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Engrish LOTR: The Two Towers Captions

Cyclometh writes "Someone has put together a set of screengrabs from an Asian bootleg of LOTR:TTT, which are totally hysterical. The subtitles are apparently the genuine article, which definitely should bring the phrase caveat emptor to mind for anyone who buys bootleg DVDs. For a definition of Engrish, see here (apparently it's a no-smorking zone.)"

54 of 310 comments (clear)

  1. Hehehe by MattCohn.com · · Score: 3, Funny

    "too long I wanted my sister"

    Hehehe... sorry. I know, but still. That picture, with that caption, looking so serious, just cracks me up.

    heh.

    Hehe. Sorry.

    Heh.

    1. Re:hehehe by jejones · · Score: 5, Funny

      The best Engrish in a manual I've seen was for an ABIT Socket 7 motherboard manual. I don't have it at hand, so I can't point to the precise one, but it is pre-super Socket 7. In the section on installing RAM, it says "All you have to do is insert RAM, without help from God. Isn't it wonderful?"

    2. Re:hehehe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      "Do not dangle the mouse by its cable or throw the mouse at co-workers." -- From a manual for an SGI computer.

    3. Re:hehehe by PetWolverine · · Score: 2, Funny

      Do not dangle the mouse by its cable or throw the mouse at co-workers.

      You're not supposed to do that? I do that all the time, thought it was perfectly normal!

      --
      I found the meaning of life the other day, but I had write-only access.
    4. Re:Hehehe by pyros · · Score: 5, Funny

      your sister?! Bring your pussy face to my ass.

    5. Re:hehehe by pyros · · Score: 2, Funny

      Not totally related, but still a funny message. I was working on some program for school and the compiler told me the "Constructor is private and has no friends." I was so dumbfounded by such an easy to read message, it took a minute to figure out what it meant.

    6. Re:hehehe by Afrosheen · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Considering that, at the time, the transition to pc100 was just beginning, I don't doubt that line at all.

      Anyone who's had to install ram on old-school p200's and lower knows what I'm talking about. That ram was a real pain in the ass (and fingers) to get into the slots properly. Add to that the fact that there was usually at least one IDE cable in your way, possibly more, and it WAS an act of God to install ram prior to pc66/100 slots.

    7. Re:hehehe by dburr · · Score: 3, Informative

      That wouuld be the Abit AX5, a Socket 7-based ATX mobo based on the Intel 430TX chipset. I used to have one of these - in fact it was my first server and has performed faithfully until only very recently (may it rest in peace...). The first time I read the manual I nearly fell out of my chair laughing so hard, and my then-roommate literally jumped 10 feet in the air at my sudden outburst.

      The manual can be found here, for your viewing pleasure: http://fae.abit.com.tw/eng/download/dlmanual.php?n ame=APTX5&file=aptx5e.pdf.

      Oh, and the exact quote is: "You just need to insert the modules, without the help of God. Isn't it great?"

      --
      Yomigaeru Aiyan Geek!!!
    8. Re:hehehe by Thrakkerzog · · Score: 2, Funny

      Where my dad worked, they were looking into getting some stamping machinery from a chinese production facility.

      So, their American counterpart sent a salesman over.. and he was describing the machinery, showing them the manual. He got to the point where everyone noticed something funny in the manual; This piece of machinery had a "hydraulic sheep". The salesman explained that they meant "hydraulic ram"..

      They went with someone else. :-)

  2. Maybe I'm not getting this... by nordicfrost · · Score: 5, Interesting

    But the text doesn't seem to be a real subtitle. It's too large to be a standard DVD caption text. Futhermore, I can understand that funny mistakes occur when you translate e.g. Japanese into English, but when transcribing English? You'd have to be a complete moron...

    Or am I just not getting the humour?

    1. Re:Maybe I'm not getting this... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      There is no such thing as a standard "DVD caption text" size. The text is just a subpicture (yes, a picture) that gets overlaid on the movie. Max size 52 kB per picture. 16 colors.

