• Pommes_für_dein_Balg@feddit.orgEnglish
    43·
    6 months ago

    Airplane! doesn’t have a dumb name, but the German dubbed version does:
    “Die unglaubliche Reise in einem verrückten Flugzeug” (The Incredible Journey On a Crazy Airplane)

    And The Big Bus was called “The Hair-Raising Journey On a Crazy Bus”.
    Even though the movies have nothing to do with each other, apart from being comedies set in vehicles.

    • lime!@feddit.nuEnglish
      20·
      6 months ago

      this is like how The Producers were shown in sweden using the name of the musical in the film, Springtime For Hitler, and then the name stuck. every Mel Brooks movie is called Springtime For X in sweden; Springtime For Mother-in-law, Springtime For The Sheriff, Springtime For Frankenstein, Springtime For The Lunatics, Springtime For World History, Springtime For Space…

        • lime!@feddit.nuEnglish
          6·
          6 months ago

          we had a real hard-on for translated titles for a while. two of my faves are 1) translating the bond film “from Russia with love” to “agent 007 sees red” 2) changing the title of “it could happen to you”, a movie that has a guy win two million at the lottery, after which we learn he’s an undercover police officer, and which ends with him giving the money away to a waitress in a heartfelt moment of empathy, into “cop gives waitress $2M tip”

            • lime!@feddit.nuEnglish
              7·
              6 months ago

              right? some others:

              • the world’s fastest indian -> “lemon trees and motor oil: a hell of a true tale”
              • the amityville horror -> “the house that god forgot”
              • the princess bride -> “minute of the pale death”
              • grosse pointe blank -> “even an assassin needs a hit from time to time” (where “hit” is slang for “date”)
              • hitchcock’s “rope” -> “the yell” (the swedish word for yell is “rop”, in the-form its “ropet”. very funny)

              and my favourite, which i had forgotten until looking up these things:

              • superman 3 -> “superman has a bit of bad krypto-luck” (lit. “stålmannen går på en krypto-nit”, “superman walks into a krypto-(losing lottery ticket)”. “gå på en nit” means to fail at a task, as in you failed because of the luck of the draw. and as you may have guessed, “kryptonit” is the swedish translation of kryptonite. yes, i’m cringing just writing this out)
    • iturnedintoanewt@lemmy.worldEnglish
      9·
      6 months ago

      In Spain, if it had Leslie Nielsen on it, it would be “(whatever action summarizing the movie) however you can!”

      Naked Gun - Agárralo como puedas (catch it however you can)

      Airplane! - Aterriza como puedas (land however you can)

      … And so on. I think it applies to all of the movies with Nielsen.

      • dustyData@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        6 months ago

        Funnily, it is not a cultural quirk. It was usually part of regional marketing. Copyright and distribution deals of exported movies are very complex. Many countries have laws with mandatory dubbing. Contracts sometimes includes local translation, marketing, and theater distribution deals all in one. So, they would do all that they could to promote the movie for the local culture. It’s akin to how some voice actors have dubbing contracts, so only they are allowed to dub a particular actor for a particular market. Because that market associated the voice with the actor. If it is a big celebrity, changing the voice could sour audiences to the new film. Mix that with a pre-Internet era and you get that sort of quirky name translations. It simply sold more tickets in that market, according to marketers at least.

  • makeshiftreaper@lemmy.worldEnglish
    20·
    6 months ago

    Batman/Superman: Apocalypse

    It’s a movie primarily about Supergirl, that largely takes place on earth and does not threaten the end of the world. It does briefly go to Apokolips, but that’s a different word than the title

  • whotookkarl@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    9·
    6 months ago

    Pontypool, such a bad name for a movie but a really good low budget horror movie

    The guest, good throwback action thriller with an extremely bland, boring name

    Saw 3d: the final chapter is the 7th of 10 in the series

  • Blubber28@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    6 months ago

    Gonna cheat here with a series called The Night Agent. It’s a name that should be given to a parody spy thriller, not something that tries to be serious. “Tries” being the keyword there, as it is atrociously bad. It’s got all the clichés you’d expect. I turned it off early into episode two, I just couldn’t watch it anymore.

  • doesit@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    5·
    6 months ago

    In Spain Die Hard was called Jungla de Cristales. Something like “glass jungle”. Didn’t make any sense for the sequels.
    The movie Jude needed a different name in Germany. Translates as “Jews”.

  • homes@piefed.worldEnglish
    3·
    6 months ago

    The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle

    Which does actually describe the film, but makes for a shitty title. Although, if you’ve seen the film, you might understand how they couldn’t come up with anything else.