Live Free or Die Hard (aka Die hard 4.0) / Die Hard 4 - Retour en enfer
(Die Hard 4 - Back to Hell)
I like this summary from IMDB (Though I removed a few over enthusiastic !s): On the July 4th holiday, an attack on the vulnerable United States infrastructure begins to shut down the entire nation. But as New York City police detective John McClane delivers old-school justice to a new breed of terrorist when a massive computer attack hacker on the U.S. infrastructure threatens to shut down the entire country over Independence Day weekend.
I like both English titles. Live Free or Die Hard is I think clever play on words, as it happens during Independence Day - yeah, live free.
The other title, Die Hard 4.0 is also a good reference to the fact that the terrorists are hackers.
I call it Die Hard 4 when I'm lazy. One of my friends calls it Die Hardest.
The French title is everything a title shouldn't be.
It follows rules 1 and 4. Double-y bad.
It has the original title (something in English) - which had not been referred to in any of the first 3 titles. English speaking movie buffs probably talked about the first 3 films as Die Hard. This is probably some pathetic attempt at keeping them sweet.
It has an attempt at explaining what the film is about "back to hell". So quite hot? Unless they're referring to New York City as being hell?
You sort of know it is a follow up to film 3. I say sorta. People not knowing what Die Hard is probably were confused.
And there you have it. The perfect case of stupid translation. Everything that could go wrong did.
The French Canadian title is partially acceptable: Vis libre ou crève (Live Free or Die) but still misses the reference to the previous titles.
Translation grade: Big fat FAIL.
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