In case I were watching in Suomi

You know how you're supposed to stay until the end of the credits for a Hangover movie, to see all the still photos of the crazy shit that happened to them that they can't otherwise remember because they were roofied?

Well, if you watch The Hangover Part III in Australia on DVD, you should also stay until the very end of the DVD, for another special treat.

Namely, a copyright warning in, oh, 34 different languages.

I suppose the explanation is that this is an international copy of the DVD -- I had to choose United Kingdom as my country when I inserted the DVD, since Australia wasn't clearly visible as an option -- but the result is that after the end of the credits, you are warned against improper screening of this video in 34 separate messages, corresponding to different countries and/or languages.

I kept watching, and they just kept going ... and going ... and going.

First it was, of course, a regular English warning. This was followed by another warning for the residents of South Africa, also in English. Then a screen for France, Luxembourg et Belgique. This time in French.

This was nothing unusual, since American DVDs usually have a warning at the beginning in French. Perhaps it's a North American DVD and is trying to cover the French Canadians.

Then I sat up in my seat because it started to get interesting.

Suisse followed, also in French. Then it was Deutschland/Ostteriech/Luxembourg. I guess this was for the residents of Germany and German-speaking residents of Osterriech (Austria) and Luxembourg.

Oh, but they were just getting started.

Next was Schweiz. For German-speaking Swiss. Then Espana. For Spanish-speaking Spaniards.

At this point I feel as though I should just list them -- where I can, anyway. Pretty soon other alphabets started to get involved, and I don't have the right keyboard.

Nederland en Belgie
Sverige
Norge
Danmark
[Other alphabet, can't translate]
Romania
[Something in Arabic]
Suomi - Finnish for Finland. Who knew?
Portugal
[Something in Hebrew, presumably for Israel]
Ostrzezenie - I can't figure out what this translates to. Every time I have Google translate pages for its own search of "Ostrzezenie," it's something religious.
Greek
Ceska Republika Upozorneni - I get the Czech Republic part, but not the Upozorneni part.
Turkiye
Magyarorszag Figyelmetztetes - The interwebs tell me this is Hungary.
Island Vidvorun - Iceland. Who knew?
Hrvatska - Croatia. Really.
Italia
Svizzera - Italian Swiss.
Slovenija
Shqiperia - Albania. Shouldn't their word at least sort of resemble our word? I guess I should ask Suomi about that.
Makeohnja
Hoiatus - The word "warning" in Estonian.
Bridinajums - The word "warning" in Latvian.
Ispejimas - The word "warning" in Lithuanian.
[Other alphabet, can't translate]
Upozorenje - Similar to what I saw with Ceska Republika. Now I get that this is the word "warning" also.

So yeah, that happened. And it took a good 5-6 minutes to get through.

I guess I just think it's funny that this is an all-purpose DVD, not just one for Australians. (Especially since Australians are not even singled out for a warning, unlike South Africans.)

The surplus of copyright warnings doesn't have to do with the DVD region code, either. Australia shares a region with countries in Central and South America, as well as obvious partners like New Zealand. That's region 4. But neither is this a region 2 DVD, which covers most of Europe, because a) that region also includes Japan, and there was no Japanese warning, and more importantly, b) then it wouldn't play here. (Except on my region-free DVD player, but they obviously make the rentals for the widest possible consumer consumption.)

To get a full appreciation of what else this DVD has in it, I decided to go back to the beginning and choose one of the other countries. It's funny, the main screen gives only 13 choices here, and then one that says All Other Countries. (So, hope you can understand one of those 13 languages, or else you're fucked.) Since we've been talking about it, I figured, how about Suomi?

I started playing the Finnish version of The Hangover Part III. Nothing was different -- no automatic dubbing or subtitling. So I checked on the languages. Indeed, I could choose "Cesky," which you and I know as Czech. But why Cesky in the Finnish version? They don't speak Czech in Finland, do they?

So I went back and chose something simpler: Espana.

Same language choices.

I don't know.

I do know this, though:

The Hangover Part III?

It's shit -- in any language.