History BlindIdiotTranslation / FIlm

** Then there is the ever memetically famous ''[[Franchise/StarWars Star War]] The Third Gathers: [[WebVideo/BackstrokeOfTheWest The Backstroke of the West]]'', a bootleg version of ''Franchise/StarWars Episode III: Film/RevengeOfTheSith'', translated to Chinese, with English subtitles. But in writing the subtitles, they didn't write it in the original English - [[RecursiveTranslation No, they retranslated the Chinese back into English.]] [[HilarityEnsues Hilarity ensued]]. Some of the translations are funny but comprehensible, especially if you know the original dialogue (e.g. Vader's BigNo being subtitled, "[[MemeticMutation Do Not Want!]]" or the clone pilot being chased by droid fighters reporting, "They're all over me!" being subtitled, "He is in my behind!") Other translations, especially names, are ''crazy'' but are at least somewhat (though still not always) consistent. "Jedi Council" is subtitled "Presbyterian Church" or "Hopeless Situation Parliament." Jedi Knights are called "Hopeless Situation Warriors." Meanwhile, "Obi-wan Kenobi" is variously subtitled "Ratio the Tile", "Ratio Tile", "Ratio Prosperous", "Section pulls the Ratio" or "[[TheLastOfTheseIsNotLikeTheOthers The Willing to Compares]]". Finally, a large part of the subtitles is simply straight-up gibberish.

* The Finnish subtitles for ''WesternAnimation/TheIncredibles'' somehow translated "take a shot" as ''shooting people'' instead of playing a DrinkingGame. The quote was left out entirely in the Finnish dub.

** The Hungarian dubs of the ''Film/{{Transformers}}'' film series are ripe with lazy and odd translations.
*** The cruelly comedic exchange between Megatron and Jazz ("You want a piece of me?" - "No, I want ''two'' pieces!") got mangled into "You want one?" - "No, you want one.", somehow completely dropping the obvious bit of DarkHumor that the banter ends with Megatron ripping Jazz into ''two''. Many lines are also simply missing from the dub, Megatron's dramatic cry of "Prime!" upon meeting Optimus got replaced with a bored grunt.

*** In ''Dark of the Moon'', when Prime gets separated from his trailer, he exclaims that he needs the flight equipment the trailer was carrying. In the dub, he says he needs a "technician", right as the team technician Que is standing there next to him. Also, during the climax, Megatron mistakenly mixes up the names of Optimus and Sentinel.

* The Latin American translation for ''Literature/HarryPotterAndThePhilosophersStone'' is RIDDLED with awful translation errors which confuse viewers to the point they don't understand the movie at all. For instance, they translated the movie directly from the American version but they kept the British title, so while the movie is titled "The Philosopher's Stone", the titular item is referred throughout the movie as "The Sorcerer's Stone".

* ''Film/AvengersAgeOfUltron'' suffered from this [[http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/age-ultron-subtitles-baffle-chinese-795308?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=hollywoodreporter_headlines&utm_campaign=THR%20Headlines_2015-05-14%2005%3A00%3A00_RGajewski in China]].

* ''Film/InvasionOfTheBodySnatchers'' was released in French under the name ''L'Invasion des profanateurs de sépultures'' which clearly shows that it was translated by someone who didn't actually see the movie, as its French title translates BodySnatcher as "[[GraveRobbing Grave Robbers]]" rather than its intended "hijacking someone else's body" meaning.

* The Latin American translation for ''Literature/HarryPotterAndThePhilosophersStone'' is RIDDLED with awful translation errors which confuse viewers to the point they don't understand the movie at all. For instance, they translated the movie directly from the British version but they kept the American title, so while the movie is titled "The Philosopher's Stone", the titular item is referred throughout the movie as "The Sorcerer's Stone".

** One particularly jarring example comes in the scene where Professor [=McGonagall=] punishes the kids for nightstrolling. She says something along the lines of "Todos serán castigados", which means "You'll all be punished", to which Draco responds "Disculpe, creí escuchar que dijo ¿'los cuatro'?", which means "I'm sorry, I thought I heard you said 'the four of us'?", leaving the audience to say "Uh... no, she didn't, pal". Clearly she DID say "the four of you" in the original, but this translation was so terrible that TWO CONSECUTIVE LINES which referred to THE SAME SUBJECT were translated differently and made no sense while put together.
** There's a simpler explanation for that. In most non-voiceover foreign-language dubs, the script doesn't go straight from the translator to the voice actors; the lines are adapted to better match the MouthFlaps, because the effect otherwise [[HongKongDub is pretty jarring]]. In all probability, the translator's script had "los cuatro", and then the adapter did a bad job. But it's arguable whether that fits this trope.

