Thor: Love, bijlee

Confessedly a Marvel fan I couldnrsquot possibly count the number of times Irsquove exploited dialogues from the Avengers franchise to evoke laughs during conversations The fact that the franchisersquos makers aptly penned dialogues lsquoI love you 3000rsquo lsquoOn your leftrsquo lsquoIrsquom always angryrsquo to evoke a sense of nostalgia wasnrsquot lost on its fans But it does beg the question of how these nowiconic phrases were translated in the filmsrsquo dubbed versions In a candid chat Mayur Puri who has worked on the Hindi translations of several Marvel films including Thor Ragnarok Captain America Civil War and the recently released Thor Love and Thunder breaks down his processEdited excerpts from the interviewWhat are some of the basic rules set in place while tackling a Marvel filmYou have to be aware of the universe because yoursquore never writing for one film alone You need to be aware of how all the other characters are placed I was lucky that Captain America Civil War was among the first films I worked on because it had many layers I have a Marvel encyclopedia at home Honestly in India we didnrsquot grow up with Marvel comics although we knew about them I learnt on the job As far as rules are concerned we generally donrsquot change proper nouns If an attack has occurred in New York that wonrsquot become New Delhi Similarly Iron Man will stay Iron Man he wonrsquot become Loha Purush But while retaining that if we can introduce a joke thatrsquos relevant to the local audience it is welcomed I try to push the envelope For example in Civil War there is a scene in which Vision is cooking a meal for Wanda and she approaches him Since that is an intense scene I wanted to add an element of humour so that my audience could endure it So I added the dialogue mdash lsquoEk chutki mirchi ki keemat tum kya jaano Vision babursquo That became a problem because the original film did not have a dialogue in that place I am glad that the Disney India team gives way to such indulgences Similarly there was a discussion on what wersquod call the Infinity Stones They are proper nouns but I knew the Hindi speaking audience may not understand it So I used the term anantmani I couldnrsquot use pathar even though they used the word stone because pathar has no value in India So we called it anantmani and then started using it interchangeably Now in the subsequent projects I can use Infinity Stones alone and my audience will accept itAlso Read AntMan and the Wasp Quantumania first look unveiled at ComicConChris Evans as Captain America in Avengers EndgameThe makers have appropriately used dialogues to create a recall value A case in point being lines like lsquoOn your leftrsquo or lsquoAvengers assemblersquo which were crucial in creating the impact that they did in the climax of Endgame Can these dialogues create a similar impact when they are translated in HindiI had to see what technology was used in the early films I also had to do some research online and see the chatter around these dialogues We donrsquot always know which dialogues will become iconic while we are creating the first few films For instance Caprsquos iconic lsquoI can do this all dayrsquo was simply translated to lsquoMain toh yeh pura din kar sakta hoonrsquo The team working on it hadnrsquot anticipated how crucial it would eventually become When I noticed how iconic it was becoming I changed it to a more rousing lsquoAbhi toh shuruwat hairsquo Another issue that we faced was while dealing with the role of Professor Hulk in Endgame Until then Hulk used broken sentences and was generally mute So in the previous films we had attached a childlike attitude to his dialogues But here he was constructing full sentences So we had to work around that and employ different tools to make it relatable The dubbing also has to sit on the characterrsquos lipsAnother example is that of the role of Korg in Ragnarok He had a small role and was an endearing character made of rocks who had no rage at all I had once travelled to Hyderabad and was witness to a conversation between my cab driver and another who had cut his lane I thought things would escalate but their conversation was seamless and sweet I realised that Hyderabadis have no rage So I gave Korg a Hyderabadi twist in the Hindi version The Hindi film watchers loved that character Now in Thor Love and Thunder Korg has an elaborate role he is the narrator Since our approach to the character in the last Hindi version was so well received we could cash in on that and make him more exciting Had I not given him a distinct twist in that film we wouldnrsquot be able to enhance his act this time eitherAlso Read Marvel extremely actor friendly but not director friendly Ethan HawkeMayur PuriIs the Marvel team apprehensive about creating characters with cultural differencesThere is a difference between racism and accepting and celebrating our differences We are different and that is simply how it is In Finding Dory we had two sea lions who were sweet but also very aggressive about protecting their land I wanted to represent a culture that did justice to this mixture So I made them Lucknowi nawabs who are usually so welcoming but can be assertive when they must I will highlight another instance In Ragnarok a character brings two guns and says lsquoI got these from Texas This one is Des the other is Troy Together they Destroyrsquo I changed it to lsquoMain inhe Vasseypur se laya hoon Yeh hai Bar woh hai Badi Saath mein yeh hai barbadirsquo The team raised an objection citing that we couldnrsquot change the reference from Texas to Wasseypur But I had to highlight that the audience wouldnrsquot relate to Texas Indians know that Wasseypur is known for its various gangs and is like the Texas of India I wanted to create that bridge for themAlso Read Marvelous Mairaj Khan makes history