The Transformers: The Movie/dubs
The Transformers: The Movie has been translated and dubbed into many languages, each with its own set of quirks and oddities.
Brazil
The Movie was released in Brazilian theaters almost simultaneously with the launch of the series on television. It was later released on home video on the late '80s, but on a very small scale, which made it very hard to find in video stores. The movie was aired on television just once and received a new dub for this.
The most probable reason for this is that the home video version was based on the one released in the United States and the television one was based on the European release, as it had the Star Wars-type text in the beginning and the narrator at the end stating that Optimus would return. Which dubbing is the best is a regular debate topic among Brazilian fans.
These dubs are different not only in the choice of some voice actors, but in the translation. Brazilian fans usually debate about which dub is the best, but as with many things in franchise, this is simply a matter of taste. After all, both dubs have their share of problems—though neither of them allowed Spike to swear.
Home video dub
The home video was released a few years before The Movie was shown on television, but a few years after the television series had stopped being broadcast on Brazilian networks. Because of this, it was the only way the fans could have a little taste of the franchise for years.
In this dubbing, all of the pre-Movie main characters are dubbed by the same voice actors who played them on the television series. Megatron does not receive a new voice when he is transformed into Galvatron.
This dubbing is the most localized of the two translations but is also the most "childish". For example, when Hot Rod and Kup are running toward Autobot City and see the Insecticons, Kup states, "The Insecticons are in the way," and Hot Rod replies, "Wrong, they're on their way to the hole!", something that made no sense at all and the translator probably thought would be fun for the kids watching The Movie.
When Kup and Wreck Gar are conversing, both make references to Brazilian television series. Kup says "plim-plim", which is a reference to a vignette program on Rede Globo, the Brazilian network that aired The Transformers during the '80s.
Instead of casting a deep-voiced actor for Unicron, they heavily distorted Unicron's voice, making him sound menacing but almost unintelligible. The same thing was done to the Quintessons and their servants. A similar situation occurred with Blurr; since the voice actor who played Blurr could not talk as fast as John Moschitta, his voice was also distorted to make it sound faster. It worked, but it also made him difficult to understand.
Finally, the "mechanization" of the voice actors playing the robots was not the same as used in the television series; they sound more like characters talking through a radio.
Wheelie does not rhyme.
Television dub
The Movie was broadcast only once on Rede Globo during a special week dedicated to children. Most of the pre-Movie characters retained the same voices they had on the home video release, but all of the new Transformers got new voice actors, including Galvatron. The dubbing also lost the "localization" the home video release received; many lines were more faithful translations, while others lost all sense to Brazilian audiences.
The characters possess the same "robotic" distortion on their voices that they had in the television series; no kind of heavy modulation was used. An actor with a deep voice was cast as Unicron, and no distortion was used for the character, which made it possible for the fans to understand his dialogue. On the other hand, no distortion was used on Blurr, so the actor was forced to try to emulate John Moschitta's impossibly fast speaking, with debatable results.
One notable dubbing error occurs when Hot Rod opens the Matrix at the end of The Movie: The line "Light our darkest hour" is delivered by Optimus Prime's voice actor instead of Hot Rod's. Brazilian fans who'd only watched the television version debated that at this moment, Optimus's spirit was speaking through Rodimus, approving of him becoming leader while imbuing him with his courage. Of course, all this debate ceased when The Movie was released on DVD on the United States, which made it more accessible to Brazilian fans.
Wheelie rhymes.
Denmark
The first time the movie was shown was on Danish national television broadcaster DR in the fall of 2009. While there had been dubbed episodes of the original television show made in the 1980s for home video and later TV airings, the movie was not dubbed at that point. Rather a completely new cast was used for the movie, possibly made for this specific airing. The dubbed movie was re-broadcast 2 years later on a sub-station of DR.
The dubbing had a larger cast of voice actors than the late-80s dub of the TV series with one or two actors returning to the franchise after 25 years. However, some lines were omitted by mistake (a few characters could be seen moving their lips visibly but without any sound being heard) while others appeared at completely random times (a line uttered by Galvatron missing earlier in the movie "appearing" towards the end in a completely unrelated scene possibly due to a bad time code in the dubbing software).
This version was based on the UK print of the movie and has yet to see a public release on any kind of media.
France/Quebec
For French-speaking audiences, who had thus far been given two separate dubs of the TV series (one done in France and one done in Quebec, a very common occurrence), a single dub was made for all French releases of the film. This release used a brand-new voice actor team rather than using either dub team from the series. Whereas the old dubs used the French names from the toy packages, the movie used all of the characters' English names. Two characters were given gender changes for this dub; Starscream and Shrapnel both become females. One notable change to the dialog occurs when Starscream asks "Megatron? Is that you?" Galvatron's original answer, "Here's a hint!", is now much more direct: "Yes, but stronger than before!" ("Oui, mais plus fort qu'avant!" [obliterates her]) Another Megatron-related change is that he retains his "original" voice once he becomes Galvatron (unlike the original dub).
