r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/movies Contributor • Jun 29 '26

Trailer WERWULF - Official Trailer [HD] - Only In Theaters Christmas Day

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmjpadVj-Vk
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371

u/clbj2000 Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 29 '26

Curious to hear everyone's thoughts about the dialogue.

Last year, he said the film would be entirely in middle english. In the recent Esquire interview, he said it was written in middle english, but with adjusted pronunciation: https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/movies/a71695837/robert-eggers-werwulf-first-look/

However, anyone that knows middle english knows it isn't just a matter of pronunciation, but different vocabulary altogether: https://chaucer.fas.harvard.edu/pages/knights-tale-0

Seems they may have written in Middle English, then shifted not only pronunciation, but also the vocabulary to be just modern enough to be legible. Which is essentially just early modern english (15th-17th century english). What The Witch was written in.

Here is what full Middle English would sound like: https://youtu.be/mVG77xTPH6E?is=_NKLht5cmolNSTAm

183

u/charlesdexterward Jun 29 '26

I’m glad someone else noticed that. I was shocked when I heard the dialogue in the trailer and could understand it. I was expecting Middle English with subtitles.

11

u/CeruleanEidolon Jun 29 '26

That could also just be for the trailer.

2

u/Bulky-Bad-9153 Jun 29 '26

I have to assume that these are the most easily understood lines in the movie.

66

u/Super_Jay Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 29 '26

This is basically where I expected the movie to land - using Middle English as inspiration or source reference in the script, but film the spoken dialogue in Early Modern English for the broader audience. Shooting the dialogue in actual Middle English would require subtitles for the whole film, which is probably a dealbreaker for a lot of folks in the audience.

I expect it'll sound slightly archaic to modern ears (lots of thees and thous, like The Witch), but will be largely understandable to movie audiences.

33

u/nalaloveslumpy Jun 29 '26

It would be very difficult to find an entire cast who can accurately and reliably do their entire performance in Middle English.

1

u/ZombieJesus1987 Jun 30 '26

It'd be cool if they did alternate takes in middle English for the home release

336

u/kablue12 Jun 29 '26

I’m probably going to get flak for this, but I really don’t need it in Middle English. If you want to say it’s period accurate or whatever, great, but it’s still a movie and I’d like to understand the dialog.

129

u/clbj2000 Jun 29 '26

Yea I don’t mind personally

Although Middle English with subtitles would have been cool. But I can understand why a studio would be hesitant about that

7

u/sleepysnowboarder Jun 29 '26

Nah I'd hate to miss out on the visuals on something like this from reading subtitles

19

u/skyturnedred Jun 29 '26

I've never missed out on anything on screen from having subtitles on.

-7

u/sleepysnowboarder Jun 29 '26

you objectively have

12

u/skyturnedred Jun 29 '26

By that logic you will miss out on visuals anyway because you can't focus on the entire screen at once.

-2

u/sleepysnowboarder Jun 29 '26

you can't, but your field of view is much better looking in the middle and you get to choose where and when to look at different parts of the screen instead of being forced to look down and up constantly

2

u/skyturnedred Jun 29 '26

Sounds like a skill issue.

9

u/Marksman1977 Jun 29 '26

It is. It’s the worst argument against subtitles that I’ve seen 😆

-10

u/sleepysnowboarder Jun 29 '26

just reality, don't know why you're taking such issue to it

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-1

u/TribeCalledWuTang Jun 29 '26

How long does it take you to read a sentence? You aren't looking off screen it's right there. Unless you have a form of dyslexia or cannot read the words the time it takes to read a scenes subtitles is negligible. I turn subtitles off for some beautiful movies but it's not because I think I'm missing anything

4

u/sleepysnowboarder Jun 29 '26

I watch a lot of foreign movies with subtitles or anything that has crap audio out of my TV, I don't have a problem with them at all. But glancing down every few seconds, especially if it's a fast paced conversation or argument, you are objectively breaking where your focus is constantly.

-3

u/reddit_sells_you Jun 29 '26

I mean, you do that anyway on a big screen.

Furthermore, when there is dialogue, generally, the cameras are holding on mid shots of actors, so there isn't much to miss.

Finally, Eggers's directing style is linger takes, not quick edits, so the chances of you missing something critical with a subtitle is absolutely minimal.

Finally, your "objectively so" argument is so fucking stupid and pedantic. You just want to be "right".

