Q. There’s been a lot of negative buzz among bloggers about the poorly translated subtitles on the DVD and Blu-ray release of the acclaimed Swedish vampire film “Let the Right One In.” The distributor, Magnet Home Entertainment, released the discs with subtitles that were “dumbed down,” compared to the more informative, accurate translation provided by the film’s theatrical-release subtitles.

Magnet has fixed the problem, and subsequent pressings will include the theatrical subtitles, with “theatrical subtitles” indicated on the packaging. Kudos to them for correcting the problem, but still, it seems like a mistake to even consider the misguided “benefit” of dumbed-down subtitles that eliminate subtleties of character and dialogue.
Jeff Shannon, Seattle

A. Mike Cucinotta of iconsoffright.com seems to have broken the story and uses lots of screen grabs to document the tone-deaf dumbing-down. For example: Oskar, a 12-year-old boy, sees Eli, a girl about his age standing outside on a winter night without a warm coat. She’s balanced on a jungle gym.

Oskar: Do you live here?

Eli: Yeah. I live right here, in the jungle gym.

Oskar: Seriously, where do you live?

Eli: Next door to you.

Oskar: How do you know where I live?

In the dumbed-down version, these are the subtitles for the same conversation:

Oskar: Where do you live?

Eli: I live here. Next to you.

Cucinotta says Magnet is restoring the original subtitles in discs now being released. Look for those crucial words, “theatrical subtitles.” The whole story is here:

http://tinyurl.com/dd7c3m

Source:Movie Answer Man: Let the right one in, but<br>with the wrong subtitles

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