Let’s get our petty complaints on! We have been locked inside for 6 months struggling with streaming, and I have THOUGHTS. And COMPLAINTS! And HATES!
Here they are, the three worst things I can think of about streaming. Only, I can’t decide which is Most Worst. You have to help me!
- Bad/not existent subtitles. We’ve all been there, the movie is in theaters with subtitles. It’s available legally on streaming on a pay service. And yet, somehow, in the translation between theater and streaming, the subtitles have just disappeared! Or, alternatively, gotten much much worse! WHY??? HOW???
- Missing scenes. There is a complete version of the film, it’s on DVD, sometimes it’s even on a janky no-subtitle version elsewhere online. And yet, the official version I am paying for is missing whole scenes of the film! Not because of censorship, just because of laziness. They couldn’t be bothered to track down a complete version of the film. WHY??? WHY WOULDN’T YOU???
- Rights Purchased But Not Available. The Zee5 syndrome. Someone bought up the rights to a whole bunch of content, and then wasn’t ready to launch their platform, so the content is locked in a weird invisible limbo.
Okay, which of these is WORSE? Are you stumped like me, or can you pick one?
dontcallitbollywood 
3rd one, so irritating 😔😔
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SO IRRITATING!!!! If you aren’t going to make your platform available, then don’t buy up rights and block other people.
On Sat, Oct 17, 2020 at 11:34 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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3rd one can be managed with a bit of creativity….
1st one is infuriating!I encountered this problem with many old Bengali films.In one film, “peahen”was subtitled as “witch”.Even common sense cannot help with it.Navigating through Bengali films(that require you to have context in the first place)with bad subtitles is like walking in heels in a desert.
There was a a film Reshma aur Shera,in Hindi,but dubbed in Arabic,with the worst possible subtitles available.Unfortunately it was the only version with a major chunk of third half intact.But due to some copyright,the songs were missing(thankfully,there were only two songs).Basically all three problems in the same piece.
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Yes! Bad subtitles can be so bad. I’m not fluent in Hindi at all, but even I can see when the subtitlers aren’t even trying. I just rewatched War, and there was a line that I know was “This is my lion” which was translated as “this is my right hand man”. Like, how do you even get from one place to another?
On Sat, Oct 17, 2020 at 12:16 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I hate all 3 things but the worst is 3, followed by 1.
2 is stupid but at least you have the movie and subs so you can watch it, even if it’s damaged.
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So you would vote for part of a movie, but with good subtitles, over a full movie with bad subtitles, or no movie at all. Hmm. I think I might almost prefer no movie at all, that way there’s no temptation to try to watch a flawed version, I can wait until the perfect version is available.
On Sat, Oct 17, 2020 at 12:51 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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The most important is to have the movie. I have seen many films without or with very very bad subtitles and it was annoying but at least I have seen them and can have my own opinion about them.
What drives me crazy is to know a movie exist but probably I will never watch it because it stucked somewhere. E.g Tovino Thomas’s Abhiyum Anuvum. It was postponed many times, released, was in cinemas like 2 days and completely disappeared from the face of the earth. 3 years later I’m still here waiting for it to show on some streaming site or dvd or whatever. Maybe I’m the last person who still thinks about this film. At this point I don’t care about subs or missing scenes , I just want the movie.
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UGH, that is the WORST!!! I have a long list of “lost films”, and it’s not like some obscure silent thing, it’s stuff like this, it released just a few years ago, and now it is GONE. Tumhari Sulu, was nominated for awards, and was completely unavailable for over a year I think.
On Sat, Oct 17, 2020 at 2:18 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Oh my god, I can’t choose. Because while 3 is the bane of my existence, 2 has also ruined my life more than once. There are cuts of Swarg or Jab Jab Phool Khile available I can’t watch. And now the good cut of Swarg is on Hotstar which I cannot get to so aaaaaah.
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I am increasingly leaning towards #3 being the one I don’t mind as much. If it’s just 100% gone, there’s kind of a relief. But partially available? That is crazy making.
On Sat, Oct 17, 2020 at 1:19 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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If there are no subtitles, it might as well not be available though, so there’s that. I could watch unsubbed Bunty aur Babli, but I won’t. There aren’t ANY versions of Amrapali for me though, so at this point I’d probably watch that without subs.
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1st one hasn’t happened to me. 2nd one doesn’t matter to me unless I feel it’s an integral scene. The 3rd one is the worst.
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I can’t deal with Number 2, in my mind they are all integral scenes! Anything missing is a disaster.
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Subtitles mostly for me. Is it too much to put them on the songs???? The others I’m kinda in an “eh, what can you do” when I find out.
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First vote for subtitles! And yes, why not on songs? Especially when THEY WERE THERE BEFORE!!!!
On Sat, Oct 17, 2020 at 1:38 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Oh! And as for Delhi 6 cutting the movie down for time, when that wasn’t a problem before. What the Hell Netflix???? It wasn’t a problem before. Why is it now?
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YES! It’s one thing if it’s an old movie and they got ahold of a bad copy and didn’t care. But with a new movie? When there’s only a good copy in existence anyway? WHY EDIT IT????
On Sat, Oct 17, 2020 at 1:44 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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At times like these, I’m glad for einthusan, at least they have the whole movie to the best of their abilities. Their Delhi 6 is at least it’s full length.
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#1 is part of the reason why I know MDK almost by heart. In the age of pirated DVDs, my copy’s subtitles were lagging by what felt like minutes. So I learned Hindi … (Well, enough that I’ll watch a movie without subtitles before not watching it at all.)
For me to notice #2 would mean I’ve seen the film before. At least it’s not keeping me from satisfying that curiosity.
But if I’m aware of #3, it means this is a movie I really, really want to see, and I can’t. That’s just life being cruel.
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Oh man, Hum Aapke Hain Koun! The last twenty minutes of EVERY DVD version I ever saw, the subtitles started lagging. And now even on streaming, sometimes that happens with a random movie, the service messes up. Thank goodness I picked up enough Hindi to match it up.
I suppose what really bothers me about #2 is that I can’t show/share my favorite movies with other people. I was just talking about Guddu to my friends at our virtual movie night and I had to tell them that the best scenes of the movie aren’t on the Amazon Prime version, so they couldn’t see it until I was able to let them see my DVD.
Aha! You have found the worst part of #3! There are thousands of movies out there that aren’t available to us. But the only ones you KNOW aren’t available are the ones we really care about. If that makes sense.
On Sat, Oct 17, 2020 at 3:32 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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While we’re talking about streaming: Do you also get the impression that Netflix is starting to lump us all together? So when one of us watches a few episodes of Star Trek, it moves up in everyone else’s suggestions.
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HA! I would not be surprised. I know youtube does, whenever I watch something out of pattern (like, a Sesame Street video), next time one of my friends pulls up a Shahrukh fanvid, there’s a Sesame Street option.
Anyway, we should all watch Star Trek, Netflix is correct.
On Sun, Oct 18, 2020 at 8:54 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I loathe when they don’t subtitle the songs! It’s an Indian film – why on earth would you skip subtitling one third of a movie???
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And the songs are almost always subtitled in the movie theater! Why would you have subtitles, and then remove them?
On Mon, Oct 19, 2020 at 6:26 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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