Nah, it’s a remnant of a protectionist law from the Dictatorship that forced everything to be dubbed. If you only see dubbed stuff, you don’t notice (I know many people that don’t see/hear anything amiss) so after that law was in effect for several years there’s no way back, unless our English proficiency rises significantly as a people (it’s improving, but ways to go).
Basically not dubbing would make many more theaters close, since people would stop going. If you live in a big city or in a big University city (Salamanca) you can access everything subtitled, but outside of those places, though luck. At least you have a subtitled cinema close by. Where my parents live there are none and never have been.
I did not know this.
Thanks for educating me.
Yeah, a loooooooooooong way to go. :(
True.
Edit :plus there’s a huge industry dubbing stuff.
CraigM
1877
You know what? So would I.
I wonder what happens to non english dialogue. Did they dub things like Jabba or Nien Numb?
Pretty horrible now, ihmo, due to cost cutting. If you watch stuff from the 70s you would notice a much better dubbing. Still weird as hell, but much less so.
It depends, mostly they don’t.
BTW, every single TV series is dubbed, including those from streaming services, and dubs are available the night of release, simultaneous with the english release. Basically, they can dub anything in a handful of days.
And they make mistakes:
rei
1880
Dubbed by one person only doing all the lines?
No, actually some dubbing actors became famous, and there was consistency between real actors and dubbing actors (there still is, but again, everything is cheaper and consistency is not as tight).
This guy was famous for being the voice of William Shatner, Clint Eastwood, Sean Connery, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Darth Vader (to remain on topic). Hugely famous guy, and his dubbing career was a big part of that. The guy who voiced Bruce Willis was also well known.
Edit: Also on topic, but I won’t spoil the surprise, I always found this hilarious:
Is there like an Oscars for voice dubbers?
So, watched it. The dubbing wasn’t bad. Bear in mind I’m not native level Spanish speaking, so pinch of salt etc.
But it didn’t get in the way, and I understood all the dialogue, even learned a new word, chucharra I think.
But Fresh Prince was a hugely popular series in Spain. People liked it here.
Also dubbing something is MORE effort than subbing it ;)
You joke, but Spanish people usually dislike LA Spanish dubs a lot. It may sound xenophobic at first, but I believe there is a more logical reason: it’s a bit like auditory “uncanny valley” effect. If you hear French or German or whatever, it’s ok because it is a totally different language, but listening to your native idiom but in a much different accent/intonation and with different terms gives a weird feeling, like something it’s off. Of course it depends of the LA region, it’s it’s ‘neutral’ dub or not, etc. If you grow up accostumed to listen to tv in one way, it’s weird when suddenly you use another dub type.
It’s funny because Portugal subs movies because of a dictatorship era law.
Well speaking as someone who listened to it in both languages, and watched episodes several times, in my opinion, the Spanish dubbing hurt it quite badly.
But I suspect this is more of an issue with things like comedy, especially English language comedy which often relies on double meanings, miscommunications etc.
I know comedy is often hard to translate so I think dubbing it, and trying to get the equivalent joke in a foreign language whilst trying to sync to the lips of the on screen characters, cannot be easy.
Edit: on the other hand, I never watched Sponge Bob Square Pants until I was learning Spanish and it popped up on the TV.
It was an awesome way to train my ear.
And listening to it in English, the language it was written in, is extremely galling to me.
Bob esponja forever!
Animation, with the limited (if even there) lip sync normally associated, is traditionally much easier to dub well and without it being noticed.
I’m pretty sure that for 3D animated films we will see renders to match the most important dubbings in a near future (they already render text in the target language).
This is already done, at least in the DreamWorks movies, for China.
Yeah, I’m not surprised. It’s a low hanging fruit. Since the original version is itself a “dub”, I don’t consider animation dubs so much dubs as alternate versions.
Much like those live action movies they recorder several different language versions of simultaneously. They say the Spanish version of Bela Lugosi’s Dracula (played, obviously, NOT by Bela Lugosi) is better than the English one (I’ve never seen it myself).
Definitely alternative versions, as you say. It just requires them to mo-cap the voice actors for the different languages and apply the same lip mapping/syncing technology multiple times.
Soma
1891
I finally figured out why I didn’t like the new sequels. It is because they shit all over the EU built over the years. The thing that got me into Star Wars isn’t the original trilogy, but the games. Tie Fighter. Jedi Knight. Kotor (2 as well, even if it is a mess) etc. And then when Disney bought Lucasfilms they just decided to shit over most of the EU stuff. It is as if they don’t realise that the EU added a lot of riches to Star Wars the movies. They intentionally wrote off millions off their assets: how that is a smart creative or business decision is beyond me.
This Ben Solo stuff has been done in EU. They could have said “we are just gonna retcon those only” and leave the rest alone. Or just cherry pick whatever that works in EU and make a new sequel trilogy. Like what they did with Marvel, mining the comic books for material but make MCU stands on its own.
No. They want to reinvent the effing wheel. And the result is that soulless TFA rehash. TLJ imo is just a Battlestar Galactica episode transposed into Star Wars, another creative bankruptcy. And now ROS, I don’t even care. Maybe a rental eventually. Or use the free trial on Disney+ to watch it when it arrives there. Whatever.
I think it’s fair to say “We can’t expect to stay true to all this stuff, so we just have to set it all aside.” It’s not like any of it is gone, it’s just not being built upon anymore. Seems to me that it can still be enjoyed without the imprimatur of Disney. Basically there’s two parallel Star Wars universes with only the OT shared in common. That’s not too too weird, and it’s not destructive of one or the other.
Yeah, that was my thoughts too after reading @Soma’s post last night. I can still play through Jedi Knight and enjoy Kyle Katarn’s story. I can still enjoy KOTOR games. I don’t understand why Disney not building on that invalidates them. They’re not invalidated in my head, where all the stories reside in the end anyway.
I also don’t follow Soma’s logic, particularly the comparison to Marvel. Comic storylines have always only vaguely been consistent. There’s so many versions of every Marvel character, and I’m not only referring to stuff articulated as alternative universes. Instead, the characters are more like archetypes that constantly have different spins applied to them.
Treat SW the same way and, hopefully, you’ll find your enjoyment of the EU isn’t destroyed by other content.
