Cut and Paste Translation: Difference between revisions

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
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(Replaced content with "{{trope}} Sometimes when works are translated elsewhere, major changes are made to it, from the scripts to editing the footage. The usual reason is to make it more accessible to the audience for the localization, but avoiding Values Dissonance is also a common reason. Another reason is that syndication rules in the US require 65 episodes (until perhaps recently), and that is rare in other countries' shows save for Long Runners, so the best solution was cuttin...")
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== Comic Books ==
* ''[[Asterix]]'' was first translated into German by Rolf Kauka, who changed the Gauls into Germanics, naming them "Siggi und Barabbas" instead. When Nationality Confusion ensued in the book ''Asterix and the Goths'' (no, not [[Goth|those]]), Kauka made the Goths "Eastern Goths", depicting them as Communists from [[East Germany]]. The [[Macekre]] came to its end when he made [[The Dragon]] of ''The Golden Sickle'' (who {{spoiler|kidnapped the sickle maker and}} sold overpriced golden sickles) speak with a Jewish accent. [[Rene Goscinny|Goscinny]] was enraged after reading the re-translated comic and forbade Kauka further translations.
** ''Asterix'' also underwent this in its first ever English translations for the UK market—where the Gauls were transformed into ''ancient Britons''. Before the Anthea Bell and Derek Hockridge albums, two separate children's magazines printed a few storylines where Asterix and Obelix were known as "Little Fred and Big Ed" and "Beric the Bold and the Son of Boadicea".

== Film ==
* [[Fritz Lang]]'s ''[[Metropolis]]'' was [[Macekre]]d originally on its American release, with the American distributor publicly priding themselves on having essentially chopped it up and rewritten it; leading to much of the film being [[Missing Episode|lost for a century]]... It has now been found.
* Quite a few of the ''[[Godzilla]]'' movies, beginning with inserting Raymond Burr into ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'', but contrary to popular belief, King Kong won in the Japanese ''and'' American versions of ''Godzilla vs. King Kong''. The 1954 original is surprisingly excellent in its unadulterated, non-dubbed form. ''Godzilla 2000'' received a [[Gag Dub]] from Tri-Star, as the original version was regarded to be slow-paced and dull.
* Godfrey Ho was infamous for getting cheap, low-budget Hong Kong films, cutting them to ribbons, and inserting new footage featuring Caucasian actors for distribution in the West. Among his films are ''Ninja Thunderbolt'', ''Clash of the Ninjas'', ''Full Metal Ninja'', and ''Zombie Vs. Ninja'' (notice a theme?). He's also done it at least once in the other direction, adding new footage using Asian actors to the Cynthia Rothrock vehicle ''Undefeatable'' to create the movie ''Bloody Mary Killer'' for distribution in China.
* Woody Allen's ''What's Up, Tiger Lily?'' and Steve Oedekerk's ''Kung Pow!: Enter the Fist'' are what happens when the Cut and Paste Translation is combined with the [[Gag Dub]] and played entirely for comedy.
* ''[[wikipedia:Master with Cracked Fingers|Master with Cracked Fingers]]'' was a 1979 film cut together from different early [[Jackie Chan]] films, as a means to cash in on his rising fame. It primarily took footage from the little-seen 1973 film ''Little Tiger of Canton'', but featured several newly-filmed scenes with a [[Fake Shemp|double]] playing Jackie's character (badly disguised with a blindfold).

== Literature ==
* The translation of [[The Bible]] directed by King James the 1st of England is the [[Ur Example]]. Instructions were given to the translators to make sure the translation supported the views of the Church of England.
** Interestingly enough, many [[The Fundamentalist|fundamentalist]] Christians claim that the King James version is the only true translation of [[The Bible]], and all other translations have been [[Macekre]]d by [[Satan]] himself. The movement is named [[wikipedia:King James Only movement|King James Only]] and ''some'' advocates go [[Up to Eleven]] saying that the English King James is a new superior revelation that ''replaces'' the Bible in all languages, including the originals.
** The King James Version wasn't [[Macekre]]d enough, apparently. For instance, the original New Testament denounces ''malakoi''. ''Malakos'' is Greek for "soft". Many Greeks saw luxury as "weakening", while spartan conditions made men strong, hence the word "spartan". It's denouncing the rich! The KJV translated it as "effeminate". 20th-century translations, being what they were, further [[Macekre]]d "effeminate" into "homosexual", keeping with [[Science Marches On|the psychiatric theories of the time]]. The Old Testament still denounces men who "lie with men [[Uke|as with women]]"; take what you will from that. Of course, many fundamentalists have no problem citing different Bibles to fit their political views, making for a ''literal'' Cut and Paste Translation.
** There's also teetotaller translations which selectively translate the same word as either "wine" or "unfermented grape juice" depending on whether the context of the rest of the line is speaking of it as pleasurable or warning against the dangers of overindulging (where "overindulging" is, for these congregations, defined as "imbibing at all").
** There is also research suggesting that translations of the Bible are almost perfect translations of extant copies of the Old Testament and a few New Testament passages such as what are found in the Dead Sea Scrolls and these translations are actually within 90% accuracy from the originals.
*** This is odd research, considering there are no "New Testament passages" in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Also, a 90% accuracy rate means one-tenth of the work is inaccurate.
* Matthew Ward's English translation of ''[[The Stranger]]'' (currently the most popular one in America) spends some time bashing Stuart Gilbert's (which before his was the ''only'' one available in America.) In the original French, and in Ward's version, the narrator begins as a [[Terse Talker]] in the vein of an [[Ernest Hemingway]] protagonist, then becomes oddly lyrical after going to jail. Gilbert essentially turns him British, and incidentally rewrites some of his [[Cloudcuckoolander|odder]] comments to sound more conventional.
* Used in-story in [[Ayn Rand]]'s ''[[We The Living]]'', where Kira and Leo go to see a movie called ''The Golden Octopus'', which is a laughably censored American film with obviously different-looking Russian footage added at the beginning.
* The one extant translation of [[Stanislaw Lem]]'s ''[[Solaris]]'' into English was based on a French translation rather than the original Polish novel, and suffered accordingly. Lem, who was fluent in English, vocally disapproved of the double translation, but the rights to the novel belong to his Polish publisher and they have thus far had no interest in commissioning another.
* This sort of thing happened even before animation itself: In the 19th century, the works of [[Jules Verne]] got altered drastically when translated into English, generally by utterly incompetent people who made basic mistakes and replaced all of the greatly-detailed (albeit [[Science Marches On|outdated]]) science with ''even worse'' scientific and mathematical errors, and often cut out entire chapters. The most [[All the Tropes Wiki Drinking Game|egregious]] example is quite possibly an early translation of ''[[Journey to the Center of the Earth]]'', which is [[Sarcasm Mode|affectionately]] known as the "Hardwigg version" among [[Overly Narrow Superlative|people who care]], after the [[Dub Name Change|Translation Name Change]] of [[The Professor]]. It changed the writing style of the novel ''completely.''
* The German translation of Terry Pratchett's ''[[Good Omens]]'' completely omits the homosexual content about Aziraphale: "gayer than a tree full of monkeys high on nitrous oxide" becomes "whimsical (verschmitzt) as a tree full of monkeys" which doesn't really make sense. Also, Shadwell's "Southern Pansy" becomes something else entirely. It's not really clear why, because neither are those lines likely to be offensive nor is German society extra sensitive about homosexuality.

