We all know that the first Potter book is called Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in Britain and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone in the United States. Appearantly, the movie will be released with different titles in the two countries as well.
So here is a question to those of have been lucky enough to have seen the movie already: how do the characters in the film refer to the magical object in question? Have all lines that include the words “philosopher” or “sorcerer” been recorded twice, or what?
Good question, and I don’t know the answer as I haven’t seen the film, but I would be curious to know what the ‘sourcerer’s stone’ IS as the ‘philosophher’s stone’ is meant to be an alchemical term meaning the formula for turning lead (or base metals) into gold.
They use either, depending on which version you are watching. Each scene that features the Stone or the mention of it, was filmed twice with the alternative dialogue in place.
All the promotional material I’ve seen in Canada has “Philosopher’s Stone”. If it is different in the States, that’s unusual, because English-speaking Canada usually followis the US in movie distribution matters, and is I believe considered part of the US domestic market.
You get to choose the language/locale: English, Deutsch, Espanol (no ~ over the n), Francaise (no , under the c, plis an extra e), Italiano, Japanese (not Nihongo or characters), then ‘UK’. That last goes to the UK site http://harrypotter.warnerbros.co.uk/
The US site and the UK site appear pretty-much identical, but there’s a pop-up window advertising the premiere that just happened, and yes, the UK site says “Philosopher’s”, and the US says “Sorceror’s”.
The FAQ on the US site http://harrypotter.warnerbros.com/platform/faq.html mentions that the site is in UK english: “Fear not, this is not the work of a Dark Arts Witch. We are simply following the English laws of spelling with this site…” and goes on to mention that UK and Europe got “Philosopher’s” and US domestic market got “Sorceror’s”. No mention of Canada at all.
Anyone know why the change to “Sorceror’s” was made?
Do children in the UK and Canada really have that much better a grasp of medieval alchemy than US children? I know why they say it was changed, and I assumed it was changed for the “overseas” audience rather than just the US. Having not read the book, let me ask if it’s that hard to just call it a philosopher’s stone and then, for the sake of those who don’t know what a philosopher’s stone is, just describe the damn thing within the story and be done with it?
Of course I knew what it was – I used to play AD&D and had the Unearthed Arcana
it was changed for the US market exclusively, but this was way back when harry potter wasn’t the phenomenon it has become, and is a decision JK now regrets. Too late, though.
They kept the same change in the movie because of the great familiarity each country now has for their particular title.
That’s one reason… or rather that American PARENTS would have a problem with big words. Kids will just accept the existence of something called a “Philosopher’s Stone” and an explanation thereof in the text. Parents, OTOH, fear having to explain: (Scenario(a)-- “Dad, what is ‘sorcery’?” “Sweetie, it’s doing stuff with real magic powers” ; Scenario(b)-- “Dad, what is ‘philosophy’?” “Er… um… well, it’s like, let’s see, uh… I kinda remember from Freshman Humanities… yeesh… something on the meaning of life and some other stuff on Being and Not Being and… and… hmmm… ask your mother when she gets home, OK?”)
The other reason is that as something on the first novel’s cover, “sorcerer” sounds more flashy and exciting than “philosopher” and of course <sarcasm on> we just know Amurkans don’t buy anything that is not packaged in a flashy and exciting way </sarcasm off>
sigh another case of “dumb it down for the Americans”…
In European medieval alchemy, there used to be a Magic Stone that you could make if you knew how, called a Philosopher’s Stone. You could use it to change lead into gold, or to make yourself live forever, the usual stuff. When the first Harry Potter book came out, the publisher was worried that the Yanks wouldn’t know what a “philosopher’s” stone was, that they might think it had something to do with philosophy, not magic, and that the book wouldn’t sell as well. So to make it absolutely crystal clear to the ignorant savages across the Pond what the book was about, they retitled the American edition “The Sorcerer’s Stone”.
Y’know, I spent the entire first half of the book wondering what the heck a “Sorcerer’s Stone” was. Then, when they revealed it, I exclaimed (yes, out loud) “So why didn’t they call it the Philospher’s Stone in the first place?!?”.
I mean, a few Americans know what a “Philospher’s Stone” is, but absolutely nobody knows (or at least, knew, before reading the book) what a “Sorcerer’s Stone” is. How is “nobody” an improvement over “a few”?
And of course, the British movie The Madness of George III was changed to The Madness of King George for the US market.
The reason being that Americans may have thought that it was a sequel to Georges I and II rather than being about George the Third. Hence they wouldn’t bother with it since they hadn’t seen the first two.
I saw a preview for the HP movie the other day, and the characters in the preview referred to it as the Philosopher’s Stone. As far as why it was changed, I didn’t know it was different in the original, and I assumed it was supposed to be a joke. You know, they’re magicians, so instead of the Philosoper’s stone, they have the Sorcerer’s stone? Sigh. I guess I’ll have to read the original versions. I’ve heard that the American versions have a severely curtailed vocabulary? Perhaps this explains all the chairs. The world may know, but I’ll probably never find out.
It’s a good story, but it isn’t true. The change was made because it was assumed that Americans wouldn’t know who George III was, a reasonable assumption, so it was necessary to include the word King in the title. Leaving out the III was purely practical–Americans as a whole would be unable or wouldn’t care to distinguish among the various kings named George.
My nephew says that there was a popular video game out at the time with “Philosopher’s Stone” in the title, and so the book title was changed to avoid confusion/lawsuits.
:eek: