Star Wars - why no subtitles?
- Thread starter Bry_Sinclair
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Ooh! Ooh! Okay, um...In ROTJ you can briefly spot a male Rodian among the throng at Jabba's palace. His name is Beedo, and he's Greedo's cousin.
What? I want my free sub.
Didn't one of the EU novels establish that Han had been raised partly by a Wookiee? Otherwise, he could have picked it up by immersing himself in it via his association with Chewie.
^Don't know about the novels, but I do remember Lucas saying he was indeed raised by Wookiees.
I don't think it's very much of a stretch if most of the galaxy in SW are at least bi-lingual. It's a civilization that's been around for millennia; plenty of time for numerous languages to become commonplace, even to the point where they supplant species' native tongues.
It's worth remembering that native English speakers are the odd ones out when it come to being bi-lingual. For example, half of Europe has at least a basic understanding of English, as does a fair percentage of Asia.
The difference in SW is that there's two lingua francas: so called "Basic" which appears to derive from the capital, probably propagating from diplomacy and the spread of the Republic and "Huttse" which of course comes from the Hutts and spread via their vast trade Empire and criminal underworld.
As for the OP: It'd be *really* stupid to put subtitles on Wookiees and R2s. Aside from spoiling the immersion and missing the point of the characters: if you need a translator to tell you why a Wookiee is shouting at you, then you're already doing it wrong.
I don't think it's very much of a stretch if most of the galaxy in SW are at least bi-lingual. It's a civilization that's been around for millennia; plenty of time for numerous languages to become commonplace, even to the point where they supplant species' native tongues.
It's worth remembering that native English speakers are the odd ones out when it come to being bi-lingual. For example, half of Europe has at least a basic understanding of English, as does a fair percentage of Asia.
The difference in SW is that there's two lingua francas: so called "Basic" which appears to derive from the capital, probably propagating from diplomacy and the spread of the Republic and "Huttse" which of course comes from the Hutts and spread via their vast trade Empire and criminal underworld.
As for the OP: It'd be *really* stupid to put subtitles on Wookiees and R2s. Aside from spoiling the immersion and missing the point of the characters: if you need a translator to tell you why a Wookiee is shouting at you, then you're already doing it wrong.
A.C. Crispin's The Paradise Snare, part one of her Han Solo Trilogy. Han "served" on a pirate ship during his early years, where he was essentially raised by the ship's cook, a female Wookiee named Dewlanna. She gave her life so that Han could escape.
Yep. It was established (or at least confirmed) in The Paradise Snare, the first book in the late A. C. Crispin's Han Solo Trilogy. Which was actually pretty good compared to most of the EU.
ETA: Aaaaaand ninja'd.
You'd think Wookiees would have names like "Rnnnnarrrgggghh".
Does anyone actually speak Bocce? Other than C3PO?
Somebody on Tatooine must, hence Owen asking about it.
Back in the day, Lucas wanted to give the audience an experience that was liked being plopped down in the middle of a completely foreign setting that at the same time felt very real, where they have to put some of the pieces together own their own. This was an experience Lucas had enjoyed when he discovered foreign film: He knew nothing about the internal conflicts of medieval Japan, for instance, but the way the characters interacted and what they talked about helped fill in the blanks. The viewer hearing other "languages" and having to use other means to figure out the meaning helped to convey that desired "real" feeling to the viewer. The context of other dialogue was also assisted by Ben Burtt's genius for conveying feeling in Chewie's and Artoo's sounds.
At the same time, his foreign film experience made Lucas very comfortable with subtitles. The idea of subtitling the Jabba scene had been tossed around, but when they had to transfer that dialogue to Greedo, very late in production, they went with subtitles and a language made up by Burtt and a university language expert. Just another touch to make things interesting.
Trek in DS9 did the same thing with the Breen - and pulled off the 3rd party translation of what was being said well IMO.
Yep. It also worked beautifully with the Breen.
Cousin Itt is another example of the untranslated alien language trope. The Han/Chewie interchange, in Cloud City when Chewie brings back 3P0 in a box, plays like a Cousin Itt scene to me.
I wonder if they just have something akin to a Universal Translator.
The ESB novelization had Luke's cockpit display translating everything Artoo said. Luke was just responding to that. I don't remember if we saw anything like that onscreen.
Of course, that opens the question of why translator droids are even needed, if it's so easy to understand Artoo....
I prefer the old joke that Chewie isn't intelligent at all and that Han just likes pretending to have conversations with him.
That would explain why he's so scruffy-looking.
Now that you mention it, can anyone actually picture Chewbacca pronouncing his own name?
Not necessarily! The request actually came from Aunt Beru. For all we know, Bocce is a dead language like Latin. She might have requested it for prestige among the members of her bridge club.
Yeah, this...
Then that raises the question of why... yeah, you got it.
Come to think of it, if Threepio is completely redundant, that would explain why Anakin was able to throw him together so (apparently) easily in his slave quarters. He isn't a the product of a child prodigy -- he's the "Star Wars" equivalent of a Lego set or model airplane. Might also explain why he's so easy to repair.
Come to think of it, if Threepio is completely redundant, that would explain why Anakin was able to throw him together so (apparently) easily in his slave quarters. He isn't a the product of a child prodigy -- he's the "Star Wars" equivalent of a Lego set or model airplane. Might also explain why he's so easy to repair.
Why would 3PO be redundant? The X-Wing is designed to operate with an R2 unit, so it stands to reason it would be able to translate the language one uses. 3PO carries around six million forms of communication in the relatively compact body of a humanoid.
Yeah, C3PO does far more and it's not like the only time people need to communicate with R2 is inside an X-Wing.
Yep. Of course, we can't read it!