== Live-Action TV ==
* ''[[Super Sentai]]'' to ''[[Power Rangers]]'', with the battle footage spliced into entirely new stories. The first three seasons of the latter took three completely seperate seasons of the former and reworked it into one "[[Story Arc|mega-arc]]", and the later incarnations seem to only be superficially similar to their originals, with the motives of the characters and some story elements being completely changed. Of course, ''[[Power Rangers]]'' was never intended and doesn't claim to be a dub/reenactment of its ''[[Super Sentai]]'' parent, despite borrowing suits and battle footage.
** It should also be noted that certain ''Power Rangers'' seasons have stuck decidedly close to their source material, like ''[[Power Rangers Time Force]]'' sticking to ''[[Mirai Sentai Timeranger]]'''s original plot or more drastically, the [[Shot for Shot Remake|Shot For Shot Remakes]] ''[[Power Rangers Wild Force]]'' and ''[[Power Rangers Samurai]]''. Others have had varying levels of similarity, such as ''[[Gekisou Sentai Carranger]]'' into ''[[Power Rangers Turbo]]'' and ''[[Denji Sentai Megaranger]]'' into ''[[Power Rangers in Space]]''. ''Carranger'' was a '''parody''' Sentai show, and ''Turbo'' suffered from many reasons on top of that footage (seriously, the Rangers were once ''[[Never Live It Down|baked into a pizza]]''); such is that Disney was wiser when adaptating the equally campy ''[[Engine Sentai Go-onger]]'' into the apocalyptic ''[[Power Rangers RPM]]'', and mostly [[Lampshaded]] and moved right past some of the inescapably Go-Ongery elements (such as mech designs). ''In Space,'' on the other hand, was a drastic variation upon the ''Sentai'' version; ''Megaranger'' never even left the Earth, instead literally surfing the web!<ref>Mainly because Saban already did the "Rangers surfing the web" thing with ''[[VR Troopers]]''.</ref> ''In Space'' was [[Tropes Are Not Bad|a smash hit, though]].
*** Also, ''[[Power Rangers Lost Galaxy]]'' takes place on a space station and leaves Earth in the rear view mirror in episode one, never to return outside of [[Reunion Show]]s. Some episodes owe more to ''[[Star Trek]]'' and ''[[Star Wars]]'' than past incarnations of ''[[Power Rangers]]''. ''[[Seijuu Sentai Gingaman]]'' is... not like that. Didn't stop ''Lost Galaxy'' from achieving the highest viewing figures (...at the beginning, because Saban [[Screwed by the Network]] it in favor of the ''[[Digimon Adventure]]'' dub).
**** Conversely, ''[[Gosei Sentai Dairanger]]'' is an homage to ''[[Star Wars]]''. The second season of ''[[Mighty Morphin Power Rangers]]''...is not.
**** ''[[Power Rangers Ninja Storm]]'' was another season that took a decent distance from its source material. While ''[[Ninpuu Sentai Hurricanger]]'' was not exactly a serious season, ''Ninja Storm'' takes camp and runs with it, with overexcitable heroes, bumbling villains and [[Lampshade Hanging]] on the loose.
** Taken to a frustrating extreme with Disney's "remastering" of the original ''[[Mighty Morphin Power Rangers]]''. Rather than simply sharpening up the image, random freeze-frames and [[Viewers are Morons|comic book-style character explanations]] run rampant, and flashy-yet-crappy CGI has been randomly spliced into the 1993 footage.
** In the third series of the original show, the Ninjazords appeared first, followed by the Shogunzords. In the original Kakuranger, however, it was the reverse. Essentially, the ''entire second half'' of Kakuranger was used first. To give an example, Vampirus was the first monster of the week for the season. His Sentai equivalent was in episode ''36''.
* ''[[VR Troopers]]'' was made from three different ''[[Metal Heroes]]'' series: ''[[Choujinki Metalder]]'', ''[[Jikuu Senshi Spielban]]'', and ''[[Space Sheriff Shaider]]''. Somehow, having ''three'' shows to draw on didn't stop it from [[Recycled Script|recycling plots]].
* When the ''[[Ultra Series|Ultraman]]'' series ''[[Ultra Seven]]'', was dubbed into English by [[Cinar]] for [[TBS]], it received a bizarre [[Gag Dub]] that made it almost entirely incomprehensible. This version has since been almost entirely forgotten even by fans of the series.
* To capitalise on the success of ''[[Power Rangers]]'', Saban licensed ''[[Kamen Rider Black RX]]'' and turned it into ''"Saban's [[Masked Rider]]"'': a gay old [[An Aesop|Aesop-tastic]] romp starring a [[Human Aliens|superhero alien]] [[Humans Through Alien Eyes|learning about Earth culture]] with his adoptive American family. Later the editing got so shoddy that at times you could clearly see the original Japanese actors, or the fact that the footage they were splicing in was from two seperate movies (''[[Kamen Rider ZO]]'' and ''[[Kamen Rider J]]'') starring completely different heroes. Reportedly, ''[[Kamen Rider]]'' creator [[Shotaro Ishinomori]] was so incensed by Saban's take that he swore never to license the franchise again.<ref>Which is why ''Dragon Knight'', below, was made almost ten years after his death and its creators had to prove to Toei that they wouldn't repeat Saban's mistakes in order to get the license in the first place</ref>
** ''[[Kamen Rider Dragon Knight]]'' did much better,<ref>at least, with the adult [[Periphery Demographic]] that makes up the the western ''[[Kamen Rider]]'' fanbase</ref> even winning a Daytime Emmy for stunt choreography. Its ratings meant not enough of the intended demographic were watching to keep it alive. The last two episodes weren't even aired, though were made available on the website. Odds are, we aren't getting that second season. It, too, is dissimilar from its footage-sake, and it's best if you don't go in with a "Ryuki Dub" mentality (see ''[[Power Rangers in Space]], [[Power Rangers RPM]]'', above.) Interestingly, ''Dragon Knight'' became a [[Recursive Import]] and did quite well back in Japan.
* This happened to ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series]]'' when it was dubbed into German. In the episode "Amok Time", in which Spock must return to his home planet to mate or else die, all sexual references were cut and the plot changed so that he was suffering from "space fever", making his battle to the death with Kirk a mere hallucination.
* In one of several early, unsuccessful atempts to introduce ''[[Monty Python's Flying Circus]]'' to American audiences (unrelated to ''And Now For Something Completely Different''), American network [[American Broadcasting Company|ABC]] bought some episodes from the John Cleese-less final season with the sole intention of cutting out separate sketches and inserting them as filler into a different show, called ''The Wide World of Comedy''. This was done very clumsily, with rampant censorship, and the result was reportedly incomprehensible. The Pythons, who had in their contract a clause that their show would not be re-cut without their permission, used this as grounds for a breach of contract lawsuit against the BBC, who held the rights to series. The result was that all material produced by Pythons for the BBC became their intellectual property, which was unprecedented at the time.
* The HBO broadcast of the ''[[Extras]]'' Christmas special did this with some jokes, cutting or replacing references to British celebrities who aren't known in America. It was mild but still silly, because the show in general is still full of Britishisms that don't necessarily translate. It also makes a scene about talking celebrity dolls very jarring. The original one has a Jade Goody doll that says a catchphrase and then the racist remark she made about Shilpa Shetty's name on ''[[Big Brother]]''. The American version replaces it with a Kramer doll that does a ''[[Seinfeld]]'' quote followed by the part of Michael Richards's notorious onstage rant about the black members of his stand-up audience where he reminded the white people present them that in the past they could have lynched them—which is less [[Never Live It Down]] and more [[Dude, Not Funny]].

