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Emma Peel Color Season |
(The titles included at the top
of each comment are: the original in English and the translation of
the "official" Spanish title, respectively.) |
"The
Fear Merchants" / "The Terror Merchants"
Please, someone's needed to explain to these guys that fear and
terror are not synonyms! A simple literal translation had been
much more effective in this case, but... wait! There's a semantic problem
too. Both fear and terror are emotions. But while the
former is clearly associated as such, the latter is more frequently
used to talk about a general situation, not only in individuals but
also in social groups. A quick watching to the episode and you'll realize
the characters feel fear, not terror. In this story, Mr
Pemberton eliminates the competition with fear, taking advantage
of his victims' phobias. Perhaps the word terror stuck to these
translators because they thought Peter Cushing or Christopher Lee appeared
in, or the episode was a biopic of the Hammer's executives... No, too
many pleasthis is inexcusable! Mr. Pemberton, you only need to show
them an English-Spanish dictionary, and they'll go out of the window...
So we're a bit subtle, huh? Could be...
"The Hidden
Tiger" / "The Silent Tiger"
Enough said, folks, you really are the limit! Tell us, what's the matter
with you? Have you lost your glasses again? Or mistaken hidden
for silent? If you didn't wish to watch the episode, at least
you could have read some review about it. Had you done that, you'd have
learned that a tiger is hidden in domestic cats (metaphorically
speaking, of course), by any means is silent, and manifests itself
through a radio-controlled manipulation of the cats' brainwaves. But
who knows... Perhaps they'd have confused cat with rat,
and had ended up calling the episode The Silent Rat. Help!
"The Correct
Way To Kill" / "To Kill With Correctness"
An allegorical title for those who evidently cannot translate with
correctness. Or should we say their forte is To Translate With
Incorrectness? Maybe this is the correct way to... describe
them.
"The Superlative
Seven" / "The Magnificent Seven"
This isn't to tear the translators to shreds, but the title's not right
either. In fact the adjective magnificent used in place of superlative
sounds a little impulsive, since these words have different roots both
in English and Spanish, and it cannot be stated that they're synonyms.
Superlative refers to something qualitatively abundant, beyond
the norm, one of a kindlike each one of the seven guests to the island.
On the other hand, master Brian Clemens considered his audience* smart
enough as to notice a reference to the western "The Magnificent
Seven" with no need to use the same title; in addition, if he would
have done it, we speculate, he'd had some legal problem for using the
same title. Maybe the local network translated the episode as The
Magnificent Seven because they feared Argentine viewers didn't remember
that Hollywood movie... or they didn't understand the meaning of superlative
(a basic TV rule: not to alienate the publicthis is an irony, of course).
*While we're on the subject, some reservations about the esteem good
old Brian held for the public should be made, since he reused in
The Superlative Seven part of the idea for Dressed To Kill;
well, after all, no country aside from the UK had seen this episode...
"Never,
Never Say Die" / "Never Say Die"
Oh, Phillip Levene, a devotee of sci-fi, why did you bother emphasizing
never if, in 1999, someone would say that just one never was
enough? Don't worryas faithful defenders of your original intention,
we'll never, never accept this translation.
"You Have
Just Been Murdered" / "You Have Been Murdered"
This was okay, but... you ate the just, folks. Hadn't you undergone
this temporary indigestion, you'd have seen that at first the "murderer"
plays with his victims faking a killing. That's when he tosses a card
to them, that reads You Have Just Been Murdered.
"Death's
Door" / "At The Gates Of Death"
Hey, doesn't it sound like a lyrical title? Can't say these brilliant
guys are deprived of style. Only that poetry is not applicable to the
original title. You just need to watch the episode to see that the psychological
conditioning used on the victims was directed towards one single door.
"The Positive-Negative
Man" / "The Electric Man"
Yup, we know we're fussy... But let us suggest that a little bit of
effort into the translations, would lead to better results. Not that
this translation is poor, but it doesn't reflect the original title
at all. Every fan knows there's a rule in The Avengersnot to
call things by their name. If everything was so explicit in the series,
probably this episode would have been called The Electric Man;
likewise, The See-Through Man might have became The Invisible
Man. However, the authors decided on a little more bizarre, indirect
titles. Or do you think a literal translation of the title wouldn't
have sustained what we see in the episode? Maybe they didn't want viewers
thinking of that Positive-Negative Man as being a cyclotimic
character or something, who knows! Thanks, fellows, but we'd have preferred
you saved yourselves the bother of doing so.
"Murdersville"
/ "Death Town"
Hmmmm... let's see. Very smart of Clemens to entitle this episode just
like Jacksonville, in the States, or Bell Ville, in Argentina. But the
use of the suffix ville is interesting too. This play on words
is hard to translate appropriately, but all we can say, is that Death
Town is a poor attempt, mainly because murder isn't death,
but homicide. Murders Ville makes sense in Spanisheven
though the suffix ville as slang, does not. Hence, Murders
Ville could be a good choice. Or maybe Murder
Town, but never Death Town. |