DVD Release in Germany

Post by **Allard** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 8:08 pm

http://www.arte.tv/de/woche/244,broadca ... =2009.html
http://www.arte.tv/de/suche/1383954,tem ... und+Melone

The arte website now mentions the Avengers. Broadcasting starts 2nd of February, sadly skipping the Gale era.

Norbert · Post by **Norbert** » Sun Jan 18, 2009 4:07 pm

Why should Arte broadcast the Gale era? These episodes were never shown in Germany, they are technically poor, a lot of fans who watched some of them do not like these episodes. Translating and dubbing of these episodes would be too costly. Thus, they are skipped - and for good reasons.

Philippa · Post by **Philippa** » Sun Jan 18, 2009 4:19 pm

^fair enough reasons, but I still think it's a shame. The Gale era definitely has fantastic episodes.

And ofcourse it's pricy and time consuming to translate/dubb them etc.
But then again, I think dubbing is the most ridiculous thing ever, what's wrong with reading subtitles?
This is the very reason why so many people have no knowledge of any other languages at all and I think it's stupid and narrow minded.

*ahem*
sorry, rant over..

Norbert · Post by **Norbert** » Sun Jan 18, 2009 4:32 pm

Philippa wrote:But then again, I think dubbing is the most ridiculous thing ever, what's wrong with reading subtitles?

On the contrary - subtitling is extremely poor, stupid and disgusting. The subtitles destroy the composition of the picture and distract too much from the movie itself. The only reason why countries like the Netherlands or Sweden don't dub but only subtitle is that these countries only have a very limited number of population. Having population figures like Germany or France, the Dutch would dub everything for sure.

Philippa wrote:This is the very reason why so many people have no knowledge of any other languages at all and I think it's stupid and narrow minded.

How many foreign languages do you speak more or less?

Philippa · Post by **Philippa** » Sun Jan 18, 2009 4:39 pm

Fluent: Dutch, English, French
and I can understand Germand and am currently studying Arabic

And what you said about subtitles destroying the composition of the picture and are distracting, I have to disagree.
When dubbing, you lose touch with the actual characters in my opinion, because the other voice will never be as good as the real thing. It's all about the intonation of the voice and the emotion, and a lot of that slips away when something is dubbed.
But then again, it's just my opinion.

And I am sure that a big part of the reason why people in countries like France, Germany, Spain, Italy etc hardly speak English, compared to countries like the Netherlands and Sweden for example, has a lot to do with the fact that nearly everything is dubbed.

Edit: the other way round, I think it's stupid too that foreign films are hardly ever shown in English speaking countries, just because they're in different languages.
It works both ways.

Dandy Forsdyke · Post by **Dandy Forsdyke** » Sun Jan 18, 2009 4:42 pm

Norbert wrote:Why should Arte broadcast the Gale era? These episodes were never shown in Germany, they are technically poor, a lot of fans who watched some of them do not like these episodes.

Hmmm, I think a lot of fans do like the Cathy Gale episodes. A great deal.

Your average TV viewer may be put of by that type of 'live-to-tape' presentation and the current state of the prints, I agree.

Norbert · Post by **Norbert** » Sun Jan 18, 2009 4:49 pm

Philippa wrote:the other voice will never be as good as the real thing.

Some actors have really weird voices. (For example, Tom Selleck's voice would be most suitable for a cartoon character.

) In such a case, I'm glad the we can enjoy a series in our language having an agreeable voice for the main character.

Norbert · Post by **Norbert** » Sun Jan 18, 2009 4:53 pm

Dandy Forsdyke wrote:Hmmm, I think a lot of fans do like the Cathy Gale episodes. A great deal.

A lot of British fans.

But in coutries where the Avengers started with Emma, Cathy Gale has only very few followers.

Knowing the Avengers from season 4 upward, one gets the impression of watching a completely different series when discovering episodes of the first three seasons. Even Steed is different.

Post by **Allard** » Sun Jan 18, 2009 5:19 pm

The fact that the Cathy Gale episodes have never been showed in Germany is an excellent reason to broadcast them. Especially by arte, who as a culture TV station should not always go for the popular choice.

And subtitles harm the film? There is no better way to destroy the entire acting performance in a film or TV series then by dubbing it.
I think it's a good thing people are proud of their own language and don't sell out to English, but subtitles are a superior translating system compared to dubbing. Because the acting performance is not harmed, you can still check if the translation was correct and you can actually learn a bit of another language.

But Phillipa is right, one of the great advantages of not living in an anglophone country is that there is more attention to films in other languages. Although of a number of great movies made in Germany the last years only one of them made it on to Dutch TV.

denis · Post by **denis** » Sun Jan 18, 2009 5:20 pm

I agree with Norbert. The Cathy Gale period is very praised in Great Britain (and maybe America) but for most of fans in the rest of Europe, the series starts from Season 4.
I'm one of the webmasters of the French site but I have no shame to say that I've only watched a few Gale episodes. The language is not the problem for me the quality of the picture is poor and it's like watching a different series. In fact, it's quite boring most of the time and I fell once asleep in front of my TV set !!