== Music ==
* When released in America, the albums of [[The Beatles]] would experience two different approaches: (a) either the album would be released with the same (or a similar) name as the British release (such as ''With The Beatles'' becoming ''Meet The Beatles''—kind of justified in this case, as the album was the first to be released in America), only with a few songs chopped off and / or rearranged, or (b) the songs would be grouped together to form a whole new album (such as ''Yesterday and Today'', the one which originally generated controversy over the infamous "[[Dead Baby Comedy|butcher cover]]" involving the group wearing white butcher's coats and surrounded by slabs of meat and chopped-up dolls parts). British releases tend to be considered 'canon', although the American release of ''Magical Mystery Tour'' has replaced the original British EP in both popularity and official-ness due to it also including some of their most popular singles of the time, including 'Strawberry Fields Forever', 'Penny Lane' and 'Hello Goodbye'.
** This also extends to almost every British rock group from the start of the British invasion to around 1967 or so. It stemmed from two factors. First, records released in Europe usually had around fourteen songs on them, while American records usually had only twelve. Second, songs that were released as singles in England were usually not put on albums, meaning that many of any given band's most popular songs were not available on their regular studio albums. This caused America companies to mix and match songs and albums so they could exhaust their catalog and make more money.
* The Clash's first album from 1977 was released in the US in 1979. This happened after their second, Give Em Enough Rope had been released in the US in 1978, which was the first album of theirs to be released there. Probably as a result, their newer singles from 1979 were included on the new version of their first album, replacing some songs that were deemed controversial by the record company at the time. Although a lot of people like this version of the album, the Clash's change in production techniques makes the inclusion of a later track like "I Fought The Law" pretty noticeable.

