Star Wars - why no subtitles?

[Bry_Sinclair]

This is something that has always kinda bothered me about the Star Wars films. Why is it, when the likes of Chewie or R2 are "talking" their lines aren't subtitled on the screen, so the audience can read from themselves what is being said?

How dialogue is wasted with 3PO and Han translating for us?

Does anyone know?

 

[The Old Mixer]

I think that in the cases of Artoo and Chewie, the way they say things is often very readable and part of their characters. Something would be lost if you could see a matter-of-fact translation of exactly what they're supposed to be saying.

 

[Out Of My Vulcan Mind]

The way it's done is much more charming than subtitles would be.

 

[Timewalker]

The movies would have lost a lot of their humor if we hadn't seen the other characters' reactions to them (and the translations they offered).

 

[Skywalker]

We don't actually need to know what they say. The other characters' reactions provide plenty of context.

 

[Owain Taggart]

Agreed. It's more about the emotion of characters rather than what they're saying. Kind of like how you don't really need to know what a mime says to understand. The dialogue is just an aside to the entire scene. R2 could be speaking Chinese and it wouldn't matter. Now with Jabba, that's a different story as we're supposed to get the extent of why he's in trouble.

 

[Tosk]

And if they were to go in and put subtitles for R2 and Chewie now, it would make some of their scenes seem almost silly because the 3PO/Han dialogue is written very specifically to cover both sides of the conversation already.

Of course, seeing as the Jabba scene from SW4 is a complete rehash of the revised Greedo scene, we know now-George doesn't give a shit about boring redundancies.

 

[ManOnTheWave]

Young Lucas was an experimental film maker and liked the idea of characters who communicated just through tone and body language.

 

[Trekker4747]

I have a 300-baud modem installed in my brain. I understood everything R2 said perfectly.

 

[Pondwater]

We don't actually need to know what they say. The other characters' reactions provide plenty of context.

I think this as well.

And they did have C3PO.

 

[Gaith]

Why dontcha make a fan edit where you add in said subtitles; you'll get the answer to your own query.

 

[AgentCoop]

And if you go back and watch the movies again, you'll notice that they actually don't waste a lot of dialogue having Han or C-3PO translate. It's usually more like:

Chewie: *growls*
Han: Boy, you said it Chewie.

It's very broad-strokes and dependant on context. Works really well, IMO.

 

[Trekker4747]

You know, Han just doesn't strike me as the type who would've spent what would have been undoubtedly a long time in school learning Wookie.

 

[AgentCoop]

^Han's a smuggler. He deals with races all over the galaxy. Knowing their languages is a survival skill.

Besides, the ubiquity of protocol droids notwithstanding, people in the SW universe seem to have a knack for languages.

 

[Trekker4747]

I wonder if they just have something akin to a Universal Translator.

 

[Nerys Myk]

^Han's a smuggler. He deals with races all over the galaxy. Knowing their languages is a survival skill.

Yep, he and Greedo have no problem understanding each other.

I wonder if they just have something akin to a Universal Translator.

Yes and it speaks Bocce,

 

[Gaith]

This is something that has always kinda bothered me about the Star Wars films. Why is it, when the likes of Chewie or R2 are "talking" their lines aren't subtitled on the screen, so the audience can read from themselves what is being said?

How dialogue is wasted with 3PO and Han translating for us?

Does anyone know?

Next you'll be saying that Rear Window could use an opening narration!

 

[Mr. Adventure]

We used to have an old joke that Luke never understood anything R2 said and was just delusional.

However, if Han bothered to learn Rodian apparently I'd say he understands Chewie.

 

[AgentCoop]

^I've gotta be the ubernerd here. Greedo isn't speaking Rodian in that scene, he's speaking Huttese. The same language spoken by Jabba and one of the primary trade languages in the galaxy.

 

[Trekker4747]

^I've gotta be the ubernerd here. Greedo isn't speaking Rodian in that scene, he's speaking Huttese. The same language spoken by Jabba and one of the primary trade languages in the galaxy.

Okay, that's pretty ubernerdy, that deserves some points. Let me punch your card. One more obscure factoid like that and you win a free sub!