Interesting

[karohemd]

I'm back to watching TOS in German with the occasional language switch. While doing the latter, I accidentally changed/activated the subtitles and realised that the German dub and subtitles occasionally differ quite drastically. The subtitles are a direct translation of the English dialogue while the audio takes quite a few liberties. The dub also has some really odd errors. I'm watching Amok Time and Pille (Bones) says that they need to get Spock to Vulcan within 8 light days or he'd die. (in the original it's "a week, eight days on the outside" and the subtitles translate this correctly). "Light days" is obviously a unit of distance, not time. Obviously, George Lucas made the same mistake when he let Han say that he'd made the Kessel Run in eight parsecs.(Apparently, this has been disproven.)

ETA: I thought something was odd with the voices in the part when Spock talks to Kirk about Pon Farr. I hadn't remembered this (it's been, what, 25 years) but Memory-Alpha mentioned that the content of the German dub had been changed to avoid mentioning procreation (odd, that, for Germany, really).
So they redubbed it in this edition but made the mistake of referring to the dream thing in McCoy's dialogue after they're back on the Enterprise.

Comments

[fractalgeek.livejournal.com]

Sometimes dubbers use odd phrasing to fit the mouth movements better; this obviously doesn't need to be done with subtitles.

?

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

No, the dub is completely different in meaning in places.

For example, when McCoy objects to Kirk and Spock fighting, in the German dub, T'Pau says "How dare you interfere. Shut up!" ("I can forgive such a display only once" in the original.) This particular bit is also a break in style. Before, T'Pau uses the archaic formal form of address while in this scene the modern informal. This break doesn't happen in the English.

However, this episode might be a bad example due to the ETA above. I'll have to conduct a few more experiments. :)