== Puppet Shows ==
* This happened to ''[[Thunderbirds]]'' ''twice''. First when it was run on FOX Kids with redubbed voices, rock music, and cuts to remove content deemed inappropriate for children and also to cram the plots into half-hour episodes, rendering most of them incomprehensible. After that bombed, the rights holder released another half-hour version, ''[[Totally Radical|Turbocharged]] Thunderbirds'', which further altered the original episodes to be taking place on the planet "Thunder World", redubbed the dialog yet again to add more "post-modern" jokes, had the Tracy family taking orders from a pair of live-action teenagers who called Jeff Tracy "Mr. T", and referred to the teenagers as Hackers who lived aboard ''Thunderbird 5'', now dubbed "Hack Command". This version so enraged original creator Gerry Anderson that it was quickly pulled from syndication and supposedly destroyed at his request.
** To give you an idea of how bad ''Turbocharged'' was, look up an episode on [[YouTube]]. If that alone isn't enough to convince you, read the comments under the videos — more than once, you'll see someone posting that this series made '''the 2004 live-action adaptation''' seem better by comparison. To give some perspective: Anderson called ''that'' one "the biggest load of crap [he'd] ever seen in [his] life", and on [[The Other Tropes Wiki]] the recap page for it was locked to prevent people putting a recap for it. ''That alone'' says something.<ref>It isn't locked on All The Tropes. If you really want to create a page for ''[[Turbocharged Thunderbirds]]'', go for it... but refrain from [[All The Tropes:Complaining About Shows You Don't Like|complaining about shows you don't like]], please.</ref>

== Tabletop Games ==
* ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]'' often changes card art and flavour for Chinese audiences, sometimes significantly, to [http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/arcana/948 avoid depicting skeletons].
** Ironic, since the one with skin was a ''lot'' creepier...
*** This is due to Chinese laws prohibiting the display of bones to encourage positive behaviour in society or the like. ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' has its models altered for the Chinese servers (the exposed bones on the playable Undead faction are covered with skin) and has led to problems getting the latest expansion, primarily focused on defeating a giant army of Undead, past the censors.

