This czech aggression, man.. Rant.

[Cubist]

I live in Europe, in the Czech Republic and for a while now I've been trying to look for fellow Dudes around here, so we could hang, drink Caucasians,  exchange philosophies, and what have you. And ever since I started looking I found only one. And my czech friends were not interested in such lifestyle.

It didn't make sense to me. The movie is somewhat popular, the czechs are a beer-drinking-slacker-nation, bowling alleys all around. So up until yesterday I didn't get it. Whenever I told czech people about dudeism, I was met with a "why would you follow such thing? it's just a silly movie, etc"

Then it hit me. They never saw the movie in English. Since I speak both languages I decided to watch it the way everyone else around me apparently knew it, dubbed over. Can't be that big a difference I thought, so I made myself the holy drink and put the movie on. What ensued terrifies me to this moment, and I couldn't bare to finish the whole flick. The witty remarks and life changing philosophies were substituted with cheap toilet humor to such extent, that the Dude simply appeared to be a full blown cleft asshole, Walter was just the guy you know is going to drop the F-bomb next time he's in and Donnie had no place in the movie at all.

For example the scene with Lenin, where Donnie drops his famous "I am the Walrus" was substituted with "I don't get it." While I understand that you can't translate everything, and maybe czechs just don't listen to Lennon or the Beatles, this was not one simple exception. All the quotes we know and love were simply not there. I doubt the voice actors had any clue what the characters were meant to represent.

And I used to be surprised when I was met with weird looks after mentioning that I follow a religion loosely based on the movie Big Lebowski. Now I get it. I'll keep looking for the Dudes who watched it the way it was meant to be watched and I'm taking it upon myself to translate the Lebowski Lexicon found on the website, so it sounds just as deep and ideological, while making sense to the common czech ear.

Phew, thanks for reading. How are the rest of you Dudes living in non-english speaking countries managing?

[BikerDude]

Interesting problem Dude.
Now that you mention it I suppose that the movie would not translate well to cultures that are very different from the Dude's world.

Not sure how you get around that.

[Cubist]

Now that you mention it I suppose that the movie would not translate well to cultures that are very different from the Dude's world.

While I agree this is true in some places, it's not really about a different culture here. There's a load of guys who would find such lifestyle and philosophy appealing, but have no drive to propel them towards it. I think the problem is the local paraquat movie industry that cared about feeding the monkey more than forwarding the actual message. But in the end, I suppose that's why we're here, right? To share the wisdom of the Dude to the less fortunate. 

[Masked Dude]

I'm the same way about La Cité des Enfants Perdus (City of Lost Children). The English makes no fucking sense.

As for TBL: If there were a better Czech translation, I'd be tempted to make a subbed version, or at least a subtitle file.

[Cubist]

I'm the same way about La Cité des Enfants Perdus (City of Lost Children). The English makes no fucking sense.

As for TBL: If there were a better Czech translation, I'd be tempted to make a subbed version, or at least a subtitle file.

Then you feel my undudeness about this issue, dude. 

As for the subtitles. Well, there probably are several subtitle files already, not sure about the quality (when you get the DVD in a store, you get both the dubbed version and original version with subtitles), though these tend to be good and people usually put a lot of effort into it, since you're not really limited by time or mouth movement like the voice actors are. I never watched it subtitled, so I'm not sure. Might give it a try.

Then there's always the line between practical use and understanding the humor. You can make the subtitles and translate everything word for word (as long as it has the same deep meaning in the targeted language), people will laugh, people will get it and might even get ordained, but then you're left with somewhat foreign phrases that nobody is going to use in real life. Or you could find phrases in the targeted language that fit the movie and carry the same meaning, message or impact or what have you. That's why I thought that the Lebowski lexicon in Czech could prove useful to those Czech Dudes who'd watch the movie in English or/and with subtitles, and then wanted to have their own sorta slang that their peers would understand.

I don't know what I'm talking about anymore.

[Masked Dude]

I hear ya. We have a joke about "une bonne souris," which translates as a good mouse but can also be used for a man's dangly part. Sometimes it takes a little (maybe too much) effort to make a joke work.

[Cubist]

Languages, man. Work of art.