This thread goes out to all the countries who dub their films, but I'm going to focus on Germany, since that's where I live at the moment. (I'm from Sweden.)

Now then.. Why are most (/all) films in Germany dubbed?
Let's take a classic one for example; Clockwork Orange. This cult movie features one hell of an actor; Malcolm McDowell.
I don't know anyone who could have done the role better than him.
Then, in the german version, his voice is replaced by a german guy from some dubbing studio.
Apart from the fact that the lipsync ALWAYS get more or less screwed up, and that the voices don't really appear to come out of the right person, I'm mostly troubled by the fact that:
It's not Malcolm McDowell. Yes, we see him, but we don't hear him. It's just not him, it's someone else.
The movie becomes completely ruined and basically unwatchable.

Yes, some movies in Sweden get dubbed as well, but that only goes for the films that are meant for the younger audience, Shrek for example. When I saw this movie at the cinema, it was an obvious choice to see the original version. I didn't want some weird swedish dub, that's just not the real movie.
I mean come on, this movie features voices from Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz and Mike Myers, isn't that worth anything? English shall remain english, just like german shall remain german.
I don't want to see Clockwork Orange in any other language than english, just like I don't want to see Die Blechtrommel (The Tin Drum) in any other language than german.
If I don't understand the language of a film, then I want subtitles, not dubbing. (Das ist ja ein Werk des Teufels! )

Well, I would like to hear from you guys from Germany. What are your attitudes towards this issue?
I know most modern DVD's include both audio tracks, but which one do you choose?
Do you actually go to the cinema when the movies are in this state?

And yes, I know that germans don't always speak english, many swedish people also don't.
We, however, are doing just fine with subtitles, how come Germany isn't?
Don't tell me that it's inconvienient or that it pulls away the attention from the movie, cause I haven't heard anyone in Sweden complain about that.

(And one more thing: Sorry if I'm being a bit harsch, I just want to make my opinion clear. Germany is great, really, and this is pretty much the ONLY problem I have with this country. Well, maybe that + that the foodstores are closed on sundays. )

(Final thing! People from France, Italy etc are also welcome to answer. I think the situation is pretty much the same over there..?)

Schönes Wochenende!

Quoting Hybinette:

Quote:
Now then.. Why are most (/all) films in Germany dubbed?

The german answer would be "Das war schon immer so!".

It has been always done and therefore will always be done. Sad but true.

Quote:
Well, I would like to hear from you guys from Germany. What are your attitudes towards this issue?

This is a matter of big discussions over german movie/DVD forums.

Take AreaDVD [dubbing = de: Synchro(nisierung)] as an example. There are those who want to hear the original voices (I am one of them) and there are those who don't want to listen to a foreign language while watching movies. There is also often the argument that subs would destroy a movie because one gets distracted and that many people don't have enough english skills (since british/american movies represent the bulk of the movies). While the latter may be true it won't get better if the don't get in touch with the english language.

And there are more problems. We have our share in movie cuttings and when the movies or TV shows are released uncut on DVD the missing bits have to be dubbed, too - when you're lucky it's the same speaker (although he/she got older). If not: you get a new speaker for these parts.

Another issue are the costs. Often the rights of the dubbed track are not held by the movie/TV show owner and have to be aquired. For the TV show "The Fall Guy" (de: "Ein Colt für alle Fälle") the studio decided to re-dub the entire(!) series instead of buying the dubbed track, because it's cheaper(!).

But that leads to the problem that some shows will never be (fully) released here.

Highlander: canceled after season 1
Hercules: canceled after season 1
Xena: canceled after season 1
Farscape: season 4 was never dubbed and is not released on DVD (ironically,  "Peacekeeper Wars" was dubbed & released on DVD)

Quote:
I know most modern DVD's include both audio tracks, but which one do you choose?

I always watch with the original audio track ("O-Ton"), even if it is japanese ("Seven Samurai", "Yojimbo")

Quote:
Do you actually go to the cinema when the movies are in this state?

Actually, I do. Going to the cinema is a social event with friends and I won't miss that. But for movies that I really like I will also watch it in a O-Ton screening. This year I have been to "Pirates 3", "Potter 5" and "Letters from Iwo Jima".

Letters did only run in about 50 cinemas all over Germany. On the DVD there is also a fully dubbed audio track.

Quote:
We, however, are doing just fine with subtitles, how come Germany isn't?
Don't tell me that it's inconvienient or that it pulls away the attention from the movie, cause I haven't heard anyone in Sweden complain about that.

But this is exactly the excus....urm... reason they give.

There are other problems as well, let me take a few examples

Die Hard:
The bad guys were germans, remember? Not in Germany, they spoke the same language (=german) as everybody else and they even got different names (Hans became Jack)

Indiana Jones / Highlander / others:
All speak german - including the Nazis - but they don't understand each other.