== Video Games ==
* A rare [[Tropes Are Not Bad|positive example of this]] is ''[[Decap Attack]]'', where a previously so-so [[Platform Game]] licensed from an obscure anime became one of the silliest, strangest and most bizarre games to hit the [[Sega Genesis]].
** ''Power Blade'' is a similar case: not only was Steve Treiber, the [[Mega Man (video game)|Mega Man]]-like player character of the original Japanese version, was swapped out for an [[The Ahnold|Ahnold-type]] dude named Nova, the game was made both more playable and more complex.
* Back in the early days of Atlus, they localised the cult hit ''[[Shin Megami Tensei]]: [[Persona (video game)|Persona]]'' as ''Revelations: Persona'' by scrubbing the script of any Japanese referents, redrawing the characters [[Race Lift|with different skin tones]] (including making one into a [[Jive Turkey|jive-talking]] [[Token Minority|black sidekick]]), and trying (inconsistently) to relocate the setting from Japan to a strange America full of [[Shrines and Temples|Japanese landmarks]]. This gets confusing in ''Persona 2: Eternal Punishment'' when several characters from the first game make an appearance, retaining their American names (for continuity purposes) but looking a bit different (the hero in Persona had an earring in the Japanese version and looked Angstier, and when did Ellen dye her hair black?!). They also removed an entire ten-hour [[Bonus Dungeon]] for reasons unknown, though as part of it is translated, it's likely this was simply cut to speed up the localization process.
** Atlus tried to make up for their blunders in the first game [[Author's Saving Throw|to some extent]] by {{spoiler|pretending Nate/Kei never got a last name change, Guido Sardenia was an alias (as they couldn't rename him Takihisa due to the spoken cutscenes calling him Guido), so they broke even and established his original name was Guido Kandori, as well as few other minor changes to compensate.}} It's still a much messier [[Retcon]] that Nyarlathotep was manipulating things from the beginning, as his name was changed to Massacre for the US release.
** The real strange part is that ''[[Atlus]]'' today is one of the most respected publishers in the West for its studious attention to detail and its respect for the titles it brings out. Obviously they learned their lesson, as the US release of ''Persona 2: Eternal Punishment'' made no attempt to hide the fact that the game was in Japan, and recently the PSP remake was released in the US, ''with better translation'' and the entire game translated.
* In Japan, ''[[Ace Combat]] 3: Electrosphere'' was a fast-paced flight arcade game with highly competent teammates, a deeply involving, character-driven, completely non-linear storyline, featuring five young pilots caught in the middle of a struggle between two megacorporations, a guerrilla faction hell-bent on digitalizing everybody's minds, and a secret peacekeeping force where some dark monkey business is going on deep inside; all of that interspersed with beautiful, sleek anime cutscenes by [[Production I.G]]. When the game was released in the West, the editors somehow thought Western gamers were a bunch of hotheads who just want [[Ultra Super Death Gore Fest Chainsawer 3000|mindless, fast-paced action and slaughter]] (and weren't willing to risk the huge expense of translating a game that had underperformed at retail compared to the previous entry in the series), ''and everything that made the Japanese version stand out from the rest was horribly destroyed''. The truly intelligent teammates were removed, making all your missions solo. The original plot was replaced with a bland, highly generic story about a peacekeeping force who just jumps in and ruins enemy stuff every time something bad happens. The anime cutscenes were replaced with text slideshows that just threw an [[Info Dump]] on what was going on. The entire "story tree" was replaced with a completely linear plot that just goes from point A to point B. Even Dision's quest for causing massive mayhem was [[Retcon]]ned with [[A.I. Is a Crapshoot|a computer AI that suddenly went haywire]]! For once, a case where [[They Changed It, Now It Sucks]] was ''true''.
* XS Games bought the rights to two unrelated [[Bullet Hell]] shooters, ''[[Gunbird]]'' and ''[[Shikigami no Shiro]]'' (''Castle of Shikigami''), and released them as ''Mobile Light Force'' 1 and 2, respectively. The original Japanese scripts were tossed out completely and replaced with an English script that made no sense, and the original covers were supplanted in favor of a [[Angels Pose|Charlie's Angels-style cover]] that had [[Covers Always Lie|absolutely nothing to do with the game]]. After great anguish from fans, XS Games brought over ''Castle Shikigami 2'' uncut, though the translation was still filled with [[Engrish]]. The third game was brought over by a different publisher, Aksys Games.
* Then there's the first ''[[Ranma ½]]'' game, which was edited into ''Street Combat'', changing the premise and removing all Japanese elements and renaming and redrawing all the characters completely differently.
* ''[[Drakengard]]'' had almost all plot points pointing to incest removed, and everything related to pedophilia removed. Some other parts of the script were also gummed up and rendered incoherent, such as the scene leading in to the third ending.
* Several ''Puyo Puyo'' games got this treatment, being reworked into games starring [[Sonic the Hedgehog|Dr. Robotnik]] on the Genesis/Megadrive or [[Kirby]] on the SNES. These cases weren't quite as bad, as they still turned out to be good games in their own right.
** The ''Puyo Puyo'' franchise still lives on to this day under its original title, even after the demise of Compile, the company who created the series.
** A similar thing happened to the ''Panel de Pon'' series, released in Japan with cute shoujo-style characters. It was released in the US, with characters from ''Yoshi's Island'', as ''Tetris Attack'', even though the games don't have anything to do with Tetris.
** Perhaps the most well-known act of cramming mascots into ported oddities is the US version of ''[[Super Mario Bros. 2]]'', which is a sprite hack (with other changes/improvements) of ''Doki Doki Panic''. The proper Mario 2 epitomized [[Nintendo Hard]]—it eventually reached the US as "''the Lost Levels''".
*** On the plus side, either due to Miyamoto's involvement with the original ''Doki Doki Panic'' or the fact the title was later released in Japan, many of the monsters from ''Super Mario Bros. 2'' have joined Mario's [[Rogues Gallery]]. Bob-ombs were in the immediately following game, ''[[Super Mario Bros 3]]''. ''[[Yoshi's Island]]'' featured Shy Guys, and most Mario games since then have featured at least a few enemies who originated in Subcon. Furthermore, in ''[[Super Smash Bros.]]. Melee'' and ''Brawl'', Princess Peach has a few abilities based on her appearance in ''Super Mario Bros. 2'' namely her ability to throw vegetables and hover in midair.
*** ''2'' can best be summed up as a game that got a cut and paste translation, but ended up better than the actual sequel and Nintendo went [[Sure Why Not]] and made it canon.
* The translators of ''[[Earnest Evans]]'' moved the year from 1925 to 1985, made Earnest Evans into Earnest Evans III, tore out the entire story, made Annet his mom instead of his girlfriend, and changed Al Capone into Brady Tressider. Of course, the game was reverse-ported from the [[Sega CD]] to the [[Sega Genesis]] cartridge, so a ''lot'' had to go.
* ''Probotector'' for the [[Mega Drive]], the European localization of ''[[Contra]]: Hard Corps'' not only replaced all of the humanoid characters with robots (much like the previous ''Probotector'' games for the Nintendo platforms), it also turned the plot of the game into a barely coherent mess, by replacing references to the enemy being an Earth-based terrorist organization with some nonsense about "Alien Rebels", as well as downplaying the role of Dr. Geo Mandrake so he was no longer a traitor.