Germany
Germany also got two different dubs over the years:
As the movie had never been shown in German theaters, the first dub, titled Transformers: Der Kampf um Cybertron (Transformers: The Battle for Cybertron), was made in 1994 for airing on the German TV station RTL, to serve as a "pilot" for the Generation 2 cartoon series which would be subsequently broadcast. (One might argue that the initial omission of the movie from the original cartoon's German airing schedule resulted in an information gap regarding the shift from the season 2 setting to the season 3 setting; but then again, the cartoon started with episodes from season 3 in Germany, and only six episodes from the first two seasons were ever aired during the entire original "Generation 1" run of the show, so it's not like context problems weren't already all over the place.)
Even though the dub was made only five years after the dub of the Generation 1 cartoon had started on German TV, only a few of the German voice actors returned, most of them not even in the same roles they had played before. Optimus Prime, for example, was now dubbed by Thomas Rau, who had originally voiced Rodimus Prime, Blaster and Scourge in the cartoon itself. As in the dub of the cartoon before, all the characters retained their English names... with the exception of Devastator, whose name was translated as "Der Vernichter" for reasons unknown (he was "Devastator" in the dub of the cartoon itself). This version of the movie was only shown twice (not counting late-night reruns following those airings), on its TV premiere in April of 1994 and one year later, in May of 1995. It was never released on VHS either. (Contrary to a widespread rumor,[1] the German TV edition of the movie was not edited to omit Starscream's death scene.)
In 2003, the movie, this time simply titled Transformers, was finally released on DVD in Germany, by a little-known, low-budget label. Since the TV edition of the movie had been used as a "pilot" for the G2 cartoon, and it had been archived under the title "Der Kampf um Cybertron", the dubbing masters were not located until more than a year later, so the DVD company assigned an entirely new dub... which makes the Omni Productions dub and the Voicebox dub of Energon look like masterpieces. Numerous translation errors resulted from the apparent lack of an original script, thus requiring the dubbers to translate simply from listening to the original audio; coupled with a lack of experience with the source material and a lack of professional knowledge in the English (and German) language in general, resulting in look-it-up-in-a-dictionary-use-first-suggestion translations, sentences that make no sense whatsoever at all in context, and generally stilted and unnatural-sounding dialogue.
In addition, none of the voice actors sounded like they were particularly experienced in the field of dubbing, especially since none of their voices were recognizable from other productions. (It's not like the original TV dub was exactly a masterpiece, but there were some genuine gems, such as Bernd Simon's rendition of Starscream, or the Junkions' dialogue; and major technical and translation errors were by far fewer than the rampant across-the-board error-fest that was the DVD dub.)
The DVD is also notorious for its packaging, which does its best to obscure what exactly it contains (i.e. a feature-length animated movie). The front cover uses the cover artwork of the old Panini Generation 1 sticker album, while the back cover depicts stills from "The Golden Lagoon", "The Return of Optimus Prime, Part 1" and "The Autobot Run", coupled with an (incorrect) summary of the general setting of the first two seasons of the Generation 1 cartoon, with the term "Transformers" translated into German for whatever reason. A second edition of this DVD was released in 2006, this time featuring artwork of Armada Optimus Prime on the front cover, with Earth (from the 2007 movie's promo poster) as the background, plus the 1984 back-of-the-box artwork rotated by 270 degrees as an overlay, and the "Transformers" title logo from the 2007 movie. The back cover depicts a screencap from the Armada video game, Don Figueroa's "All Optimus" poster and the 1984 back-of-the-box battle scene, plus the same sleeve text as featured on the 2003 release of the DVD, with none of the errors fixed.
Hungary
The movie has two dubs even in Hungary. The first, created for a VHS release by a company called Televideo is ancient and unprofessional, the second, distributed by Mirax, is more recent and somewhat more professional. Both versions include the scrolling text and other European edits; the Mirax one even has the "gong man". Issues they both have in common include a small dubbing cast, inconsistent voices and translation errors. Further, neither dub used the name translations popularized by the Hungarian release of the G1 comics.
