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"Die dunkle Bedrohung" better than "The Phantom Menace"?

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Hello everyone,

I made some observations on the german dub of Episode I, but firstly I should give you some information about myself.

I'm 23 years old and I became a huge Star Wars fan in the late 90's. Luckily not through the prequels, but through Lego. I have seen the X-Wing model in a catalogue and I didn't know what it was but it was the coolest thing ever. Not long after that Star Wars was shown on TV, and by Star Wars I mean the original movie, not the 97SE, not even "A New Hope", just Star Wars. Or to be exact Krieg der Sterne (since I'm german I grew up with the dubbed versions of the movies). Nonetheless, I absolutely loved it and I have seen Empire and Jedi a short time later and recorded them. I was completely unaware of the upcoming prequel until I got the Lego Naboo fighter. It just looked weird and didn't match the other spaceship's designs, but the box said Star Wars, so it was ok. I was way too young at this time to question the things I saw. Therefore I loved Episode I when I got it on VHS. I was about the same age as Anakin and Jar Jar seemed kind of funny. When I watched Clones in cinema I kind of grew out of the silly stuff in TPM and didn't think that high of the movie anymore, but i really liked the new movie (I was 11 at this time). I got the VHS and it didn't take long that I was fed up with the boring love story and just watched it for the action scenes. When Revenge of the Sith came in cinemas I thought (again) that the new movie is much better than the other prequels, but I realized even faster how stupid Anakin's turn and everything else is. So over the last years I really started to hate the prequels, but still loved the O(U)T (I thought the special editions were crap when I saw the first alteration on the DVD, but this is a different story).

This introduction is longer than I thought, but I hope someone is still hanging on ;) I'm coming to the point of my post right now.

Yesterday I rewatched TPM for the first time in almost 10 years. Since I was seeing it with my friend we choose the german dub for convenience and I made some interesting observations:

Firstly, I was surprised that it wasn't as bad as I expected (which is "pretty awful"). I would say it was not obviously bad because I didn't think about it as a Star Wars movie anymore, so I didn't question the decisions and motivations of the characters, I just didn't care at all about it, therefore I was not disappointed. This is by no means an apology for the movie, a good movie doesn't make you feel completely indifferent about it, but I was very surprised that I finally accepted that there is nothing I can do about how bad the movie is. It was very calming.

Secondly, I noticed that the german dub is at some points better than the original (or so I think). For example the scene where Amidala and Palpatine are talking about the senate and she always adresses him as senator and he always calls her your majesty. It's completely gone in the dub. Only one or two times in all the Coruscant scenes is she called your highness or something alike. I have to admit that I never completely watched the english version of TPM, but I have seen this part in the Plinkett reviews and how TV's Frink carried it to extremes in his ridiculous menace so I'd say I'm familiar with the original. Furthermore, the dub improves some of the wooden deliveries, for example of Amidala or little Ani. There's a huge contrast between the dubbed Anakin speaking german and the original Anakin talking to Greedo in huttese. Even the infamous "Now this is Podracing." is attenuated to "This is just like podracing.". Last but not least I had the impression that the Neimoidians and the Gungans don't sound as silly anymore. They still sound silly, just not that silly.

Now is this all just nostalgia for a version of a movie I watched as a child, or has someone else the same impression? What about dubs of TPM in other languages?

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It's a sad state of affairs when a movie's so bad that a dub improves it. =(

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1st I must congratulate you on your excellent English.

And it is interesting that by divesting your interest in the characters and by lowering your expectations you derived more benefit from re-watching the movie. 

I  actually saw the movie last night too-in Italian.

I would wager also that the Italian dub actually sounds more organic with regards to the dialogue(relative to it's english equivalent).

I was watching it in 4K-it looks amazing but you can also see some of the lip synch issues in both English and Italian-like when Ani chants "yes!" after he has won the pod race.

I would say the biggest discrepancy between this movie and any of the OT films is the fact we already knew what was going to happen -we just did not know how it would happen-this fact allied to the expectations that were affiliated with our perception of how certain characters(or groups like the Jedi council)  would behave or be(especially those from the original trilogy) also handicapped the experience of watching this flick.

Compared to other summer block buster fares I can't think of a series where the main protagonist ,Anakin , goes from being good to bad completely without any sense of a reprieve-this in my opinion makes it unique-irrespective of how well this conversion from good to bad is executed.

