hi :) Was the German version of Back to the Future The Musical as good as the original or did they make bad changes or bad translations too?
Hi, thanks for asking!!!!
I'd say overall it was as good as the original. there were no major or noticeable changes to the show that I could tell (and as far as I know the majority of the set and props came to germany from the broadway run. at least the delorean did, not sure about the rest). And the translation was apparently made by, in my opinion, the best in the business of musical translations (apparently Heiko Wohlgemuth and maybe together with Kevin Schroeder, but I haven't found a reliable source yet)
there were a few things that I didn't like as much in the german version
I already talked about how the twist-off crown cork gag doesn't work in germany
I think "Wer will, der kann" is a very unelegant translation of "Put your mind to it" but I'm not gonna argue with the, again, literal best in the biz. I'm just extremely attached to the song and it's hard to reach perfection. I wouldn't even know a good translation myself.
The musical really leans into the movie joke of biff mixing up idioms, and in the german version they added on top of idiom-mixups that he speaks very gramatically "bad" in general, which I didn't like because it really turns it from a quirk to an honestly borderline offensive joke at the expense of people whose german isn't "perfect" either due to lack of access to good education, learning german as a second language or having a (learning) disability. I'm already not a huge fan of what they did to Biff in the musical in general but the german version made that much worse.
related, they added a scene that I can't seem to find in the original so correct me if I'm wrong about it being new, where Lorraine talks to her friends about why Marty is such a dream boat and wonders where he comes from she suddenly gasps and yells "Vielleicht geht er ja... aufs College!" (Maybe he goes... to college!!) to which her friend responds by sarcastically mimicking her and going "Vielleicht geht er ja... auf eine Sonderschule/Förderschule" (Maybe he goes to a special ed school) (I don't remember if she uses the term Sonderschule or Förderschule) which again, is a joke at the expense of people with learning disabilites and other disadvantages that I didn't appreciate.
A lot of the actors performed a bit too caricature-y for my taste. I think the manchester cast for example found a good balance between recognisable bits and natural acting, while the german cast leaned heavily into caricature territory. I'd say George and Biff were the worst in that. Doc and Marty for example clearly chose not to go with copy/caricature and stood out more positively for that. Jan Kersjes made Doc is own, very different even from Roger Bart, and it works much better than a copy or caricature would even if it's such a loud and over-acted performance because it just feels original. Raphael Groß opted for doing absolutely no impression work whatsoever and essentially just created a whole new flavour of marty mcfly (tall, lost puppy, a bit awkward) that I wasn't sure about at first because it feels so removed from the original but that is really growing on me. I'd rather see a completely new take on a character than a bad attempt at an impression that ends up not working.
To their credit, I can't think of any translated line that stood out to me aside from put your mind to it, which I think really shows how well the translation works. I think I'd have to really really pay close attention to find things that stand out. Okay no I can think of ONE more line that stood out, but positively: "Gib mir nen Knutscher, boy" (Give me a smooch, boy) added to Future Boy because it is so buckwild to me and was added I think for me personally specifically. so you see even if I try to talk about the negatives I inevitably end up with the positives again
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