Imagine you are buying for example a Cd by an american singer like Whitney Houston, would you want it to be titled “Whitney Houston – I Will Always Love You / Je t’aimerai toujours”? NO, it would stupid and annoying. The same goes for movies if they are american and were done in english. But they should definitely put stickers in french outside but they are removeable, that would be no problem.

Btw I’m in Quebec and speak both french and english, but I do find it annoying because I just bought a blu ray and it’s written “La Montee de la planete des singes”. I didn’t pay attention, next time I’ll buy it from the US. And I would say that if I was in the USA, and I wanted to buy a dvd of a french movie, I would also be annoyed if there’s some english translation all over the box cause that was not the original product/intent.

The funny thing is, I never see it on music albums, it’s only movies.

I even went so far as to not purchase movies I wanted that were on sale in Canada just because I saw on the Canadian Amazon site that they’d have the French added too. That kind of think just makes me go “ugh” and roll my eyes.
I do see it as ruining the aesthetics and the original intent, and I should have the choice of whether I have to have it or not.

Now before you say I’m just another one of the prejudiced ignorant people, I do speak French (in addition to another language also), so it’s not about that. I don’t mind bi-lingual labels on things like cereal or chips, or having a french section in manuals for electronics or whatever. But Blu-Ray/DVD covers are a different story. As was said before, it’s something that you have as a collection on your shelf that you display kind of like art (though obviously not exactly the same thing) and you should have the choice of how it looks, since that is part of the whole appeal. Otherwise we’d just throw away the packaging and stick all our discs in binders. Granted the solution of a French insert inside could help (so as to keep the languages separate), but why not let the consumer have the option of getting the English version or French Version on the web site or in the store? That way we’d save paper/ink, and everyone would be happy. Having to stock 2 versions of the movies might not make the stores happy (it would be more feasible for online stores), but they would have a sense of how many French/English they normally sell and could stock accordingly, or maybe just send back the versions that don’t sell. Or maybe that should just be an online thing if brick & mortar stores don’t want to deal with the hassle. In any case, I might just have to stick to ordering my Blu-Rays from the US (good thing I live on the border). I’m really hoping that the LOTR EE trilogy I just ordered from Amazon’s Canadian site doesn’t have the Frenchness all over it, since that’s not what it showed on their site. But who knows, since they don’t always show the bilingual covers on all their movies.

Another one that should be up on this page is Adam Sandler’s “Click”, translated to “Clic” (sans ‘k’ en français).

The movie “The Hangover” is called “Very Bad Trip” in France…I could not believe it when I saw that DVD cover. Apparently, you have to say “Very Bad Trip” with a very french accent and there you have the translation of Hangover!

This list seems to exist to show off the author’s smug attitude rather than visual crimes.

P.S. I am neither French nor French-Canadian, I’m just amused that someone with little understanding of French or French movie culture wants to spill his wit and wisdom about it…

And to those who make fun of us for hating to have tarnished collections, just remember that the movie companies want to eventually eliminate the physical medium of DVD and BluRay so they cam sell digital downloads. Its the collectors that will be the only ones left wanting to buy discs, and why would they want their collections tainted with butchered art work?

I found it fascinating, educational and fun to see the strange ways they had translated a lot commercial products.

Tabarnac!! c’est drole.

It’s worth pointing out that there are plenty of communities outside Quebec where French is spoken, although they don’t have the same visibility through numbers. For example, Winnipeg has a university that offers all its courses and services in French, New Brunswick is entirely bilingual, and then there are the Acadians who against all odds are present and still speak French in a few scattered communities.

French-speaking pockets in provinces like Manitoba were previously much stronger than they are now, but it wouldn’t be very surprising if within a couple generations French was all but gone from these communities. You and I agree that this is not due to whether the French title of Ghost Busters is present on the DVD case, but I hope you understand where I’m coming from anyway.