<p>I bought the DVD of Slumdog Millionaire today at Costco – it’s widescreen. Hubby hadn’t seen it and I thought I would like to own it. It turns out the subtitles are so tiny that it can only be watched if we are willing to sit about three feet away from the television. I’ve noticed a lot of movies have small subtitles but these ones are ridiculously miniscule. My 14 year old was able to make them out but I can’t imagine anyone over 40 being able to read them. So disappointing.</p>
<p>It has subtitles?
( I saw it in a theatre- but I didn’t notice-) isn’t it mostly in English?
:o</p>
<p>There are a number of scenes with subtitles. The three children who played the young roles did not speak English well and their scenes were in Hindi. All the scenes until the middle group of kids take over are in Hindi. I read that about 30% of the movie is in Hindi. I really liked that and it was not at all a problem in the theater - -but it’s a problem on video if you can’t read the subtitles.</p>
<p>There are “subtitles” and then there are “subtitles”. In movies that have some dialog spoken in a foreign language, an English translation is superimposed on the screen. In a theatre, the audience has no problem reading the translation. However, on a small TV screen, the superimposed translation is, as you have found, all but unreadable. The solution is to turn on the DVD English subtitle feature when playing the movie at home which may or may not be distracting. Or buy a 50 inch flat panel monitor…</p>
<p>Michuncle, I tried turning on the English subtitles. All it did was give me a blow by blow of action (e.g. “horns are honking”) but the actual translation of the dialogue remained on the screen in tiny print only. So I sat up close to the TV and called out the translation for my husband. It gave me a chance to practice my acting skills.</p>
<p>I’m guessing that the company that does the subtitles has people sitting a foot away from their monitors. There’s still the 50” flat panel. Guess I’ll go out and buy a lotto ticket.</p>
<p>Those subtitles really threw me and H, also. Are they assuming everyone is watching on a big screen (seemed small even for that)? Yesterday we rented Quantum of Solace and it had small subtitles also (but not as small as Slumdog) and they weren’t on the screen long enough to read. It probably didn’t matter because even the English dialogue was lightening fast and incomprehensible, as was the story.</p>
<p>smdur:
"It probably didn’t matter because even the English dialogue was lightening fast and incomprehensible, as was the story. "</p>
<p>Your movie review made me laugh! Sometimes I wish professional movie reviews were so succint and accurate!!</p>
<p>I recently saw a movie with subtitles where they were in white so anytime the scene was well lit, you couldn’t read them. Stupid.</p>