Dubbing 007 - The James Bond films in different languages

PropertyOfALadyPropertyOfALady Colders Federation CEO
edited May 2018 in Bond Movies Posts: 3,675
How does each 007 picture differ in languages other than the original languages? The goal of this thread is simple. In order to understand the subtleties and slightly different words (including the meaning of jokes) used on international releases that we who speak English and only English seek to understand, I am creating a spot for each of the 25 films below! Whether you're Norse, Chinese, Japanese, Dutch, French, German, or any other international language, please share the differences here.

Dr. No

From Russia with Love

Goldfinger

Thunderball

You Only Live Twice

On Her Majesty's Secret Service

"He was very brave" (Norway)

Diamonds Are Forever

Live and Let Die
"Quite revealing!"
Spanish: "¡Qué descarado!" (How shameless)

The Man with the Golden Gun

The Spy Who Loved Me

Moonraker

For Your Eyes Only

Octopussy

A View to a Kill

The Living Daylights

Licence to Kill

GoldenEye

"This is not one of your games, Boris.
Real people will die!"

Cette fois tu ne fais pas joujou avec le clavier Boris, il va y avoir des morts!" (Don't play with your keyboard this time Boris, people will die!


Tomorrow Never Dies

The World is Not Enough

"There's no point in living if you can't feel alive".

French: La vie ne vaut pas d’être vécu si on ne la vie pas comme un rêve

"Life's not worth living if you can't live it like a dream"

Die Another Day

Casino Royale

Quantum of Solace

Skyfall

Spectre

Bond 25
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Comments

  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    We don t have dubbing here. The most stupid texting I have ever seen is however in OHMSS.

    To have guts isn t an expression used here, so it was simply texted as "He was very brave." Makes no sense whatsoever. They could have come up with something more clever.
  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    Posts: 23,448
    We don't have dubbing here. We use subtitles. Or nothing at all. The advent of DVD's with their option to switch off subtitles has enabled many of us to watch the Bond films in their purest form and learn a few additional English words. Nothing but benefits.

    Dubbed Bond films are terrible.
  • PropertyOfALadyPropertyOfALady Colders Federation CEO
    Posts: 3,675
    DarthDimi wrote: »
    We don't have dubbing here. We use subtitles. Or nothing at all. The advent of DVD's with their option to switch off subtitles has enabled many of us to watch the Bond films in their purest form and learn a few additional English words. Nothing but benefits.

    Dubbed Bond films are terrible.

    Well, do you guys have subtitle differences?
  • Si1verEyeSi1verEye Pleasantly riding in St Petersburg
    Posts: 11
    I am French and we do have a tradition of dubbing. In fact, some years ago it would have been much more difficult than today to watch subtitled movies in theaters; and I must admit the only Bond movie I watched in its original version is none other than the one I know the French lines by heart - GoldenEye.
    So, differences? Hmmm...
    Overall I must say the translators did a great job, the only notable difference I remember of (which is quite slim in the end) is Natalya's line "This is not one of your games, Boris.
    Real people will die!", translated by "Cette fois tu ne fais pas joujou avec le clavier Boris, il va y avoir des morts!" (Don't play with your keyboard this time Boris, people will die!). Though if you want the translation of specific lines/jokes just ask me.
  • Creasy47Creasy47 In Cuba with Natalya.Moderator
    Posts: 40,369
    DarthDimi wrote: »
    We don't have dubbing here. We use subtitles. Or nothing at all. The advent of DVD's with their option to switch off subtitles has enabled many of us to watch the Bond films in their purest form and learn a few additional English words. Nothing but benefits.

    Dubbed Bond films are terrible.

    Anything dubbed is terrible to me. Best to watch anything in its native language with subtitles.
  • j_w_pepperj_w_pepper Born on the bayou. I can still hear my old hound dog barkin'.
    Posts: 8,655
    We do have dubbing, basically for everything. It's been a relatively recent development for Germans to be able to see movies in their original language in theatres, and only in very few, probably no more than one in each major city, if at all. But then, of course since the advent of DVD and later Blu-ray things have changed a bit anyway.

    Now I do not intend to bash German dubbing. Once you decide you wish for dubbing in the first place, it's probably excellent. I remember with revulsion seeing American-dubbed Godzilla movies while I was an exchange student in Illinois (1974/75). No, German dubbing is better, and maybe an art in itself.