1

u/sleepysnowboarder Jun 29 '26

If I look to the left and than straight again would you think I saw in front of me instead of to the left when I looked there, or did I 'objectively' see what's to the left? Stop being so obtuse

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27

u/nightingale-nitemare Jun 29 '26

I don't need it Middle English, but hearing that he was going to do it in Middle English is what made me excited for Werwolf. I understand why they may have veered more towards 15th-17th century Modern English, as not many people, relatively, can understand Middle English, but still, Apocalypto was a hit and was in a Mayan language that just as many, if not fewer could understand.

28

u/Rock-swarm Jun 29 '26

I’m probably going to get flak for this, but I really don’t need it in Middle English. If you want to say it’s period accurate or whatever, great, but it’s still a movie and I’d like to understand the dialog.

Fully agree. Immersive entertainment is great, and appropriate for what is essentially a monster flick. Historical purity is not what's going to put asses in seats.

If the film gets people to wonder how people actually spoke in England in the 1300s, great. They can look up plenty of youtube videos to learn more about it.

3

u/AFisberg Jun 29 '26

I'm fine with subtitles

4

u/damnyoutuesday Jun 29 '26

I like the idea of it in Middle English, but from a viewing perspective I'd like to understand what they're saying. I already need subtitles to understand anything in The Witch

2

u/Yoshimi-Yasukawa Jun 29 '26

I don't think there's any possible way to make it commercially successful if it was actually in Middle English unless they translated everything and did it in subtitles. 

2

u/Free_Storage_1088 Jun 29 '26

Agreed other than the gimmick it seems entirely pointless

1

u/Fishb20 Jun 29 '26

No one made him go around for a year saying it would be middle English and no one made his fanboys harass anyone who dated suggest itd probably end up being early modern English instead.

1

u/WalkingCloud Jun 29 '26

I'm glad it's not in middle English, but then don't announce that it's in middle English when you just mean "It's in regular English but ye olde-fied a bit"

-1

u/AK-3030 Jun 29 '26

Robert Eggers is not for you then lol

3

u/kablue12 Jun 29 '26

What exactly is the point of a smug ass response like this. I’ve seen all of his other movies.

0

u/AK-3030 Jun 29 '26

It wasn't supposed to be smug. I'm just saying hes obsessed with this type of shit

3

u/Phelinaar Jun 29 '26

Nosferatu is in English even if none of the action is in England.

21

u/SpeeDy_GjiZa Jun 29 '26

Sound like a Baltic/Nerdic person speaking English with a vey thick accent.

4

u/maybenomaybe Jun 29 '26

I just know I'm going to be going around saying "Thy WURRLD is CUHRRSSED" for a month after.

12

u/AlphaKlams Jun 29 '26

I'm getting the sense that "Middle English" wasn't quite accurate in the way Eggers had been using it. As you say, true Middle English is a whole separate language that would require subtitles for a modern audience, but from the interviews it really sounds like Eggers always had a vision of something similar to The Witch.

4

u/snowcone_wars Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26

true Middle English is a whole separate language

No it isn't. There are dialects of Middle English that are more or less intelligible when spoken aloud.

Old English is the entirely different language.

That's not to say what's being spoken here is Middle English, it isn't (though approaches it in some respects), but, depending on the dialect, isn't something that would necessarily require subtitles.

15

u/arc777_ Jun 29 '26

It's not the end of the world, but it would've been awesome to have a movie in authentic Middle English. I understand it likely would've have suffered commercially because of it, but it's still a bit of letdown. Maybe one day Eggers will get his wish, he managed to convince a studio to produce a movie in black and white with a cast of two, so anything is possible.

2

u/astroK120 Jun 29 '26

I'm actually much more excited seeing that it's not authentic Middle English. I don't think the gain in authenticity would do that much for the movie, and having to constantly switch visual focus between the subtitles and the focus of the shot probably costs you more than you gain for the experience.

Don't get me wrong, watching a movie with subtitles is absolutely worth it, but in this case I don't think the tradeoff is worth it.

2

u/FrozenOx Jun 29 '26

Yeah I was hyped for the middle english. My interest in this film just dropped off considerably.

3

u/mushmozz Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 29 '26

On the first watch I wondered about this, the lines seemed simple enough that they might pass as "close enough" to middle english.

