The dubbed versions of Hollywood films created by Dmitry Puchkov—known as Senior Police Detective Goblin, or Goblin for short—are much sought after by connoisseurs of Russian swearing, according to this story by Carl Schreck in the Moscow Times.
Damn, shoot, darn, hell.
Watch the standard Russian translation of Guy Ritchie’s 2001 crime caper “Snatch” and you’d think that these are the foulest words known to gangsters in London’s criminal underworld.
But watch Dmitry Puchkov’s Russian translation of the same film and you’ll hear an array of expletives that would make a sailor blush. Puchkov even changed the Russian title—”Bolshoi Kush,” or “Big Score”—to an extremely crude, if justifiably accurate, variant: “Spizdili.”
While sex and violence are accepted components of Russian movies, profanity is still a major taboo. Puchkov’s unique obscenity-laden translations of English-language movies have made him one of the hottest commodities on Russia’s gigantic pirate movie market.
But he doesn’t limit himself to translation in the strict sense:
By far, the Goblin films most in demand are Puchkov’s farcical translations of the first two “Lord of the Rings” films. He has translated the first film, “The Fellowship of the Ring,” as “Bratva i Koltso,” or “The Posse and the Ring,” and the second film, “Two Towers,” as “Dve Sorvanniye Bashni,” or “Two Toppled Towers,” a play on a Russian expression meaning to go crazy.
Puchkov sets J.R.R. Tolkien’s tale in Russia and re-christens several characters with comical Russified names. For example, Frodo Baggins is renamed Fyodor Sumkin (from the Russian word sumka, or bag), and Gollum is renamed Goly, the Russian word for “naked.”
The films feature some obscene banter, conversations about newly built McDonald’s restaurants and a soundtrack including songs from Tatu and Zemfira, among others.
He is, needless to say, likely to be sued, and he admits his activities “may come to an end soon, assuming a studio doesn’t decide to hire him to translate the movies for which it has legal distribution rights.” I just hope I get a chance to experience the fruits of his genius. (Thanks to Taccuino di traduzione, the new translation blog of Isabella Massardo, for the link.)
Update. See this digenis.org post for further developments (as of May 2005):
So, now that Puchkov has been snatched up by the studios to create legitimate translations of their films, will he stop altogether creating spoofs like the ones that built up his popularity? It doesn’t look like it. In fact, Puchkov announced that he will continue to make these hilarious translations under the project called Bozhya Iskra (The Divine Spark), a side project of his main company Polny P.
For the most part, the public loves him. Even Leonid Volodarsky, arguably the most famous translator of modern films into Russian, thinks well of Goblin. My guess is that we’ll see Puchkov doing a lot more official dubbings of films – perhaps he’ll even expand into some different genres.
Have you seen Goblin’s site, http://oper.ru?
No, I hadn’t; thanks! Here‘s the direct link; towards the bottom of the page there’s a selection of howlers from someone else’s translation of Dr. Strangelove, e.g.:
– The hatch is stuck!
– Пробит бензобак! [‘The gas tank is punctured!’]
It was an interesting shock for me to realise that the ‘Magic Roundabout’ table-top animation series for children popular on television in Britain in the late 60s and early 70s was actually French in origin, and that much of the narration in English changed the original adventures and introduced new elements.
A French friend told me that Dougal in the French version spoke strongly English-accented French in a way that apparently the French find rather lovable.
Has anyone here seen the astonishing feature-film version ‘Dougal and the Blue Cat’?
Yes… the “translations” of The Magic Roundabout by Eric Thompson had a major revival in the late 90s in the UK. Audio tapes of the scripts read by a well-known actor and books of the scripts were very popular. This was almost undoubtedly because of the theory that he wrote each character as though it were under the influence of a different drug.
I think translation is a misnoma because as I understand it, Eric Thompson completely disregarded the orginal French scripts and wrote only to match the animation. His scripts are very funny and appeal to adults as much as children.
There’s more in the wikipedia entry.
When I was very young my father went to France on business and brought me back a “Dougle” (called Pollux in France). It was my first and best loved merchandising tie-in.
i have seen “dougal and the blue cat” on a biggish screen in the company of many students who strove to outdo each other in knowing chortling at the drugs “references”. I quite liked the film, even then.
Well it’s about time the Goblins got to tell their side of the story, they way Tolkien smeared them!
hehe, just watch latest Goblin’s mind work – Smatrix (Matrix with alternative (parody style) translation) – that one kicks ass 😉 I hope someone will translate it for you in english, becouse most americans dont understand russian. Peace!
Sometimes it’s disgusting… But it’s so funny that I can’t critisize it :))
BEst MOVIES IN THE WORLD:
SO FUCKING FUNNY SO I DONT NOW…HAHAH
JUST CREATED OF A MASTER BY HIS OWN HEAD….
Lord of the rings, goblins edition is amazingly funny my friends said, who have seen it some where, and they cant show me. I have searched all over the interent to see where i can buy it or download from a certain site.I CANT FIND IT ANYWHERE!!! I also downloaded limewire and try searching but it still didnt work . So if anyone knows the answer to my problem pleazzzzz email me . My email is ilia_medved@hotmail.com I AM VERY DESPERITE TO SEE THE MOVIE!!!!!
:] very funny film :]
There I can buy new CD DVD movies with Goblin translation? Link please
No idea, but thanks for reviving this thread; Puchkov now has a detailed Wikipedia article, ending (rather hilariously) “Puchkov is an avid reader and maintains a large personal library.”
I just watched a 46-minute youtube video about a computer game Puchkov made in 2006. [Note: may be offensive on various levels.] At some point his film translations were mentioned, and I realized it was the same person covered in this post.