I watched in English and it took a while to get used to the over-dub.
But I just read a review from someone who preferred it in German with subtitles.
Which is your preference?
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"Youth is wasted on the young" George Bernard Shaw
I like the subs since the original voices help a lot with the atmosphere, but it's annoying have to stare at the bottom of the screen all the time. Kind of a lose-lose situation, better learn German I guess.
shareIt takes practice, I'm not from the US and been reading subs since I was young...it happens naturally and I don't really need to stare at the bottom of the screen anymore.
If you're from the US, try watching a great American movie like Godfather with oh say, Chinese subs and you will understand how much it will impact the whole movie.
Never watch anything dubbed.
If you're from the US, try watching a great American movie like Godfather with oh say, Chinese subs and you will understand how much it will impact the whole movie.This makes no sense at all, unless one can read Chinese. Care to explain this further?
I actually meant with Chinese dubbing.
shareThe only live-action films that should be viewed in dubbed English are the Spaghetti Westerns - especially Sergio Leone's. Which I think was kind of the way they were meant to be released in America anyway.
How do you like that piece of satire?
But they are only half dubbed anyway - the supporting cast speaks Italian, but the leads speak English (mostly).
share[deleted]
Welcome to the world of us non-English speakers.
This sentence has nothing to do with what I just have written above.
Original language with English sub-titles is my preferred way to watch any foreign film, if I'm given a choice. No exception here.
Even though the original voice soundtrack was dubbed in after filming Das Boot, another actor's voice or even the original actor speaking English always seems to fall short, not to mention the non-synchronous lips.
If you find sub-titles annoying, this usually improves with a little practice.
"Dave, this conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye." 2001: A Space Odyssey
Depends on the film too.
If it's animated, then a dub makes more sense since the original language dub had voice actors anyway.
If the film is also very visual based, then a dub might be a better idea.
Sometimes the film doesn't have much talking in it, so it's rather pointless to have a dubbed version.
Also once you've seen the film, what the actors say is less important since you already know what they mean.
Most of the time one just has to weigh the quality of the dubbing with the subtitles. If both of them suck, then you use subtitles since at least then you have the tone of the original voice of the actors.
The fact that you ask this question is interesting. I'm twenty-nine, living in Paris, and I haven't seen any dubbed movie since I was 14 (I remember, the first movie with subtitles I saw in theater was Crimson Tide !), and none of my friends ever watch dubbed movies. I guess it's pretty natural for us to make the effort to read the subtitles, maybe because theaters do a lot of film in original version, whether it's english or chinese (of course, there's even less problems when it's an american movie, people are used to hear english). Obviously, it's a cultural thing.
Still, I don't know how it works outside (besides Japan, where I lived, and which... had the good idea to avoid dubbing). I've been a few times in theaters when I was travelling in your country (if you're an American), a few times in NY, but it was always to watch movies which would be released months and months later in France ^^, so I don't know.
All I know is I get chills when I remember the time when I was watching John Woo movies in french ! It was a huge trauma when I discovered The Killer in cantonese... maybe this has something to do with that. When I was in highschool, I watched in original version american movies I knew by heart in french since I was kid, like Lethal weapon, Die hard, or he Schwarzenegger movies. It was like I was watching them for the first time !
Anyway, regarding Das Boot, for me it's german, and nothing else.
German with subtitles.
No lie, at one point we forgot to put the subtitles back on after taking a break. It was a tense scene in the sub while a destroyer was pinging and looking for them. We didn't notice the lack of English for a good long while because it was so obvious from the emotion of the crew what was happening.
I can't abide English speaking movies with audio sync problems, so overdubbing a foreign movie with English audio is not an option for me.
I think the trick with subtitles is to read them fast even if you miss a little of the context. That way your eyes have time to take in the visuals of each scene and aren't glued to the bottom of the screen for the movie's entirety.
I actually watched it in English with English subtitles. It's interesting because it seems the subtitles are based on an original script and sometimes there are several sentences of dialogue that don't match what is being said by the crew. It's a bit distracting but it gives you a peek at how the movie changes between script and filming.
share[deleted]
I actually watched it in English with English subtitles. It's interesting because it seems the subtitles are based on an original script and sometimes there are several sentences of dialogue that don't match what is being said by the crew. It's a bit distracting but it gives you a peek at how the movie changes between script and filming.
I watched this about 10 to 15 years ago and was hooked. 6 episodes over 6 weeks all in German with english subtitles. I think it was on bbc2 . Brilliant
German, native audio with english subtitles...
A lot of people don't seem to realize how closely related facial expressions and general physical movements are to the actual spoken words. Watching a dubbed performance in another language creates a disconnect which is definetly not desirable if you want to immerse yourself and get a proper feel for the atmosphere in a movie... ESPECIALLY this one.
Unless you're not able to read I can't see why you'd want to watch dubbed movies in the first place....?