UPDATED! The Destruction Of ‘Let The Right One In’ On DVD
By The Movie God
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Tuesday, March 24th, 2009 at 9:43 pm
In the past year, a small Swedish film called Let the Right One In has caused waves of high praise among movie fans on the festival circuit. Raves about its originality, darkness, humor, and all-around high level of quality have helped gain the film all kinds of attention.
However, news is making its way around the web that the U.S. DVD and Blu-ray versions of the movie have entirely new subtitles written into them. This may sound innocent enough, but if you love foreign movies and know how much better they can be than the movies we’re used to, then you also know how stupid this is.
I personally have not seen the movie, but as other sites cover this and I’m able to see what’s going on, it’s something that needs to be seen by as many people as possible, so I’m just doing my part. It’s appalling that anyone would take another person’s art and just slaughter it like this. Being someone who was very much excited to see this movie because of all the praise that it has received, I now find myself wondering how I’ll get to see the actual movie and not this… other thing.
Click over for a sample of what the little “adjustments” look like for yourself.
Here is one example of the massive changes they make over and over in the new version. Whether you like or dislike subtitles, you can absolutely tell how bad the writing is. In fact, the new changes read like they were written by someone who doesn’t understand English. Be sure to head over to Icons of Fright for a lot more examples.
Here is the conversation from the original movie.
Here is the conversation on the new U.S. version of the DVD.
Amazing, right? This makes me wonder how many, if any, of the other great foreign movies we’ve seen may have been altered before release. I’m sure if they were, someone who had seen the original would have noticed and said something, but still, this is pretty shocking.
If you’re like me and really wanted to see this, I would wait until it’s fixed, or until you can get a real version.
UPDATE: Ah, the power of the Internet. The Digital Bit has a quote from Magnet Entertainment who are admirably listening to the fans. Unfortunately, they will not be replacing any discs that were already purchased, though.
We’ve been made aware that there are several fans that don’t like the version of the subtitles on the DVD/BR. We had an alternate translation that we went with. Obviously a lot of fans thought we should have stuck with the original theatrical version. We are listening to the fans feedback, and going forward we will be manufacturing the discs with the subtitles from the theatrical version.
I had the opportunity to see this film before the subtitles were watered down to a 2nd grade reading level and it was truly an amazing horror film. It’s sad when films of great acting and dialogue are slaughtered because someone wants to paraphrase. Chances are if someone is intending on watching a foreign film they don’t mind reading the subtitles and I consider this cheap and lazy for of paraphrasing slanderous to the film maker.
i stopped buying films on DVD since i rarely rewatch them any more but beginning with “There Will Be Blood” last year, i decided to make it my policy to purchase my favorite movie of the year, as a way of financially rewarding good art and encouraging more. So of course i made an effort to buy “Let The Right One In” as soon as it was released.
Trying not to be just another asshole on the internet complaining about everything, i bit my tongue about the fact that the DVD cover is awful, with really stupid review quotes slapped onto the artwork, since i don’t watch dubs i bit my tongue when it was the default option and the voice actors sounded straight out of middle school lanugage tapes. i tried to just be happy that i had this awesome film, only to end up with these bullshit subtitles.
and seriously, what was the point in doing it?
I just watched this last night (Netflix) and while the subtitles are as described above, the English dubbing has the correct script. So if you don’t mind a bit of a strange cadence and accent, the movie is one of the best I’ve seen in a long time.
Good on Magnet. I’ve been waiting to see this for a while, and thought that was going to be import time. hopefully Magnet will mark the packaging so we know that the “original theatrical subtitles” are included.
I will wait till they make the changes before I check this one out then. That one example is enough for me to see the new translation leaves a lot to be desired.
So then does this mean that the dubbing was also “dumbed down” or was that translated correctly?
I did watch the movie with the dubbing turned on without subtitles. I watch movies with the dubbing turned on when I can and have no problem reading subtitles.
Im glad i waited for them to fix this problem. Since i live in Hawaii i dont get to see very many foreign films in the theaters. A couple that come to mind that ive seen were Fearless (Jet Li) and Le Pacte Des Loups “The Brotherhood of The Wolf” (Mark Dacascos & Monica Bellucci).
This is very much a big deal. I’m glad they will start making disks with the correct translations. Is there a date when these disks will arrive? How can we tell the difference? Hopefully the covers will be different.
