Lost in the Translation
The other day I recieved an email from my good friend Bart Smith. Bart is a bit of a Star War's nut, and in the email he asked me if I had seen a pirated copy of "Revenge of the Sith." I hadn't yet, but one of my friends in the program bought a bootleg copy and we watched this weekend.
The video and sound quality were good, and the movie was just as good as the first time. I know it wasn't a favorite of the critics, but I really liked it. So watching it here in China reminded me a lot of home.
But this was an extremely special copy of a Starwars film, or more specifically an extremely special set of English language subtitles in a Starwars film. When we started the dvd, we were pretty mad that we were unable to turn-off the subtitles. But as soon as the opening written explanation was off the screen, we realized the value of there value.
It seems that the bootleggers that made this copy found it necessary to translate the Chinese version of the script back to the English. The problem is who ever did this translation reads/writes english about as well as I read/write Chinese, and I most definetely would not try to translate a movie script into this Asian language.
These often mistranslated subtext added a new, humourous aspect to the film, and actually made George Lucas' writing look good. I thought I'd pass some of my favorite character names and quotes from these subtitles on to you.
THE TITLE:
Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith
Star Wars: Spread Before III The Vengance of the West
CHARACTERS:
Padme
Translation: Is Virtuous and Beautiful
Anakin Skywalker
Translation: The Gold day Go
Obi Wan Kenobe
Translation: Europe Compare Prosper
Yoda
Translation: Particullarly Reach the Elder
Chancellor Palpatine
Translation: D Speaker
And my personal favorite...
Count Dooku
Translation: Data Cool the Count
For some reason, Dooku was the only villans' name they bothered translating.
STAR WARS TERMS:
The Force
Translation: The orignial Tent
The Dark Side
Translation: The Dark noodle (this makes since since the word for noodle and side is mian).
Jedi Knights
Translation: Hopeless situations warriors
Sith
Translation: The West
And my two personal favorites:
The Jedi Council
Translation: The hopless situation Presbyterian Church.
The Jedi Temple
Translation: The hopless situation Presbyerian Church Saint's Palace
I've got some good quotes I may post later, but I think this is enough for now. Sorry if you're not Star Wars fan or Presbyterian, but since I am both this was really eventful for me. I guess if the air quality was better, I'd actually want to go outside ont the weekend. Oh well, but I think it's starting to clear up now.