Incline Hey hey people, it's the SsethTzeentach thread

[Manjuice Nutella]

Thus, countries with a dubbing tradition such as Spain produce (or used to) high quality voice acting that can often compete with or even surpass the originals of regular mainstream films -thanks to Francoist politics.

Every single thing I've seen of Spanish TV/cinema is like this shit.

Also classic:

 

[Parsifarka]

Thus, countries with a dubbing tradition such as Spain produce (or used to) high quality voice acting that can often compete with or even surpass the originals of regular mainstream films -thanks to Francoist politics.

Bolded the relevant part; as I implied in my post my knowledge mostly comes from my experience as a child. Also, I never said there weren't sloppy jobs, and the classic example in cinema is El Resplandor: the voice actors were chosen by Kubrick himself against the Spanish distributors will and he completely misunderstood how Spanish sounds. It's a running joke.

Among videogames, there was a time in the wild 90s when every game was dubbed by the same guy with a very characteristic voice tone who most of the time didn't even pretend to care, apparently he had some connections in the industry. Luckily the malpractice of having several characters dubbed by the same dude was prohibited but his works remain —enjoy:

Spoiler

Besides, I specifically referred to productions with significant budget allocated to dubbing -for example, El Señor de los Anillos , Shrek or Los Simpsons have excellent voice over that successfully translate the characters.
And no, I'm not saying that the voice actors topped Lee and McKellen but they did manage to provide adequate Spanish voices to the characters, because there's no way English and Spanish would sound the same (but yes, I do claim that Aragorn sounds much better in Spanish than with Mortensen's wimpy voice).

Recently I was rewatching a BD of Ninth Gate and changed the language back to Catalan because "Corsoooo! No tens cap escrúpol!" sounds so much funnier to me than "Unscrupulous, thoroughly unscrupulous"; of course if that's not your mother tongue you'll dismiss it, but pleasing foreigners was never the point of dubbing and none will believe how much more enjoyable this film in particular becomes with the added voice inflections.

As I recall you aren't Spaniard yourself, so you'll be hardly able to assess the quality of a Spanish dubbing: in my previous post I did try to hammer down the idea of how different languages sound and how, as much as I enjoy v.g. Granada's Adventures of Sherlock Holmes I will never be able to appreciate Brett's delivery as much as a kid raised in English could. Not that I use dubbing (only when visiting the family), but if I were a child or an old man who never heard foreign languages in his youth I would be much better served by a competent voice actor than by subtitles added to the excellent original.

Having said that, I must admit last year I was coerced into watching a dubbed version of Black Widow *sic* and I found the voice acting to be as lame as the script, the cinematography and the CGI, but somehow I don't think the original would have been much better. Truth is I'm fairly out of touch with the current state of dubbing in Spain, but there certainly was a time when it was good, not always, but often.

 

[lightbane]

mong videogames, there was a time in the wild 90s when every game was dubbed by the same guy with a very characteristic voice tone who most of the time didn't even pretend to care, apparently he had some connections in the industry. Luckily the malpractice of having several characters dubbed by the same dude was prohibited but his works remain —enjoy:

Oh, the dry voice that voiced literally everyone. He was bland but harmless. Metal Gear Solid 1's Spanish translation was quite good. Meanwhile, KH2's translation was drier than paint.

The Legacy of Kain games and Starcraft ones had also good Spanish dubbing IIRC.

 

[thesheeep]

mong videogames, there was a time in the wild 90s when every game was dubbed by the same guy with a very characteristic voice tone who most of the time didn't even pretend to care, apparently he had some connections in the industry. Luckily the malpractice of having several characters dubbed by the same dude was prohibited but his works remain —enjoy:

Oh, the dry voice that voiced literally everyone. He was bland but harmless. Metal Gear Solid 1's Spanish translation was quite good. Meanwhile, KH2's translation was drier than paint.

The Legacy of Kain games and Starcraft ones had also good Spanish dubbing IIRC.

My girlfriend always plays Zelda games with Mexican Spanish (or do they call it Latin Spanish, not sure) voices as it fits the characters best.
English and "normal" Spanish ones have these abhorrent "woman plays child" voices, Japanese ones have everyone sound like helium addicts (I know Japanese people don't actually sound or talk like that, it must be something they teach their VAs for some reason), German ones just don't "fit".

 

[Manjuice Nutella]

Fun fact: in Poland, during the Wild West of ‘90s (both in regard to economic transformation from socialism to capitalism, and early days of the internet etc), up until the the early 2000s, the market was just catching up in regard to video game distribution etc. As many games were outside of reach of kids, not readily available, and so on, what proliferated was the black market of pirated copies on various bazaars.

Of course the big players in that regard were (who else) Russians, who in order to make their offer more attractive and accessible, began to include dubbing. Yes, their dubbing.