    Still, I prefer seeing the original version. But I really only started having a chance when DVDs came up, as regards buying them from German sources. OK, I could (and did) buy VHS tapes from England before that. But that also means I cannot show the film to people who are used to seeing it in German, and maybe do not understand enough English to enjoy it, and the VHS tapes also had no subtitles, unlike DVDs and up.

    Anyway, I think that I've seen more Bond movies in the original version only than I had watched dubbed in German before, due to the fact that I saw many on VHS purchased in Britain or DVDs later on for the first time, since the 90s.

    I definitely prefer the original. Hell, any original. In the meantime I bought stuff like Italian movies, sound in Italian, and even Italian subtitles, rather than settle for the German-dubbed version. And no, I never learned Italian, but based on having had several years of Latin and French at school and a few years of Spanish in voluntary courses I think I understand most of it. So anything is better than having Monica Bellucci "speaking" German.

    And the same goes for the Bond movies. But I can't really report any goofs that are derived from German dubbing since I would have to watch then all in the dubbed version, and I don't want to.
  • KaijuDirectorOO7KaijuDirectorOO7 Once Upon a Time Somewhere...
    Posts: 189


    A fair warning: every time we filipinos do a Bond dub, the bad guys always sound like drug lords. And call 007 "Mistah Bahnd" for some reason.
  • PropertyOfALadyPropertyOfALady Colders Federation CEO
    Posts: 3,675
    Si1verEye wrote: »
    I am French and we do have a tradition of dubbing. In fact, some years ago it would have been much more difficult than today to watch subtitled movies in theaters; and I must admit the only Bond movie I watched in its original version is none other than the one I know the French lines by heart - GoldenEye.
    So, differences? Hmmm...
    Overall I must say the translators did a great job, the only notable difference I remember of (which is quite slim in the end) is Natalya's line "This is not one of your games, Boris.
    Real people will die!", translated by "Cette fois tu ne fais pas joujou avec le clavier Boris, il va y avoir des morts!" (Don't play with your keyboard this time Boris, people will die!). Though if you want the translation of specific lines/jokes just ask me.

    Are Sir Roger's brilliant one liners different at all?


    A fair warning: every time we filipinos do a Bond dub, the bad guys always sound like drug lords. And call 007 "Mistah Bahnd" for some reason.

    It's the "bad guys are always drug lords" syndrome.
  • Agent_99Agent_99 enjoys a spirited ride as much as the next girl
    Posts: 3,099
    I watched OP in German with English subtitles while I was staying with a friend in Berlin, and had just enough German to notice that one of the jokes was different, but I can't remember what it was now. If only I'd known it would come in useful!
  • edited May 2018 Posts: 847
    I'm french too, but like Si1verEye said : wre have a duubing tradition. So I almost watch all the Bond in french. The only big difference I notice is the motto of Elektra :
    - English : There's no point living, if you can't feel alive.
    - French : La vie ne vaut pas d’être vécu si on ne la vie pas comme un rêve (The life don't worth to be lived if you don't live it like a dream).

    I think they are probably some additional humor lignes in Roger Moore movies. I know that in The Persuaders, the french dubber add extra humor to it.
  • edited May 2018 Posts: 6,682
    In the Latin American Spanish dub of LALD, when Mr. Big rips his face off, Bond says "qué descarado," which literally translates into English as "how shameless." The clever part is that the word descarado sounds like it's related to the word cara, which means face, and the prefix des is associated with the lack of something, or taking something off. So it's not faithful to the original sentence, but it's a good pun.

    I enjoy dubbing. In terms of faithfulness to the original film, subtitles are better but they do force the viewer to look down and away from the faces of the actors. Dubbing has no such problem, though translations/adaptations can be inaccurate/inappropriate at times and the original voices are missing. It can, however, provide a different experience, a reinterpretation if you will, and one which, crucially, does not replace the original-- it's simply an alternative version, for those who might consider it sacrilegious. The original isn't going anywhere.

    Going back to LALD, I'll say Roger Moore's voice actor is just terrific at capturing Roger's suave style.
  • SeanCraigSeanCraig Germany
    edited May 2018 Posts: 732
    Traditionally, I watch all Bondfilms in their german dubbed version but also in the original language since they got available this way on DVD back then. Since dubbing and it's scene is a hobby of mine I might be able to give some examples for the german versions of the films.

