Dubbed Movies

As some of you might know, all mainstream releases of foreign movies in Germany are dubbed. This is not really supposed to be a debate about the desirabilty of this practice. Instead I simply wanted to show you some examples, possibly amusing to you.

I picked a few well known scenes and actors at random. Of course there is much, much more.

Return of the Jedi:



Note that the Governator doesn't dub himself. A time-traveling killer cyborg is one thing, but a time-traveling killer cyborg speaking Austrian would be ridiculous.



A whole De Niro compilation, very convenient:



Forrest Gump trailer:



LotR The Two Towers trailer:

I can't stand watching dubbed films. Sometimes non-English releases used to only be released here dubbed, back in the good ol' days of VHS. Nowadays it would be supremely bizarre if a non-English language release here didn't have an option for the subtitles.
One advantage I can say to dubbing is that in, say, an action movie, one can miss a lot of what is onscreen when trying to read the dialogue.

A question, does the same actor always get dubbed by the same voice actor in Germany? That is, will De Niro have the same German voice in each film?
Do people become famous for being the voice of star x?



The Baader-Meinhof Complex had obligatory subtitles but they were in a smallish font which was hard to read. :(

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Originally posted by An Gadaí

I can't stand watching dubbed films.

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You get used to it. If you grow up watching a large percentage of dubbed movies you are conditioned to ignore the mismatch between lip movements and spoken words. Usually you don't think about that for a second. Occasionally you notice the text of the translation which has to make certain compromises.

Of course, if you can understand the original language there is no question, but if you can't then I think dubbing has certain advantages.

Obviously dubbing is a non-trivial part of the creative process and it has to be done well. If you judge it by late-night kung-fu movies and infomercials then it isn't surprising that it will look bad.

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Sometimes non-English releases used to only be released here dubbed, back in the good ol' days of VHS. Nowadays it would be supremely bizarre if a non-English language release here didn't have an option for the subtitles.

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Here DVDs usually offer original language tracks, too. However outside the arthouse scene a subtitle-only release is economic suicide.

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A question, does the same actor always get dubbed by the same voice actor in Germany? That is, will De Niro have the same German voice in each film?
Do people become famous for being the voice of star x?

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It varies, but at least for bigger names that is idea. Unfortunately sometimes it's just not possible. Some, like our Darth Vader and Marge Simpson simply died far too soon.

Some people are moderately famous as the voice of a specific actor. The better voices are very often classically trained stage actors and do all kinds of voice work. For example Christian Brücker (Robert De Niro) does several actors, the voiceovers for countless documentaries, audiobooks and other things.

Oh man, I want to get copies of Taxi Driver,Terminator and Star Wars in german something fierce now.

Star Wars seems just right in German! The music fits, too.

I generally prefer subtitles to dubbing, but they do present their own distractions. We watch a lot of films here in English with Indonesian subtitles, and I sometimes get so involved in assessing the quality of the subtitling (often hilariously terrible) that I completely forget to watch the movie or absorb the plot. It's a stitch when idioms are literally translated and make no sense. For example, the first three words of that sentence might be translated to read "it's a little bit of sewing" rather than "it's really funny."

But I digress. Back to dubbing. Didn't the movie Team America have a very funny scene satirizing bad dubbing?

I don't know that I could sit through a dubbed film any more. God, they're awful.

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Originally posted by An Gadaí

I don't know that I could sit through a dubbed film any more. God, they're awful.

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Of course it isn't exactly a perfect solution. On the other subtitles have their own problems. For example usually they simplify the dialog more. I think subtitles can also cause problems for the visual aspects of film. A subtitled scene is always visually damaged. Of course how bad that is will vary. It's always a trade-off.


Btw. of course TV series are dubbed as well.

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air



ALF (ALF was huge over here.)



Roseanne



No list would be complete without the Knight Rider

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Originally posted by Feirefiz

You get used to it. If you grow up watching a large percentage of dubbed movies you are conditioned to ignore the mismatch between lip movements and spoken words.

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Anime is great practice for this, since the characters' mouth movements tend not to match the dialogue very well even in the original language, let alone the dubbed language.

The most recent subtitled film I have watched is Katyn. Without the subtitles it would have been meaningless, it is in Polish otherwise. An excruciating film and very much worth watching.
I watch quite a few French and Chinese films too and prefer to leave them in their original language and have subtitles on screen. The dubbed version just seems wrong to me.

I have a Japanese film with no language options and my daughter and I have watched it many times with no clue as to what is being said other than we know Hibiscus is the same in Japanese and English :)

Most theater releases in Japan are subtitled. Only movies for kids (who presumably might have trouble reading kanji at conversation speed) are released with dubbed versions.

For fims with high expectations (Disney, Pixar and Dreamworks, for example), the Japanese dubbing is frequently done by famous actors and actresses, which the advertising plays up as much as the original stars.

For example, when Shrek and Shrek 2 came out, Norika Fujiwara and Masatoshi Hamada were doing the PR circuit alongside Mike Meyers and Cameron Diaz.

Aww, they didn't dub the Fresh Prince's theme song! I was looking forward to ridiculous German rap!

I also think I really need to see Star Wars in German. (The terrible thing is, of course, that I knew exactly what they were saying. Not because I understand much German, but because I just know all the lines in Star Wars.)