Like a funny story told second-hand, apparently something about Guardians Of The Galaxy is being lost in translation. The movie, redubbed Interplanetary Unusual Attacking Team, opened this week in China, and although it pulled in a respectable $30 million on its opening weekend—bringing Guardians’ box-office total to over $700 million worldwide—ticket sales are expected to drop off sharply due to a number of people complaining about it on the Internet.
The culprit? Bad subtitles, provided by the same company that did a shitty job translating Pacific Rim—a movie set partially in Hong Kong—for Chinese audiences. The Hollywood Reporter quotes a popular Chinese social-media celebrity who had this to say about the film:
“Aside from a lot of mistranslations, the subtitles failed to show the original feel of the movie, such as jokes, puns and homophones. We cannot help but doubt the professionalism of the translator.”
In other words, it was no longer funny, and Chinese audiences aren’t big enough fans of The Raspberries to compensate. The fact that KIDdesigns, the company partnering with Marvel to make those dancing baby Groot toys, outsources its manufacturing to China probably doesn’t help. Who wants to be reminded of work during a movie about space pirates?
[via Uproxx]