Top 10 Most WEIRD Movie Translations

“Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone” (2001)

Although Harry originally met Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger on the train to Hogwarts, it wasn’t until Harry and Ron saved Hermione from a rogue troll that the trio’s bond was truly solidified. Of course, the troll they saved her from wasn’t meant to be in the school at all. He was let in by Professor Quirrell, who then attempted to distract the students and faculty at Hogwarts by loudly announcing the troll’s presence in the dungeon. It’s a significant scene in the franchise’s first installment, but one that Malaysian audiences saw a slightly different version of. In that translation, the subtitles show Quirrell warning everyone about a “tiny person” instead of a “troll”... which honestly seems like far less of a threat.

“Roma” (2018)

Netflix had a hit on their hands with “Roma,” which received a nomination for Best Picture at the Academy Awards, and took home gold in the Best Foreign Language Film, Director, and Cinematography categories. Nonetheless, the film was not without its controversies - primarily due to issues with subtitling. Director Alfonso Cuarón criticized the streaming platform for providing subtitles specific to Castilian Spanish. He argued that the Mexican Spanish captions should suffice, and pointed out that the Castilian translation even edited some lines to be more traditionally “proper,” changing “mum” to “mother.” This controversy inspired the French organization ATAA to publish a list of issues with their regional translation as well, describing some of its more egregious errors as “mistakes worthy of grade school children.”

“Death Becomes Her” (1992)

It can be easy to mishear dialogue, especially when an actor is putting on an accent. Unfortunately, in this case, a translator’s misinterpretation resulted in a completely different line for Russian audiences. In “Death Becomes Her,” Lisle Von Rhuman implies that Greta Garbo may have been immortal, mimicking the actress with the quote “I vant to be alone-yah.” Although this reference is immediately recognized by Madeline in the world of the film, it clearly went over the heads of the Russian crew tasked with making the film’s dub, as the line there was changed to “I want to be a lawyer.” We can only imagine the audience’s confusion as they attempted to guess which lawyer she could be referring to.

“Pulp Fiction” (1994)

Even if you’ve never seen “Pulp Fiction,” you’re likely familiar with one of the jokes that features in it. A mama, papa, and baby tomato are walking down the street when the baby tomato begins lagging behind. Papa Tomato gets angry and squishes him, telling him to “catch up.” Obviously in English, the joke here is that “catch up” sounds like “ketchup.” It’s a clever pun. But puns based on similar-sounding words and phrases are difficult to translate literally into other languages. While most translators would choose to replace a joke like this with a more culturally relevant pun, Germany decided to go the anti-humor route for “Pulp Fiction.” The line was left as is, meaning there was no punchline… just tomato violence.

“Frozen” (2013)

Hans and Anna’s mental synchronization didn’t seem to extend to “Frozen’s” French translators. In “Love Is an Open Door,” the two characters have a quirky exchange in which Hans says, “we finish each others-,” before being interrupted by Anna, who fills in with “sandwiches” rather than the expected “sentences.” This is a fun wordplay joke that had previously featured in shows like “The Simpsons” and “Arrested Development.” Unfortunately, as we’ve learned, English wordplay can be difficult to express in other languages. Instead of coming up with a similarly alliterative joke, French translators opted to make Anna just respond with “sentences.” It doesn’t ruin the purpose of the song, but we imagine Hans’ surprised reaction doesn’t make quite as much sense in this version.

“Avengers: Age of Ultron” (2015)

More often than not, poor translations happen because of difficult dialogue. Maybe a word doesn’t exist in both languages, or a pun just wouldn’t make sense. In the case of “Age of Ultron,” however, the Chinese subtitles are way off base… for seemingly no reason. Instead of saying “I’m home,” Captain America says “I’m good,” and his uncharacteristic swearing towards the film’s end is inexplicably translated as “my old familiar partner.” Not only does this completely change the tone of the scene, but it ruins the payoff from an earlier exchange. China even changed Steve’s words of advice, [You get hurt, hurt ‘em back. You get killed… walk it off] to the far less eloquent “run fast if someone tries to kill you.”

“Airplane!” (1980)

One of “Airplane!’s” most famous gags is an exchange between Ted Striker and Dr. Rumack, in which Ted says, “Surely you can’t be serious,” and Dr. Rumack replies [I am serious - and don’t call me Shirley!] As with all English wordplay jokes, this bit required some thinking on the part of translators. In Latin America, Spanish translators opted for “God, you can’t be serious!” and “I am serious, and I am not God!” But the European Spanish translation dropped the ball. Rather than play with the line at all, they simply changed Rumack’s response to “I am serious. I will repeat it if you want,” completely upending the scene’s unique humor.

“The Lion King” (1994)

In its quest for authenticity, “The Lion King” features a wide array of African animals, many of which animators studied firsthand. One of the film’s lesser-known animal stars is the meerkat, represented by Simba’s friend and makeshift parental figure, Timon. Alas, the animal proved too obscure for Norwegian translators, who referred to the character as a “marekatt” - the Norwegian word for a Guenon. If you’re unaware, a Guenon is a type of monkey in the same scientific family as the baboon. The species is definitely smaller than, say, Rafiki but is a far cry from what Timon actually is. Thankfully, translators would eventually fix their mistake with the release of “The Lion King 1½,” which featured Timon in a more prominent role.

“A View to a Kill” (1985)

As James Bond’s adversaries, Max Zorin and May Day, enter San Francisco by air, May Day looks out at the Golden Gate Bridge and remarks "Wow, what a view." Zorin then leans over her, finishing the statement with “…to a kill.” Given that this line serves as the English title of the movie, it seems like a no-brainer to translate it literally. Sweden opted to go a different route. Without editing around the clear San Francisco landmarks in frame, Swedish translators changed Zorin’s line to “yeah, Tokyo.” The line is so brazenly wrong and strange that it’s difficult to understand why and how it even came to be.

“Star Wars” franchise (1977-)

Who could forget George Lucas’ classic tale of romance and revolution, starring beloved characters Princess Leila, Ian Solo, and D3BO? … Is what you might be saying if your only knowledge of “Star Wars” came from its Italian dub. A lot of the more well-known mistranslations of this franchise actually come from fan dubs, but official translators seem to have just as much trouble reinterpreting the popular space opera. In addition to Italy’s inexplicable renaming of characters, France gave many aliens less compelling species names for seemingly no reason. The Tusken Raiders, for example, simply became “sand people.” Meanwhile, Finland was subjected to some very literal dialogue translations, including a line where “drill” was changed to mean the tool rather than a word for a rehearsal.