Thank goodness The Princess Bride is on Disney+, which offers all the different audio options! This has always been one of my most treasured movies. I discovered it when I was in 6th grade, memorized the Battle of Wits, and dreamed about being Westley and rescuing Buttercup. My wife loves it too, and it turns out she shares Cary Elwes's birthday and I share Robin Wright's!
Anyway, here are the dubbing differences I found in Brazilian Portuguese. Unfortunately, it didn't have as good of an attention to detail of things like lip syncing like the Disney classics do. But there were still some gems.
The boy is voiced by a young woman, which is somewhat distracting.
Buttercup calls Westley “Peasant” instead of “Farm Boy.”
There’s no word for “wish” in Portuguese, so Westley says “As you desire.”
Humperdinck tells the people that Buttercup was “once a plebeian like yourselves."
Buttercup: “There is nothing nearby, not for kilometers.”
Vizzini calls Fezzik a “loudmouth of sparse intelligence” instead of a hippopotamic landmass, insulting his speaking out of turn instead of jabbing at his size.
Instead of calling Inigo a “sot” when he says “The sot has spoken!” Vizzini calls him the “cara com espada,” a rhyming phrase that means “sword guy.”
Vizzini: "And you! Friendless. Brainless. Futureless. Futureless!"
Inigo: “Vizzini likes to talk.” Fezzik: “At me he really likes to shout.” (falar / gritar) There are only three endings for all verbs in Portuguese, so they’re very easy to rhyme like this.
Inigo: “I don’t think he has a purpose.” Fezzik: “He’s really very short on manners.” (intenção / educação).
In English Inigo and Fezzik rhyme with “You have a great gift for rhyme” and “Yes, some of the time.” But in Portuguese, the sentences don’t rhyme. Fezzik just ends by saying “Yes, I do, but not always.” (rima / sempre)
Inigo: “Fezzik, are there rocks to the north?” Fezzik: “If there are, they’ll be our death!” (norte / morte)
Vizzini: “Enough with the poetry!” Fezzik: “What’s the point of so much variety?” (poesia / varia) Also, instead of just yelling in frustration, Vizzini impatiently yells “Let’s go!”
The phrase for “dog paddle” in Portuguese is literally “puppy swim.”
The boy says that he’s a little “worried” about Buttercup and the eels instead of “concerned.”
Westley tells Inigo “this is more difficult than it looks.” I’ve said it before, but I love reversals in translation like that.
Inigo: “I don’t want to be curious, but you don’t happen to have…”
Fezzik says his way isn’t very “fair” instead of sportsmanlike.
Fezzik: “I did that on purpose. I don’t usually miss.”
Instead of saying “We face each other as God intended. Sportsmanlike,” he says “We have a fair fight, like gentlemen.”
Westley just wishes Fezzik “Good dreams” instead of “Dream of large women.”
The Battle of Wits is called the Dispute of Wisdom.
Portuguese doesn’t really have a verb for “to smell,” so after Vizzini smells the iocane powder he simply says “It doesn’t have a smell.”
An odd change in Vizzini’s logic: “No one trusts criminals, just like no one trusts me.”
Instead of “Truly, you have a dizzying intellect,” Westley says “Your reasoning is very good.”
Instead of “Wait till I get going!” Vizzini says “Well, I haven’t even started!”
Vizzini: “I will! And I choose… What is that? It’s something weird!”
Vizzini claims he saw something with much more certainty: “I saw. I saw something! I’m certain I saw something!” instead of “I could’ve sworn I saw something. No matter.”
Vizzini: “The most famous is ‘never get involved in a land war in Asia,’ but only slightly less well known and just as important is this:”
Man in Black: “Where I come from, lying women are punished.”
Man in Black: “Life is pain. Anyone who says differently is lying.” Sad that they water down funny quips like this.
I think when Buttercup pushes Westley down the ravine she says “And you can die too, by all that is most sacred!” It's like she's giving a formal execution.
Buttercup: “We’ll never survive!” Westley: “Nonsense. You’re only saying that because everyone dies.”
The Dread Pirate Roberts was more certain that he would kill Westley in the morning, not saying “most likely.”
Westley lists the three “horrors” (instead of terrors) of the Fire Swamp.
The old woman in the crowd doesn’t say “Boo.” (I guess that’s not a thing in Portuguese?) Instead, she just says more synonyms for foul things, like “Mud! Crap! Garbage!”
When he’s drunk, Inigo speaks Spanish, using words like “yo estoy” instead of “eu estou.” I almost didn’t notice because they’re so similar in Portuguese and Spanish. And his accent is still Brazilian.
The Brute Squad is called “the Barbarians.”
Fezzik doesn’t rhyme when he meets Inigo with the Brute Squad.
The boy: “Carumba, grandpa! What did you read me this thing for?”
Miracle Max is called Miraculous Max.
Miracle Max: “While you’re at it, why not cut my head [off?] and pour lemon juice on it?”
Max describes Westley as “almost dead.”
Max claims that instead of saying “love” (amor) he said “actor” (ator). “...and as we all know, actors are liars…” I know that was probably a hard exchange to dub, but I think they could've done a lot better.
“Humiliations galore” is “Humiliation in abundance.”
Westley wishes for an Executioner’s Hood, not a Holocaust Cloak. This puts the scene with Fezzik in a different light.
The Impressive Clergyman has no speech impediment whatsoever. Other than his slightly odd cadence of words, he sounds completely normal. I really don’t understand decisions like these made when dubbing films.
Instead of “What was that for?” the king says “Why’d you kiss me?”
Count Rugen’s lines here are changed quite a bit, and I probably got the translation a bit wrong, but it’s hard to tell: “Holy God, do you still think you can win? I feel a very strange sensation. But that’s going to lead to a much worse problem.”
The dramatic music kicks in a little too quick so his line is cut off, but I’m pretty sure Inigo’s final words to Count Rugen are “I want my father back, you butcher.”
Westley: “I’ll explain. And I’ll be sure to use very simple words so that you’ll be sure to understand, you weasel-faced clown.”
As he prepares to leave, the grandpa says “All right. Okay. All right” a little bit, but he replaced a few of them with “Glasses, keys…”
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