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Backstroke of the West

(Redirected from Do Not Want)

Star War: The Third Gathers – The Backstroke of the West,[a] more commonly known as Backstroke of the West, is a 2005 Chinese bootleg DVD of the film Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith that became an internet meme for its poor machine-translated English subtitles. The bootleg first gained attention in June 2005 shortly after its release, when American blogger Jeremy Winterson purchased a copy at a Shanghai market and shared screenshots on his personal blog.

Star War: The Third Gathers – The Backstroke of the West
Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine in a dark room with timecodes at the top. The subtitle at the bottom reads "Do not want".
Screenshot from the bootleg showing the machine-translated subtitle "Do not want", a rendering of Darth Vader's "Nooooooo!" line
Simplified Chinese星球大战：第三集 - 西斯的反击
Hanyu Pinyinxīngqiú dàzhàn: dì sān jí - xīsī de fǎnjī
Directed byGeorge Lucas (original)
Written byGeorge Lucas (original)
Based onStar Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith
by George Lucas
Music byJohn Williams (original)
Release date
  • 2005 (2005)
Running time
140 minutes
Countries
  • China (bootleg)
  • United States (fandub)
LanguagesChinglish (machine-translated subtitles from Chinese)
English (fandub)

The literal machine translation from Chinese to English resulted in bizarre mistranslations, most notably renaming Anakin Skywalker to "Allah Gold", Obi-Wan Kenobi to "Ratio Tile", and the Jedi to "Hopeless Situation Warriors". Additionally, the resulting subtitles introduce random profanity and instances of Chinglish. A full-length English fandub of the film was produced for YouTube.

The bootleg is most famous for its translation of Darth Vader's climactic scream of "Nooooooo!", which was rendered in the subtitles as "Do not want". Following the fandub's wider circulation in early 2017, the bootleg received renewed attention from entertainment journalists, several of whom praised the quality of the voice acting and its unintentional comedic reworking of the film.

History

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Origin

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Xiangyang Market, pictured in 2006, and shut down that year

i saw revenge of the sith last weekend at a local theater with my friend joe who was in town on business. it was much better than the first two movies and a fitting end (err.. middle) to the star wars saga.

the next day i was walking past my friendly dvd salesperson and decided to check out revenge of the sith. i was assured the quality was good and for 7rmb[b] why not give it a shot.

— Jeremy Winterson, June 7, 2005[2]

American blogger Jeremy Winterson lived in Shanghai, China, as an expat for work in 2005, and purchased a bootleg DVD of Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith as part of a batch from a local street vendor along his commute.[3][4][5] Having shelved the DVD shortly after purchase, Winterson later credited his sister with rediscovering it and sparking his interest.[6]

Winterson stated he purchased the DVD at Xiangyang Market,[7] an open-air market in Shanghai known as a major hub for pirated and counterfeit goods.[8] The following year, in 2006, the market was permanently closed as part of a crackdown to improve the city's image.[9]

Following positive feedback from friends and family on Winterson's blog post about the bootleg, one of his friends shared it through a work mailing list, after which it became popular enough that Winterson's domain provider temporarily suspended his blog for exceeding its bandwidth limits.[10][11][12] Winterson's blog post was briefly mentioned in an official starwars.com blog post on June 17, 2005.[13]

Translation errors

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In a poorly machine-translated exchange, "Allah Gold" (left) informs "Ratio Tile" (right) that he was "made by the Presbyterian Church".

Winterson theorized the film's subtitles were first transcribed by hand into Chinese and then machine-translated back into English.[14][15] The machine translation often ignored structural differences between English and Chinese and produced literal translations of Chinese characters.[16][17]

Notable character and faction name changes include:

Reception and legacy

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A full-length fandub of the film was produced by the YouTube channel TheThirdGathers; the dub was later reposted, in full, by YouTube channel GratefulDeadpool on February 14, 2016.[24][25][c] The English fandub received wider attention from entertainment journalists in January 2017, with some viewing it as an unintentional and comedic improvement over the original film. The Hollywood Reporter called the redub a "fan-made masterpiece" that did "the unthinkable" by making the film "cool",[27] while Uproxx declared it a "vastly superior movie".[28] The A.V. Club described the "legendarily bad Chinese dub" as the "best version of the Star Wars prequels," writing that it made the film "watchable by making [it] even less sensible".[29]

The machine translation inadvertently introduces "fuck" and other profane words into the subtitles.

SlashFilm described the machine-translated script as a "beautiful monstrosity" and "kind of magical", declaring it "the only version of this movie I ever want to watch".[30] Noting its unintentional comedy and the mixed reception of the prequel trilogy films, Nerdist stated it allowed fans to enjoy the film as a "bizarre, sometimes incoherent comedy,"[31] and Gizmodo declared it "gloriousness defined" and "basically the greatest thing on Earth."[32] Several journalists further noted the quality of the fandub cast's voice acting.[33][34]

Journalists highlighted specific bizarre mistranslations, such as General Grievous commanding troops to "batter to death them",[35] and random use of the word "fuck" and other profanity, which Inverse stated made the otherwise "squeaky-clean" film "weird and enjoyable".[36] The bootleg is best known for the mistranslation of Darth Vader's climactic scream of "Nooooooo!", into "Do not want", upon learning about the death of his wife, Padmé Amidala.[37][38][39] Inverse attributed this to the lack of "an equivalent word for 'no'" in Chinese, with the machine translation instead using the "negative tense of a verb" based on the scene's context.[40]

See also

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Notes

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  1. ↑ The full title as it appears in the bootleg's machine-translated subtitles
  2. ↑ 7 RMB was roughly equivalent to US$0.85 in June 2005.[1]
  3. ↑ Gizmodo states the following: "Clarification: The video was reportedly first made in 2006, but was most recently put on YouTube in 2016."[26] The reason and source for the dating are unattributed.

