entertainment

U.S. 'Attack on Titan' fans left waiting as subtitles freeze during first screenings

10 Comments
By Philip Kendall, RocketNews24

With part one of the live-action movie adaptation released for the first time outside Japan on Wednesday this week, fans of the hugely successful manga and anime series "Attack on Titan" were no doubt incredibly excited to see their favourite giant-slaying characters brought to life by living, breathing Japanese actors.

Little did then know, however, that when one of the English subtitles added to the movie for its North American release would appear on-screen, it would remain there — for a full 20 minutes — while the action continued behind it.

“I’ve been waiting for this day,” thousands of American "Attack on Titan" fans undoubtedly thought as they climbed out of bed and double-checked that their cinema tickets were safely tucked away in their wallets. The movie adaptation of their favourite anime was finally coming out in their homeland — complete with subtitles rather than a jarring English dub, no less.

Sadly, the release of the film wouldn’t be the only thing they’d end up waiting for by the time the day was out.

As reported by our friends over at Anime News Network, during a number of screenings of the first part of the "Attack on Titan" live-action movie, the film’s English subtitles locked up completely following the appearance of the line “I’ve been waiting for this day!”. Tweets tell of cinemagoers slowly breaking into laughter as the film played on despite the subtitles never changing, leading some to shun the usual rules about cameras in theatres and reach for their phones to document the fail for all to see.

Although some viewers later commented that their screenings were completely unaffected, a number of people tweeted that the offending subtitle remained on their screens for as long as 20 minutes after appearing. Before long, the hashtag “#Waiting4ThisDay” began trending online.

There has yet to be an official explanation given for the cause of the screening hiccup, but hopefully FUNimation, the film’s North American distributor, is looking into the problem so that those of you planning on checking out the movie this week—despite its decidedly lacklustre reviews thus far—get to watch it without having to learn Japanese first.

Sources: Twitter, Anime News Network

Read more stories from RocketNews24. -- New Attack on Titan movie will hit audiences with lights, wind, and water, also has moving seats -- Two Attack on Titan animated feature films on the way – first to open this year -- The world is cruel – Critic skewers second “miserably made” live-action Attack on Titan movie

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10 Comments
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Considering the super-niche market, I doubt that there were "thousands" of American fans at these screenings, RocketNews.

6 ( +7 / -1 )

They should count themselves lucky. Absolutely crap movie. They spent their entire CG budget on the one scene you see in the trailer.

4 ( +5 / -1 )

Considering the super-niche market, I doubt that there were "thousands" of American fans at these screenings, RocketNews.

@David Varnes, Actually the theatre I saw it at in Minnesota was pretty packed. Considering we're pretty much off the map here, I think you're wrong.

Also, the movie was pretty terrible. Even if you ignore the part that the movie is nothing like the manga or anime, there was almost no plot or character development. Just a lot of people running away from and then being eaten by titans. If you didn't go see it, save your money. There were a few laughable scenes which were mostly funny because you can't help but think "why is this happening right now?"

2 ( +2 / -0 )

It's an omen! Since these "thousands of fans" ignored the incredible bad buzz, bad reviews, and their overall common sense to avoid crap, the gods were giving them one last chance to NOT SEE THIS MOVIE!

Just re-watch the anime and act like this abomination never existed!

1 ( +2 / -1 )

You're darn right I ignored the bad reviews. The subs at my theatre didn't freeze, so I was sitting there understanding just how crappy this movie was for that 20 min. But the Eren transformation scene was pretty good. And Sasha "potato girl" was funny.

Luckily for the rest of the movie there were plenty of people laughing inappropriately throughout. They didn't understand the baby titan and the almost-sex-scene were NOT supposed to be funny... or they were so bad they had to laugh?

1 ( +2 / -1 )

When writing a news article, the writer sold not add conjecture.

Journalism 101

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Funimation were aware of this and a fix was sent out to cinema's, it seems a few didn't apply it though which is why it only appeared at a small number of screenings. Funimation are planning on doing hard subs in future so this particular issue doesn't happen again. Info taken from Kotaku.com who received an official response from Funimation.

Anyhow, I've heard it's not a particularly good movie and the second part is even worse.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Why do all of these characters have European names?

0 ( +0 / -0 )

@Bossu, It's loosely based on Central Europe around the German/Swiss area but with a large dose of artistic licence thrown in, hence the use of European names.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Japan is good at making anime. And they should stick to that. Don`t try live-action with them. 進撃の巨人 has the worst acting, worst special effects ever...

Japanese people liked it tho..

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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