For all I know this is totally standard, but Sebastian Selig, a regular reader from Stuttgart, Germany, who works at an ad agency and has a background in film distribution, is telling me that trailers from Michael Mann‘s Miami Vice have been re-dubbed with more simplistic dialogue by UIP Germany, a.k.a., the “German Paramount.”
The dubbed German trailers areviewable in three versions at this location.
“As you can see, they are all based on the three US-trailers but dubbed quite differently,” Selig writes. “About 98% of all released prints of U.S. films dubbed into German here, and some distributors see this as a chance to reshape pictures into a new direction which they think are more suitable for a German audience (which in theire opinion seems to be a lot dumber than an international crowd).
“For example Wes Anderson‘s The Life Aquatic got the Naked Gun treatment. Buena Vista Germany erased nearly all of the dry humor by letting everyone sound like they were obvious joking, even changed some line of dialogue and added ‘funny’ German accents to some of the main parts (something they especially like to do for animation pics like for example Finding Nemo, Ice Age and many more).
“Judging by the now-running trailers this also seem to have happened with Miami Vice. It`s obvious that UIP hates the movie because of it`s not-so-easy sell, so they apparently said to themselves, ‘Let`s make this an easy sell by changing it so it wil play for the dumbest audience imageanable.’ Compare the dubbed German trailer with the original and you’ll see they’ve changed lines to make the actors sound more dumb-macho.
“A Colin Farrell line — ‘Do you understand the meaning of the word ‘foreboding’, as in badness is happening right now?’ — has now been dubbed and changed to “Do you know what a bad feeling is? It√É‚Äö√Ǭ¥s like when you feel something is about to blow.'( ‘Weist Du was ein ungutes Gef√É∆í√Ǭºhl ist? Wenn man genau sp√É∆í√Ǭºrt gleich knallt`s!’)
“And to even more underline this is a ‘bad boys’ pic the announcer gives his best to sound as an schoolyard-bully straight out of hauptschule.
“Even more so regarding this Jamie Foxx line: ‘Smooth. That’s how we do it.’ It has now become ‘Easy man, eaaasy…’ (“Ganz locker man, gaaaaaanz locker”), or spoken by someone who’s obviously trying to go for a 50 Cent attitude.
“You can squirm in your seat by the trailers alone. An original version of Miami Vice will only be shown on comparable small screens in the bigger cities so the general impression over here in Germany will be this is dumbass action-fare (more Dukes of Hazzard than Heat).
“And yet UIP will hold most of the press screenings in English with subtitiles so critics will have a different impression than most of it`s audience, so it can be expected they will give this Mann film the thumbs-up.”