Televideo
Similar to the comics, the title is translated here as Alakváltók (Shape-shifters). Fans have counted a total of five actors in the dub (four men for random characters, while a female actress grants her voice to Arcee, Daniel, and most of Wheelie's dialog). Lip-sync is practically non-existent, the actors at times continue talking even when another character is moving its lips. Certain lines are missing or spoken at the wrong time (most notably Megatron's "Die, Autobots!" shout), Grimlock rhymes after meeting Wheelie instead of the latter, and Cliffjumper and Springer share the same name. Meanwhile Blaster, for instance, changes his voice three times during one scene. Due to the small dubbing cast and the early voice-altering techniques, the dialog of the Junkions is rather easily understood, and it appears the translator actually made an effort to write an occasional Hungarian commercial line or catch phrase into the script. (It is not known where the line was derived from or what it refers to, however, so it is entirely possible that it's nothing more than a spark of individual creativity on the translator's part. Even if that's true, it's a point in the dub's favor). There's also a curious translation gaffe during the Decepticons' reformation scene, where Unicron claims that there's only one Sweep, even naming him "Karmos" (roughly, "Claws").
In general, mistakes aside, the translation is surprisingly witty, and some of the lines are quite catchy – Blurr's cheesy tongue-twister about shooting Decepticons is especially famous among older fans. The problem is that the dialog is also drastically compressed, leading to many awkward moments of characters silently mouthing unspoken words.
Even so, this first version remains popular, and only those fans who have only recently been introduced to it seem to hate it. As for why the word Decepticon was translated to "Toad", well, that remains a mystery to this day. It may be a tribute to an old German sci-fi TV series, Raumpatrouille – Die phantastischen Abenteuer des Raumschiffs Orion (Space patrol – The Fantastic Adventures of the Spaceship Orion), which was quite popular in Hungary in the late Sixties. In this series, the main enemy alien race is called "Frogs", but it was translated as "Varangyok" ("Toads") in the Hungarian version. Some fans like to give the nickname "Darth Vader" to Optimus Prime when talking about this dub, as (most of) Prime's lines were delivered by the same voice actor, the late Lajos Kránitz, who supplied the voice of the Sith Lord in the most recent Star Wars dubs. He had also played the part of Unicron in this dub, and later returned in Transformers: Energon to shout "Transform!" as the same character.
Mirax
The second and more disliked dub has a reputation among the fans for including more profanities than the original version of the film. Although Spike's "Oh, shit!" line was cut, Ironhide, Galvatron and the Dinobots say terms akin to "asshole" (from Grimlock to Blurr), "bastards" (Galvatron to the Autobots), "stupid", "brainless, wee-brained moron" (Slag to Grimlock), "sons of bitches" (this one even twice, in place of the original's "Decepti-chops" and "Decepti-creeps"), and "candyass" (from Galvatron, regarding Hot Rod). Quite interesting, seeing as the dubs produced in that era have been known for freeing the movies of their swear words.
This dub is also infamous for using untranslated or incorrectly translated names, and random voice actors for random characters with random voice-pacing. These names include Unicornis (Unicron), Mega-robot (Devastator), Constructors (Constructicons), Deceptors (Decepticons, but only said once), Gettison (Astrotrain, derived and mis-interpreted from the line "Jettison some weight."), Astro (again, Astrotrain), and Eject (this refers to no one, it was mistranslated from Soundwave's "Eject" call). Unicron's last line in particular, which translates to "History cannot destroy m-e-e-e!" suggests that the translator had no script to work from, and thus had to rely solely on her hearing.
Other oddities are a non-rhyming Wheelie, and Soundwave and Unicron at first talking in a seg-men-ted, ro-bo-tic man-ner.
The switching of voices is also common in this version. An interesting blooper occurs during the attack on the Autobot shuttle: Ironhide speaks his final words in Starscream's voice ("Please, have mercy!"), and curiously, the translation of Megatron's "Such heroic nonsense" line corresponds with this sudden change of personality, as he says to (supposedly) Starscream, "Death to all traitors" before blasting him – actually blasting Ironhide, of course. Now this is a foreshadowing of later events.
The DVD case has G.I. Joe pictures printed on the back side, as well as on the DVD itself. Spiffy. On a positive note, the summary on the back of the case is actually competently written, even if the references to the cartoon series (which wasn't released in the country) and to the movie's place in its timeline are worded a bit confusingly, and unlike the dub, it renders Unicron's name correctly.
An interesting tidbit is that Bumblebee in the 2007 movie has the same voice he had in the Mirax dub of The Transformers: The Movie – this, however, is probably a coincidence, seeing as that guy supplied half of the voices for the cast in this dub.
Mirax, working with the dubbing studio Masterfilm Digital would later localize Armada, sadly still maintaining some of the general incompetence displayed by their handling of this movie.
