Brazilian translation studios have a fair bit of those:
Portuguese Literal translation Original title O Poderoso Chefão The Powerful Big Boss The Godfather A Noviça Rebelde The Rebellious Novice The Sound of Music Noivo Neurótico, Noiva Nervosa Neurotic Fiancé, Nervous Fiancée Annie Hall O Tiro Que Não Saiu Pela Culatra The Shot that Didn’t Backfire Parenthood Those four are representative examples because they don’t just adapt the original title; they do it without regard of what the original title is conveying, just to throw it into a “this is a movie title!” template.
Mas “O Poderoso Chefão” > “O Padrinho”
In the case of The Godfather I get why they changed it - as “padrinho” won’t deliver the same reference to the Italian-American mafia as “godfather” does. However “poderoso chefão” doesn’t do it either, you need a very specific context to interpret “chefe” as “chefe da máfia”, and the augmentative even hides it further.
They had better choices - like calling it “Don Corleone”. Just the “don” plus the promotional images are enough to convey “this is a mafia boss, you simply don’t fuck with him”.
But by far among those four the one that I hate the most is A Noviça Rebelde. Because the literal translation of the original (O Som da Música) sound more aesthetic IMO than it. And it changes the focus from Maria’s connection with music to her rebelliousness.
Is Poderoso Chefão used to mean the leader of a gang/crime family in Portuguese?
Not really - it’s no fixed expression for those; the only word there that can refer to mafia is “chefe” (boss, chief; “chefão” is its augmentative). But even then, “chefe” can be also used for company bosses, video game bosses, restaurant chefs etc., it doesn’t evoke mafia imagery at all unless you specify “chefe da máfia” (mafia boss) or similar.
I’ve seen a few people using “capo” (an Italianism) for that, but I don’t know how widespread this is.
Not that bad, but there was a serious lack of creativity:
The Shining - Hotel of Evil
House on the Haunted Hill - House of EvilDoes Evil Dead become Cabin of Evil? Also, any Tent(s) of Evil?
Evil Dead was dance of the devil in German
Swedish translators have largely stopped translating titles as the population nowadays are essentially all competent enough English speakers. But back in the day, there were some… let’s say questionable choices. Sadly many of them are based on word play and translate poorly back to English. Superman III was translated into an absolutely atrocious Kryptonite pun, for example. I wish I could do it justice.
It Could Happen To You being translated as Cop gives waitress a $2 million tip is one of my other favourites - just a mundane summary of the plot with zero zest or punch.
It was also decided for some reason to name the entire Mel Brooks catalogue as Springtime for X after The Producers was first translated as Springtime for Hitler (which at least makes sense - that is part of the movie!). I think the worst offender is Springtime for the History of the World part 1 (History of the World part 1) - but they’re all bad.
There was also a trend for a while to randomly add sub-titles to movies - such as Crocodile Dundee: a big game hunter in New York.
Finally, it amused me greatly that The Sound of Music was translated as Sound of Music - still in English, just dropping the article.
I have a friend who is Swedish, and my all time favorite isn’t a movie, but a comic book. Batman translated into Läderlappen. So after some discussion about that period in time and how things were being translated I asked, well then what did Robin translate to, and he looked at me and said “Robin”. I almost fell out of my chair. So he brought me a copy of Läderlappen and Robin. I love it.
That’s so funny. I just though Läderlappen just sounds like german for “leather rag” and google does in fact translates it to “The Leather patch”.
I wonder what their thought process was in coming up with leather patch for batman.
I am not sure, but to tie this all back together, the whole conversation came up when we were talking about how, when you kill a bat in Valheim it drops leather.
So “läderlapp” is an old Swedish slang or colloquialism for bat. Back in the 50s when Batman was first brought to Sweden English literacy was a lot worse than it is now, and translating titles and names were much more common. A direct translation of Batman would be “fladdermusmannen” - which is a very unwieldy name - so they settled for a then-more-common slang for “the bat”. It does sound a little better, though it would have been best to just do what finally happened from the 80s and let Batman remain untranslated.
