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[Charles Foster Kane]

Or that don't speak the language properly when they're supposed to.

I've been watching Breaking Bad (seen the first 3 seasons) and as you probably know (at least those who have seen the show) there are plenty of instances where characters speak Spanish. These are actors playing Hispanic characters. In what should be regular talk, they speak this butchered, awful, cringe worthy Spanish that completely breaks the immersion.

Now, I understand someone who doesn't speak the language might not notice or even care, but it is still very, very lousy. Sometimes it's not even that the accent is wrong but that the phrases are wrong or they have trouble finishing a word. A way to see what I mean would be like if there was an American character on a show or movie played by an actor of any nationality with a language other than English who doesn't speak English properly. Yeah, lame.

At least get actors who can speak the freaking language /rant.

Stuff like this is so annoying to me and takes me out of whatever I'm watching. So distracting.

Edit: Thanks for moving it!

 

[Hero of Legend]

Most Disney animated films?

 

[smarmyjerkface]

Star Trek

 

[dofry]

Sean Connery as a russian submarine captain.

 

[NotMyRealName]

Thor

 

[Skeff]

every "british" character in any US show/film. urgh.

 

[Diggeh]

Pokémon the thread.

 

[Acorn]

every "british" character in any US show/film. urgh.

Even when they get someone british they make them do the poshest accent possible.

 

[FrostuTheNinja]

I don't know if it was accurate but Daniel Day Lewis' accent for Plainview (There Will
Be Blood) sounded very "caricature". I just couldn't stop thinking about Yosemite Sam.

 

[unholyrevenger72]

every roman in a movie ever...

 

[Charles Foster Kane]

every roman in a movie ever...

That's not what I mean. They are not pretending to know the language, they're just speaking English.

 

[BFIB]

John Leguizamo playing an Italian Plumber.

 

[nded]

Bob Hoskins playing an Italian plumber.

 

[pieatorium]

Robert Downey Jr in Natural Born Killers is one of the worst attempts at an australian accent ever recorded

 

[Eusis]

Pokémon the thread.

Heh, with the two threads right next to each other I actually thought this was about the Pokemon TV show initially.

And it's not irrelevant for games, I recall people criticizing the use of language in Spec Ops: The Line, that they didn't use the right one for the region the game took place. Granted, that's LANGUAGE, not an ACCENT, but still.

 

[Vulcano's assistant]

You meant you don't just want to convince me that you are a native speaker, but you are from Chile, with that accent? good luck with that.

 

[GusBus]

Jax on SOA often sounds nothing like a biker boy raised in Cali. Especially when he get's pissed off.

 

[toastyToast]

Robert Downey Jr in Natural Born Killers is one of the worst attempts at an australian accent ever recorded

I was gonna say this. Atrocious

Movie was painful to watch in general outside of that Rodney Dangerfield cameo

 

[Vulcano's assistant]

Also, in Patlabor 2 (probably a bunch of other anime with english speaking characters), the VA for American characters sound like the actor was running out of air

 

[Sen²]

Game of Thrones actors and actresses are criticized for using different British accents. Also, Ron Moore's Battlestar Galactica remake has been criticized for mixing American, British Canadian and probably some other accents.

Personally, I don't really care. It's hard enough to find decent actors on TV and having people speak in an accent they're not accustomed to might sound really fake.

 

[Ninja Scooter]

Robert Downey Jr in Natural Born Killers is one of the worst attempts at an australian accent ever recorded

Worse than QT in Django?

 

[Diomedeskun]

You meant you don't just want to convince me that you are a native speaker, but you are from Chile, with that accent? good luck with that.

I assumed the character was just lying about his origin for the sake of the restaurant. It was
disappointing to find out his actual background with that terrible accent.

 

[EulaCapra]

Alexander Skarsgard in Battleship. Forget the fact that hardly anything in the movie is great, but Skarsgard is suppose to be a brother to the lead, both Americans. Yet his character speaks English like he's been stationed in Sweden for his whole life.

Oh god, anything Sam Worthington not in his native Australian accent. Jesus christ, his default American accents are the worst, or as Worthington might pronounce it: "teh weeeehuuuurstxxlla."

 

[Charles Foster Kane]

I assumed the character was just lying about his origin for the sake of the restaurant. It was
disappointing to find out his actual background with that terrible accent.

Not this one though:

This was plain shit. There are plenty of other awful minor examples from the show.

 

[gutter_trash]

any none Portuguese speaking person trying to pull it off (doesn't matter if it's European or Brazilian accent, non-Portuguese speakers cannot pull it off)

Rosario Dawson in Rundown fail, Javier Bardem in Eat, Pray, Love fail.

But I think the worst botched language in American movies is French by people who cannot even speak it. Botched French is so obvious and disastrous on screen, don't even try it

 

[Sojgat]

Anything with Sam Worthington in it, including Australian films. Even his Aussie accent is forced, nobody talks like him. He talks like how Americans think Australians talk. God I hate him so much.

 

[viciouskillersquirrel]

The majority of Hispanic actors are Spanish, Puerto Rican or Mexican. When they speak English, they all sound okay, but when they speak Spanish, they never seem to bother switching accents. So you end up with (say) Columbians or Cuban characters with Puerto Rican accents or Spaniards playing Mexicans.

