Near the end of The Hunt for Red October, Jack Ryan...
...confronts the saboteur, a cook,...
...in the missile room. He says something in Russian, but there are no subtitles like earlier scenes.
What did he say?
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Sign up to join this communityNear the end of The Hunt for Red October, Jack Ryan...
...confronts the saboteur, a cook,...
...in the missile room. He says something in Russian, but there are no subtitles like earlier scenes.
What did he say?
Well, we know (and they did not subtitle it) because he immediately repeats it, in English (I got the order wrong, he says the English, then the Russian, thanks to TJL.
a goddamn cook!
Except that, no, we don't actually know that. I always assumed he was repeating/translating for the English-speaking movie audience. Here's what I found when trying to find citations/references to back up that mistaken assumption:
Looking at scripts - none of the original scripts have any reference to dialogue there. There are no words spoken. What is interesting in the scripts is that
the agent/cook is holding two wires, gleefully evil as he prepares to bring them together with, it is assumed, disastrous consequences.
IMSDb: Script for The Hunt For Red October
Others have asked this question. On a couple of different message board threads on the Straight Dope website, users have supplied this answer, which fits with description of the actions the original script:
Where's what Baldwin says, in Russian -
"Ostav' eto v pokoye!"
Literal translation is "Leave it in peace!" the closest English translation is "Leave it alone!"
The Straight Dope Message Boards: What did Alec Baldwin say in Russian?
Or, in this case, essentially, "Drop it!"
Literal translations of Eastern Slavic are seldom correct because much of the conversation is implied by context. In this case Jack Ryan is saying to GRU Officer Loganov, ”Оставь это в покое!” (Ostav’ eto v pokoye) or “Put it down calmly!” The literal translation is actually “Leave it in peace!”
Similarly, when Dr Petrov says “Капитан в бою!” (Kapitan v boyu) the subtitle reads “The Captain is fighting the Americans!” but literally translates to “Captain in battle.”