While you’d have to know the language to catch the full absurdity of the Pidgin vocabulary, the results were, well, see for yourself:

 

[Ninjerk]

I decided I wanted to play Deus Ex but in Russian and the sound patch I found on Zone of Games is so hilariously distracting as some nerd just talks in Russian over the original sound.

 

[†††]

Having said that, I must admit last year I was coerced into watching a dubbed version of Black Widow *sic* and I found the voice acting to be as lame as the script, the cinematography and the CGI, but somehow I don't think the original would have been much better. Truth is I'm fairly out of touch with the current state of dubbing in Spain, but there certainly was a time when it was good, not always, but often.

The newer dubbing actors in Spain are simply terrible, and they can't get good manly voices anymore. The days of Constantino Romero dubbing Eastwood or Schwarzenegger are gone forever. Not that I mind, since I've always preferred undubbed, but you could watch a dub before and not cringe as hard as now.

 

[Hafnar the Jester]

If you were a kid back then, not knowing any better, this dubbing sounds surprisingly servicable for the late 90's.

 

[Luka-boy]

Luckily the malpractice of having several characters dubbed by the same dude was prohibited but his works remain

I still love the Spanish dub of Slayers, with only five voice actors for three seasons with dozens of characters, but boy that must have sucked for them.

The newer dubbing actors in Spain are simply terrible, and they can't get good manly voices anymore. The days of Constantino Romero dubbing Eastwood or Schwarzenegger are gone forever. Not that I mind, since I've always preferred undubbed, but you could watch a dub before and not cringe as hard as now.

Yeah first there was this utter lack of voice actors. Then around 2005 it transitioned into a lack of good new voice actors with many terrible ones joining the business. Reminder that Héctor Cantolla has pretty much retired now.


Anyway, ffs when is Sseth going to review Bastard Bonds?

 

[lightbane]

Pretty much ALL of Spanish-related media, not only dubbing, suffered greatly lately. Prisa for example is a shameless editorial corp that made disappear many good magazines that used to be good, corrupted others, made Meristation into blatant ads, and I'm sure it's behind the dumbing down of El Jueves, an humor magazine that used to be good.

 

[†††]

made Meristation into blatant ads

And they nuked the forums after years of tech issues and purges. A big piece of local internet history gone forever. The forum used to be the second most used Spanish-speaking forum after Forocoches, all down the drain.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

If you were a kid back then, not knowing any better, this dubbing sounds surprisingly servicable for the late 90's.

honestly, i thought hitman 2 was victim of bootleg dubbing. that intro in broken italian disturbed me so much i never managed to play the game.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

I decided I wanted to play Deus Ex but in Russian and the sound patch I found on Zone of Games is so hilariously distracting as some nerd just talks in Russian over the original sound.

Lots of old foreign language movie dubs do this, especially bootleg ones.

 

[Riddler]

That's true, by the way. On Hungarian TV for example you always hear the original faintly in the background. You get used to it...

When I was in Poland some 20 years ago I watched some TV and it seemed to me that one dude was either doing all the dubbing by himself (very badly) or possibly described what was going on in third person. Did this use to be a thing?

 

[Hafnar the Jester]

When I was in Poland some 20 years ago I watched some TV and it seemed to me that one dude was either doing all the dubbing by himself (very badly) or possibly described what was going on in third person. Did this use to be a thing?

The way it is done - the "lector" (as he is called) is not describing nor adding anything, he reads aloud the voiced lines of the screenplay. It's not a dubbing, because he's not really performing.
It's still pretty much a thing, though, with some of these lectors having a cult following (like Tomasz Knapik for example).

 

[Hellraiser]

That's true, by the way. On Hungarian TV for example you always hear the original faintly in the background. You get used to it...

When I was in Poland some 20 years ago I watched some TV and it seemed to me that one dude was either doing all the dubbing by himself (very badly) or possibly described what was going on in third person. Did this use to be a thing?

It is still a thing but only because TV stations refuse to use subtitles if there is no dubbed version available. ITZ retarded as this is driven 100% by the TV stations and no one else, the movies you see in cinemas are either fully dubbed (mostly those with kid/tween appeal like marvel capeshit, star wars starting from episode I back in the day and of course any family friendly movie animated or live action) or subbed. And that status quo is here for longer than I can remember.

The majority of the population watches or watched with subs in cinemas or pirated series/movies with unofficial subtitles anyway without making a fuss, so really I don't get why this is still a thing.

I guess the origin was that back when they started importing VHS tapes in the 80s it was far easier to use the dude to read the lines (especially for unsanctioned distribution) than do actual subs. I mean it is just sound mixing, while doing subtitles back then required extra gear (that was definitely not cheap) and know-how/effort.

