I agree that Willis' original voice is something that needs getting used to.

Quoting DJ Doena:

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I agree that Willis' original voice is something that needs getting used to.

[YouTube clip]

Oh boy... I can't even begin to tell you what is wrong with that... Okay, I'll try:

My guess would be that the "actor" dubbing Willis here also dubs Donald Duck in German? He sounds like a poor parody of Donald in that clip.

Not to mention Hans Gruber (don't remember the actors name). His (original) voice and intonation gives his role an extra dimension I can't really define - something like his voice alone sounds part gay drag queen, part sleazy. The guy dubbing him here completely misses that!

I'm not good at German, but I do understand enough of it to follow the plot of a movie - and yes, I can receive German television (ARD and ZDF), but watching a movie dubbed in German? I tried a few times, but ended up either laughing my a** of because of the translation when you know what the original words would have been, or just turning it off because the movie is just plain ruined by the dubbing!

In short: John Wayne shouting "Hände hoch" is just plain and simple WRONG on SO many levels...

Quoting Rander:

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Not to mention Hans Gruber (don't remember the actors name). His (original) voice and intonation gives his role an extra dimension I can't really define - something like his voice alone sounds part gay drag queen, part sleazy. The guy dubbing him here completely misses that!

I have to agree with that.

One thing I wonder about too:

Hans Gruber having a German accent is important for the part where he puts on a flawless American accent in order to fool McClane. I guess I can see how this would be done in a non-German dub. Say in France, the actor could speak French with a German accent, and then use a flawless French accent... but what do they do in Germany? Do they give him a different name and give him some other foreign accent? Or do they simply not bother with that part of the plot? And just remove McClane's "pretty tricky with the accent" line?

Either way, dubbing IMO is an abomination and the above (albeit small) example is one of many, many reasons why.

Quoting Rander:

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My guess would be that the "actor" dubbing Willis here also dubs Donald Duck in German? He sounds like a poor parody of Donald in that clip.

If you think, that's Donald, I don't want to know what you think of Bruce's real and much more squeakish voice.

I never said I prefer dubbing, if it were for me there would be no dubbing at all. I just said that after years of hearing Bruce's german voice it I had to get used to the original voice.

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Hans Gruber having a German accent is important for the part where he puts on a flawless American accent in order to fool McClane. I guess I can see how this would be done in a non-German dub. Say in France, the actor could speak French with a German accent, and then use a flawless French accent... but what do they do in Germany? Do they give him a different name and give him some other foreign accent? Or do they simply not bother with that part of the plot? And just remove McClane's "pretty tricky with the accent" line?

That's a whole different story. In the german dubbing the bad guys aren't even german. They even get different names. Hans becomes Jack. Thus there's no accent problem.

On the other hand and to be perfectly honest: What the "germans" in Die Hard are speaking is anything but german. They may use german words but that's about it.

Quoting DJ Doena:

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That's a whole different story. In the german dubbing the bad guys aren't even german. They even get different names. Hans becomes Jack. Thus there's no accent problem.

So what happened to McClane's line: "That was pretty tricky with that accent. You oughta be on f'in TV with that accent." Dropped?

Quoting EnryWiki:

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But isn't reading dialogs instead of listening to them an abomination as well?

Sure, but it's by far the lesser of two evils when you don't understand the language the actors are speaking.

Besides, I never read dialogs instead of listening to them, always in addition to.

KM

I remember having the Laser Disc of Cinema Paradiso which i'd only ever watched subtitled, as i'd seen it in  the theater.

My dad was visiting and we started watching it and i switched to the alternate audio which was the dubbed version.  Imagine Fred Flintstone & Barney Rubble doing all the voices, including the women.  I lasted about ten minutes before i told my dad he'd have to watch the subtitles.  He survived.

Original language and subtitles are good!

Quoting Rander:

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Not to mention Hans Gruber (don't remember the actors name). His (original) voice and intonation gives his role an extra dimension I can't really define - something like his voice alone sounds part gay drag queen, part sleazy. The guy dubbing him here completely misses that!

Alan Rickman is who you're looking for.  (aka Professor Severus Snape from the Harry Potter movies)

The funny thing is that he is Welsh.  Imagine that: a Welshman pretending to be a German pretending to be an American.

Cool. Thanks for posting that Dj Doena.

KM