* For the American version of ''[[Streets of Rage]] 3'', the main characters were recolored for the purpose of having "gender-neutral" colors, female enemies have more clothing, and the story is completely rewritten, changing the plot from one revolving around nuclear weapons to one about robotic duplicates of city officials.
* There's a lot of [[Internet Backdraft]] related to [[Working Designs]] about whether or not their scripts fall under this or [[Woolseyism]]. They were notorious for slipping in an ungodly amount of pop culture references, as well as playing fast and loose with the dialogue in the games, which made keeping track of changes in the various ''[[Lunar]]'' ports difficult just because the player never knew whether a change was added for the new version or just added to the English version. On the other hand, this notoriety is also what made their games appealing. The Clinton joke in the original ''Lunar: Eternal Blue'' is legendary, to the point where many mourned its loss when the [[PS 1]] version came out and they had updated it to something more relevant.
* While otherwise a decent game, the poor translation effort put forth in ''Warsong'', the Genesis version of ''[[Langrisser]]'', is said to have contributed to its low sales and the prevention of any other game in the ''Langrisser'' series to be released outside Japan.
* Nintendo of America's [http://www.filibustercartoons.com/Nintendo.php self-imposed decency guidelines] scrubbed almost all references to religion, Nazis, sex, and gratuitous violence from the NES & SNES.
** If you didn't beat it, you probably didn't know ''[[Bionic Commando]]'' was about stickin' it to Hitler.
** ''[[EarthBound]]'' took a number of edits, but more notably so did its Japan-only NES predecessor ''Mother'' (AKA ''[[MOTHER 1|Earthbound Zero]]''). Since the US port team fixed bugs and added features as they meddled, that officially unreleased translation / edit was used in ''Mother 1+2'' for the GBA.
** Oddly averted in ''[[Harvest Moon]]'', which features an apparently unaltered church complete with pastor and gigantic gold cross.
* Germany is infamous for its game edits. [[No Swastikas|Nazi symbolism is verboten]], so games like ''[[BloodRayne]]'' (set in Nazi Germany) get set in [[Ruritania]] with [[Bland-Name Product|we-swear-they're-not-swastikas]] everywhere.
** "They're just machines" is common there, too. The back page of the official guide to the N64's ''Turok: Dinosaur Hunter'' touted the PAL-version replacement of all the human mooks with robot soldiers as a feature.
** One of the worst examples is the removal of Nimdok and his section in the PC game ''[[I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream]]''. What makes this seriously stupid is that ''the game wasn't changed to not require his section to be completed to beat the game'', making the game [[Unwinnable]].
** This German requirement has led to the ''international'' versions of many strategy games set in [[WW 2]] using the imperial German flag and symbols instead of the Nazi ones, and replacing Hitler with a fictional character. This of course leads to [[Unfortunate Implications]] as it can appear to be historical revisionism and claiming the Nazis never existed.
* The German releases of ''[[Command & Conquer]]'' changed ''everyone'' in the whole ''series'' into robots, but ''Generals'' was by far the worst in this regard:
** Every face was cyborgified.
** All voice samples were modified to make them sound more like robots.
** Blood was changed to green.
** The GLA suicide bomber was replaced by ''a bomb with wheels'', which inexplicably starts talking once you put it into a car. Oops.
*** All this was parodied by ''[[AH Dot Com the Series]]'', whose German mercenaries have a small army of "Cyborg Robots With Green Blood" who they called upon when required to fight for civilisations so squeamish they faint at the sight of real humans fighting.
* While we're talking about German versions, the German version of ''[[Half Life]]'' not only changes all enemy soldiers to robots but also removed all blood and gore and made it so that instead of dying when shot, the science team would just calmly sit down while shaking their heads in disappointment before fading away.
* ''[[Dynamite Headdy]]'' removed ''all'' dialogue except for the tutorial segments and the end of Scene 4 from the US version of the game. What was once an intentionally silly but coherent plot becomes an incomprehensible mess that's barely discernable past random action sequences because of this.
** In the original Japanese version, if you enter the tutorial segments, you'd be asked if you want to practice, which is nice if you have second thoughts about doing it. In the US version, once you enter the room, there's no turning back. And you don't get any dialogue if you fail these attempts. At least they had the sense to change the ending in light of the dialogue removal: in the US version, Smiley rejoices upon seeing Heather, who turns to Headdy and [[glomp]]s him. During the ending demo, Headdy sees Heather off with the rest of his friends. In the Japanese version, Smily pins himself to Headdy's face as Fingy looks on. In the ending demo, only Headdy's friends see Fingy off, as Headdy struggles to get Smily off his face.
* The European and American versions of ''Magical Drop III'' removed a lot of things present in the Japanese version. The endless mode no longer has ''dan'' rankings, characters now use generic "I'm gonna beat you!"-style dialogue before each versus matchup, plot-related cutscenes have been removed, and characters no longer have individual voices—there's about three in the whole game (''one'' in the American version), with each voice being shared by multiple characters.
* How about ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog|Sonic CD]]''? Sega of America delayed the US release by several months for the purpose of replacing 75% of the soundtrack, most likely due to [[Sampling]] issues as the Japanese sound track used a lot of 'em (Prime example if you don't believe that: Listen to the Japanese boss theme and then to "Work That Sucker To Death" by Xavier.). Even Spencer Nielsen, the composer working on behalf of Sega of America, sympathized with irate fans.
** Though [[Crowning Music of Awesome|the resulting soundtrack earned many, many fans.]]
** In addition to the change of soundtrack, Amy Rose was arbitrarily renamed "Princess Sally" in a weak attempt at appealing to the [[Sonic Sat AM|ABC cartoon's]] fanbase.
* The ''[[Twinbee]]'' platformer spinoff ''Rainbow Bell Adventures'' was released in both Japan and Europe. The Japanese version featured an overworld map with many, many optional stages and potential paths to the end, and multiple endings depending on how much of the game you actually cleared before taking on the final boss. The European version stripped out all but one of the endings and made the game completely linear.
* In ''[[Chrono Trigger]]'', the legendary sword Granleon was renamed Masamune in the English translation. Although this doesn't seem like a very bad change (after all, [[Stock Weapon Names|Masamune is a pretty cool name]] and shows up as the name of a powerful sword in most Squaresoft games), but it does cause some problems.
