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[SilentRob]

Somebody help me.

For whatever reason quite a few publishers in germany tend to give Hollywood movies new titles for the local market. "But that makes sense", you say. "Obviously they get german titles so everyone understands them." But no. They don't. Instead, they get DIFFERENT english titles. Or a mix of both. One of the most baffling examples for this is the new Planet of the Apes trilogy and this is so utterly nonsensica that I need some help coming to grasp with it.

SO. Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Honestly, not a great title. Two "of the" in one title? Kinda ugy. Translating it into german would sound...even weirder. "Der Aufstieg des Planeten der Affen" doesn't really roll of the tongue. So, instead we got:

Wait. Prevolution? What the fuck is that? I mean, I get it, it's a prequel, funny play on words, but really? Prevolution? Alright...It does work. It's bad and cheesy but sure, hey, why the fuck not. And they even translated "Planet of the Apes" into german with "Planet der Affen"! And since "Revolution" and "Evolution" have the same meaning in german, you could argue this is a completely german title. That wordplay is fucking terrible, but sure, let's see where this is going.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. What do you got, german publisher?

Ooooooooh. Alright. I see where you are going with this. You're setting yourself up for a trilogy, eh? Prevolution turns into Revolution turns into Evolution. Alright, I can dig it. Trying a little too hard for my taste but hey, it makes sense. Nice job, Publisher! Just have to wait to get an official poster for War for the Planet of the Apes aaaannnd...

WAIT. FUCKING WAIT. What. No, wait. What's happening? What are you doing? Survival?! An english subtitle?! Now?! What happened to that whole Prevolution bullshit? Why did you go through the trouble of translating "Planet of the Apes" only to then use ANOTHER ENGLISH WORD as a subtitle? Why did you even feel the need to translate the original english title in the first place, then? YOU LITERALLY HAVE A RACE OF MONKEYS TURNING INTO THE DOMINANT RACE THANKS TO MAN MADE EVOLUTION. You just had to delete another letter from the previous subtitle!

Prevolution->Revolution->SURVIVAL.

I can't. Please. Somebody explain this to me.

 

[The Jackdog]

I thought the first poster read:

Planet Of The Apes: Dr Evolution

I want THAT movie, whatever that is

 

[MattKeil]

Survival...of the fittest? Which is a commonly-cited reduction of evolutionary theory?

I dunno, I got nothin'. OP's right, this is a pretty obvious ball drop.

 

[Kenzodielocke]

They didn't know what to do, is my guess.

 

[SpaceWolf]

The English titles aren't all that great either, honestly.

 

[SamuelSupreme]

How about we try to figure out who the hell is designing the German posters? Because that shit is flames and makes the NA ones look like ass.

Spoiler

And not gorgeous ass like Bria Myles or LA The Love Boss either!

 

[studyguy]

Foreign translations of film titles always seem like a crapshoot

 

[Fury451]

Revolution and Survival are pretty accurate tbh. More so than the obnoxiously cumbersome English titles

 

[AuthenticM]

This reminds me of the Québec translation of the original Die Hard trilogy of films.

Piège de cristal (Die Hard)
58 minute pour vivre (Die Hard 2)
Marche ou crève (Die Hard 3)

The French titles of the first two movies are taken from the translated titles of the books upon which the two movies were based. The third movie's title isn't, but it doesn't matter as I love it. I just sounds so good.

 

[backflip10019]

Foreign translations of film titles always seem like a crapshoot

Haha what the fuck is that Spaceballs title? "SOS, There's a Crazy Person Loose in Space?" That's terrible.

 

[paperboywriter]

To me it looks like PR evolution

 

[SilentRob]

To me it looks like PR evolution

Yeah, my guess is that they were kind of ashamed of the wordplay at first so they didn't really want to go all the way. That changed for the home release though...

 

[jett]

lol the Latin American titles went through something similar:

The Planet of the Apes: (R)evolution. Got cute.
The Planet of the Apes Confrontation. Okay, it kinda rhymes with the previous subtitle, I get it.
The Planet of the Apes: The War. They just stopped giving a shit.

 

[cyba89]

They translated the title into "Planet der Affen" because it's a know property for almost 50 years now.

The Survival thing is dumb I agree.

 

[shawnbuddy]

Foreign translations of film titles always seem like a crapshoot

If you don't notice the accent mark, Mrs. Doubtfire is called "Potato Forever."

 

[StopMakingSense]

IN Brazil, Teen Wolf was titled "Boy from the Future" to try to capitalize off of the success of Back to the Future there.

 

[Spoiled Milk]

Foreign translations of film titles always seem like a crapshoot

Holy shit at the Spaceballs one.

 

[aBarreras]

Foreign translations of film titles always seem like a crapshoot

oh come on,

at least papa por siempre makes more sense than Ms doubtfire.

mi pobre angelito is kinda shit tho,

they even make fun of it on orange is the new black, where a hispanic inmate doesnt know what the fuck "home alone" is

 

[jett]

IN Brazil, Teen Wolf was titled "Boy from the Future" to try to capitalize off of the success of Back to the Future there.

If you want something worse, The Pagemaster, this thing right here:

Was marketed as Mi Pobre Angelito 3 ("My Poor Little Angel", i.e. Home Alone 3) where I live. 95% of it is an animated movie, and they shamelessly used the remaining 5% in the TV ads haha.

Then there's The Good Son

Which was translated as El Angel Malvado (The Evil Angel).

 

[Pop-O-Matic]

If you want something worse, The Pagemaster, this thing right here:

Was marketed as Mi Pobre Angelito 3 ("My Poor Little Angel", i.e. Home Alone 3) where I live. 95% of it is an animated movie, and they shamelessly used the remaining 5% in the TV ads haha.

It's not like we aren't familiar with that kind of thing over here in the US, as there was a trend of taking some low budget (possibly foreign) schlock films and re-titling it something like "Alien 2" or "Russian Terminator" to make a quick buck on VHS.

 

[Jokab]

So this is National Lampoon's Vacation, in Swedish titled "Ett Päron till Farsa". Directly translated it turns out to "A Pear for a Father" in the sense that the father is a pear. It's sort of a play on words since "päron" is both "pear" (which I guess is supposed to signify a stupid person? or something) and slang for "parents", but it's just super dumb. I have no idea how they arrived at this shitty and confusing title.