History Main / EvenTheSubtitlerIsStumped

* Brad Pitt's character in ''{{Snatch}}'' is deliberately unintelligible as a response to complaints about hard-to-understand British actors in the director's previous film. At times, one suspects that his script is actually just saying 'watermelon watermelon' or something. Certainly his subtitles have gaps.

* Painfully and unintentionally used in the CartoonNetwork live-action show ''UnnaturalHistory''. The DidNotDoTheResearch moments are acceptable thanks to RuleOfCool and the occasional GeniusBonus, unless you are watching subtitles that spell [[TheyJustDidntCare "peregrine falcoln" as "paragrin falcoln"]], mis-spell half the foreign words, and render anything the characters say that the subtitle doesn't want to bother spelling phonetically or looking up as "[[EventheSubtitlerIsStumped unintelligible]]". [[TheyJustDidntCare Even when it's perfectly intelligible. Even when it's perfectly intelligible]] ''[[TheyJustDidntCare English]]''.

** Unless that was consistent, this may have been due to a bug where two random letters next to each other are removed from a broadcast.

* Happens often in Japanese CD booklet supplements of English-language CDs (which provide Japanese language translations as well as the English lyrics). In Rancid's "Life Won't Wait" CD (which has never had the official lyrics printed anywhere) supplement, the english translation often just said "Unintelligible" and many of their guesses were off ("I can see 360" became "I can see gray sixty"). Not surprising given the way the singer sings...

* Ventriloquist JeffDunham has a bit in one of his routines in which his puppet Peanut claims to have deliberately rattled off a string of nonsense words, and then ''pretended'' to talk without actually saying anything, in order to confuse a group of deaf people watching the show with the help of a sign language interpreter.
** [[ImGoingToHellForThis "We're going to hell, aren't we?"]] "Yup." [[BrickJoke "Well, here we are!"]]

* If you ever watch a live show with close captioning on (such as a news program), you'll notice that the captions are generally a few lines behind the onscreen dialogue, presumably to give the captionists time to figure out what's being said and edit accordingly. Still, however, you might still occasionally see some unintentionally hilarious misinterpretations.

*** Perhaps they're better in your area because where I'm from they're about one line behind, and truncated to the point of not even saying the same thing as the anchor. I hope deaf people aren't trying to get the news like this...

* Have difficulty understanding the dialogue in ''[[TheAdventuresofSherlockHolmes]]'' or any of the subsequent series? Too bad, because the transcriber did, as well. There are frequent errors and audible dialogue is sometimes marked as "[Unintelligible]".

* A ad for the PSP version of RockBand, translating British slang for American viewers, which ends with "????".

* The Eddie Murphy skit "Buckwheat Sings" from ''SaturdayNightLive''. When Buckwheat starts singing "Bette Davis Eyes," the caption just says, "?????" because he's so unintelligible.

* When Sanji first saw his horribly drawn bounty poster in ''OnePiece'', one fansub had his completely unintelligible mumbling subbed with one of the symbol fonts in microsoft word. This troper personally felt it enhanced the gag.
* Whenever the foreign soldiers of Plumumb in {{Simoun}} speak, the subtitles on the Media Blasters release only reads (and ThisTroper quotes) ''Foreign''. Their dialogue, however, is Japanese played backwards.

*** He is supposed to be saying * something* however, probably about what he wants to buy for his mother's RV. This tropers friend had the line in question as his answering machine for years, and its definitely ends something about "matching curtains."

* Accurately subtitling ''O Brother, Where Art Thou?'' takes greater vocabulary, auditory skill and cultural knowledge than one might expect. The closed captions in English are disappointing; I don't even want to try watching it in another language.

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