** In most Squaresoft games, the Masamune is either a katana or a sword that looks like a katana. However, the Masamune in ''Chrono Trigger'' is definitely '''not''' a katana. There are plenty of katanas in the game but the Masamune is not one of them.
** The Masamune contains two brothers named Masa and Mune (or Gran and Leon in Japanese) who are [[Anthropomorphic Personification]]s {{spoiler|of the swordsmith Melchior's hopes and dreams}}. Later on, you find out they have a sister named Doreen (Dream in Japan). By going to [[Guide Dang It|the right place, at the right time, with the right lead character]], you can obtain an accessory that allows you to perform a [[Combination Attack|Triple Tech]] that summons Masa and Mune... as well as their sister! The name of this attack is GrandDream since Doreen is helping her brothers with the attack (Gran + Dream instead of Gran + Leon). Unfortunately, when the Granleon is named the Masamune and Gran's name is Masa, the name of the tech sounds cool, but loses its meaning.
** Since the Granleon is still called the Masamune in ''[[Chrono Cross]]'', it causes problems there too. After you {{spoiler|defeat a [[Bonus Boss]] who is being controlled by the now evil Masamune, Doreen shows up, and scolds her brothers. Then all three of them combine their powers to change the Masamune from a sword into a swallow (Serge's weapon type).}} In Japan, this weapon was called Grand Dream, once again signifying that the brothers are being joined by Doreen and also giving a nice shout out to a fairly obscure ability from the first game. In America, this weapon gets the cheese-tastic name Mastermune.
** The [[Video Game Remake|DS remake]] of ''Chrono Trigger'' attempts to correct the Grand Dream attack issue. Unfortunately, it does so by renaming it Mastermune, which repairs the [[Shout-Out]] in ''Chrono Cross'' but still sounds incredibly cheesy.
* In ''[[Um Jammer Lammy]]'', a level taking place in Hell was relocated to a desert island for fear of offending religious types. The European versions got to stay in Hell, though.
* Pretty much any instruction manual written by Konami of America's localization staff during the NES era and most of the SNES era, which usually changed the plots of the games and renamed all the enemy characters with [[Incredibly Lame Pun|incredibly lame puns]]. The changes usually never affected the games themselves, as many games at the time were lacking in-game dialogue at the time and when they did, Konami would often forget to actually change the plot of the game, leading to various game to manual discrepancies.
** The most infamous example would be the NES version of ''[[Metal Gear]]''. The plot within the game itself was mostly kept unchanged, but the manual identified the antagonist as a "Colonel Vermon CaTaffy", a clear pastiche of Lybian socialist leader "Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi". Its obvious that the writer of the manual never actually finished the game.
*** Or simply didn't want to spoil it?
** ''Snake's Revenge'', the NES sequel to ''Metal Gear'', is an ever odder case. The game was released only in America and Europe, so the English manual has no Japanese version to be compared with. Even then it still manages to be inconsistent with the game itself, as the manual identifies the villain as a middle east dictator named "Higharolla Kockmamia", another pastiche (this time of Ayatollah Khomeini; at least not Hideo Kojima), but the actual bad guy is revealed to be a cyborg version of Big Boss in the actual game. Additionally, the manual claims that Jennifer "X" (Snake's female contact within the enemy base) is "rumored to be related to Ginger from ''[[Gilligan's Island]]''".
*** ... now that's a crossover I want to see.
** When the first Game Boy ''[[Gradius]]'' game was translated in America, the plot of the game was changed from a "Aliens are attacking us!"-style blurb to ridiculous crap about chasing down a criminal called "King Nemesis". While the ''Gradius'' series was never plot-heavy in the first place, the manual of this game [http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?t=3544&highlight=king+nemesis has to be seen to be believed].
*** In the SNES conversion of ''[[Gradius]] III'', "bosses" became "Mayors", and several bosses got renamed:<ref>click hottips for original names</ref> QB2B, Monarch,<ref>Crystal Core</ref> Ice Ice,<ref>Big Core mkII</ref> Grim,<ref>Derringer Core</ref> among others. Worst of all, the Vic Viper gets renamed to the "M.A.X."
*** The American manual for ''Life Force'' identifies the planet-devouring being of Zelos as the child of a "Ma & Pa Deltoid", as well as switching the names of Intruder (the dragon) and Cruiser Tetran (the core ship with the four tentacles).
** [[Bad Export for You|In addition to having the cut-scenes actually removed from the first NES game]], the manuals of the early ''[[Contra]]'' games actually changed the plot for each game as well, placing them in the present instead of the future. The manual for the original ''Contra'', which was actually set in the fictional Galuga islands near New Zealand, sets the game in South America instead, while the manual of ''Operation C'', which was originally about Bill Rizer fighting against an unknown superpower in the Japanese version, was changed by identifying the antagonist as another alien invader named Black Viper. While ''Contra III'' kept the futuristic setting of the game, it changed the identities of the main characters from Bill and Lance into their descendants, "Jimbo" and "Sully". The enemy characters were also given sillier names such as "Jagger Froid" and the "[[I Love Lucy|Babalu]] Destructoid Mechanism". Oddly enough, the manuals for the European ''Probotector'' games had more accurate translations, changing the text only to take into account that the main characters were robots.
* The Super NES port of ''[[Wolfenstein 3D]]'' was given the [[No Swastikas]] treatment, and the [[Big Bad]] was changed from Hitler to "Staatmeister".
** A longstanding rumor claims that the creators of Wolfenstein were so offended by this, that they actually gave the game source code to Wisdom Tree, a company that produced Christian video games, who in turn made Super 3D Noah's Ark, the only unlicensed SNES game in existence. While not believed to be true - it's more likely that Wisdom Tree was a normal code licensee - the id software staff ''did'' seem to know that the game was going to be an unlicensed release, and were apparently okay with that, at the least.
* The MMORPG Digimon Battle's text was pretty much translated using Google Translator. The website's just as bad.
* Much to the ire of long-time fans of the series, Sega's ''Yakuza'' 3 was brought heavily under the cutting knife in an effort to excise elements that "would not resonate with Western audiences." This includes the removal of a string of quests involving the management of a hostess bar, elimination of such alarmingly Japanese games as shogi and mahjong, and the tossing aside of massage parlors, a number of optional missions, and a rather deep trivia game. Because many of these events have appeared in [[Fridge Logic|prior Yakuza games]], the changes have led many to believe the game was unnecessarily [[Candle Jack|cu]]
* ''[[Dragon Quest IV]]'''s DS remake had the "party talk" feature removed from the US version. Before you dismiss this, this constituted enough of the game's dialogue that the US version's ROM is ''a full 18 megabytes smaller than'' the Japanese one.
** ''Dragon Quest IV'' DS and onward also have a ''huge'' number of [[Dub Name Change]]s. Most are pointless, but harmless, but there are also several that ruin [[Mythology Gag]]s and [[Continuity Nod]]s to other games in the series, by using a completely different name from the previous releases that are being referenced.
* The U.S. version of the NES game ''Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde'' cut out two levels from the Japanese version and replaced them with copies of other stages, which makes the Japanese version better. "[[The Angry Video Game Nerd|Kind of like eating a skunk versus eating a skunk with a little salt on it.]]"
* When ''[[Magical Doropie]]'' was translated as ''The Krion Conquest'', the story stopped at the intro, beyond which all cutscenes were removed and the ending became [[A Winner Is You]]. This only made the game look even more like a ripoff of ''[[Mega Man (video game)|Mega Man]]'' than it already was.