In animated movies, it's always fun when every member of the same family has a different accent.

For instance:

The Lion King - Mufasa/Sirabi (Black American English), Scar (Received Pronunciation/BBC English), Simba (Midwestern American English)

Prince of Egypt - Seti/Tuya/Rameses (RP/BBC English), Moses (Val Kilmerese)

Aladdin - Sultan (RP/BBC English), Jasmine (American English)

 

[Kraftwerk]

The Duellists by Ridley Scott. Took me right out of the movie. Such a shame as it had great story and atmosphere.

 

[Finaika]

Black Widow in The Avengers.

 

[gutter_trash]

how about that Kevin Costner not even trying in Robin Hood Prince of Thieves, huh?

LOL

Then you have Americans like Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio and Christian Slater trying to pull off an English Accent

then you have the real deal in Alen Rickman in the mix.

I'm surprised nobody mention Al Pacino's Tony Montan yet, LOL

 

[NotTheGuyYouKill]

Fiona from Burn Notice. Butchered all of Ireland with that accent.

 

[ConfusingJazz]

how about that Kevin Costner not even trying in Robin Hood Prince of Thieves, huh?

He did try for the first 15 minutes of the movie. Then someone told him its better to just stick with the American accent then butcher the English accent, and the movie was probably better for it.

Fiona from Burn Notice. Butchered all of Ireland with that accent.

I like how the only reason you even know she is supposed to play someone from Ireland is the quote in the intro, because she never used that dreadful accent after the pilot.

 

[XANDER CAGE]

remember when Keanu Reeves was in Dracula?

There are also tons of shows (animated especially, plenty of kids shows are guilty of this) that use a generic "southern" accent for any character south of Virginia, basically.

 

[ConfusingJazz]

remember when Keanu Reeves was in Dracula?

I thought we were talking about wrong accents, not the most authentic accent of a 19th century English gentleman.

There are also tons of shows (animated especially, plenty of kids shows are guilty of this) that use a generic "southern" accent for any character south of Virginia, basically.

No one does a Texan accent correctly except in Friday Night Lights, because they don't over do it.

 

[smoothj]

Get the Gringo had the best Spanish speaking of any American movie I've seen.

 

[yepyepyep]

My family watched Pacific Rim last night and we were all really confused by the Australian father and son. The son sounded really British, and the father alternated between pronouncing as Australian, British or American. It's bit bizarre because there are a lot of Australian actors working in Hollywood, so its a bit odd that they didn't cast people who could naturally do the accent.

 

[Piecake]

I thought we were talking about wrong accents, not the most authentic accent of a 19th century English gentleman.
.

Yea, wasnt Keanu alive back then?

 

[karasu]

Channing Tatum in The Eagle. He doesn't even try.

 

[ConfusingJazz]

Yea, wasnt Keanu alive back then?

Yeah, but he was French at the time.

 

[Dorimukyasuto]

Sylvester Stallone in Rocky does not have a Philadelphian accent. We have a very distinct accent but in Rocky he speaks like a New Yorker or something. A good example of a Philly accent would be some of the guys from Jackass (though they are from outside the city in West Chester, PA), I think Bam Margera has a pretty noticable Philly accent.

 

[Zeus Molecules]

Not this one though:

This was plain shit. There are plenty of other awful minor examples from the show.

jus noticed the foreshadowing of his chairs design

 

[Dorimukyasuto]

jus noticed the foreshadowing of his chairs design

oh shiiiiiit :O

 

[Game-Biz]

jus noticed the foreshadowing of his chairs design

Mind fucking blown.

 

[LonelyGreyWolf]

Every American ever who tries to sound Swedish. They just do some weird German accent. Except for the guy in Hell on Wheels. His accent is really broken, but it's authentic.

 

[Htown]

I like how the only reason you even know she is supposed to play someone from Ireland is the quote in the intro, because she never used that dreadful accent after the pilot.

I find it weird that she's from England, but her American accent is way better than her Irish accent.

also, can we talk about David Tennant's hilarious American accent for a minute?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4cqRsvu9t0

 

[Speevy]

Almost every character from Breaking Bad has lived in the United States for 20 years.

Accents do change.

Anyway, I have to pick Petyr Baelish from Game of Thrones. There's not one character on the show who talks even remotely like he does.

 

[maomaoIYP]

I have never seen a single Chinese character on a US show to actually get their Chinese correct. It always tends to be some mangled version of cantonese or mandarin, and is almost never differentiated.

 

[nhlducks35]

jus noticed the foreshadowing of his chairs design

Holy shit

 

[Charles Foster Kane]

Almost every character from Breaking Bad has lived in the United States for 20 years.

Accents do change.

Not to that degree, that's practically forgetting the language. And that was not the case for every Spanish speaking character either, how do you know how long the characters have lived in the US anyways? That is including minor characters who supposedly come from Mexico (from the Cartel) yet speak a butchered language.

Also, something like the scene I quoted was from when Hector was living in Mexico, so there's that.

 

[Speevy]

Every episode of Breaking Bad has a million things in common with other episodes of Breaking Bad.

Vince Gilligan is insane.