    First of all I would like to say that at a whole the bond films are very well dubbed - they mostly had excellent voice talent casting and they stayed as truly to the original as possible - however with changes to jokes so it makes some sense in the dubbed version, to better fit the labiales (especially in close-ups) or just to make something sound more natural. As said, there mostly isn't much to complain about but also some obscure things happened.

    The three different names of SPECTRE

    In "James Bond 007 jagt Dr. No" (the full german title for "Dr.No") SPECTRE was dubbed GOFTER. That one is very obscure - but they had to describe it like Dr.No does to Bond what SPECTRE means. So in german it became "GeheimOrganisation Für Terror, Erpressung un Rache. That's still ... well a bit silly by today's standards but back then close to nobody would've known what SPECTRE means. Personally, I would just have used the name as it is and just explain it the way they did - would've worked just fine.

    However for Connery's second film "Liebesgrüße aus Moskau" they went a different route. In general they had a different dubbing team and they changed the voice actor for Connery from Klaus Kindler (famous for voicing Clint Eastwood) to Gert-Günther Hoffmann which was an excellent choice. His voice fits Connerys on-screen presence like a glove and until close to his death in 1995 he stayed the voice for Connery. In this film, most likely inspired by the SPECTRE ring design, the organization's name became "PHANTOM". Pronounced in a german way this made a whole lot of sense for understanding, fitting the image on-screen (ring design) as well as them pulling stings "ghost-like" from the shadows.

    It made even more sense in Connery's fourth film "Feuerball" where SPECTRE was a wordplay during the Nassau Casiono game between Bond and Largo. It worked very well to keep it "PHANTOM" - to me this still is a wonderful translation - however nobody would do it these days because names of organizations or people aren't changed anymore. And as much as I like "PHANTOM", it was good they finally called it SPECTRE in Connery's fifth movie "Man lebt nur zweimal".

    Same applies to Lazenby's single outing "Im Geheimdienst ihrer Majestät" where they not only kept SPECTRE but also Bond's german voice ... since the german distributor demanded that Mr. Hoffmann should also provide his voice for Lazenby. It will sound like blasphemy to many but in my opinion he made Lazenby's acting better plus we do not have the change in voices between Bond and Bond pretending being Sir Hillary. I like it that way a lot. Funny sidenote: Tracy had the very same german voice like Pussy Galore ... since her german voice (Margot Leonard) also was her german voice in the TV series "The Avengers" ... and Mr. Hoffmann was for Patrick MacNee. So they played the pairs of Bond/Pussy Galore, Steed/Emma Peel and Bond/Tracy together ... a funny anecdote. As obsucre as it may sound - you don't notice it since both work so well with their on-screen appearances.

    Dubbing examples
    While the main dialoge isn't changed much and just translated to a naturally sounding german equivalent, jokes are some different breed. It's hard to translate them - especially in sitcoms. Sometimes it works and sometimes ... oh well.

    In "Goldfinger" Connery's "Shocking ... Positively shocking" became "Widerlich. Einfach widerlich". While it works good with the labiales, I think it misses the original joke. A correct translation would've been "Schockierend ... Einfach schockierend". In my opinion that would've worked with the labiales, too - so dunno why they changed that to be honest.

    Staying with this movie, they corrected the final statement to "Noch 7 ticker [...]" to fit the "007 digits" on-screen when the bomb was stopped ... but before in the movie they made a funny mistake by letting Goldfinger say "In diesen Kammern liegen Billionen, Mr.Bond" ... what basically made the contents of Fort Knox worth trillions instead of Billions :-D A funny mistake I personally don't mind at all - but would not have made THAT much sense in 1964.

    In "Feuerball" Bond sings his little song when he "roasts" Count Lippe when leaving the room "Schwitze Gräflein, Schwitze schnell - schwitzen macht die Äuglein hell" and I can't remember if that remained in the final english track or not. Anyway - it's funny and it's so in-character for Bond in this movie I like it.

    In "Casino Royale" Vesper's cover name (as mentioned to her by Bond during the car drive) became "Mrs. Stephanie Brustwartz" instead of Broadchest ... most likely to make the joke work better in german (which it does). So all good here (for me) - purists may disagree.