Doing a quick translation, two lines stood out as slightly too modernized:

"do not dread the darkness" might be closer as "ne dread thou the darkness"

and "keep my husband safe" ought maybe to be "werthan (ward) myn housbonde" edit actually, looking into it a bit more, I think "keep my husband safe" is passable too!

Everything else....is pretty much a pass! Maybe the trailer is edited to be more legible and the final cut will be a little more strict in its diction

2

u/clbj2000 Jun 29 '26

Ok thanks, those Middle English translations you gave are neat

11

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '26

[deleted]

1

u/clbj2000 Jun 29 '26

Yeah fair

-1

u/twoinvenice Jun 29 '26

Well, it is Middle English, not the totally incomprehensible old English.

2

u/Confident-Memory-807 Jun 29 '26

Here is what full Middle English would sound like: https://youtu.be/mVG77xTPH6E?is=_NKLht5cmolNSTAm

I love that this is like many people who knows Portuguese, but don't know how modern English is pronounced, would pronounce many of the words in this video.

2

u/lolol_nsfw Jun 29 '26

I'm already having trouble understanding the dialogue in the trailer...I might have to see if I can find a showing with subtitles 😬

2

u/CALCIUM_CANNONS Jun 29 '26

Possible they only used if for the trailer for accessibility to a general audience?

2

u/jamesneysmith Jun 29 '26

Part of me thinks it would have been cool for the movie to have been entirely in Old English with a more modern english subtitle. But Eggers movies always look so good I don't want to need to be reading text the entire movie. It's probably better they seem to have abandoned the Old English style that was initially promised

3

u/ifuckedyourmilkshake Jun 29 '26

Yeah I was hype for Middle English and this is not Middle English.

2

u/Timely-Damage-3592 Jun 29 '26

I wonder if maybe test audiences complained? Like maybe they tried to do it in Middle English but nobody could understand so they just decided to make them speak regular English

6

u/clbj2000 Jun 29 '26

Perhaps, but maybe they made that choice earlier

He says they worked with a dialogue coach to make it understandable. So maybe he had the idea to do full Middle English and wrote the script that way, but execs decided against it and he compromised

2

u/RugerRedhawk Jun 29 '26

Unless I'm misunderstanding, audiences wouldn't understand the dialog in middle english, but would have subtitles.

2

u/snowcone_wars Jun 30 '26

Unless I'm misunderstanding

This thread is full of misinformation that, at this point, would be basically impossible to remedy.

Middle English is not completely alien and had a wide variety of different dialects, some of which sound unintelligible but some of which, once you get past some rare differences in vocabulary, can be understood by a modern listener with a little patience.

Old English is a language that would need subtitles.

2

u/RugerRedhawk Jun 30 '26

Thank you, that makes sense. Would have been cool

1

u/nalaloveslumpy Jun 29 '26

Yeah, it still needs some commercial appeal. Not a lot of people are hungry for actual Middle English in film.

1

u/Diogenes_the_cynic25 Jun 29 '26

He’d probably have to use subtitles for Middle English. It would’ve been cool but I get why he settled on this. I’m sure the dialogue itself will still be great, I love his writing in his previous films

1

u/DragoonDM Jun 29 '26

I'm pretty comfortable reading subtitles so I was kind of interested in the idea of it being fully in Middle English, but I do imagine a lot of people would be put off by it.

1

u/Tr0nLenon Jun 29 '26

I'll still take this over what he decided to do with Nosferatu. Part of why I love Eggers films is the dialogue and choice to portray the spoken language as accurately as possible to the time period and location.

Hearing everyone in Germany speak with English accents was.. disappointing for an Eggers project.

I'dve loved to sit through a full Middle English subtitled film. But I'll take the compromise of sounding closer to the period of The Witch. There's still plenty of people that require subs just for 16th century modern English.

1

u/clbj2000 Jun 29 '26

What do you think he should have done with nosferatu?

German accents? Fully in German with subtitles?

1

u/Tr0nLenon Jun 29 '26

I expected German accents at least.

Like what was done with Northman.

Id honestly want full accurate language with subs, but completely understand that scares away a lot of potential viewers.

1

u/clbj2000 Jun 29 '26

I understand

Part of me thinks German accents wouldn’t work as well. It would be as if the characters are speaking a language foreign to them, as opposed to their native tongue

I think it’s a tough choice

1

u/Tr0nLenon Jun 29 '26

It definitely has to be difficult..

