Why do some people have a problem with subtitled films?

Capt'n Midnight

Blackjack wrote:

Das Boot is not the same when you use the English Dubbed Version on DVD. I can only watch it with the subtitles*.
*Unless I leard German later in life

The really weird bit is that even the German is dubbed because of the noise when it was filmed. And even weirder is that the original cast dubbed themselves.


IMHO best subtitles were for Cyrano de Bergerac by Anthony Burgess.

lodgepole

nadir wrote:

Although that's just more of an extreme case. The Japs tend to treat anime as any other form of film, so the voice actors give it everything, the american dubs on the other hand are not done seriously, they are just wrong, all wrong ; They sound like porn stars, and cheap ones at that. The translations are often incorrect too.

Miyazaki's films being an obvious exception. The American dubs for Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away were quite excellent. I have no problem watching them over the subtitled versions. I get your meaning on different subtitles though. Akira is a good example. My double video from many years ago has a terrible subtitle script, but the one I taped off BBC2 before I bought it is superb. I don't know where each was sourced.

lodgepole

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

The really weird bit is that even the German is dubbed because of the noise when it was filmed. And even weirder is that the original cast dubbed themselves.

In the remake of Nosferatu the stars went one step further and acted every scene twice, once in German and once in English. From that they created two films, one English and one German. Both now available on the same DVD (well... in the same DVD box...).

nadir

Lodgepole wrote:

Miyazaki's films being an obvious exception. The American dubs for Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away were quite excellent. I have no problem watching them over the subtitled versions. I get your meaning on different subtitles though. Akira is a good example. My double video from many years ago has a terrible subtitle script, but the one I taped off BBC2 before I bought it is superb. I don't know where each was sourced.

afair Ghibli have a say on english voice cast. They are cautions (and rightly so) of people bastardising their work.

shuushh

i never really find them that distracting around 10 minutes or so into the film you find your watching everything going on during the film and reading at the same time

The Black Oil

Some people just can't be arsed and are dismissive much the same way as some won't watch a film because it's in black and white! They really miss out on some gems.

adonis

thats the answer, or closed mindes (for once i agree with the disagreeable hungus)
also, i think that someone pointed out a blatant difference in the way that america and europe produce their movies...

Originally Posted by Babybing
Its quite simple imo. When most people watch a film they watch it purely for entertainment purposes and to relax for an hour or two.

this is the american mass production value and way to make movies, whereas the europeans tend to try and imbue the film with soul or art or whatever u want to call it...
and as we are sometimes called more american than european..this may be the reason that people dont like to watch subbed movies?!?!?

Capt'n Midnight

adonis wrote:

Originally Posted by Babybing
Its quite simple imo. When most people watch a film they watch it purely for entertainment purposes and to relax for an hour or two.

I find it easier to watch subtitles, if it's noisy or I'm surfing I'll turn on teletext page 888. Much easier to pick out the characters and if you don't hear a bit of dialog you can see it.

Babybing

Babybing wrote:

Its quite simple imo. When most people watch a film they watch it purely for entertainment purposes and to relax for an hour or two. Most people watch movies just to past the time and they dont really care about film as an art form or want something that taxes their brain too much. Thats fair imo. I absolutely love film and Im very interested in it and as a result I watch a lot of subbed films, But when it come to litreture I just want something light and entertaining like the da vinci code because I dont have a great interest in the subject. What it boils down to is most people like films but dont like film as a subject which is fair enough imo.

There is one flaw in what you say. In a perfect world it would be fair enough, but the people who just go for entertainment etc, will usually have a strong opinion on it anyway, similar to music. If they were all humble enough to admit they just go to kill some hours with their chick or whatever then cool....but how often is that the case. and the guy who says that will probably turn around and argue about the film anyway.
I remember a couple of years back I was about 22 and i was talking to this gal of about 20 about music. When i mentioned that i also listen to a lot of classical music.....her opinion and that of her friends was that 'its not normal at our age" i replied - so you mean i should just be listneing to what everyone else is listening to...would that be normal? she replied "yes"

jor el

Many reasons why people don't like subtitles. As said, it could be laziness, apathy or you might be distracted by them and end up missing vital scenes. If you read very slow you may find you miss half the conversations. Some people simply don't believe they'd like 'foregin' films.

Someone mentioned relaxing and unwinding and reading subtitles is a bit of a chore. I find that if the film is entertaining then it'll relax you whether or not you read the conversations or not. Watch a crap English speaking film and see how relaxed you are. Probably be a bit píssed off at that waste of 2 hours. Fantastic 4, Red Eye, The Cave, all English films that did nothing for relaxation. Now take something like Azumi, Zatoichi (I have a thing for Jap sword films) Battle Royale, La Femme Nikita or Switchblade Romance. Those are Japanese and French speaking films that I enjoyed very much and felt quite relaxed afterwards, except for the in-explicable fear of buzz-saws that I now have :eek:

One of my favorite films is Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, which I have on DVD. I did watch it one night when it was on TV3 but it was the dubbed version which is just so crap in comparison.

It's all down to personal preference I guess. Some people love Chick Flick style romance films, others love horror.

It is a shame though that many people immediately discount a subtitled film just because of the subtitles. If you do this you are missing out on so many great films.