    All german titles

    James Bond 007 jagt Dr.No
    Liebesgrüße aus Moskau
    Goldfinger
    Feuerball
    Man lebt nur zweimal
    Im Geheimdienst ihrer Majestät
    Diamantenfieber

    Leben und sterben lassen
    Der Mann mit dem goldenen Colt
    Der Spion, der mich liebte
    Moonraker
    In tödlicher Mission
    Octopussy
    Im Angesicht des Todes

    Der Hauch des Todes
    Lizenz zum Töten

    Goldeneye
    Der Morgen stirbt nie
    Die Welt ist nicht genug
    Stirb an einem anderen Tag

    Casino Royale
    Ein Quantum Trost
    Skyfall
    Spectre
  • SuperintendentSuperintendent A separate pool. For sharks, no less.
    Posts: 870
    That's very interesting, @SeanCraig.
  • JWPepperJWPepper You sit on it, but you can't take it with you.
    Posts: 512
    We don't do dubbing in the Netherlands, luckily.
  • marketto007marketto007 Brazil
    Posts: 3,277
    Very interesting, here are all the Brazilian titles:

    007 Contra O Satânico Dr. No
    Moscou Contra 007
    007 Contra Goldfinger
    007 Contra A Chantagem Atômica
    Com 007 Só Se Vive Duas Vezes

    007 - A Serviço Secreto De Sua Majestade

    007 - Os Diamantes São Eternos

    Com 007 Viva e Deixe Morrer
    007 Contra o Homem Com a Pistola de Ouro
    007 - O Espião Que Me Amava
    007 Contra O Foguete Da Morte
    007 - Somente Para Seus Olhos
    007 Contra Octopussy
    007 - Na Mira Dos Assassinos

    007 - Marcado Para A Morte
    007 - Permissão Para Matar

    007 Contra GoldenEye
    007 - O Amanhã Nunca Morre
    007 - O Mundo Não É O Bastante
    007 - Um Novo Dia Para Morrer

    007 - Cassino Royale
    007 - Quantum Of Solace
    007 - Operação Skyfall
    007 Contra SPECTRE
  • j_w_pepperj_w_pepper Born on the bayou. I can still hear my old hound dog barkin'.
    Posts: 8,655
    They really like those "007 Contra..." titles, don't they?
  • edited May 2018 Posts: 5,772
    In France, one particularly iriking thing the translators did to Bond was to replace the names of some characters by french equivalent. Cases in point : Mary Goodnight became Marie Bonnenuit (probably in order to retain the pun. Surprisingly enough, the name, and the joke, stayed the same in the German version), Plenty O'Toole became Abondance Delaqueue (believe me, this is rieally vulgar). Mr. Big became Monsieur Gros Bonnet. And in DN (and only there, thankfully), Moneypenny became "Môme d'un Sou". I still can't understand why, and I doubt I ever will. But at least, as of FRWL, she got her real name back.
  • ProfJoeButcherProfJoeButcher Bless your heart
    edited May 2018 Posts: 1,664
    I'm an American living in Germany and avoid watching anything dubbed. I don't understand how anyone can watch such things.

    But at an event here last year which honored John Glen (who I got to meet!) they showed Licence to Kill, unfortunately in the dubbed version. I knew that it would have an artificial quality and that voice actors would overact, but the worst part was that some things just weren't dubbed. There were scenes where people laughed, and no sound came out. When Leiter opens his fishing lures, a group of people laughs, and there's practically no sound. Very bizarre.
  • marketto007marketto007 Brazil
    Posts: 3,277
    Gerard wrote: »
    In France, one particularly iriking thing the translators did to Bond was to replace the names of some characters by french equivalent. Cases in point : Mary Goodnight became Marie Bonnenuit (probably in order to retain the pun. Surprisingly enough, the name, and the joke, stayed the same in the German version), Plenty O'Toole became Abondance Delaqueue (believe me, this is rieally vulgar). Mr. Big became Monsieur Gros Bonnet. And in DN (and only there, thankfully), Moneypenny became "Môme d'un Sou". I still can't understand why, and I doubt I ever will. But at least, as of FRWL, she got her real name back.

    Hahaha, that's cool. I didn't know that. Here in Brazil, Jaws was renamed to "Dentes de aço", which means "Steel Tooth". Very appropriate.
    j_w_pepper wrote: »
    They really like those "007 Contra..." titles, don't they?