Comment by Alex Thompson — March 27, 2009 @ 12:56 am
Dammit! I bought this the day it came out. Keeping my fingers crossed that they’ll change their mind about replacing the discs. I’ve been emailing them like crazy.
We downloaded the English Dubbed version off of Amazon Unbox but it was entirely horrible so we stopped 15 minutes into it and got the subtitled version.
The version we saw was clearly the newly subtitled version. I did notice that the particular scene as described here was different in the subtitled version versus the dubbed but didn’t think anything of it. However now I would like to see the original subtitles to see how it stacks up.
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I had the opportunity to see this film before the subtitles were watered down to a 2nd grade reading level and it was truly an amazing horror film. It’s sad when films of great acting and dialogue are slaughtered because someone wants to paraphrase. Chances are if someone is intending on watching a foreign film they don’t mind reading the subtitles and I consider this cheap and lazy for of paraphrasing slanderous to the film maker.
Comment by Abby Normal — March 24, 2009 @ 11:35 pm
i stopped buying films on DVD since i rarely rewatch them any more but beginning with “There Will Be Blood” last year, i decided to make it my policy to purchase my favorite movie of the year, as a way of financially rewarding good art and encouraging more. So of course i made an effort to buy “Let The Right One In” as soon as it was released.
Trying not to be just another asshole on the internet complaining about everything, i bit my tongue about the fact that the DVD cover is awful, with really stupid review quotes slapped onto the artwork, since i don’t watch dubs i bit my tongue when it was the default option and the voice actors sounded straight out of middle school lanugage tapes. i tried to just be happy that i had this awesome film, only to end up with these bullshit subtitles.
and seriously, what was the point in doing it?
Comment by c6h12o6 — March 25, 2009 @ 4:00 pm
I just watched this last night (Netflix) and while the subtitles are as described above, the English dubbing has the correct script. So if you don’t mind a bit of a strange cadence and accent, the movie is one of the best I’ve seen in a long time.
Comment by Tom — March 26, 2009 @ 6:59 am
Good on Magnet. I’ve been waiting to see this for a while, and thought that was going to be import time. hopefully Magnet will mark the packaging so we know that the “original theatrical subtitles” are included.
Comment by Ryan Midnight — March 26, 2009 @ 1:36 pm
I will wait till they make the changes before I check this one out then. That one example is enough for me to see the new translation leaves a lot to be desired.
Comment by WordSlinger — March 26, 2009 @ 3:08 pm
So then does this mean that the dubbing was also “dumbed down” or was that translated correctly?
I did watch the movie with the dubbing turned on without subtitles. I watch movies with the dubbing turned on when I can and have no problem reading subtitles.
Comment by Nick — March 26, 2009 @ 3:43 pm
Im glad i waited for them to fix this problem. Since i live in Hawaii i dont get to see very many foreign films in the theaters. A couple that come to mind that ive seen were Fearless (Jet Li) and Le Pacte Des Loups “The Brotherhood of The Wolf” (Mark Dacascos & Monica Bellucci).
Comment by Joe — March 26, 2009 @ 8:00 pm
This is very much a big deal. I’m glad they will start making disks with the correct translations. Is there a date when these disks will arrive? How can we tell the difference? Hopefully the covers will be different.
Comment by Alex Thompson — March 27, 2009 @ 12:56 am
Dammit! I bought this the day it came out. Keeping my fingers crossed that they’ll change their mind about replacing the discs. I’ve been emailing them like crazy.
Comment by Sean Duregger — March 27, 2009 @ 1:01 am
Yeah – Tom is right.
We downloaded the English Dubbed version off of Amazon Unbox but it was entirely horrible so we stopped 15 minutes into it and got the subtitled version.
The version we saw was clearly the newly subtitled version. I did notice that the particular scene as described here was different in the subtitled version versus the dubbed but didn’t think anything of it. However now I would like to see the original subtitles to see how it stacks up.
Thoroughly loved the film!
Comment by Mr_Rodacre — March 27, 2009 @ 1:16 pm
yea I downloaded both the dubbed and the theatrical sub’d –
don’t bother with the english overdub, sounds ridiculous as expected- kills the movie
Comment by mack — July 19, 2010 @ 4:40 am