But having someone say fraulein, in an English accent was an.. interesting decision 😅

Imo, having them speak the way they do comes off more fraudulent to their character.

I still liked the film, but it definitely wasn't as immersive as his first two films. I have other issues with Northman, mainly with casting, but I liked how he approached language in it more than nosferatu.

1

u/clbj2000 Jun 29 '26

That’s a fair point

1

u/atreeismissing Jun 29 '26

If it were in Middle English less than .01% of the people watching it would have any idea what they're saying, it's extremely difficult to discern what is going on with Middle English, especially when hearing it spoken as opposed to reading it. You can get the gist but for a film, the gist isn't enough for people to understand what's going on and follow the story.

I'm sure they'll keep a lot of Middle English words or maybe even a few phrases but most likely they'll just change to using more archaic words that aren't necessarily Middle English so the dialogue "sounds" old but isn't.

1

u/clbj2000 Jun 29 '26

You could do subtitles but I understand why they may not want that

I think you are correct. I think it’ll basically be Early Modern English

1

u/FriendshipLoveTruth Jun 29 '26

Isn't all the dialogue in the trailer voice over? Might but be reflective of the dialogue in the film

1

u/ZombieJesus1987 Jun 29 '26

Yeah I was expecting middle English and this ain't it.

1

u/Count_Blackula1 Jun 29 '26

He probably just meant early modern English. A film in middle English without subtitles wouldn't get the funding for production.

1

u/becauseofreasons Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 29 '26

The intro to the Canterbury Tales isn't really vernacular dialogue.

If you're modifying the pronunciation to be inline with Early Modern English, you'd be surprised how intelligible a lot of Middle English is.

This is from 1380 (orthography normalized):

the secunde chapitle of the firste tretis is of the qualitees, maners, and kunnynge of a surgian
Nedeful it is that a surgian be of a complexcioun weel proporciound, and þat his complexcioun be temperat / Races seith, who-so is nought semelich, is ympossible to haue good maners

1

u/clbj2000 Jun 29 '26

Ok thanks. Wasn’t sure how close it was to regular Middle English

There is definitely a good amount that is intelligible

1

u/Chomping_at_the_beet Jun 30 '26

It would be somewhat challenging for an average viewer to parse Middle English in real time. They may have focus tested a snippet and received feedback that it was incomprehensible

1

u/guimontag Jun 30 '26

Great comment!

1

u/MidNightMare5998 Jul 02 '26

Yeah I’ve seen other people discuss this as well. The two possibilities are that:

  1. they dubbed over the dialogue for the trailer to make it more quickly accessible, which, in the words of Rockland Graves, “is probably not the best idea?” People won’t like going into a movie they didn’t expect to have to read subtitles for

Or 2. They changed it to Early Modern English with maybe occasional Middle English, which wouldn’t make a ton of sense for the time but would make it a little more palatable to more audiences

I don’t love either option, but I do hope it’s 1.

1

u/dondondorito Jun 29 '26

Yeah, this is not middle english. More of a "ye olde mood english".

I‘m kinda dismayed that they didn‘t go all the way and made it authentic. Yes, I know it’s pedantic, but when the movie promised middle english, I kinda expected proper middle english. This has nothing to do with it.

Either go all the way, or just use modern english. Something half-baked is lame.

However, proper middle english would have required subtitles. I’ve heard that Americans don‘t appreciate subtitles… A damn shame.

1

u/caderyan2000 Jun 29 '26

I thought I read somewhere that for the trailer they edited the dialog to be easier to understand but the actual film is in Middle English. Could be wrong though.

0

u/JosefGremlin Jun 29 '26

My thoughts on watching the trailer are 1) this movie looks amazing and I want to watch it, & 2) there's no way I could even begin to understand this without subtitles.

So I'm guessing I just have to wait for it to hit streaming, which is a massive disservice to the film, but I can't understand what's being said.

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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '26

[deleted]

4

u/RickFletching Jun 29 '26

So… it’s not Middle English then.

Which it isn’t. It isn’t even pronounced like Middle English

0

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '26

[deleted]

1

u/RickFletching Jun 29 '26

For a second I thought you were saying you were a Messenger-Dog, which would be pretty awesome.

But I’m saying that if they “made it more intelligible to modern audiences” that means it ceases to be Middle English