      Ever wondered where you found that white rabbit in the Matrix on your keyboard? :)

    2. Re:Maybe I'm not getting this... by Daengbo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Well, I live in Thailand and get these all the time. I often watch the English subtitles with my girlfriend so that she can learn some, but often we end up tourning them off because they hurt more htan help. From Monsters, Inc. (which I grabbed randomly to get some examples), the first scene confuses Mr. Bile with Mr. Byrl, Phlegm with film, "the largest mistake" with "the big mistake," and "I'm Monsters' Inc" with "Hey, monster incorporated." Star Wars Episodes IV, V, an VI are atrociously bad. We face it every day, even when you think that you are buying the real item, you often aren't.

      Ocean's Eleven is (because of all the slang) rarely correct in any sentence, and often has minutes of blank titles where the translator got totally lost.

      I always make the joke that some Malaysian who knows very little English and even less Thai does both the subtitles for the pirates over here. The Thai is sometimes following some parallel story from another universe.

    3. Re:Maybe I'm not getting this... by srmalloy · · Score: 5, Informative
      But the text doesn't seem to be a real subtitle. It's too large to be a standard DVD caption text. Futhermore, I can understand that funny mistakes occur when you translate e.g. Japanese into English, but when transcribing English? You'd have to be a complete moron...

      In the comment log, the author of the website explains what he did to produce the images:

      For all you sceptics out there: The reason the images are so crisp, is because they're taken from an Xvid DVD-rip. The text was ripped from the bootleg and inserted into the Xvid for the best possible image quality. This still means what you see on the captions are what you see on the screen. I could've written this on the front page, but I'm not sure if that would be a good idea. If I ever get hold of a camera, I will take pictures of the TV when playing the bootleg. I'd imagine *that* would be pretty hard to fake. Anyone who has seen an asian bootleg will testify to that the BLs *do* have english subtitles.
    4. Re:Maybe I'm not getting this... by prockcore · · Score: 3, Informative

      But the text doesn't seem to be a real subtitle. It's too large to be a standard DVD caption text

      There is no standard DVD caption text.. every player does it differently.

      To get the screenshots, he probably ran it on a software DVD player. MPlayer has fairly large fonts (and they're customizable)
      http://www.mplayerhq.hu/homepage/im ages/shot09.jpg

    5. Re:Maybe I'm not getting this... by grammar+nazi · · Score: 3, Funny

      The grammar nazi is appalled!!

      --

      Keeping /. free of grammatical errors for ~5 years.
    6. Re:Maybe I'm not getting this... by Edgewize · · Score: 3, Informative

      "Bring your pretty face to my axe", spoken by Gimli the Dwarf to the oncoming Warg.

      Just before the overly pretty elf boy looses an arrow into its skull and Gimli says that it should count as his kill.

      Have I seen this movie too many times? Yes.

    7. Re:Maybe I'm not getting this... by MSZ · · Score: 2, Interesting

      But the text doesn't seem to be a real subtitle. It's too large to be a standard DVD caption text.

      It's called "softsub". Some players allow you to use external text file with time codes to overlay text over video. You can choose font size, color etc.

      It looks like DVD-ripped DivX with softsub to me, not DVD.

      --
      The moon is not fully subjugated. I demand a second assault wave preceded by a massive nuclear bombardment.
    8. Re:Maybe I'm not getting this... by mr3038 · · Score: 2, Informative
      There is no standard DVD caption text.. every player does it differently.

      AFAIK every DVD disk has different font, not the player. The subtitles are in fact 3 bit (color1, color2 and transparent) images. That's why tools that rip DVD subtitles are in fact scanning the text from the images. I think this kind of method was selected so that every browser wouldn't need full unicode fonts to be able to display subtitles for e.g. latin and japanese content.

      The only thing the DVD player can do is to add some kind of filtering to that text -- as it isn't antialised and can be blocky looking on high-res displays.