Oh yeah the whole of Mel Brooks are being translated as “La folle histoire de…” (The crazy story of…) Because I guess the first one was Mel Brooks History of the world (the words for history and story are the same in french)
Which reminds me that Die Hard was translated as “Piège de Crystal” (Crystal Trap) which isn’t per se a bad title, but then every movie that had a hero against people taking something over became “Piège …” Literally dozens of Piège movie that have nothing to do with Die Hard
That’s so funny, Sweden had a similar thing going with Goldie Hawn movies! After The Girl From Petrovka was translated literally (“Tjejen från Petrovka”), the next 8 out of 11 Goldie Hawn movies had their titles changed and translated as “Tjejen som…”(The girl who…) despite having nothing else in common apart from being comedies.
I’ll start with a classic: in French "the Hangover"has been changed to “Very bad trip”
Possibly as a consolation, the French film “Une hirondelle à fait le printemps” (A swallow that made the spring) was called “The Girl From Paris” in English.
TIL!
Brazilian translation studios butchered this one too. It became Se Beber, Não Case (If Drinking, Don’t Marry).
In the meantime the ones in Portugal translated it literally as A Ressaca, showing that the “creativity” of the above was 100% unnecessary.
And Hot Tub Time Machine was titled The Hangover
Ok, but don’t you prefer the brazilian name? I sure do, specially with the context of drinking and driving PSAs
I got the joke with “se beber não dirija”, but it sounds shallow IMO.
Oh, I have a doozy for ya. I’ve got a beauty!
THELMA & LOUISE
in theaters in Mexico, back in the early 90s
was
(wait for it…)
UN FINAL INESPERADO (AN UNEXPECTED ENDING)Seriously… how dumb do you think your audiences are if you feel the need to hold their hand and spoon-feed them like this? This is taken to a level that doesn’t make sense anymore, the so-called “solution” is so much worse than the perceived “problem”.
Book and Movie “To Kill a Mockingbird” is translated in German to “Wer die Nachtigall Stört” - “To disturb a Nightingale”.
They were like “something, something with a bird- close enough.”
This bothered me even before reading the book, but after reading the scene in the backyard where Miss Maudie explains to the kids that you never shoot at a mockingbird because they do no harm to anyone or anything ever, a metaphor the whole book is build on, this translation drives me crazy.
I wish someone would re-publish it with a more fitting german title.
This stuff never bothered me when i was younger, now it kinda does. I always imagine some guy trying to put his own spin on things. “Oh i can do better.” But it’s just a title at least.
What bothered me even as a child was when they advertised for a movie like Antz in germany as: starring Sylvester Stallone. No he’s not, it has a german voice actor who pretends to be Sylvester Stallone.
ゴジラ (go・ji・ra) somehow got turned into “Godzilla”.
(I’m a native English speaker living long-term in Japan, so I’m not sure which “your language” goes here, but English names of Japanese movies seems like the better bet).
The Shawshank Redemption in Finnish: Rita Hayworth - avain pakoon. (=key to freedom). Only a minor spoiler…
I think the original book title is: Rita Hayworth And Shawshank Redemption. So not as crazy as it seems.
You should see the French title…
“Wild Things” was translated to “Sex Crimes” in France “Body of Evidence” to “Body” “The Hangover” to “Very Bad Trip”
Hmm I can’t think of others right now, but translating English title to other (Often bad) English titles was a mood in France at some point
Wow, watching Where The Wild Things Are in French must have been a surreal experience
I was specifically talking about the movie “Wild Things”
I see Very Bad Trip as a example of a good translation tbh. It’s a trip as in “a trip to Vegas” as well as a “bad trip” which is commonly used in french although not exactly a synonym for hangover
One I don’t like much is The Purge as American Nightmare, seems pretty gratuitous
I can see American Nightmare as a play on words with the American Dream, but yeah
ah good one it didn’t even dawn on me
Japan tends to go for very descriptive titles in media. My favorite one of these is when Pixar’s Up became Old Man Carl’s Flying House.
Most InuYasha episode titles sound like first draft fairy tale titles.
