has no such problem, though translations/adaptations can be inaccurate/inappropriate at times and the original voices are missing. It can, however, provide a different experience, a reinterpretation if you will, and one which, crucially, does not replace the original-- it's simply an alternative version, for those who might consider it sacrilegious. The original isn't going anywhere.
Going back to LALD, I'll say Roger Moore's voice actor is just terrific at capturing Roger's suave style.
First of all I would like to say that at a whole the bond films are very well dubbed - they mostly had excellent voice talent casting and they stayed as truly to the original as possible - however with changes to jokes so it makes some sense in the dubbed version, to better fit the labiales (especially in close-ups) or just to make something sound more natural. As said, there mostly isn't much to complain about but also some obscure things happened.
The three different names of SPECTRE
In "James Bond 007 jagt Dr. No" (the full german title for "Dr.No") SPECTRE was dubbed GOFTER. That one is very obscure - but they had to describe it like Dr.No does to Bond what SPECTRE means. So in german it became "GeheimOrganisation Für Terror, Erpressung un Rache. That's still ... well a bit silly by today's standards but back then close to nobody would've known what SPECTRE means. Personally, I would just have used the name as it is and just explain it the way they did - would've worked just fine.
However for Connery's second film "Liebesgrüße aus Moskau" they went a different route. In general they had a different dubbing team and they changed the voice actor for Connery from Klaus Kindler (famous for voicing Clint Eastwood) to Gert-Günther Hoffmann which was an excellent choice. His voice fits Connerys on-screen presence like a glove and until close to his death in 1995 he stayed the voice for Connery. In this film, most likely inspired by the SPECTRE ring design, the organization's name became "PHANTOM". Pronounced in a german way this made a whole lot of sense for understanding, fitting the image on-screen (ring design) as well as them pulling stings "ghost-like" from the shadows.
It made even more sense in Connery's fourth film "Feuerball" where SPECTRE was a wordplay during the Nassau Casiono game between Bond and Largo. It worked very well to keep it "PHANTOM" - to me this still is a wonderful translation - however nobody would do it these days because names of organizations or people aren't changed anymore. And as much as I like "PHANTOM", it was good they finally called it SPECTRE in Connery's fifth movie "Man lebt nur zweimal".
Same applies to Lazenby's single outing "Im Geheimdienst ihrer Majestät" where they not only kept SPECTRE but also Bond's german voice ... since the german distributor demanded that Mr. Hoffmann should also provide his voice for Lazenby. It will sound like blasphemy to many but in my opinion he made Lazenby's acting better plus we do not have the change in voices between Bond and Bond pretending being Sir Hillary. I like it that way a lot. Funny sidenote: Tracy had the very same german voice like Pussy Galore ... since her german voice (Margot Leonard) also was her german voice in the TV series "The Avengers" ... and Mr. Hoffmann was for Patrick MacNee. So they played the pairs of Bond/Pussy Galore, Steed/Emma Peel and Bond/Tracy together ... a funny anecdote. As obsucre as it may sound - you don't notice it since both work so well with their on-screen appearances.
Dubbing examples
While the main dialoge isn't changed much and just translated to a naturally sounding german equivalent, jokes are some different breed. It's hard to translate them - especially in sitcoms. Sometimes it works and sometimes ... oh well.
In "Goldfinger" Connery's "Shocking ... Positively shocking" became "Widerlich. Einfach widerlich". While it works good with the labiales, I think it misses the original joke. A correct translation would've been "Schockierend ... Einfach schockierend". In my opinion that would've worked with the labiales, too - so dunno why they changed that to be honest.
Staying with this movie, they corrected the final statement to "Noch 7 ticker [...]" to fit the "007 digits" on-screen when the bomb was stopped ... but before in the movie they made a funny mistake by letting Goldfinger say "In diesen Kammern liegen Billionen, Mr.Bond" ... what basically made the contents of Fort Knox worth trillions instead of Billions :-D A funny mistake I personally don't mind at all - but would not have made THAT much sense in 1964.
In "Feuerball" Bond sings his little song when he "roasts" Count Lippe when leaving the room "Schwitze Gräflein, Schwitze schnell - schwitzen macht die Äuglein hell" and I can't remember if that remained in the final english track or not. Anyway - it's funny and it's so in-character for Bond in this movie I like it.