== Web Comics ==
* ''[[VG Cats]]'' presents: "[http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=145 Welcome to the wonderful world of anime licensing, the 4kids way!]"
* ''[[Full Frontal Nerdity]]'' [http://ffn.nodwick.com/?p=620http://ffn.nodwick.com/?p=620 discusses] this problem, as applied to ''[[Let the Right One In]]''.

== Web Animation ==
== Web Animation ==
* Parodied in this [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xmc6TRPQnYU&feature=relmfu "4kids version"] of ''[[Neko Sugar Girls]]''.
* Parodied in this [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xmc6TRPQnYU&feature=relmfu "4kids version"] of ''[[Neko Sugar Girls]]''.

== Western Animation ==
* Probably one of the best examples of this trope being successful is the British version of ''[[The Magic Roundabout]]'', in which Eric Thompson ignored the original French scripts and wrote new ones based solely on the visuals, leading to the cult series that is known and loved today.
** Doubtless puzzling Francophones who know only the forgettable original.
* The Polish version of ''[[Futurama]]''. Oh Lord. Professor Farnsworth is Fry's ''uncle'' in some episodes, most of the references are happily butchered, and the show is called ''Przygody Fry'a w kosmosie'', that is "''Fry's Adventures in Space''". Not only that, but the TV station that picked it up was fined for showing the episodes at the time when children could see it. It allegedly showed "an unreal world full of violence".
* From what Gaelic speakers have said, the Gaelic translation of ''[[Danger Mouse]]''. For a start, in order to justify his [[Brought to You by The Letter "S"]] [[Chest Insignia]], they gave him the rather uninspiring name of "Donnie Murdo".
** In the same fashion, the italian dub of ''[[Underdog (animation)|Underdog]]'' named the title character "Ughetto".
* The ''[[Code Lyoko]]'' cartoon series managed to avert this in a major way (even with all the [[Fan Service]]). The "Subdigitals" CD release was not so lucky...
* The Japanese dub of ''[[Beast Wars]]'' transformed it into a goofy comedy show with many characters' personalities becoming completely altered. Examples can be found on [http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Beast_Wars_(cartoon)#Japanese_version the Transformers wiki].
* ''Yoohoo & Friends'' was originally a Korean cartoon about [[Ridiculously Cute Critter]]s going on wacky adventures. The US version, created by David Feiss, threw in a subplot about the titular characters being [[Corrupt Corporate Executive]]s who were turned into animals as punishment for their crimes against the environment. The contrast between the original footage and the new footage is very noticable and jarring.


== Other ==
== Other ==

Revision as of 19:45, 5 February 2022

Sometimes when works are translated elsewhere, major changes are made to it, from the scripts to editing the footage. The usual reason is to make it more accessible to the audience for the localization, but avoiding Values Dissonance is also a common reason. Another reason is that syndication rules in the US require 65 episodes (until perhaps recently), and that is rare in other countries' shows save for Long Runners, so the best solution was cutting and pasting more than one series together to sell them as one series.

Common methods include:

Although edits are not always as devastating as many fans make them out to be, a Cut and Paste Translation will frequently impose extensive Adaptation Decay and Bowdlerization on a story. At its worst, the entire original script will simply be discarded and a completely new script created almost out of whole cloth. Never Say "Die" is a staple, along with Lull Destruction. One of the biggest reasons of why the Subbing Versus Dubbing debate is still raging.

Often fans consider the show to be cheapened by this. See Macekre for more on the opinion on cut-and-pasted anime. On the other hand, some people use such dubs as a Gateway Series, and the virulent fan reaction against the dubs may puzzle those not familiar with the original version, or even perhaps those that watched the dubs first.

The practice is rarer these days, but still around. Often it's just reduced to script changes, since heavy editing would increase the cost significantly (again, it just had to be done for syndication).

If the importers actually add new material to something when they import it, it's Importation Expansion.

Compare Woolseyism (changes are made for things that actually won't translate, and the changes are simply the most pragmatic), Gag Dub (script changes based on Rule of Funny), Difficulty by Region, Dolled-Up Installment.

Examples of Cut and Paste Translation are listed on these subpages:
Examples of Cut and Paste Translation include:

Web Animation

Other

  • In many Brazilian dubs, there is an inversion of Bowdlerization: "root beer" is commonly mistranslated as "cerveja" ("beer"), so it's pretty weird to see kids drinking beer.
    • It happens in the Latin American Spanish dub of Dragon Ball, too.
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