Crimson Rivers - No subs on French commentary track? (1 Viewer)

[Mike Fetterly]

A friend of mine picked this up, and while the transfer is beautiful and it has a lot more extras than you'd expect, he had one complaint: The French commentary track had no subtitles! I did a search and no one seems to be talking about this.
Could he have a defective copy? It seems strange that Columbia would do this, Anatomy had a German commentary and they subtitled that...
mike

 

[Matt DeVillier]

Sadly the commentary is not subtitled (or my copy is defective too, but I doubt it). At least the French audio track is DD5.1 and not DD2.0 as originally announced
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[Sam Davatchi]

Why do you need subtitles?

 

[Mark McLeod]

Well if you can't speak or understand French then it makes it hard to understand the commentary. By not having subtitles on the commentary it limits the number of people who can enjoy it. After all I for one wouldn't listen to some guy commenting on his film for 2 hrs if I didn't understand the language he was speaking. Atleast with subtitles you can read what he is saying.
M.

 

[Ugo Scarlata]

Why do you need subtitles?

Bien dit! Et puisque les sous-titres ne servent à rien, il vaut mieux acheter la superbe édition française...
Well said! And since the subtitles are useless, we're better off with the French edition -- an excellent 2-disc set!

Salut,
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[Matthew Chmiel]

I guess if you want to listen to the commentary, you're going to need to learn French, eh?
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[Graeme Clark]

Do they usually include French subtitles for English commentaries?
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[Vincent Matis]

Do they usually include French subtitles for English commentaries?

Never on R1.

And only a very few extra features are subtitled in FR (Paramount is the only only sub. their extra)
Vincent
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[Craig Crane]

Following on from my other French DVD thread (http://www.hometheaterforum.com/uub/Forum15/HTML/032062.html#2
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I have gone into full French mode, so crack open a bottle of red and slice me some Saucisson!!!!!!!!!!!
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[Jussi Tarvainen]

It's a no-brainer: if there's a French language commentary track on an AMERICAN DVD release, it should definitely have subs.
[Edited last by Jussi Tarvainen on October 21, 2001 at 07:36 AM]

 

[Kyle Milligan]

Yeah it's kind of surprising that shortly after the release of Crimson Rivers, Columbia Tristar's Final Fantasy has a Japanese audio commentary that DOES have subtitles.
The French release of Crimson sounds awesome. I assume that it's R2.
Craig, care to have a look at this link and compare the specs to your French version? I'm really curious to know what else is different.
Maybe someone from France would chime in too. Was this movie absolutely huge? I loved it, just wondered how French audiences reacted.
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Kyle
www.toldyouso.net

 

[Sam Davatchi]

quote: I loved it, just wondered how French audiences reacted.[/quote]
Lukewarm. I don't know what is on the R1 DVD but on the R2 DVD there is a documentary where the cast and crew and the director himself confess for the multiple flaws of the movie and practically apologize! It's unlike anything you have seen before. It's very courageous and honest to mention the flaws that many time on a DVD that is supposed to promote the movie! This is what Lucas should have done on the TPM DVD, a one hour apology documentary!

[Edited last by Sam Davatchi on October 21, 2001 at 10:44 AM]

 

[Christopher D]

I've got to imagine that there's an error of some kind with the commentary track. I can't imagine that French-only audio was purposely included without translation, although it is possible they figured this could be more widely used in Canada.
I speak enough French that I considered the R2 version, but since there are no English subtitles on it at all, I passed.

 

[Hakan Powers]

I'm glad to hear that the R1 release has a french 5.1 track. Hopefully the sub-title situation will be sorted out though.
Has anyone heard anything from Columbia on this?

 

[Louis-Olivier]

"It's a no-brainer: if there's a French language commentary track on an AMERICAN DVD release, it should definitely have subs."
actually it's not an AMERICAN DVD it's a R1 DVD. It means it's for canada too. And if i follow your logic, all commentary tracks in english should have french subs also, because there's 7 millions of French Canadians, and a good part of them don't speak english....

 

[Ted Todorov]

I've got to imagine that there's an error of some kind with the commentary track. I can't imagine that French-only audio was purposely included without translation

Hey, count your blessings. At least the film itself is subtitled. Image released Christiane F. with no subtitles on the German track, figuring that including the truly atrocious English dub would be enough.
For an excellent example of disks done right, where ALL supplements including the commentary tracks are English subtitled, check out the first R2 Truffaut five DVD box set, which includes The Last Metro & Jules and Jim Link Removed
Ted

 

[Jeff Kleist]

actually it's not an AMERICAN DVD it's a R1 DVD. It means it's for canada too. And if i follow your logic, all commentary tracks in english should have french subs also, because there's 7 millions of French Canadians, and a good part of them don't speak english....

Forgive me my ignorace, but WHY? They live in a an English speaking country, surrounded on all sides by English speakers. If they don't want to speak English, because they insist on being French, fine. But when they can't watch their DVDs because of that, I say tough.
I get the impression from many of my Canadian friends that Quebec is seen as a bunch of whiners, is this true or am I way off base?
Jeff Kleist

 

[Ted Todorov]

They live in a an English speaking country

That, strictly speaking, is not true. Canada is officially a bilingual country and English holds no legal primacy over French. Would you describe Toronto or Vancouver residents as a bunch of whiners because they want English subs on French DVDs?
Ted

 

[Jason Seaver]

Forgive me my ignorace, but WHY? They live in a an English speaking country, surrounded on all sides by English speakers. If they don't want to speak English, because they insist on being French, fine. But when they can't watch their DVDs because of that, I say tough.

And their baseball team gets outdrawn by minor league teams! Why don't these transplanted frogs get with the program? Heck, why don't all Canadians just give it up and admit to really being Americans?

(Nice response to a guy from Montreal, Jeff)
The French Canadians are a distinct culture, and there's enough of them not only for Canada to be officially bilingual, but for it to be worth a studio's time to include french-language tracks/subtitles on their discs. The right to not be the same as your neighbor is part of what makes the US and Canada such exciting places to live.
For what it's worth, some French-Canadians probably don't speak English for the same reason I don't speak Spanish (or any of the half-dozen or so other languages I hear on a daily basis) - they grew up in francophone households/neighborhoods and can live their daily lives well enough without learning a second language.

 

[Louis-Olivier]

And don't forget that French Canadians were there before americans, and that canada (and quite possibly USA)would be entirely french if England didn't take the territory by force, killing innoncent people who just wanted to colonize a new world and live in peace.