In "Casino Royale" Vesper's cover name (as mentioned to her by Bond during the car drive) became "Mrs. Stephanie Brustwartz" instead of Broadchest ... most likely to make the joke work better in german (which it does). So all good here (for me) - purists may disagree.
All german titles
James Bond 007 jagt Dr.No
Liebesgrüße aus Moskau
Goldfinger
Feuerball
Man lebt nur zweimal
Im Geheimdienst ihrer Majestät
Diamantenfieber
Leben und sterben lassen
Der Mann mit dem goldenen Colt
Der Spion, der mich liebte
Moonraker
In tödlicher Mission
Octopussy
Im Angesicht des Todes
Der Hauch des Todes
Lizenz zum Töten
Goldeneye
Der Morgen stirbt nie
Die Welt ist nicht genug
Stirb an einem anderen Tag
Casino Royale
Ein Quantum Trost
Skyfall
Spectre
007 Contra O Satânico Dr. No
Moscou Contra 007
007 Contra Goldfinger
007 Contra A Chantagem Atômica
Com 007 Só Se Vive Duas Vezes
007 - A Serviço Secreto De Sua Majestade
007 - Os Diamantes São Eternos
Com 007 Viva e Deixe Morrer
007 Contra o Homem Com a Pistola de Ouro
007 - O Espião Que Me Amava
007 Contra O Foguete Da Morte
007 - Somente Para Seus Olhos
007 Contra Octopussy
007 - Na Mira Dos Assassinos
007 - Marcado Para A Morte
007 - Permissão Para Matar
007 Contra GoldenEye
007 - O Amanhã Nunca Morre
007 - O Mundo Não É O Bastante
007 - Um Novo Dia Para Morrer
007 - Cassino Royale
007 - Quantum Of Solace
007 - Operação Skyfall
007 Contra SPECTRE
But at an event here last year which honored John Glen (who I got to meet!) they showed Licence to Kill, unfortunately in the dubbed version. I knew that it would have an artificial quality and that voice actors would overact, but the worst part was that some things just weren't dubbed. There were scenes where people laughed, and no sound came out. When Leiter opens his fishing lures, a group of people laughs, and there's practically no sound. Very bizarre.
Hahaha, that's cool. I didn't know that. Here in Brazil, Jaws was renamed to "Dentes de aço", which means "Steel Tooth". Very appropriate.
Yep, they do. It means "007 AGAINST". For example, in Dr. No, the translated title means 007 AGAINST THE SATANIC DR. NO. FRWL to MOSCOW AGAINST 007, and so on...
Dr. No's title was translated "Licence to Kill" and Licence to Kill became "Private Revenge".
Diamonds are Forever: A cascade of diamonds
A view to a kill: Moving target
The Living Daylights: Danger Zone
The Craig movie titles were not translated, except for Casino Royale which became Casinò Royale since Casino has got a completely different meaning in Italian.
The Careless pun at the end of SPECTRE was handled in an interesting way. Because no word meaning Careless starts with a C in Italian, M says "No we know what C does not stand for — Charged" referring to C's gun instead of Max Denbigh himself.
There's a long tradition of dubbing and lots of strange things with the Bond series.
DN is Agent 007 against Dr. No
GF is James Bond against Goldfinger
TB is Operation Thunderball
DAF is Diamonds are for eternity
LALD is (You) Live and let die (In Spanish there's a difference between the imperative and the infinitive)
TLD is 007: High Tension (this is a difficult one to translate, of course)
TWINE is The World is Never Enough (all the casual film buffs obviously mistake this with TND. I don't know who had the occurrence of that "never" here...)
DAD is (You) Die another day (again, imperative and not infinitive)
All the Craig films have been released... with their original names!
Honey was "Linda" that means "Pretty"
Plenty was "Elenita" because it sounds like "llenita" or "full", "plenty"... well... you know
Jaws was "Tiburón": "Shark" because Spielberg's film was named "Shark" too!
It was the same in Italian, both the character and Spielberg's movie were named "Squalo", which means Shark.
As far as I can remember he's the only character whose name was translated. All the other names were left in English, including characters nicknames. Only code names were translated (for example White Knight and Pale King) but they were given literal translations.
Does that happen a lot?