Soviet Storm - Russian documentary destroyed by translation

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timotheus1
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Joined: 09 Mar 2014, 01:53

Soviet Storm - Russian documentary destroyed by translation

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Post by timotheus1 » 09 Mar 2014, 02:07

Long time lurker, then poster, then one who lost the account info :lol:

I was watching the "Soviet Storm", "The Great War" modern Russian documentary about WW2 translated and made palatable for the English speaking world... And it was horrible.

First, I noticed that the scenes with a Russian historian were totally cut out, in which he went in depth into the grand political situation or explained what was happening on the ground. That's roughly 20% of the series gone, and the most interesting bits, too.

Then, I noticed that many, MANY things were mistranslated or just left out or that the action on the screen totally did not gel with what was talked about by the inane English speaker narrator.

For example, a drawing where the Shturmovik was shown over a German 88mm anti aircraft gun. In the original version, it was said that the plane was armored to withstand light, fast turning AA like machine guns and 20mm cannon, and was hard to hit while flying 25-50m over the ground, it was almost impossible to hit with AA ground weapons that could really hurt it, like heavier German AA guns (hence the drawing of a heavy German AA gun and the Shturmovik flying over it).

In the English version, that is totally skipped over, some mumbling over the plane being armored and that's it.


Or the episode about Crimea - the Russian narrator goes into Hitler's fear for the Ploesti oil fields and that is why the attack on Crimea was improvised by the Wehrmacht, as originally it was not included in the Barbarossa plans. More, I remember the film showing a drawing on how many gallons of oil was produced in Romania, and how much % of it was part of total German usage.

In the English version, the narrator just says "the attack on Crimea was not originally included in the Barbarossa plans" and there is no mention of oil, and the Germans attacked Crimea 'just because they felt like it', I suppose.... as the original Russian graphic shows a Soviet bomber attacking Ploesti in 1941.

There are many, MANY more examples of total misinformation, lies and/or bad translations and content cut.

Question is: WHY?

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