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Do you find subtitles enhance your movie-watching experience?

posted 3 years ago by whynotwriteme (7725)
37 replies | jump to latest

I usually never use subtitles unless I am watching a foreign language film. A while ago I started putting the subtitles on while I watched movies and I find that by reading the dialogue I pick up on a lot of subtleties and points that I had overlooked during earlier viewings of the same movies.

I'm not hearing impaired and I do not need the subtitles. I just find I sometimes tune out what the actors are saying, or the actors are mumbling, or visuals distract me, or simply that subtle points revealed in dialogue do not come across as well when I am only hearing them.

I'd say that using the subs has increased my enjoyment of movies by about half.

[–] [deleted] 3 years ago

Sometimes its necessary. I live in an apartment, and I just can't turn the volume up very high since so many movies now will have these big swings in volume.

[–] Freeion (111) 3 years ago

Good subtitling has everything the actor says, and sometimes you'll find stuff that was barely audible that the subtitles read loud and clear. I recall once, while watching The Ring, there was a barely audible part where the main character said something akin to "where did you go?" (while she was standing at the bottom of a creepy well looking for the creepy girl she followed into the well)

[–] Kowalski (76258) 3 years ago

YES...WHENEVER AVAILABLE...I WATCH ALL MY MEDIA IN MY LIBRARY...SIX FORMER FERAL FELINES AND ONE HYPER THIRTEEN YEAR OLD DAUGHTER ARE ALMOST ALWAYS MAKING SOME KIND OF NOISE...PLUS A MILLION OTHER SMALL THINGS...ITS JUST EASIER FOR ME.

[–] Stratego (30578) 3 years ago

I also prefer watching English-language movies with English subtitle. Being Dutch and having grown up watching most movies with Dutch subtitles probably makes that a little easier.

[–] MonStar (12999) 3 years ago

AMC Theatres, the largest movie chain in the USA, is currently using separate theaters in large multiplexes for "open caption" English subtitles on screen, for the newest releases. (Currently in late July 2021, it is done for Snake Eyes, Old, and Joe Bell.) Jungle Cruise will have an open caption theater.

Black Widow (2021) has a separate AMC theater reserved for showings in English with Chinese Mandarin subtitles. They have typically only sold two to four tickets for those shows. So I suspect that the Chinese Communist totalitarian government contracted to do that.

[–] TandyMan (11120) 3 years ago

I love subtitles. I've actually found that even though I've seen my favorite movies a hundred times, there's lines of dialog I never noticed before. Also, the way they mix audio now, it's such a pain to turn the tv up and down and up an down. I just keep it low (which is still pretty loud explosions) and read the whispery bits.

[–] Thaisticks (3076) 3 years ago

I don't know what kind of movies those people are watching who say that the subs don't match the dialogue. There will be the occasional missed word, but I'd say they are 99% accurate. With the modern disdain for the declamatory style of old, and emphasis on natural speech patterns enveloped by ambient sound, I find that subs are necessary to get every word--and so I use them when I am watching a movie where it is important to get every word.