As mentioned it is not really dubbing as there is no performance or voice acting, it is essentially a guy reading subtitles.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

I'm pretty tired of the Sseth ripoffs posted itt.

This guy even called the Telvani "ancap wizards" like Sseth did in his Morrowind review years ago.

 

[Manjuice Nutella]

If you were a kid back then, not knowing any better, this dubbing sounds surprisingly servicable for the late 90's.

honestly, i thought hitman 2 was victim of bootleg dubbing. that intro in broken italian disturbed me so much i never managed to play the game.

source/link?

 

[Manjuice Nutella]

I forgot to mention that halfway in, the voice “actor” for Kain starts voicing Raziel instead for some reason.

At any rate, please enjoy the swan song of this phenomenon:



AFAIK it was the last such high-profile venture, since as you can see things were falling apart, and Max Payne shortly after received an officially distributed professional dubbing with recognizable names, at which point there was no going back. Rest In Peace, Sweet Boyars

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

If you were a kid back then, not knowing any better, this dubbing sounds surprisingly servicable for the late 90's.

honestly, i thought hitman 2 was victim of bootleg dubbing. that intro in broken italian disturbed me so much i never managed to play the game.

source/link?

 

[Strig]

It is still a thing but only because TV stations refuse to use subtitles if there is no dubbed version available. ITZ retarded as this is driven 100% by the TV stations and no one else, the movies you see in cinemas are either fully dubbed (mostly those with kid/tween appeal like marvel capeshit, star wars starting from episode I back in the day and of course any family friendly movie animated or live action) or subbed. And that status quo is here for longer than I can remember.

The majority of the population watches or watched with subs in cinemas or pirated series/movies with unofficial subtitles anyway without making a fuss, so really I don't get why this is still a thing.

I guess the origin was that back when they started importing VHS tapes in the 80s it was far easier to use the dude to read the lines (especially for unsanctioned distribution) than do actual subs. I mean it is just sound mixing, while doing subtitles back then required extra gear (that was definitely not cheap) and know-how/effort.

As mentioned it is not really dubbing as there is no performance or voice acting, it is essentially a guy reading subtitles.

What are you even on about? Yes, dubs in Poland are mainly catered towards children, but the rest is a bit of a stretch.

The majority of the population in Poland watches movies with voice-overs as it is an ageing society and traditional TV is still popular. English is not as well ingrained in the populace as it is in say Scandinavia and most people prefer not to read subtitles if they don't have to. And even younger people who grew up with the internet and probably know the language often prefer voice-overs to dubs. As shown by the Netflix debacle where Polish audiences DEMANDED voice-over translations.

And the origin was a bit earlier, as the live voice-over translations became more popular on TV at the tail end of the '70s. VHS came later and solidified the already wide-spread phenomenon.

My personal opinion is that the dubbings are the worst form of localisation, there is no such thing as a good dubbing for a live action movie. The best you can get is something "serviceable" with your brain doing overtime trying to match the lip movements to what you're actually hearing. Voice-over translation or "lector" doesn't overwrite the original voice lines, so you're still able to get the emotions conveyed by the actors even without knowing the language. I consider it a good middle ground between dubbing and subtitles.

 

[Bigg Boss]

Great I scrolled through four pages of ripoffs to learn there was no video posted. Fuck this thread. I will check YouTube from now on.

*overturns table*

 

[Caim]

Yeah, just follow him there or if you're feeling particularly... particular, you can follow his patreon for free, if only to feel sad how a man can make fun of racial minorities and rake in a five-figure paycheck every time he does it.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

sad? he gets paid for stuff we do for free and for fun.

 

[Kem0sabe]

It is still a thing but only because TV stations refuse to use subtitles if there is no dubbed version available. ITZ retarded as this is driven 100% by the TV stations and no one else, the movies you see in cinemas are either fully dubbed (mostly those with kid/tween appeal like marvel capeshit, star wars starting from episode I back in the day and of course any family friendly movie animated or live action) or subbed. And that status quo is here for longer than I can remember.

The majority of the population watches or watched with subs in cinemas or pirated series/movies with unofficial subtitles anyway without making a fuss, so really I don't get why this is still a thing.

I guess the origin was that back when they started importing VHS tapes in the 80s it was far easier to use the dude to read the lines (especially for unsanctioned distribution) than do actual subs. I mean it is just sound mixing, while doing subtitles back then required extra gear (that was definitely not cheap) and know-how/effort.

As mentioned it is not really dubbing as there is no performance or voice acting, it is essentially a guy reading subtitles.

There's a bunch of stuff on Netflix that I wanted to see but haven't bothered with yet because i hate dubbing and reading subs takes me out of what's going on screen, so I end up consuming the vast majority of the content either in original English, Portuguese or Spanish audio.