Japan
Although Transformers: The Movie (トランスフォーマー ザ・ムービー) was advertised during 1987, and was even originally scheduled for a theatrical release in the summer of that year, unknown circumstances resulted in a delay of the Japanese release. It was not released in Japan until August of 1989, first through limited charity screenings for UNICEF in Tokyo and Osaka (where a man in a Powermaster Optimus Prime costume greeted guests), followed immediately by a laserdisk and VHS release. A precise reason for the delay has never been confirmed. Footage taken during the charity screenings was included in the straight-to-video promotional film, "Matrix Forever".
Unfortunately, the delay would later cause some continuity problems in future Japanese-penned Transformers fiction, as characters killed in the movie (notably Prowl and Wheeljack) appear in later series The Headmasters and Victory respectively.
Despite not being released in Japan in 1987 as intended, the events of the movie were summarized in TV Magazine with accompanying artwork by Ban Magami so that children tuning into Transformers 2010 would not be lost. The events of the movie would regularly be referred to as the "Unicron War", gaining something of a mysterious and legendary quality, as their events were constantly referred to but never seen.
Although Transformers: The Movie was dubbed several years after Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers and Transformers 2010 had ended, the majority of cast members from those series returned to reprise their roles.
The Japanese dub is notable for adding a lot of lines and voice effects to moments which had been silent in the English version, including the following:
- The shuttle attack scene originally doesn't have much talking during combat, but the Japanese dub adds numerous lines to many characters on both sides of the fight. For example, after killing Brawn, Starscream cheerfully asks who's next while waving Megatron around.
- During Optimus Prime's attack on the Decepticons and his fight with Megatron, every Decepticon Prime shoots can be heard screaming in pain, while his battle with Megatron has numerous grunts and curses added in.
Some of the additions were quite goofy (e.g., Blitzwing begs Prime not to run him over before getting out of the way) but some were actually quite disturbing. For example, when Starscream is killed by Galvatron, he gives off a long, tortured scream. In addition, the destruction of Lithone is made more horrifying by the sounds of the natives dying (some of them even being cut off mid-scream).
There are also a few slight dialogue alterations, such as Megatron specifically ordering the Insecticons to breach the Autobot defenses, to which Shrapnel and Kickback respond in unison with a high-pitched "Yessss siirrr!" Soundwave's famous "Soundwave superior, Constructicons inferior," is modified into "Soundwave is intelligent, the Constructicons are just idiots!"
The only other alteration of note in regards to the Japanese version is that whenever a character appears on screen for the first time, their name and function appears with them (written in Japanese, of course).
Poland
In Poland, the movie was never professionally dubbed. In the only official (and cult classic) release on VHS in 1992, all the dialogue was read by a single voice-over actor, while the original sound was left intact and could be heard in the background. To this day, that characteristic form of "narrating" is a very popular solution in Poland when it comes to translating movies for TV or DVDs. Thanks to this method, you can both understand the story and hear all the original voices. In the case of The Transformers: The Movie it also forced translators to leave (almost) all the original names intact. (Yay!)
Italian
There are two Italian dubs: the original one and a 2007 redub made when the live movie arrived in cinemas.
Original dub
This dub uses the original names for the new characters, except for Wheelie, named here "Saetta" (which was already Wheeljack's Italian name, curiously). Lots of lines are completely different from the original script: Devastator's "Prepare for extermination!" became "I'll destroy you, Transformers!", Grimlock's "Me Grimlock like challenge!" is replaced with "We Dinobots ready for great battle!" Optimus's line "Soon I shall be all one with the Matrix" turns into "The most important thing now is the passage of the Matrix" and "Arise, Rodimus Prime" was changed with "Now rise up, Hot Rod!"
2007 redub
The redub uses the Italian names, except for Ravage, Laserbeak, Ratbat and Rodimus Prime (Hot Rod, although, is called "Folgore"). "Soundwave superior, Constructicons inferior" becomes "The Soundwave is superior, the Constructicon is inferior!" (no, seriously.) The script is more faithful to the original version otherwise. The redub was poorly received by Italian fans.
Latin America
The Latin American Spanish dub was done in Los Angeles and is notable because it kept all the voice actors from the cartoon and the new characters remained with the same voices for the remainder of the show. With the exception of Ravage, who was now called "Destructor", every character is referred to by his/her original English name, since none of the characters' names were translated when the cartoon was dubbed into Spanish.
Though it is one of the most popular dubs of the movie, it has only been released domestically on home video once and is very difficult to find nowadays. In addition, it hasn't been shown on TV since the early Nineties. Despite this, the dub has been included in many international releases of the movie.
This dub removes all swearing and makes Optimus Prime's death scene even more traumatic by having Daniel actually crying when Optimus flatlines.
Galvatron sounds exactly like Megatron and Wheelie occasionally rhymes because his dialogue was literally translated.