It did not happen in Harry Potter , The Matrix, Lord Of The Rings, Transformers ,any of the super-hero movies(ok Raimi's Spidey 3 for about 20 mins!),Avatar-(never seen Twilight so don't know) or the Hunger Games-my apologies if I have missed something.

So the trick is to take a some-one (young or old) who does not have a clue about anything star wars and expose them in episode chronology- just to see how shocking(or not) this conversion from good to bad is.

  

I saw Star Wars in 1977. Many, many, many times. For 3 years it was just Star Wars...period. I saw it in good theaters, cheap theaters and drive-ins with those clunky metal speakers you hang on your window. The screen and sound quality never subtracted from the excitement. I can watch the original cut right now, over 30 years later, on some beat up VHS tape and enjoy it. It's the story that makes this movie. Nothing? else.

kurtb8474 1 week ago

http://www.youtube.com/all_comments?v=SkAZxd-5Hp8


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thank you danny_boy.

I would not say I had a better experience by lowering my expectations but merely a less bad experience. But I was quite surprised, too. Maybe beeing used to watch dubbed movies made me less alert of lip synch mismatches, diminishing the absurdity of the Neimoidians.

It is interesting that you have a similar point of view towards the delivery of the dialouge. It seems the people responsible for the dubs cared more about the performance than Lucas did during filming.

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No doubt, the German voice actors had a half-decent director to guide their performances, whereas the movie's cast had George Lucas.

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danny_boy said:

So the trick is to take a some-one (young or old) who does not have a clue about anything star wars and expose them in episode chronology- just to see how shocking(or not) this conversion from good to bad is.

I don't think it takes a new viewer to see the flaws in the films. Lucas seems to have lost himself in the EU, falling back on telling his audience a few superficial facts about a thousand different creations, rather than showing archetypal stories of a few individuals via dramatic conflict.

In Anakin's case, no dramatic transformation takes place on screen. In TPM, he's a sweet innocent boy. By the next film, he's a spoiled brat, a completely different character, without explanation. Scenes that demonstrate transition like that are what make movies good. But they are completely lacking in the prequels. Since Anakin already starts out as a bad apple, him "turning" to the dark side is not a meaningful story. One is left to wonder what's the big deal?

The obvious solution would have been to make Anakin a strong and noble character who experienced a series of carefully constructed events that caused him to fall from grace. Apparently that kind of extremely difficult writing is far beyond Lucas's abilities and he did not want to delegate the script to a more capable scribe.

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Alderaan said:

danny_boy said:

So the trick is to take a some-one (young or old) who does not have a clue about anything star wars and expose them in episode chronology- just to see how shocking(or not) this conversion from good to bad is.

I don't think it takes a new viewer to see the flaws in the films. Lucas seems to have lost himself in the EU, falling back on telling his audience a few superficial facts about a thousand different creations, rather than showing archetypal stories of a few individuals via dramatic conflict.

In Anakin's case, no dramatic transformation takes place on screen. In TPM, he's a sweet innocent boy. By the next film, he's a spoiled brat, a completely different character, without explanation. Scenes that demonstrate transition like that are what make movies good. But they are completely lacking in the prequels. Since Anakin already starts out as a bad apple, him "turning" to the dark side is not a meaningful story. One is left to wonder what's the big deal?

The obvious solution would have been to make Anakin a strong and noble character who experienced a series of carefully constructed events that caused him to fall from grace. Apparently that kind of extremely difficult writing is far beyond Lucas's abilities and he did not want to delegate the script to a more capable scribe.

Interestingly, Anakin was at his most noble when we saw him as child.  Shortly after we saw him older, he was hitting on Padme using a terrible pickup line and it just went downhill from there.  It's no surprise he had a creepy look on his face as a force ghost. I would have liked to have seen him as a "great warrior" as a teenager and adult.  Would have made his fall tragic instead of "so what?".

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Alderaan said:

Lucas seems to have lost himself in the EU, falling back on telling his audience a few superficial facts about a thousand different creations, rather than showing archetypal stories of a few individuals via dramatic conflict.

Dramatic conflicts? Then you should love PT. Dramatic conflicts are not inherently good. PT is full of dramatic conflicts, annoying ones nonetheless, that characterises PT Anakin into an extremely unlikeable annoying repulsive jerk. I would rather see a good-person Anakin with focus on adventure rather than on annoying dramatic conflicts.

