I know just enough German and even a smidge of Arabic and quickly realized the flat, dumbed down dialogue seemed out of place with the rest of this production.
So I downloaded an alternative set of English subtitles and suddenly everyone seemed so much more intelligent. It seems North American distributor MHz (a division of Kino) has made custom English subtitles (copyrighted, no less) that dumbed down the dialogue as to make it intolerable.
For example, when the chief investigator walks in he isn't asked if he "wants" to take over, he's asked if he "is going to" take over. And then he doesn't reply, "No, let them continue" (where "them" makes no sense, it's "her") instead he very snidely says, "I'll let our young colleague carry on."
As they proceed, the investigators aren't jumping to conclusions as the MHz subtitles make it seem. Quite the opposite; they are carefully examining all the evidence and considering all the different scenarios. This takes longer sentences with subtle qualifiers, but MHz has really screwed this up by leaving all subtlety on the editing room floor.
To make matters worse, these pathetic subitles have been BURNED IN to the video, so even though I'm technically savvy enough to load my own subtitles it's really difficult to read them overlaid on the bad translation. Aaaargh!
Hopefully I can find a copy of this without any subtitles so I can read the better ones, but I haven't even found a European DVD/Blue-Ray.
MHz, if you're listening: Just download the subtitles available for free on the internet, because whoever you paid for these did a horrible job. And don't burn in subtitles! Multiplex them like other streaming services do so that we can turn them off or add our own.
And there are free subtitles in many languages you could offer your customers. Start with Spanish and French for your North American market, but why not add other options. Look at how Netflix does it, it isn't that hard!
Come on, this is 2025, not 2005.
