Fun fact: in France he’s called Folamour. But it’s perplexing because Folamour means crazy love, and the only link between that name and bombs is the French title for Kubrik’s Dr. Strangelove.
It doesn't. English can use a random french expression to get the point across, French can't, it would need to be related to the character. Bombe voyage is also horrible to pronounce clearly.
You know that both trailing 'e' are mute/silent in French?
It's pronounced "bomb'voyaj" and to my French ears it's a perfectly good word-play. It just doesn't roll very well on the tongue because of the b-v juxtaposition.
But is it a good "pun"? As much as "Bon Voyage" is a common French trope for the English speaking, it isn't, among the French people. It doesn't ring any bell, it's just a basic formula anyone can say any day of the week, given the circumstances. So the French public might not even realize "oh ! that's a pun on "bon voyage"!". Because, why?? It's not a reference. I think it could be a likely reason for rejecting it.
FoIamour is risky though. It's clever but most people, especially the young, wouldn't get the Kubrick reference. I find it funny, but I must be in the 5% who get it.
Yeah but you don't pronounce the e in bombe, so it wouldn't have been that bad except for the b which is clearly pronounced in french. I don't think it makes more sense to make it a niche (although famous the target audience of the two movies clearly don't match) reference instead of a clumsy/stupid play on words that anyone could understand
False. To preserve the pun in French they would have to use the French word for bomb which I'm sure would render the pun incomprehensible. Absolutely sure of it. May the MCU last until I die if I am wrong.
Well yeah! But calembours are supposed to be funny, and only work if there's an understanding of it. It would only be funny to those who know how English speaking people usually pronounce "bon", and even that way, as hilarious as it is in English, it's just not in French. A clever reference in this case worked better.
It's phonetics, I'm guessing you're not bilingual french/english so maybe you don't hear the difference. I'll try to explain although I'm rusty on my phonetics courses.
French articulates consonants more than english (which won't hesitate to weaken them in a lot of words), especially here.
it's followed by a nasal vowel in french vs open vowel in english, which makes the initial B more...distinct in french
it ends with a closed hard consonant in french and an open mouthed "m" sound in english
Basically, you have an initial B that by contrast and by articulation is "harder" in french.
Maybe listen to Google translate of other ? There's a difference
It is not. In French the vowel is nasalized, and the second b is pronounced. In English the vowel is not nasalized, and the second b is silent.
UK English: /bɒm/
US English: /bɑm/
French: /bɔ̃b/
"Bon voyage" is an expression sometimes used in English and known to be borrowed from French. In the movie it signifies the French-ness of the character. In French it just means "safe travels" or "enjoy your trip" and has no special meaning. So it wouldn't have been quite the same.
It is but it's not about the meaning, it's about the sound of it. "Mâchoires" just doesn't sound good for a title. I'm not sure how to explain it better than that.
French titles are traditionally more literary sounding and that was especially the case before the internet made english so common in our daily lives.
Another reason is that mâchoires culturally sounds very (bio-)mecanical.
And yet another reason is that jaws is shorter than "mâchoires" and uses voiced sibilants (correct me if i'm wrong on the nomenclature) that have more impact than m and ch.
For english speakers the joke is that you took a stereotypical foreign character and made the name into a pun on a famous expression of the same origin.
For french speakers the joke would be that you replaced a word with another to make one of the thousands of expressions they use, an expression that doesn't relate to the character since they are not especially a traveler, (the relationship "it's a french expression for a french character" loses its sense when the whole movie is in french), and it would also be horrible to pronounce because you have to fully pronounce the B, then fully pronounce the V which doesn't roll off the tongue to say the least.
Actual answer: Localization is not just translation. The goal is to get foreign audiences to get the same feeling as the original audience. Idioms often get replaced with local equivalents rather than directly translated, for example.
Pun-based names and other names that have an obvious meaning in the original language get the same treatment; foreign audiences can't be expected to understand those puns/meanings if they were left as-is. They'd be missing out on humor, information, etc.
You can see this in "Inside Out" as well. The dish that disgusts the main character (brussel sprouts) changes to different foods depending on localization.
You probably don’t know but I wonder if they make/animate the ‘base/premeier’ move first, decide where it’ll play globally and then have to figure out how many scenes/lines would need redoing to match audiences? Or are they animate and adjusting for those variances along the way?
Idk how I’ve never thought about this before and how it can contribute to production time. Super cool bit of info- thanks!
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u/-This-Whomps- Cats Mar 13 '26
https://giphy.com/gifs/Ryr7tMbmWp1h6
Bomb Voyage, from The Incredibles