      In addition to the official subtitling on the DVD some player software is able to use external subtitles from a text file. In that case, those players can display the font in any size, color and font-face available for the software.

      --
      _________________________
      Spelling and grammar mistakes left as an exercise for the reader.
    9. Re:Maybe I'm not getting this... by nordicfrost · · Score: 2, Informative

      Pardon me, but I always thought the caption was stored as image files and then superomposed onto the picture. It seems like that here, where the process of OCR'ing and re-encoding the subtitles is described. This method is also described by the person who made the pictures available. But I still do not believe that someone can hear a phrase from this movie and translate it into "get your pussy-face to my ass" or whatever. It might be possible if it was translated from Mandarin (Or any other dialect) into English, but wouldn't it be easier to just listen to teh English track? I know there's English-speaking versions of this DVD out there.

  3. I hate it when this happens! by rune2 · · Score: 2, Funny

    http://home.online.no/~gremmem/engrish_ttt_caption s/00-20/two-towers-07.jpg Yes, no root for you!

  4. hehehe by spdycml · · Score: 4, Funny

    I love engrish...I work at a computer shop and just about all the manuals for motherboards are in engrish.....even the installation cd's give error messages in engrish...."please insert by yourself the correct windows OS"...That is an actual message from an Amptron motherboard driver installation!

  5. IMHO, Dave Barry's Article is much funnier by Omkar · · Score: 4, Funny

    Read it here.

  6. Re:Hysterical? by Daleks · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I flipped through the first three pages before giving up. Can someone point me to the hysterical ones?

    "how he will take me he is still big for it" (see picture).
    X-rated.
    "Toast me".
    "I say you got to toast me!".

    I thought these were the best, aside from the already mentioned one about someone wanting their sister.

  7. All your Helm's Deep are belong.... by heldlikesound · · Score: 3, Funny

    In The Third Age 3018

    War was beginning.

    Gandalf: What happen ?

    Aragorn: Somebody set up us the bomb.

    Legolas: We get signal.

    Gandalf: What !

    Aragorn: Palinteer turn on.

    Gandalf: It's You !!

    Saruman: How are you gentlemen !!

    Saruman: All your Helm's Deep are belong to us.

    Saruman: You are on the way to destruction.

    Gandalf: What you say !!

    Saruman: You have no chance to survive make your time.

    Saruman: HA HA HA HA ....

    Gandalf: Take off every 'orc' !!

    Gandalf: You know what you doing.

    Gandalf: Move 'orc'.

    Gandalf: For great justice.

    --


    Cloud City Digital: DVD Production at its cheapest/finest
  8. Now why did you have to go and post that here ??? by xeniten · · Score: 5, Funny
    We finally have some piece and quiet around here from the last time someone posted a piece about engirsh. For a whole year it was nothing but all your base this, and make your time that.

    Now it's going to be a whole year of "You should make fun" and "we are not oaks we are hobiks."

    Arrrrghhh!

    --
    Romana: "How did you know?" Doctor Who: "Ah, well, knowing is easy. Everyone does THAT ad nauseum. I just sort of hope"
  9. Re:All your base... by zsmooth · · Score: 2, Funny

    Slashdot doesn't validate [w3.org]. Taco: Comply with W3C specs!

    Why should he comply with W3C specs when it's easier to just block referrals from w3.org?

    I got the following unexpected response when trying to retrieve :

    403 Forbidden

    Please make sure you have entered the URI correctly.
  10. I call BS!!! by ashitaka · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The subtitles are too big.

    If it's an asian video why aren't the subtitles in Japanese or Chinese?

    The mistakes are just *too* conveniently embarrassing; "bring your pussy face to my ass", yeah right.

    Real bad subtitles (and yes, I've seen many) are just corny; "Your kung fu is just kid stuff!"

