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Dec 7, 2022

Dubbing Differences: The Sword in the Stone

I found the following notable changes in the Brazilian Portuguese dub of Disney's The Sword in the Stone:
  • The Portuguese title is The Sword Was the Law.
  • The minstrel at the beginning sings “A miracle happened; a king was born, thus saving the nation.”
  • “And anvil” is omitted from the inscription on the Sword in letters of gold.
  • The “who?” pun from Archimedes being an owl is lost.
  • Quite a few changes right off the bat between Kay and Wart:
    • “No one asked you to come bother me.”
    • I’m not bothering.”
    • “Ah, beauty! It’s gonna bid goodbye to life.”
    • Agh, you idiot, look what you did!
    • “If I get my hands on you, I’ll break all your bones one by one!
  • Wart’s voice is unbroken throughout the movie, voiced by a younger actor.
  • Merlin says “many centuries” instead of “hundreds of years.”
  • Wart compliments Merlin for being “diligent” instead of clever.
  • The song “Higitus Figitus” has the endings of some of the magical nonsense words changed to make them rhyme.
  • Instead of giving Wart demerits, Sir Ector makes him lose “points.”
  • Merlin calls the “wizard blizzard” a “nevada prisada,” which just means “heavy snowfall.”
  • The word for “squire” in Portuguese translates as “shield-bearer,” which is ultimately the etymological origin of the English word too.
  • Archimedes: “in the entire world” instead of “in all Christendom.”
  • Some new opposites they sing about in “That’s What Makes the World Go Round”: light and darkness, superior and inferior, here and there, yes and no, sweet and salt.
  • Instead of “You big, bug-eyed bully you!” Fish-Wart says “You donkey-abused toad!” Its delivery is a lot punchier and funnier in Portuguese too.
  • Archimedes doesn’t make hardly any noise during the sequence of him trying to evade the pike fish and snatch Wart.
  • Instead of saying “Snick, snack, snorrel” to turn Wart from a fish into a human, Merlin says “Wockity pockity ack.” However, later he says the normal incantation when turning Wart from a squirrel.
  • Instead of “something fishy’s going on here,” Sir Ector says “something isn’t smelling good here.”
  • Wart:“I didn’t fall, right?” instead of “I made it, didn’t I?”
  • When Merlin says gravity is what makes you fall downward, instead of saying “Like a stumble or a trip?” Squirrel-Wart says “Like a banana peel?
  • Archimedes calls the squirrels “untranquil (restless) squirrels” instead of “squirrelly squirrels.”
  • The girl squirrel doesn’t say “Oh no!” when she sees Squirrel-Wart in trouble.
  • The enchanted kitchen scene has some differences: “What a mess!” instead of “Gadzooks!” and “Jumping hop-toads!” and “Sheesh Mary!” instead of “Heavens preserve us!”
  • Instead of an “old goat,” Ector calls him a “devil” and the kitchen woman calls him a sorcerer.
  • Instead of saying “Madame, you won’t” before he disappears, he says “Madame, see you later.”
  • In English, Ector says “That’s three more demerits” and Kay says “Box his ears, Dad!” in Portuguese, though, Kay says “That’s very few, Dad.” And instead of saying “Ten more demerits!” Ector basically says “All your points are gone!
  • Instead of saying that Wart will get so mixed up he’ll wear his shoes on his head, he just rants about how he’ll be confused and end up “learning what he already knows.”
  • Understandably, Archimedes’s extended sequence of laughter is largely left undubbed.
  • It seems that Archimedes warns Bird-Wart about a “plane” instead of a hawk, but I’m guessing it’s some kind of metaphor or idiomatic term for “large bird.”
  • Madame Mim: “Merlin? The biggest idiot in the world.”
  • Archimedes refers to a wizard duel as a “fight of tricks” instead of a “battle of wits.”
  • Bird-Wart: “There is no strength better than intelligence” instead of “Knowledge and wisdom is the real power.”
  • The song Pellinore and Ector are singing about the “Blue Oak Tree on a field of white” is replaced by a simple song about “singing of victory until the end.”
  • Archimedes specifically compliments Wart’s squire clothing instead of the news that he has actually become a squire.

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