* Norwegian releases have an unfortunate tendency toward this:

%%** In one movie, the reassuring "I'll be right behind you, watching your back" becomes a moderately creepy "I'm standing behind you, looking at your back". %% Commented out due to not mentioning which movie it is from

%%** In one movie, the reassuring "I'll be right behind you, watching your back" becomes a moderately creepy "I'm standing behind you, looking at your back". %% Commented out due to not mentioning which movie is it from

* In the Japanese edition of ''Manga/SukebanDeka: Codename = Asamiya Saki'' (otherwise known in the West as ''Yo-Yo Girl Cop''), the English subtitles seem to have been generated by attempting to translate the individual words directly into English, including the names, causing it to veer between this trope and a TranslationTrainWreck. The seemingly meaningless phrase "of temple" keeps recurring in the dialogue -- baffling, until you realise this was a translation of Asamiya, the heroine's family name.

** It was said that when the first film ''Film/DrNo'' got released in Japan, the title was translated as ''We Don't Want a Doctor''.

* The title of ''Film/AHistoryOfViolence'' (as well as that of the graphic novel it was based on) was translated in Spain as ''Una historia de violencia''. In Spanish the word ''historia'' means both "history" as in the study of the past, and "story" as in tale, but not "history" as in personal record, so the title's meaning becomes the rather generic "A Story of Violence". An accurate Spanish translation to convey the intended original meaning would be "Un historial de violencia".

* The 2011 film ''Film/MrPoppersPenguins'' was released in France as ''Monsieur Popper et ses pingouins'', which is a mistranslation: in French, a "pingouin" is an "auk"; the word for "penguin" is "manchot". However, penguins are often referred to as "pingouins" in French, even though this usage is technically inaccurate, and they may have done this deliberately so the title stayed {{alliterative|Title}}. Averted in Quebec, where the movie was released under the title ''Monsieur Popper et ses manchots''.

** One of the lines in "Love is an Open Door" is "We finish each other's - sandwiches!" However, the wordplay of "sentences" vs. "sandwiches" isn't really translatable into other languages - for instance, in the French translation, the line ends up being something like "How a stranger finishes - all your sentences?" and completely ignores the "sandwiches" bit. [[spoiler: Unfortunately, this creates a problem in that [[DubInducedPlotHole now this part doesn't foreshadow that Hans is the]] BigBad.]]

*** In ''Dark of the Moon'', when Prime gets separated from his trailer, he exclaims that he needs the flight equipment the trailer was carrying. In the dub, he says he needs a "technician", right as the team technician Que is standing there next to him. Also during the climax, Megatron mistakenly mixes up the names of Optimus and Sentinel.

* An official Hungarian subtitle for the first ''Film/RoboCop1987'' movie somehow came upon the brilliant realization that the word "chopper" can also be translated as "szecskavágó" (chaff cutter), aside from its usual bland translation, "helikopter". This lead to the following lines:

** In Italian, Tim's line "God bless you!" when a Brachiosaurus sneezes is translated too literally as "Che tu sia benedetto" ("May you be blessed") as opposed to what you'd say to a sneezing person ("Salute" - literally, "health"), making it sound as if he's thanking the dinosaur for sneezing. Given that the dinosaur just sneezed all over his sister, this isn't totally non-sequitur, although it does make him seem rather mean-spirited.

** When Stanley Ipkiss (Jim Carrey) is locked in prison he tries to convince his dog to fetch the keys from the sleeping guard. Unfortunately the dog understands cheese instead and wants to bring a cheese sandwich. Stanley says: "Not the cheese, the keys!" The German word for keys is Schlüssel - no chance to connect it with Käse (cheese). So they decided to say: "Nicht das aus der Schüssel, den Schlüssel!" (Not the thing from the bowl, the keys!) which doesn't makes much sense, because the plate is obviously not a bowl, and the whole sentence sounds very strange.

** When Thanos tells Doctor Strange that he proposed killing half of Titan, his line is mistranslated as "I killed them randomly." This makes it sound like Titan ''accepted'' his solution, only for the planet to go extinct anyway. As a result, Thanos's motives no longer make sense, as he continues to massacre half of other planets despite knowing that his original idea did not work.

* ''Film/InvasionOfTheBodySnatchers'' was released in French under the name ''L'Invasion des profanateurs de sépultures'' which clearly shows that it was translated by someone who didn't actually see the movie, as its French title translates BodySnatcher as [[GraveRobbing "Grave Robbers"]] rather than its intended "hijacking someone else's body" meaning.

