The topic of subtitles vs dubbing is one that I’ve been wanting to cover for a while now. I just haven’t really found a way to do it right. Over the past 20 or so years, I’ve heard MANY arguments for audio dubbing on foreign films. I’ve also heard arguments that subtitles should be used for foreign movies and that people should just get used to having subtitles. Before I get into which side I actually fall on, I would like to go into some detail into what subtitles are and what they are used for and what dubbing is. For those of you not in the know, subtitles are small that appears at the bottom of a movie or TV show that is essentially a transcript for what the characters are saying. Most of the time, subtitles are used because some people are deaf and they can’t hear what’s being said, so it’s a legitimate thing for disabled people. Subtitles are also used for movies that were made in another country where they don’t speak English, or whatever language that isn’t prevalent in that region. When movies are released in certain regions, subtitles are generally used for people that don’t speak that particular language. For instance, here in the states and in other English-speaking countries, subtitles are used for movies like Gojira, The Assassin or any movie from Hong Kong or Thailand.
There is a technique in post-processing called audio dubbing in which additional recordings are mixed with the original to create a more complete soundtrack. In film-making, it happens all the time. You can’t just use audio from the boom mic because it will pick up additional sounds from the environment or isn’t loud enough for the audiences to hear. So, the actors have to go through a process called ADR, which is Additional Dialogue Replacement. Actors go into a recording studio and they have to repeat their lines in almost the same kind of performance that they gave on the actual shoot, but in this case, the final audio is clearer and easier to hear. Again, it’s the process of making a movie. However, when it comes to foreign movies, a lot of companies end up using American actors to “dub” over the original actors lines. This is used for people who are too lazy to read the subtitles.
When it comes to dubbing an English-language film, it’s not necessarily an issue for me. My issue is that in a foreign film where a different language is spoken, things get lost in translation whenever the film is dubbed into English. Truthfully, almost everything gets lost in translation with that. When people complain about going to a foreign-language movie, some of them whine about horrible performances. I have to ask the question: Did you see it in it’s original language with subtitles or did you see the English-dubbed version. If you saw the English-dubbed version, then yeah, you’re not going to get the same performances. Let me tell you exactly why that is. The English-speaking actors that are dubbing for the on-screen actors can’t match the performances on the screen, so the overall presentation feels extremely uneven and unintentionally hilarious at times. What you are hearing isn’t necessarily matching what you are seeing. Don’t believe me? Check out some of the older kung fu movies or Godzilla movies. Those are perfect examples of why English dubbing is bad. To be fair, there are a select few foreign actors out there that will dub their own lines into English. Jackie Chan is one of those people, and you know what? It strangely works. He can do it. People who complain about having to read subtitles in their movies are inherently lazy. Yeah, I’m going to piss some people off, but it’s the honest truth. It only takes a second or two to read those subtitles, and while you’re reading them, you can still see what’s going on, so I don’t understand that complaint. I get that people’s attention spans are at a record low, but you know what? Deal with it. You get a much more fulfilling experience with those subtitles then you ever will with dubbing. Besides, the actors they get to do the dubbing are generally really lousy actors. So…subtitles or dubbing for foreign movies? There’s no comparison here. Subtitles all the way.