    --
    If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
  11. Check out his other work by FueledByRamen · · Score: 2, Informative

    The Video section, particularly. I love the TechTV blooper, and the helocrash is entertaining. Poor helicopter, it never stood a chance. I hate to see a waste of a perfectly good machine.

    --
    Every cloud has a silver lining (except for the mushroom shaped ones, which have a lining of Iridium & Strontium 90)
  12. Dead you may not kill them by use_compress · · Score: 2, Funny

    Dead you may not kill them

    With lines like this, they could have just reused Yoda's CGI character instead of creating Gollum's.

    BTW, Here's a great review of LoTR 2.

  13. 1962 Korean LOTR bootleg translation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting
    My brother-in-law's boss spends a lot of time on business in South Korea, and recently he was given an amazing gift by a friend there: his friend's dad's 1962 Korean translation of LOTR. What a hoot! Old Pa's English wasn't so good, and although he loved the book, he grossly misunderstood and mistranslated it. He actually sold about 100 copies to fellow students, although if there are any others extant, I'd be surprised. As the bootleg Korean version is only 250 pages long for the entire trilogy, obviously a great many scenes have left out. But a few new scenes were slipped in, as you shall see.

    1) "Hobbit" is translated either as "baby ghost" or "barefoot ghost"

    2) "the Shire" is translated as "Baby Ghost Prefect"

    3) "orc" is translated by a Korean slang term used in WWII as a pejorative for Japanese soldiers

    4) when the hobbits bathe in the house at Crickhollow, the translator added a scene involving a bathtub farting contest (won by Sam)

    5)another addition by the translator has Sam expressing regret that his long quest will keep him out of Rosie's bed for many months

    6) in this version, when Frodo puts on the Ring at Weathertop, he shoots lightning bolts out of it to chase away the Nazgul; there is no Morgul-knife and no wounding

    7)the Balrog is simply referred to as "the enemy of God"

    8) best of all, Frodo and Gollum battle Sauron face to face in the Chamber of Fire, with Frodo pushing the other two into the Cracks of Doom when Sauron is being distracted by the crazed Smeagol. The Ring then passes to Aragorn, who as King can weild it for good, and one of the things he does with it is make "fruitful the wombs of barren women."

    I told my bro-in-law to try and get that copy translated fully; it could be funnier than "Bored of the Rings."

  14. Better bootleg by PetWolverine · · Score: 2, Interesting

    At the risk of /.ing myself, I'll say that I have a really excellent bootleg of the Two Towers on my computer:

    ftp://louise.dhs.org/Movies/Two%20Towers.mpg

    It's ripped from four VCDs I got from a friend of a friend, originally ripped from the DVD given to the people who review movies for the Oscars.

    Okay, /.ers, bring it on...high traffic hasn't crashed my dual-1.25 GHz Power Mac G4 yet, and it won't do it this time!

    --
    I found the meaning of life the other day, but I had write-only access.
  15. Well, I dunno by autopr0n · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm sure I would make tons of mistakes if someone asked me to transcribe some spoken Chinese in a movie to make subtitles. As for re-subbing it in English, well I know lots of Chinese films will still have Chinese subtitles for speakers of different dialects.

    The problem is probably caused by not being able to spell very well, in combination not having much experience listening to English speakers.

    --
    autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
    1. Re:Well, I dunno by Anonvmous+Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "The problem is probably caused by not being able to spell very well, in combination not having much experience listening to English speakers."

      You forgot to mention that one needs to vary their mall content.

    2. Re:Well, I dunno by u38cg · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Chinese ideographs are common to all dialects - so the multiple dialects problem just doesn't arise when screening foreign films. I thought that films in China were mostly made now to a sort of standard Chinese, accessible to all Chinese speakers? Sounds a bit Orwellian, but I'm sure I remember reading about it.

      These subtitles are well done, but I think I have to cry fake. They are the wrong shape, they're in English (why would a Chinaman be any better at reading English than speaking it?) and we all know how "amusing" people who can't talk proper are.