** When the T-1000 disguised as Sarah Connor calls to John, and John realizes it's actually the 1000, he calls onto the actual Sarah to "SHOOT!" The Dutch subtitles of some versions of the movie translated it as "Damn it!" May not make sense in the context of the situation, but it might be noted that some people really do exclaim "Shoot!" when they mean "Damn it!" in English.

** One song was [[CutSong unused]] in the final product to specifically avoid this trope. It involved the trolls telling Kristoff and Anna to wear each others shoes. It was scrapped because the writers were worried certain cultures wouldn't understand what "putting yourself in someone else's shoes" meant. It was ultimately replaced with "Fixer Upper".

** The Norwegian movie subtitles for the movies were so hilariously bad that they were changed in the DVD versions. Not because they were {{Blind Idiot Translation}}s, but because they were so archaic that the audience quite simply started laughing. Elrond's "Kast den inn i eldmørja!" ("Cast it into the fire!", but really leaning more towards "Cast it into the sea of flames-infernal!") and Théoden's "Mitt kjøde er knust" ("My body is broken", but really more like "My corpus is undone") are both still buzzwords.

** The police is after the Mask, and Lt. Kellaway shouts "Freeze!". The Mask (in cartoon mode) freezes in the air, complete with icicles. In German the policeman shouts: "I will get you ice cold!", and after the Mask freezes, the policeman says: "Not you ice cold, me ice cold!". Luckily for the translators, all those words are spoken off screen, but it makes no sense at all.

* Hungarian mistranslation again, this time in the movie ''Film/{{Mallrats}}''. The translator evidently did no research on any of the Creator/MarvelComics characters that get mentioned during the film, because then, [[Comicbook/FantasticFour The Thing]] and Doctor Doom wouldn't have been called "Dolog" and "Doktor Végzet" respectively (which are actually correct translations, but the names are "Lény" and "Fátum Doktor" in the comics), nor would the Franchise/XMen have become "X Emberek" ("X People", whereas the comics leave it as X-Men), and most importantly, the Comicbook/IncredibleHulk wouldn't be "Hihetetlen Hajós" ("the Unbelievable Seaman").

** One of the lines in "Love is an Open Door" is "We finish each other's - sandwiches!" However, the wordplay of "sentences" vs. "sandwiches" isn't really translatable into other languages - for instance, in the French translation, the line ends up being something like "How a stranger finishes - all your sentences?" and completely ignores the "sandwiches" bit. [[spoiler: Unfortunately, this creates a problem in that now this part doesn't foreshadow that Hans is the Big Bad.]]

While this is not the correct way to ask for the time and react to the answer in English, it's nearly a direct translation of the conversation in German.

** When Thanos tells Doctor Strange that he proposed killing half of Titan, his line is mistranslated as "I killed them randomly." This makes it sound like Titan ''accepted'' his solution of slaughtering half of his own people, only for the planet to go extinct anyway. As a result, Thanos's motives no longer make sense, as he continues to massacre half the population of other planets despite knowing that his original idea did not work.

** When Thanos tells Doctor Strange that he proposed killing half of Titan, his line is mistranslated as "I killed them randomly." This makes it sound like Titan ''accepted'' his solution of slaughtering half of his own people, only for the planet to go extinct anyway. This means that Thanos's motives make no sense, as he continues to massacre half the population of other planets despite knowing that his original idea did not work.

** Dr. Strange's line "We're in the endgame now," was translated as "There's no hope," which gives the impression that he just gave up instead of having a plan to beat Thanos. It also confused many Korean viewers as to why he would give up the Time Stone.

** After defeating Ebony Maw, Dr. Strange asks if it's possible to go back to "our home planet" as if he doesn't know he's from Earth.

** Thanos telling Dr. Strange his backstory has one of his lines mistranslated as "I killed them randomly," referring to the people of Titan. This suggests that Titan ''accepted'' his solution of slaughtering half of his own people, only for the planet to go extinct anyway. This means that Thanos's motives make no sense, as he continues to massacre half the population of other planets despite knowing that his original idea did not work.
** Dr. Strange's line "We're in the endgame now," was translated as "There's no hope." This gives the impression that he just gave up instead of having a plan to beat Thanos. It also confused many Korean viewers as to why he would give up the Time Stone.

