We watch a number of movies in bars while we're in Koh Tao - it's hard to resist the floor cushions, leather couches, and large screen TVs. The bars on the island are all open-walled, like a birdcage (if the birds could come and go as they pleased). To compensate for the ambient noise of motorcycles on the street and drinkers all around you, the staff puts on the English subtitles.
All of the movies in Thailand seem to be bootlegs - the latest Bond movie, Quantum of Solace, is available on DVD at the bars only a few days after it opens in theatres. To meet the demand of getting these tapes out onto the streets, the Head Bootlegger seems to pay someone to whip up some English subtitles.
It's not that I haven't seen bad subtitling before. Closed captioning, for example, is consistently bad on most North American shows. The best example I have of this is from New Year's Eve 1997, when I found myself stuck at Ottawa U's then-campus bar The Nox (or as I like to think of it: The Obnoxious). Around 1:00 am I happened to look at the TV above the bar and noticed the closed captioning had degenerated from "hurry canes have been spotted in the yeast" to "dfas fgrw ga assfagrrt." I assume the closed captioner was pounding on the keyboard with one fist while pounding back a beer with the other.
Subtitling in Thailand has a bit more finesse than a drunk on New Year's Eve, but is still more misleading than helpful. During movies, I write down just a few of the mis-transcriptions so that I wouldn't forget them:
Movie: Tropic Thunder
Spoken Line: Back in '98
Subtitle: Recognize deal.
Movie: Pineapple Express
Spoken Line: You didn't think of that.
Subtitle: Your bigger ass.
Movie: Get Smart
Spoken Line: Oh, a pocket knife.
Subtitle: Oh, punk. Nice.
Spoken Line: Sorry, sir.
Subtitle: Send it to the entrance.
Spoken Line: Unusual but effective.
Subtitle: A loser or a fat boy.
Spoken Line: Why Los Angeles?
Subtitle: Violence angels.
Spoken Line: Chief!
Subtitle: Jesus.
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