      On an entirely unrelated note, your site is an excellent innovation, and very much appreciated. One suggestion: is it possible to use a cookie to track previous page views so that I don't have to dig through several pages to get to new content? That would just be the cream on the cake, so to speak.

      --
      [FUCK BETA]
    3. Re:Well, I dunno by plumby · · Score: 3, Informative

      Not entirely true. There are two common form of Chinese ideographs. Traditional script is used in places like Taiwan and Hong Kong, but in the mid-50's, the People's Republic (PRC) adopted a simplified form of writing, both reducing the number of characters and the number of strokes in many of the symbols. The two sets of characters are vaguely similar in structure, but different enough to make it impossible to read the other if you've only learned one.

  16. smells fishy by Simon+Garlick · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Can someone explain how a film with English dialogue can have English subtitles?

    Or how a 16:9 widescreen-format movie can require subtitles in the body of the movie instead of BELOW it?

    I think it's a hoax.

    1. Re:smells fishy by badasscat · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Put any DVD you own in your DVD player and bring up the subtitle menu. I can almost guarantee one of the options will be English subtitles. There are several obvious reasons for this, especially on an Asian DVD:

      1. Captions for the hearing-impaired
      2. Subtitles for those who can speak and understand English, but not all that well.

      My wife, when she first came to this country, fell into the 2nd category and nearly always watched English subtitles on English language DVD's to help her understand.

      It could still be a hoax, but it could just as easily not be. The fact that there are English subtitles on an English language film is no proof of anything, and the fact that they're done badly isn't either.

  17. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 3, Funny

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  18. Yeah, right... by Doomrat · · Score: 2, Insightful

    >The first half of the movie has the most screengrabs, as there is more action than talking later on, and the subtitle writers eventually started getting the name of the characters right.

    Or in other words, he got bored of making them up and thought that he'd already gotten enough material for a good hoax. I'm sure he'll enjoy the extra popularity his site is getting thanks to a post on Slashdot.

    Do you really expect that a subtitler could possibly make a mistake like "mr beens" and "Brings your pussy face to my ass"?

  19. Growing up with Engrish by thefinite · · Score: 4, Funny

    Besides laughing myself unconscious reading Engrish.com, I was reminded of how frustrated I was as a kid playing the original Metal Gear, but being unable to get past the first stupid guard. He kept saying "I feel asleep", after which I would make a break for it and get caught. Little did I know, he meant to say, "I fell asleep". I was supposed to run past him before he said it. Stupid Engrish. All your base are belong to us, indeed.

    --
    Boom Shanka
  20. Nope, lemonlye's slashparody by Namarrgon · · Score: 2, Funny
    Hilarious :-)

    Or this FotR parody.

    --
    Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
  21. Smeagol/Yoda by nursedave · · Score: 2, Funny

    Is it just me, or does Smeagol look just a trifle Yodish?
    Great.... More Smeabrews, just what Hollywood needs.

    He really does look like an evil Yoda.... In one caption, he even says, "dead you may not kill them."
    Bizarre.

    --

    The Democratic Party: We've been pussies since 1968!

  22. threat by Xpilot · · Score: 5, Funny

    Sounds like how you would threaten an evil sysadmin:

    RELEASE HIM OR I SHALL CUT YOU OFF ROOT!

    I guess Gollum was a Unix sysadmin back in the day. Which would explain why he's a shruken, miserable little creature who hates sunlight.

    --
    "Backups are for wimps. Real men upload their data to an FTP site and have everyone else mirror it." -- Linus Torvalds
  23. Let me explain... by natron+2.0 · · Score: 3, Informative

    I am currently residing in South Korea and when they show American movies here they use Korean voice overs and english subtitles. So the voices and speech is Korean and the subtitles are Engrish. Most of the time the translation is horrible. As a matter of fact most English translations in Korea are very bad.

