A bird’s eye view of the three. Ritsuko is already sitting down.
Shinji:“My father did that…?
?”
Ritsuko:“That's when he burned his palms.”
Reichu (Quoting the Platinum dub): “Bullshit! My father did that?”
thewayneiac: Way to add gratuitous cursing, ADV. That really doesn't match the tone of this scene at all.
Cody MacArthur Fett: Shinji's disbelieving exclamation of "Bullshit!" in the ADV dub once again cements his status as the Audience Surrogate. In this case it's a reference to the popular belief that Gendo Ikari has no soul, only another AT Field.
thewayneiac: That's a popular belief? Anyway, his status doesn't need to be cemented any more than it was in the original. Adding things that aren't in the original isn't proper translation. And as I said, it wreaks the whole tone of the scene, which is all about Shinji's astonished disbelief in seeing a side of his father that he's never before seen. It doesn't fit the expression we've seen on his face his entire sequence. It's just one more strike against the dub, especially in light of the fact that it was added to Platinum. They didn't learn anything from when they originally dubbed the show.
Cody MacArthur Fett: Well, I suppose it's more of a personal preference thing, thewayneiac. Personally I find Shinji's exclamation in the Platinum dub to be both extremely appropriate and bloody hilarious, but then again I'm hardly someone to give a rat's behind about exact translations. If you're someone who prefers exact translations then you're going to find the addition of that line grating, but if you only care about watching the show then you're probably not going to mind, care, or notice.
As for Gendo: yes, that is the popular belief. If you go on FF.net for instance and read through the stories posted there you'll notice that not only are 87% bad but you'll also notice that 95% of them portray Gendo as being two steps away from drinking a baby smoothie while flogging the Children with a bullwhip, metaphorically speaking of course. A lot of people have a hard time believing that Gendo is actually capable of doing a selfless deed, and automatically assume that anything and everything he does is part of a plan to destroy the world. It's blatant fanon Fladerization of the character, but that's the way things seem to go and there's certainly more examples of this in the series.
thewayneiac: Now wait a minute. Do you realize what you seem to be saying? Because it is a popular belief on FF.net and other sites that Gendo is a soulless S.O.B. ADV should let that inform their translation? O.K., for one thing, the contents of many fanfics show that their authors don't actually know much about Eva. Many of them are based on the worst Eva falsehoods, like Naoko in Unit-00, the "combination girl" theory, or the "Adam and Eve" theory. Should ADV also let those guide their dub? That is just plain silly. The fan opinions ought to be based on the show, not the other way around. Besides, I can't say I agree ADV was deliberately trying to appeal to the fanfic crowd; I think they were just trying to express their own opinion. This is the same sort of junk dubbing that gives dub viewers such an insanely twisted view of Ritsuko. If anyone has been Flanderized in the dub it's her. As Shin-seiki once said, it's surprising that ADV didn't use computer overlays to give her a mustache to twirl.
Dubs are already inaccurate by their nature; the translation must be re-written to match the lip flaps. This is why for Wiki analysis we consider only the subtitle script, and refer to the dub only to point out its worst inaccuracies. To introduce further inaccuracies by adding things that don't exist in the original is never acceptable.
