Subtitles

One fun thing about being here is pirated movies. You can buy movies for about $1.20, and they are soooo entertaining to watch. A few fun features include: a different picture quality than DVD's bought at home (the entire Shreck 3 movie we bought was filmed slightly out of focus), I hear sometimes you can see the silhouettes of people who got up to go to the bathroom, and you can buy the movies only days after they come out in the theater. Charlie bought Pirates of the Caribbean 3 tonight.

But by far the best feature, as far as I'm concerned, is the subtitles. For some unknown reason, the movies are subtitled in English, not Indonesian. But they aren't the subtitles that you can turn off and on, and they aren't the script. It looks like an Indonesian listened to the movie and tried to translate it from English, to Indonesian, back to English. It is hysterical. There are several words that don't make sense, with a couple Indonesian words thrown in for good measure.

Case in point: the new "Pirates" movie. Don't worry, this won't spoil the movie if you haven't seen it:

Actual Phrase: "Captain Barbosa, we need you at the helm..."
Subtitle: "Captain of Barbosa our of your butukan." (apparently "butukan" is "helm"?)

Actual Conversation: "Are you mad?" /"You fear to get wet."
Subtitle: "You is gila?" / "Kau fear to be is wet."

Actual Phrase: "Nobody move! I dropped my brain."
Subtitle: "Don't there is peripatetic."

Actual Phrase: "You're a cruel man, Jack Sparrow."
Subtitle: "Cruel sparrow wake up."

The sad thing is, there is an Indonesian somewhere working so hard to get these subtitles on these movies, and they can be of no help to anyone. Unless it's a bad movie and you're looking for some amusement. It's also nice if the movie is intense, as it gives you another focus point.