Star Trek 3:
When Kruge aquired the Genesis data he spoke klingon with his officers and ordered the destruction of the merchant ship. In Germany both merchants and Klingons spoke german but didn't understand each other.


On the other hand: In Die Hard the bad guys were supposed to speak german but they really didn't. They may have used german words but it often didn't make any sense. In the episode "1969" of "Stargate" Daniel Jackson spoke bits of german but it didn't make much sense either.

But it got better in recent years. Jason Bourne spoke german sentences in "The Bourne Identity" and was understandable and since he wasn't supposed to be fluent in german it was very good.

In the Netherlands (like Sweden), we only use dubbing for little children. Other people are supposed to be able to read, and generally prefer to hear the voices from the original actors, and not always the same two local actors providing the voices.

A real challenge would be to do dubbing for 'Allo, Allo', where the French speak English, the Germans and Italians (and one lone Swede) speak English with various accents (all supposed to be French), and the British speak a sort of French interpretation of English, or English interpretation of French.

Quoting Hybinette:

Quote:
Now then.. Why are most (/all) films in Germany dubbed?

Because the people don't understand english (and don't care to read subtitles). And they don't learn english, because they watch only dubbed movies ... full circle.

Quote:
What are your attitudes towards this issue?

Well, roundabout two thirds of my collection are R1-DVDs so guess 
Having the original soundtrack was the reason for me to start buying DVDs in the first place. Yeah, I could have started with VHS from the UK, but I never really liked the concept of VHS.

Quote:
Do you actually go to the cinema when the movies are in this state?

Not if I can help it. Luckily some cinemas in bigger cities show "OV" (Originalversion). Nice side-effect: the audiences in such viewings are much better than the ones described this thread

Quote:
We, however, are doing just fine with subtitles, how come Germany isn't?

They are spoiled.

Quote:
(Final thing! People from France, Italy etc are also welcome to answer. I think the situation is pretty much the same over there..?)

Yes, AFAIK. But there is another factor: If I dub a movie in swedish it has a meager target-audience of 9 million. But dubbed in german: 95 million! (Germany, Austria and german-speaking part of Switzerland), so there is a big, paying market.

cya, Mithi

PS Don't know how the french with their 63 million people are doing, as they usually hate speaking anything but french.

I prefer watching dubbed movies, even if my spoken English is quite good (I tend to believe so ). I talk English almost daily in business, but not exclusively.
Still, talking and understanding English requires some concentration and attention.
In Movies, if actors speak some kind of slang or use gutter language, I need to concentrate quite much to follow them.
However I'm watching movies for relaxation and don't want to concentrate to be able to follow the dialogs. I also don't like subtitles as they take away my attention from the picture.
So, I'm used to dubbed movies and I like it that way. 

Quoting Hybinette:

Quote:
(Final thing! People from France, Italy etc are also welcome to answer. I think the situation is pretty much the same over there..?)

Its the same in US too, as far as i know.

I get annoyed when US anime distributors add "quotes" from the dubbers to the menus, dub trailers and use the dub as the 1st audio track.

Here they dub childrens shows, though many fans have made few channels change the audio track to the original in some anime shows. I wouldnt watch even Disney movies dubbed.

May I add my comment - I find that I prefer to watch a film as it was intended to be see, therefore, will only watch films like Das Boot and Amelie in their respective languages

Mind you, I admit the Dubbed version of Das Boot is very well done - but just sounds flat and there is no real "atmosphere" in the audio.

I was also just watching Heroes and I was mightly impressed that the Japanese is left in with subtitles only - And it is not at all confusing to watch this switch from English to Japanese and back again. In fact, it was a great pleasure to see George Takei speak in his mother tongue. How the world has changed from a few years back, when it would of been either dubbed, or they would all speak in English (Like they all spoke English on the original Star Trek)

If a film is offered as a Dumb - - - sorry dubbed version, then I agree the original language should also be included as a matter of course.

I will use the example of "Murder on the Orient Express" starring Albert Finney - I got this DVD from France a few years ago, this was before it was available in the UK. It contained the French Dub and the German (I think) and the English original. This was impressive and helpful.

If it can work there, it should be applied everywhere

I should point out, that as a kid (dumb and stupid as I was) I hated subtitles, and it wasn't until I grew up and learned to understand and enjoy the original languages that I started to watched the original language versions of films.

That said, if it is an Asterix film, (animated) then I am afraid I will watch the dubbed versions - after all I grew up with the Asterix books "dubbed" and he has always spoken English in my mind

Of course, with out dubbing of films, some jokes in films like Police Acadamy and Wayne's World just would not work.

C'est la vie

I would add a subtitle track to this.... but I cannot be bothered