    Yep, they do. It means "007 AGAINST". For example, in Dr. No, the translated title means 007 AGAINST THE SATANIC DR. NO. FRWL to MOSCOW AGAINST 007, and so on...

  • WalecsWalecs On Her Majesty's Secret Service
    Posts: 3,157
    In Italy a lot of care is taken in translating and dubbing the Bond movies. The translations are faithful to the original scripts and professional actors do the voice acting.

    Dr. No's title was translated "Licence to Kill" and Licence to Kill became "Private Revenge".

    Diamonds are Forever: A cascade of diamonds
    A view to a kill: Moving target
    The Living Daylights: Danger Zone

    The Craig movie titles were not translated, except for Casino Royale which became Casinò Royale since Casino has got a completely different meaning in Italian.

    The Careless pun at the end of SPECTRE was handled in an interesting way. Because no word meaning Careless starts with a C in Italian, M says "No we know what C does not stand for — Charged" referring to C's gun instead of Max Denbigh himself.
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    The last Bond film to get a translated title in Norway was LTK.
  • Posts: 5,772
    In France, Jaws was renamed Requin (which means shark). Fitting, I think. And in MR, Chang was renamed Chat (Cat).
  • ggl007ggl007 www.archivo007.com Spain, España
    Posts: 2,535
    Let's go to beautiful Spain :)

    There's a long tradition of dubbing and lots of strange things with the Bond series.

    DN is Agent 007 against Dr. No
    GF is James Bond against Goldfinger
    TB is Operation Thunderball
    DAF is Diamonds are for eternity
    LALD is (You) Live and let die (In Spanish there's a difference between the imperative and the infinitive)
    TLD is 007: High Tension (this is a difficult one to translate, of course)
    TWINE is The World is Never Enough (all the casual film buffs obviously mistake this with TND. I don't know who had the occurrence of that "never" here...)
    DAD is (You) Die another day (again, imperative and not infinitive)

    All the Craig films have been released... with their original names!

    Honey was "Linda" that means "Pretty"
    Plenty was "Elenita" because it sounds like "llenita" or "full", "plenty"... well... you know
    Jaws was "Tiburón": "Shark" because Spielberg's film was named "Shark" too!
  • marketto007marketto007 Brazil
    Posts: 3,277
    Elenita :D
  • j_w_pepperj_w_pepper Born on the bayou. I can still hear my old hound dog barkin'.
    Posts: 8,655
    I think that Jaws was the only major-role henchman that received a German name: Beißer (or Beisser, if your keyboard has no ß). Meaning "biter". Jaws wouldn't work so easily because the Spielberg movie was called "Der weiße Hai" (The White Shark) in Germany.
  • WalecsWalecs On Her Majesty's Secret Service
    Posts: 3,157
    ggl007 wrote: »
    Jaws was "Tiburón": "Shark" because Spielberg's film was named "Shark" too!

    It was the same in Italian, both the character and Spielberg's movie were named "Squalo", which means Shark.

    As far as I can remember he's the only character whose name was translated. All the other names were left in English, including characters nicknames. Only code names were translated (for example White Knight and Pale King) but they were given literal translations.
  • Posts: 5,772
    Germany : in TMWTGG, Nick Nack became Schnick Schnack. Wonder why.
  • j_w_pepperj_w_pepper Born on the bayou. I can still hear my old hound dog barkin'.
    edited May 2018 Posts: 8,655
    Yes, you're right. I had forgotten that since I haven't seen the German version since probably about 1975. I could imagine they chose that because "Nick Nack" has no meaning in German, while "Schnickschnack" is a somewhat derogatory term for useless decorative stuff, or anything superfluous you keep around..
  • PropertyOfALadyPropertyOfALady Colders Federation CEO
    Posts: 3,675
    Something I noticed while having a look at SF in Spanish. Bond's line "Brave new world" becomes simply "Mundo nuevo" while the subtitles say "Mundo feliz". Very odd that the dialog and subs don't match up.

    Does that happen a lot?
  • Posts: 5,772
    In France, two movies had their songs sung in french. The first one was FRWL, where the end song was sung by someone named Bob Asklöf. And in CR '67, "The Look of Love" became "Les Yeux de l'Amour" and was sung by Mireille Matthieu. Ouch ! I really prefer Dusty Springfield's version.
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