The Assassin's Creed movie is trying to adapt a long running game franchise for the silver screen. We know that the film will be making several changes to the structure the games have built, but, this newly announced change will require you to turn on the subtitles. Apparently, all of the sequences in the film which take place in 15th-century Spain will actually be done in Spanish. The film's director says it will help transport the audience there as well as the characters.
We did play around with English as well, but it was really obvious what you wanted as soon as you went back and started speaking beautiful Spanish. It really adds an exoticness and richness to the film.
And it's at this point that we realize that all of the dialogue that we heard in the trailer takes place during the modern day section. While about half of the trailer's length is taken up with shots from the Spanish Inquisition era, we never get any audio from it. Now we know why they insisted on distracting us with Kanye West.
Needless to say, the choice to do the Spain sequences in Spanish is surprising. Hollywood really seems to hate adding subtitles to movies most of the time. Making the audience read is some kind of deadly sin. However, according to director Justin Kurzel's comments to Total Film magazine, by way of GamesRadar, production company New Regency is completely behind the decision.
We know that the movie will primarily take place in the modern day, as opposed to the past, which flips the script on the way the game series has worked. We're now wondering if we'll be spending much time in the past at all. Will audiences be ok with reading 20 minutes of subtitles in what's ostensibly an action movie?
The game series has always played fast and loose with language. Within the plot, the same technology that allows one to relive the life of their ancestor also translates the language for them. This results in people speaking English, though sometimes with laughable accents. We sort of expected that's what would happen in the film, but apparently not.
Certainly, changing the language on the audience will have the desired effect of making it seem like the character, played by Michael Fassbender, is really going through a new and different experience. Although, now we want to know more about the actor's prep for the role. He does speak German fluently, but how quickly was he able to pick up Spanish?
Are you excited to see the Assassin's Creed movie go all-in on their 15th-century location or is it more annoying that you'll have to bring your glasses to the theater in order to read the subtitles properly?
