Saturday 23 April 2011

Fast Five: The flying, light-saber fighting subtitles

Lost in translation?

How do you revitalise a big action franchise for its fifth outing? Oh, I know, you relocate, somewhere exotic! Only one problem, even the less demanding of your fans know that people in foreign countries speak, well, foreign. And it is bad enough having them go through the boring bits where all the people do is talk, imagine if you need subtitles as the foreigners are speaking foreign! So what can you do with the plain good old subtitles to make them interesting?


That part needed no subtitles

Well if you are Justin Li and you are directing Fast Five, you just jazz them up! You make them appear right left and centre in the screen, make them scroll left and right like a speeding car, fall down... This is a worrying trend. Imagine if Michael Bay follows suit, what next? Subtitles playing Pong from each side of the screen? Exploding? Light-sabre fighting? Watching world cinema will never be the same!

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