The sole reason why I (and probably many others) find TPM the most enjoyable of the PT is because it is still primarily an adventure (poorly executed one but still). In contrast, ATOC and ROTS are primarily focused on annoying personal conflicts of Anakin.

真実

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I don't think you understand the meaning of "dramatic conflict".

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Alderaan said:

I don't think you understand the meaning of "dramatic conflict".

Very interesting.

真実

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So, after completing the rest of the PT I only noticed one relevant difference between the original and the dub. In Clones, the awkward "I wish I could just wish away my feelings" was altered to "I wish I could just wipe away my feelings", which is, in my eyes, still a bad line, but the best someone could have done without changing too much.

Other than that, Clones and Sith really were as bad as I expected, not seeing them wholly for some years didn't prevent me from being outraged at every character's stupid decisions.

@darklordoftech: Thanks, I made the avatar in 5 minutes using paint and google image search. I didn't even notice how well the shadows of both parts match :)

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German dubbing is top-notch.

Some of the voice actors are so good that I was almost a little disappointed when I heard some American actors' original voices for the first time (e.g. Bruce Willis).

Here's what Vader and the Emperor sound like in German:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BC9daxWrL8

The only other country I spent enough time in to judge the quality of their dubbing is France. When I lived there for half a year, I was really surprised by the fact that their voice actors still mangled English words and names like ours did 50 years ago (turning a "John" into a "Jean", not being able to pronounce a "th" etc.). Not to mention what they did to the original trilogy (Yan Solo and Z-6PO, anyone?).

I hear that other countries have even worse dubbing. Is it true that in some Eastern European countries, all characters are sometimes dubbed by a single person?

Of course, I prefer to watch American films in English nowadays - no matter how good the German dubbing.

As for Episode I: No, the German dubbing doesn't make it any better... unless you consider being punched in the balls repeatedly by a German person to be a better thing than getting your balls busted by an American guy.

(Funny side note: Those annoying trade federation aliens speak with a French accent in the German version of TPM.)

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I'm curious to listen to the French dub of the Star Wars movies when I have access to some Star Wars DVDs again.

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"unless you consider being punched in the balls repeatedly by a German person to be a better thing than getting your balls busted by an American guy."

I notice you omit the gender of the German ball-beater.  Is it perhaps a busty, blonde, blue-eyed fraulein?  Cuz if so, I think we've determined damn well which version of Episode Ein--I mean, Episode I--is better.

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RicOlie_2 said:

I'm curious to listen to the French dub of the Star Wars movies when I have access to some Star Wars DVDs again.

I did some research:

Apparently, most of the really weird names were only used in Star Wars (ANH) and replaced with their American counterparts in ESB/ROTJ. I've read that modern DVD releases (at least of Star Wars / ANH) were redubbed.

This means you'd have to get an old VHS tape of "La Guerre des Étoiles" to watch the adventures of Yan Solo, Chicktaba and "le Millenium Condor".

Darth Vader still seems to be known as Dark Vador, though, and C-3PO stayed Z-6PO throughout the OT but turned into C-3PO in the prequels.

I found this older thread that explains some of the peculiarities of the French dub. It looks like some French forum members liked the old Star Wars dub a lot (apart from the changes to the main protagonists' names):

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/How-Star-Wars-names-are-translated-in-non-english-countries/topic/4532/

I notice you omit the gender of the German ball-beater.  Is it perhaps a busty, blonde, blue-eyed fraulein?  Cuz if so, I think we've determined damn well which version of Episode Ein--I mean, Episode I--is better.

Oops, I guess you caught me with a Freudian slip of the tongue (or finger) ;)

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Kabal said:


As for Episode I: No, the German dubbing doesn't make it any better... unless you consider being punched in the balls repeatedly by a German person to be a better thing than getting your balls busted by an American guy.

 Well, "less bad" is still some form of "better". And I didn't say it's less bad because the people speak german, but because the dub dimished the effects of some of the bad dialog. It would still be a better version if the german dub was retranslated in english, it wouldn't make the story less boring, but it would still be a slight improvement. After watching the Plinkett reviews multiple times, I was actually a bit disappointed not to hear things like "I wish I could just wish away my feelings".

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I'm french and I must say that the dubbing of the original trilogy, except the various, but subtle, changes of  names between Ep 4 and the rest of the saga, is GREAT. I guess some of you listening to Francis Lax dubbing Harrison Ford would not agree with me (because it makes Han's voice sound more high peached), but for a french audience who grew up in the  80's it is an iconic voice. I must say that I still almost prefer the french version over the original, surely part because of a nostalgia factor, but not only.

