Originally posted by: C3PX
Has anybody ever actually seen two people carrying on a conversation with each other in two different languages? I have not, not unless neither one knows the others language and in that case they are not really carrying on a conversation. If you stop and think about it the scene with Greedo (and later with Jabba in ANH) was really odd, Han is speaking in basic, and Greedo in what I will assume is Huttese (or Rodian), and they both understand each other perfectly. I am bylingual, and I know how confusing it is to try to think in two different languages at once. If Han knew Huttese, which he had to to understand Greedo, then why not speak in Huttese, or for Greedo why no speak Basic. I think George was trying to make his galaxy seem larger and more complex than one of the major sci-fi shows at the time, Star Trek, where everybody spoke English no matter where you went. I think that was a great idea, and it is cool having alien languages in subtitles. They did a really good job of this in ROTJ where they have to have threepio translating everything Jabba says and then translating things back for Jabba, same goes for their interaction with Ewoks.
Has anybody ever actually seen two people carrying on a conversation with each other in two different languages? I have not, not unless neither one knows the others language and in that case they are not really carrying on a conversation. If you stop and think about it the scene with Greedo (and later with Jabba in ANH) was really odd, Han is speaking in basic, and Greedo in what I will assume is Huttese (or Rodian), and they both understand each other perfectly. I am bylingual, and I know how confusing it is to try to think in two different languages at once. If Han knew Huttese, which he had to to understand Greedo, then why not speak in Huttese, or for Greedo why no speak Basic. I think George was trying to make his galaxy seem larger and more complex than one of the major sci-fi shows at the time, Star Trek, where everybody spoke English no matter where you went. I think that was a great idea, and it is cool having alien languages in subtitles. They did a really good job of this in ROTJ where they have to have threepio translating everything Jabba says and then translating things back for Jabba, same goes for their interaction with Ewoks.
I'd never thought of it like that before, but now that I do I definitely agree with what you're saying. I always thought that having a major character subtitled for an entire movie was a bad idea, and this is just another reason why.