  24. I'm Arogon son of Alfred by aralin · · Score: 2, Funny

    I'm Arogon son of Alfred
    My name is Smeedle
    Gibley lower your axe
    Gandolf foogray that was my name
    Shadol fax is the lord of all horses
    If I go Filden dies
    You must lead people to the Humsdeed
    I bring word of Elfron of Riven Death

    And the one that caputures the spirit best:

    Toast me! I say you got to toast me!

    --
    If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
  25. It's legit, just maybe retyped by Edgewize · · Score: 3, Informative

    I've seen a fair share of bootleg DVDs and the subtitles are always aweful. Usually its just a lack of proofreading, but if there's an accent involved (especially something thick and heavily European) then all bets are off. "Bring your pretty face to my axe" is actually pretty close, if you consider that the sound during battles can be overwhelming. And by the 2-hour mark, the transcriber probably lost what little grasp he had of the plot to begin with.

    Also, as another commenter pointed out, the guy didn't have a way to do screengrabs from a DVD so he took stills from the XviD screener floating around Kazaa. The text was added by hand but faithfully transcribed from his TV screen.

    FYI, subtitles on DVDs are just a 16-color bitmap overlay. They can be as big or as small as you want, with graphics or text, on top or on the bottom or in the middle of the screen.

  26. Re:Hysterical? by geekoid · · Score: 2, Funny

    don't forget A href="http://home.online.no/~gremmem/engrish_ttt_c aptions/20-40.htm">My name Smeedle" which is damn funny with that picture.

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  27. Re:Now why did you have to go and post that here ? by DavidpFitz · · Score: 3, Funny
    We finally have some piece and quiet

    Been practising your Engrish, have you? You seem to have mastered it! :)

  28. Movie Piracy, a quick primer. by jedrek · · Score: 4, Informative

    (I wrote most of this up for the LOTR:TTT fake pirate DVD thread, but had problems posting. I meated it out to be on topic)

    Movie Piracy, a quick primer.

    There exist two distribution networks for movies. One is the classical movie theater => dvd/vhs => pay-per-view => premium cable => network model, where movies first go to bigger markets and eventually (or not) trickle down to the smaller, foreign markets. The other is a underground model that taps at each of these sources and offers world wide distribution within a week.

    As a movie is produced, it goes through a couple basic steps: planning, filming, post production. One of the things studios use to view movies before they are completed is called a 'work reel'. It's a beta-version, if you will, of the movie, that studios show execs and backers before finishing the final copy. Pirate work reels are pretty rare, altough I recall 'Jay and Silent Bob' came out as a work reel.

    When the movie is completed, a few things happen: studios organize early screenings for critics - this is where 'cams' (pirate copies recorded on a DV camera off the screen) sometimes come from. A lot of movie theaters have to get the prints in at least a day or two before the premiere (just in case), a lot of them will have screenings for cinema staff at that time. Or the staff will just watch a movie while no one is looking.

    Most movie critics don't really want to be bothered to go to a cinema 5-10 times a week (or however many movies come out) so the studio sends them screeners. Screeners are usually VHS tapes, and the movies almost always have 'THIS MOVIE IS PROPERTY OF STUDIO XXX'. This is the source of a *lot* of movies, especially now that a lot of studios are releasing DVDs as screeners, knowing that a lot of reviewers prefer DVDs, hoping that it might get them a better rating.

    Even if all these holes have been plugged, and security was tight enough that no copies were leaked out till opening day, you still have opening day. As soon as the movie hits nationwide distribution you will have a pirate copy. Wether it's a kid in the audience with a camera or an employee who stays late and make a telesync (camera on tripod set at screen, sound pumped directly - via cable - from the sound system) a copy will get out.

    DVD's that come out early are usually leaked by magazine staff, or other reviewers, that get them in early. They can also be stolen out of a warehouse by staff there, whatever, there's a 100 different ways to get that DVD before it's offical release date.