References

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  1. ↑ FRED, "Chinese Yuan Renminbi to One U.S. Dollar"; "2005-06-01 8.2765"
  2. ↑ Winterson 2005
  3. ↑ Glennon 2020, "In 2005, a fellow by the name of Jeremy Winterson bought a bootleg of the movie in Shanghai and noticed something amiss with the English subtitles."
  4. ↑ Winterson 2009, "a couple of years ago when i was living in shanghai i bought a revenge of the sith dvd off the street."
  5. ↑ MendicantECT 2020, 1:42–2:35
  6. ↑ MendicantECT 2020, 16:09–16:59
  7. ↑ Winterson 2005, "Time Bandit said... where can i find this dvd???"; "jeremy said... ... time bandit- i found this copy in the xiang yang market."
  8. ↑ SCMP 2006, "... about 80 per cent of Shanghai's piracy cases originated from the market."; "... the market would be closed after the failure of repeated crackdowns on sales of fake products."
  9. ↑ Taipei Times 2006, "The famous Xiangyang market closed for good yesterday, the victim of a crackdown by authorities on the rampant piracy of brand-name items"; "... as the city tries to spruce up its image."
  10. ↑ Glennon 2020, "When he shared a bunch of screenshots online, Backstroke of the West became a viral phenomenon among Star Wars fans."
  11. ↑ Winterson 2005, "Adam Edwards said... Wow. I am sending this to our Star Wars mailing list at the office."; "jeremy said... what can i say guys. this definitely got way past adam's office star wars mailing list."
  12. ↑ MendicantECT 2020, 2:53–4:15
  13. ↑ Burton 2005, "In this site, one of our fans blogs about coming across a Chinese bootleg copy of the film with very, very misleading English subtitles. ... Check it out here.
  14. ↑ Winterson 2009, "i figured out that a chinese pirate had originally tried to listen to the movie in english and wrote in chinese what he thought he heard- this was then translated back by machine into english."
  15. ↑ Glennon 2020, "Essentially, the English dialogue had been ... translated to Chinese, then auto-translated ... back into English."
  16. ↑ Hall 2017, "(which don't account for the many, many differences between Mandarin and English)"
  17. ↑ Alexander 2017, "... the bad translations are the result of a "machine translation of the Chinese script to ROTS ..."
  18. ↑ Hall 2017, "... and Anakin Skywalker being called Allah Gold, ..."
  19. ↑ Liberman 2017, ""Ratio tile, the wish power are together with you" (="Obi Wan, may the Force be with you")"
  20. ↑ Hall 2017, "It's very silly to see Palpatine referred to as Speaker D ..."
  21. ↑ Glennon 2020, "Anakin and Obi-Wan are referred to as a "hopeless situation warriors" instead of Jedi Knights."
  22. ↑ Liberman 2017, "I was just made by the Presbyterian Church" (= Jedi Council)"
  23. ↑ Glennon 2020, "Weirdly, Backstroke of the West also occasionally refers to Jedi as "hopeless situation Presbyterians,""
  24. ↑ GratefulDeadpool 2016, "February 14, 2016 ... Dubbed by TheThirdGathers ... I synced the subtitles and the dub to HD video of Revenge of the Sith."
  25. ↑ Paur 2017, "Dubbed by TheThirdGathers"
  26. ↑ Elderkin 2017
  27. ↑ Shanley 2017, "... Is a Fan-Made Masterpiece"; "... has done the unthinkable: He's made Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith cool."
  28. ↑ Reading 2017, "'Revenge Of The Sith' Dubbed With A Chinese Bootleg's Subtitles Is A Vastly Superior Movie"
  29. ↑ Purdom 2017, "The best version of the Star Wars prequels is still the legendarily bad Chinese dub"; "But one of their most legendary forms makes them watchable by making them even less sensible, ..."
  30. ↑ Hall 2017, "... well, it's kind of magical."; "... now this is the only version of this movie I ever want to watch."; "... the machine-translated subtitles ... created a beautiful monstrosity."
  31. ↑ Rossignol 2017, "Now fans can enjoy one of their least favorite Star Wars flicks as a bizarre, sometimes incoherent comedy."
  32. ↑ Elderkin 2017, "It's basically the greatest thing on Earth."; "Seriously, nothing about that isn't gloriousness defined."
  33. ↑ Purdom 2017, "As read by voice actors who do surprisingly accurate impression of Ewan McGregor, Hayden Christensen, and the rest ..."
  34. ↑ Glennon 2020, "The voice work is surprisingly bang-on, and even the characters who aren't an exact match are funny enough to let you roll with it."
  35. ↑ Reading 2017, "Among the ridiculous translations are General Grievous repeatedly commanding his underlings to "batter to death them!""
  36. ↑ Glennon 2020, "... the Star Wars movies were pretty squeaky-clean ..."; "Even in the first few minutes, Obi-Wan's out here dropping F-bombs at random droids."; "There's not a ton of profanity in here, but it crops up in the oddest of places, ..."
  37. ↑ SCMP 2016, "The climax of the film—when Anakin-as-Darth Vader finds out that Padme has died—is possibly the most climactic climax of the entire trilogy ..."
  38. ↑ Hall 2017, "This bootleg is most well-known for the line "Do not want," a mistranslation of Darth Vader's widely parodied "Noooooo!""
  39. ↑ Alexander 2017, "The bootleg version also includes the infamously bad subtitled version of Darth Vader's iconic "Nooooooo," which was replaced with, "Do not want.""
  40. ↑ Glennon 2020, "Chinese doesn't have an equivalent word for "no." Instead, speakers often use the negative tense of a verb based on the context of the conversation."

Works cited

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