Funny thing is that one thing that I hated in the PT is that they finally called C-3PO by his "original" name instead of Z-6PO in the OT. I think 6PO sounds way better in french that 3PO and sounds more, well, like 3PO in english, if I make myself clear! Let's say that in the 80's people who made the dubbing had a LOT of time to make the voices "their own". They tried different things, that could end being a bit too far from the original source for american fans BUT that could better suits the foreign audience. Today dubbing actors can't change one line of dialogue (by contract) to better match the lips movement like they did before and they have just some days to make their job at best when they had weeks in the 80's. I talked with the guy dubbing Bruce Willis in french (Patrick Poivey) and he strongly agreed with me to say that today's dubbing are not at the same level than before.

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[offtopicandsilly]

TMBTM said:

high peached

...that was disappointing. "High Peach" doesn't produce anything too interesting either. Does anybody know where I can find a picture of anthropomorphic peach high on drugs? [/offtopicandsilly]

There have been known cases where a dub of something is better than the product in its original language. However, since English is the only language I am fluent in, I am not qualified to say what version is better, unless the product is re-translated and subbed. Maybe the German dub of Episode 1 *is* better. I wouldn't know, for reasons mentioned earlier; but if you feel a dub is better than the original, more power to you. However, only the original English is canon...

...yeah, that's a lame comeback, but I couldn't think of anything else to say.

Nobody sang The Bunny Song in years…

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China used to be known for making fantastic overdubs.  In the best examples, they align the audio and video so well, and choose translations so cleverly, that it is very hard to see the overdub.  Also, there are actors/actresses that are very famous just for their overdubbing - some of them are just as famous as movie stars and all they do is overdubs.  And, many cases the overdubbed version is considered at least as good and sometimes better than the original (a matter of opinion, of course).  For examples:

http://www.bjreview.cn/EN/En-2005/05-26-e/china-2.htm

My wife is Chinese and I remember being surprised when she told me who her favorite overdubbers were.  I'd never heard of such a thing.  She showed me one of her favorite Chinese-overdubbed classics (Zorro, I think) and I was stunned by the quality.

"Close the blast doors!"
Puggo’s website | Rescuing Star Wars

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German dubs very often change things here or there to "improve" the script they're given to work with, and the voice acting is usually pretty dang good. There are plenty of examples in the Godzilla films where the German dub is superior in most regards. I'm pretty sure the guy who dubbed Luke in the original films is in one of those actually.

So, a new book came out and we learned so much, and it is called, “Anguilosaurus, Killer of the Living”.

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TMBTM said:

I'm french and I must say that the dubbing of the original trilogy, except the various, but subtle, changes of  names between Ep 4 and the rest of the saga, is GREAT. I guess some of you listening to Francis Lax dubbing Harrison Ford would not agree with me (because it makes Han's voice sound more high peached), but for a french audience who grew up in the  80's it is an iconic voice. I must say that I still almost prefer the french version over the original, surely part because of a nostalgia factor, but not only.

Funny thing is that one thing that I hated in the PT is that they finally called C-3PO by his "original" name instead of Z-6PO in the OT. I think 6PO sounds way better in french that 3PO and sounds more, well, like 3PO in english, if I make myself clear! Let's say that in the 80's people who made the dubbing had a LOT of time to make the voices "their own". They tried different things, that could end being a bit too far from the original source for american fans BUT that could better suits the foreign audience. Today dubbing actors can't change one line of dialogue (by contract) to better match the lips movement like they did before and they have just some days to make their job at best when they had weeks in the 80's. I talked with the guy dubbing Bruce Willis in french (Patrick Poivey) and he strongly agreed with me to say that today's dubbing are not at the same level than before.

I think I can understand you. Here in Germany, the old Bud Spencer films have a huge cult following, and I bet that's also because of the excellent and very funny dubbing by Wolfgang Hess. It would definitely feel "wrong" if I watched them in English or Italian (which I don't understand well enough anyway).

An extreme example of dubbing gone crazy (in a positive way) are the  Bill & Ted movies. I've never seen anything like the German dub for these movies. I don't know what the guys who did the dubbing were smoking, but they even inserted (funny) jokes where there are none in the English version.

As for Star Wars, I am glad the German dub is so close to the original. That made it easier to "switch" to the English version. The German Luke even has the same slightly whiny tone in his voice as the English one.