    A lot of the 'professional' pirates pirate for money. These aren't kids ripping MP3s, this isn't my friend making divxes from his DVDs so he can keep them online to watch at any time. As soon as the DV (usually, a cam is the first thing to come out) is made, it's passed on to someone who converts it to VCD and ftps it to Asia where it is translated, subbed and produced. I wouldn't be surprised if the turnaround on a VCD is under 36 hours. And the screeners and cams that warez-scene groups release? They get 'em off the streets in Asia.

    Everyone here gets paid, from the guy with the DV camera, through the CD production plants, the vendor on the street and the corrupt cop who gets a little extra for not bugging the vendor. It's business, it's easy money. The supply chain is there, it's an industry. You can close down all the street vendors, go after all the factories. They'll do what multinational corporations do - move across borders, find new routes. The cost of destroying these operations far exceedes additional profits they will generate. Nobody in Asia's going to be paying $20-30 for a DVD 2 years after the movie was released in the states and no ammount of copy protection is going to stop it.

    A major problem with this model is that quality suffers, as location is to real estate, speed is to piracy. The bigger the production, the more pressure pirates are to get the movie out. I've seen all sorts of crazy stuff, these subtitles aren't actually that bad (you can turn them off). Pirates sell cams on DVDs, voice-over translations on dubbed movies (movie dubbed to german and voice over in russian), 'home made' voice overs (is that a kettle whistle in the background?), mislabled movies (classic), movies on VHS recorded over other movies, etc.

    The studios are in some kind of magical dreamland, thinking that they can force everyone to tap to their tune. They can't, it's not going to happen. Asia's market - 2.5-3 BILLION people - is huge compared to the US - 300 mln. Russia and eastern europe - where people are starting to afford the equipment and media - area always at least a few weeks behind. The premiere of LOTR:TTT in Warsaw was yesterday, only *six* weeks after the 'world wide premiere'. In that time, at least 3/4 of the die hard LOTR fans I know got the DVD screener (or divx made from it) and already saw it.

    There needs to be a new distribution model, just like in the music industry. Studios want control? Fine, they'll always be able to control the theaters (too much money) but I can't imagine a model in which they will destroy piracy. Hell, the only reason pirate DVDs are making the rounds so early these days is because of the studio's greed, sucking up to reviewers and Academy members is a business decission. I think most people watch movies because it's convinient, especially the DVD/VHS crowd. Protection of this kind of content will only come about with restrictions that will reduce convinience, and it'll make less people watch movies. It's a no win situation, the studios should quit their bullshit politics and make movies people will want to see, movies that'll make people want to get out of the house and go to the movies, instead of most of what's comming out now.

  29. Black text on black background by wheany · · Score: 2, Informative

    People might not have noticed, but there are the correct captions under every picture.

    It's just that the text is black. And on a black background.

  30. why the hidden links?? by emotioncafecom · · Score: 2, Interesting

    sharp fax machines | panasonic fax machines | sharp toner | fax machines At the bottom of the page are a bunch of links that are hidden from view...any ideas??? http://www.sharp-fax-machines.com/

  31. Not only bootlegs, official translations too... by fuxoft · · Score: 2, Interesting
    I work as a English movie translator (in the Czech Republic) and I put together a little page of things that appear in OFFICIAL translations of English movies in our theatres.

    That means people were PAID for this and EVERYONE who sees the movie in our country watches it like this.

    --

    --- Frantisek Fuka (Yes, that's my real name and you have no idea how it's pronounced)

  32. Best subtitle by XNormal · · Score: 2, Funny
    --
    Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
  33. For USD 2.50 a pop... by costas · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ... sources tell me that bootleg DVDs go for ~USD 2.50 a pop in the streets (and malls) of Hongkong. For the price of a happy meal for brand new, just-in-theaters movies (Chicago, The Recruit, etc) I'd take my chances.

    This of course bodes well for that company that's bringing the self-desctructable DVDs to market... if you would risk $3/disk for a bootleg that may not contain a viewable version of the movie, why not pay say $4 for a one-time use disk of the real thing?