""Generation War" Series WW2 " Topic

I like it, you may, too. German It is a 3 episode series. Each episode is 1:30 long.

See trailer below:

YouTube link

It's available on Netflix in the UK and is definitely on the list to watch.

Yes, it is worth a watch.

I watched the 1st part and English subtitles were very bad. I do not speak German and I had a feeling. I called my German friend and he agreed. And I also had to read, instead of watching expressions on actors faces and backgrounds! In civilized countries they professionally dub…

It's not a great film with very badly done subtitles. Do not watch it.

Personally I'd much rather have subtitles (however awful) and hear it in the original language.

Dubbing seems particularly popular in some European countries, with unintentionally hilarious results when the voiceover artists are somewhat…inappropriate.

"In civilized countries they professionally dub…"

I have rarely ever seen anything with well done dubbing. I greatly enjoy subtitled movies and find I am quite capable of both reading them and watching the film at the same time. In fact, at the end of a really good subtitled movie I find I remember it as if the actors had actually been speaking English.

Subtitles are what true "civilized" countries use… 8)=

I've only seen two very good examples of dubbing. One was a Studio Ghibli film, and the other was Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. For the second one, I believe they made an effort to adjust the script to the speech patterns of the original.

Apart from those examples, I'll always prefer subtitles! Those of us in truly civilised countries don't mind a bit of reading!

Another vote for the sub-titles over dubbing.

Here in USA, we don't have a culture of professionally done subtitles. In other countries, they do. You just had no good experience with them. Coming from foreign country I did have a good experience with dubbing. If you check a back of your DVD you may see that many foreign films are dubbed in 2, 3 or more languages, but not English.

As an experiment I watched one of my favorite films, Matrix, dubbed in Russian. It was excellent, even voice inflections were done perfectly.

I can give you many some BS subtitles in "Generation War".

First of all, the original name of the film is "Our Fathers, Our Mothers" – much better name, why change it?

Second, in the scene where Jewish civilians were rounded up and killed, subtitles said "Helpers", where in German it was really said "Ukrainians". I only noticed it because of armbands. I think the change is significant, especially in light of today's politics.

Third, when one of the main characters was bitten up by his out men he was sent to "sick bay". In this case a very silly translation for "hospital".

Those are 3 that I noticed. I am sure that German speaking viewers would find many more.

> "Our Fathers, Our Mothers" – much better name, why change it?

For almost any English speaking country it is not going to be about "Our Fathers, Our Mothers" would be my guess. Possibly causing a backlash due to the name. If I were in charge I would have simply added a subtitle along the lines of "WWII from a German perspective"

As for the others, you really need a GOOD translator for these things. Preferably a team consisting of bilingual people some of which are native speakers of the language being translated from and others who are native speakers in the language being translated to.

I watched many professionally dubbed anime with subtitles on and noticed that most of the spoken dialogue and subtitles don't even match.

Have always preferred sub-titles over dubbing, nearly died of laughter watching the original Star Trek dubbed into German.

Having watched this series when it was aired in the UK I can tell you that it won't tell you anything you don't know about war, tactics, strategy or anything else vaguely in the remit of what wargamers seem to want.

What it is, is an interesting mini series which has a lot of the feel of authenticity to it when presenting WWII from the German perspective.

It's a cameo piece which, with its title, has clearly allowed some Germans to address with their mothers and fathers went through. Potentially this is a particularly German issue. None of the rest of us have the collective guilt which comes with the Third Reich. As a result for me, as a Brit watching this, I enjoyed it as a view from somewhere I had never been. And from that perspective it was interesting, if a little predictable.

As to "don't watch this" because of the sub-titles, I would suggest that you watch it and make your own decision. There are some translation issues, but ultimately there is nothing terrible about this mini-series.

Perfect, no. Good, yes.

Mostly it is a German soap with WW2 as a backdrop. I like subs rather than dubs no matter how well done. They do make errors. Nobody's perfect I suppose. All in all a show with some Eastern front fighting which isn't too bad. It touches on all the main elements of the WW2 -annihilation of Jews, Eastern front German demise and the Reich's "take the world" obsession. Not for heavy duty WW2 buffs I don't think. It is available on Netflix so you can watch for yourself.

> it won't tell you anything you don't know about war

I learned that the Russians had Panzerfausts when the Germans didn't…

Some technical and other issues aside it was a decent show.

I also like it. We use subtitles in our home a lot -- the kids are in bed but maybe not asleep, so we load a movie in and turn the volume down.

I find the German style refreshingly different. Watching Friedhelm Winter sometimes wear an officer's cap, and sometimes wear a helmet … I just think an American movie would put him in one hat and one hat only, so as to maintain an image and not confuse the viewer who they're watching. This show seemed more realistic in that way -- you don't go into a gun fight wearing a cloth cap.

And heck, we got to see digital Tiger tanks drive past. Almost worth the price of admission, right there.

Like Dynaman says, if you're going to dub, you have to do it professionally. And dub or subtitle, you need military background for the translators.

We watched the 1959 German movie "Stalingrad" last month and the subtitling confused Oberleutnant and Oberstleutnant, which led to weird situations in which supposedly a Lieutenant Colonel was taking orders from a major who was his boss, all because the translators were sloppy or not knowledgeable about the difference between a first lieutenant and a lieutenant colonel.

(And as an aside): The Germans do so much dubbing, they are excellent at it. The movie "Wayne's World" actually made every joke work, because they used topical German jokes instead of the jokes in the movie, which wouldn't have worked for a German audience. But they dub lots of movies, so the market for it is mature.

Watched the 2014 Stalingrad in dub, then in subtitle. The dub was apparantly down with clown school rejects. If you are going to go that direction, why not hire a pro, Crusty? Subtitle was the best. But for a moment at the opening there was Japanese being filtered into Russian, and then given to us in subtitle. Weird.