A friend just got back from watching the movie "Iron Man." He told me that the movie is perhaps the best comicbook adaptation that he has ever seen. And that comics fans who watch the movie are in for a treat. There were a lot of great moments, and the action was superb, and there were a lot of in-jokes. All in all, he said, it was a fun movie to watch.
But he was annoyed with one thing - the translation. He said that the translators who did the subtitles are simply not fit for the job. He cited one simple example. Jeff Bridges' character, Obadiah Stane, was talking to Robert Downey Jr's character, Tony Stark. Stane said to Stark, "I'll talk to the board."
The subtitles read, "Saya akan bercakap dengan papan."
Huh?
Obviously, Stane was referring to the board of directors. Therefore, "board" should be "lembaga" as in "lembaga pengarah" for "board of directors." I wonder if the translators translated "board of directors" into "papan pengarah-pengarah"? Talk about lousy translating.
However, I have to admit that we do see this happening quite a lot in the local movie theatres. Subtitles for television programmes are light years ahead in terms of quality. Unfortunately, this is not the case for movie theatres. It's high time they get professional translators who can do the job more accurately. It's a sad day when the translator does not know the difference between "papan" and "lembaga" when translating "board."
I forgot to ask my friend how they translated "Iron Man." Is it "Lelaki Besi" or "Lelaki Seterika"? Hmmm...
4 comments:
salam tuan shaikh...kelakar betul entry ni..huhu..tergelak sorang2 saya baca..hehe..anyway..saya pun pernah tengok gak cerita yang subtitle nya ntah ape2..tergelak2 dengan family..hehe..erm,tapi, kalau kawan tuan shaikh 2 tengok 'iron man' kat cinema..mmg agak pelik la..lain la kalau CD..huhu..tu yang kadang2 spoil kan mood kita nk tngok movie..hmm..
Salam Fiey. Itulah masalah dengan sari kata di panggung wayang. Buat "spoil" mood penonton saja.
Salam kelana,
I once watched a movie, where the hero got so angry that he shouted "bloody shit!". Guess what's the subtitle?
"najis berdarah!"
Salam Jie. I remember very clearly a Lat cartoon from the 1970s. It's a sketch of a few "direct translations" in movies. One that tickles me until today is where a person was sentenced to death by a shooting squad, and the commander of the squad said, "Fire!"
And the translation was...
"Api!"
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