* Many years ago, a short press article on the poor quality of Polish film translations had two outrageous examples: a phrase "The computer is down" was translated into "The computer is in the basement", and W.C. Fields was changed into "Toilet Pastures".[[note]]"W.C.", which in the actor's case stands for William Claude, also stands for "Water Closet," a mostly outdated term for a flush toilet.[[/note]]

*** The unique characteristics of the Chinese language play into this. Chinese must render all foreign words using its own characters, all of which already have their own meanings. Therefore, out of context, this can potentially cause BiteTheWaxTadpole. For example, to translate the word "Jedi", the translator probably used the characters 绝态 to get the sound "Juétài". Except in Chinese, the characters 绝态 already have a meaning: "hopeless situation." Thus in the subtitles "Jedi Knight" is rendered as "Hopeless Situation Warrior". Repeat this same process for every off-the-wall name in the subtitles and you have your answer.

*** The unique characteristics of the Chinese language play into this. Chinese must render all foreign words using its own characters, all of which already have their own meanings. Therefore, out of context, this can potentially cause BiteTheWaxTadpole. For example, to translate the word "Jedi", the translator used the characters 绝地 to get the sound "Juédì". Except in Chinese, the characters 绝地 already have a meaning: it sounds like "Juédì" but in Chinese it literally means "end ground". "End ground" is an expression in Chinese meaning, "a battle with no possible retreat." Thus in the subtitles "Jedi Knight" is rendered as "Hopeless Situation Warrior". Repeat this same process for every off-the-wall name in the subtitles and you have your answer.

*** The unique characteristics of the Chinese language play into the cause of this. Chinese must render all foreign words using its own characters, all of which already have their own meanings. Therefore, out of context, this can potentially cause BiteTheWaxTadpole. For example, to translate the word "Jedi", the translator used the characters 绝地 to get the sound "Juédì". Except in Chinese, the characters 绝地 already have a meaning: it sounds like "Juédì" but in Chinese it literally means "end ground". "End ground" is an expression in Chinese meaning, "a battle with no possible retreat." Thus in the subtitles "Jedi Knight" is rendered as "Hopeless Situation Warrior". Repeat this same process for every off-the-wall name in the subtitles and you have your answer.

** Then there is the ever memetically famous ''[[Franchise/StarWars Star War]] The Third Gathers: [[WebVideo/BackstrokeOfTheWest The Backstroke of the West]]'', a bootleg version of ''Franchise/StarWars Episode III: Film/RevengeOfTheSith'', translated to Chinese, with English subtitles. But in writing the subtitles, they didn't write it in the original English - [[RecursiveTranslation No, they retranslated the Chinese back into English.]] [[HilarityEnsues Hilarity ensued]]. Some of the translations are funny but comprehensible, especially if you know the original dialogue (e.g. Vader's BigNo being subtitled, "[[MemeticMutation Do Not Want!]]" or the clone pilot being chased by droid fighters reporting, "They're all over me!" being subtitled, "He is in my behind!") Other translations, especially names, are ''crazy'' but are at least somewhat (though still not always) consistent. "Jedi Council" is subtitled "Presbyterian Church" or "Hopeless Situation Parliament." Jedi Knights are called "Hopeless Situation Warriors." Meanwhile, "Obi-wan Kenobi" is variously subtitled "Ratio the Tile", "Ratio Tile", "Ratio Prosperous", "Section pulls the Ratio" or "[[TheLastOfTheseIsNotLikeTheOthers The Willing to Compares]]". Finally, a large part of the subtitles is simply straight-up gibberish. Yet on top of this, while it may seem like this can all be put down to crappy early-2000s translation software, there's evidence that someone actually listened to at least parts of the movie and tried to "correct" the subtitles. For example, "the Sand People" is rendered, "the Pathetic People" due to an apparent mishearing of "Sand" as "Sad." Similarly, "Have the protocol droid's mind wiped," is rendered, "Is my wife," in apparently another mishearing.

*** What's the cause for a lot of this, you may ask? The unique characteristics of the Chinese language play into it. Chinese must render all foreign words using its own characters, all of which already have their own meanings. Therefore, out of context, this causes BiteTheWaxTadpole. It's hard enough to do for real words, much less totally made up ones like "Anakin" or "Obi-wan." For example, to translate the word "Jedi", the translator used the characters 绝地 to get the sound "Juédì". Except in Chinese, the characters 绝地 already have a meaning: it sounds like "Juédì" but in Chinese it literally means "end ground". "End ground" is an expression in Chinese meaning, "a battle with no possible retreat." Thus in the subtitles "Jedi Knight" is rendered as "Hopeless Situation Warrior". Repeat this same process for every off-the-wall name in the subtitles and you have your answer.