I once told an African-American friend about this British show I was watching called “Spooks” - she gave me a little side-eye (it was rebranded “MI-5” in the US.)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles became Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles in Europe over bizarre censorship concerns by the UK.
Ninjas are pretty much 50% of their identity (the other 50% being turtles) so all references to them being ninjas or even Japanese were very awkwardly edited out leaving noticable gaps everywhere. It may seem minor but taking Ninja out really does radically alter the show.
Hope it’s OK to revive this thread. I’m just outside the 6-month window.
Rebranding seems a little over the top. The number one definition of “spook” on Urban Dictionary is Government Intelligence agent.
Admittedly, the racial epithet is #2.
For those who don’t know their UK intelligence agencies, “MI-5” is meaningless, and not a great hook to get people to watch. How about “Spies” or “Domestic Intelligence”?
IMHO, this alternative is a massive improvement! (Never mind that it’s less on-target thematically.)
I can’t think of very many films where the title is essential to enjoying it, and the exceptions are usually awful films where the title is the best thing about it, like Sharknado! or Snakes on a Plane. I’ll bet Quackser Fortune Has a Cousin in the Bronx would be more fondly remembered if it had had a less grating title.
It’s not a very arcane term if you’re at all familiar with the James Bond franchise, and if you’re not, I can’t imagine you enjoying this show under any circumstances.
When I saw the title, my first thought was also the first Harry Potter book. When I got to the point about halfway in when the “Sorcerer’s” Stone is explained, I literally exclaimed out loud, “Well, why didn’t they just call it the Philosopher’s Stone to begin with?”.
Years ago (pre-Google/pre-Wikipedia), I watched “Spaceballs” on CBC French. It was called “La Folle Histoire de l’espace” which means “The Crazy History of Space” or “The Crazy Space Story”. I thought that was a dumb generic name and I couldn’t figure out why they would call it that.
Fast forward at least a decade, I was reading an article about “Airplane!” and it mentioned that in Norway it was called “Hjelp, vi flyr!” or “Help, We’re Flying!” and that the same pattern was used for a bunch of comedy movie title translations.
That’s when I finally pieced it together. In France, “History of the World: Part I” was translated as “The Crazy History of the World”, so to follow the same pattern they translated “Spaceballs” as “The Crazy History of Space”.
Sugar Rush, not Candy Crush. The name of the game Vanellope came from, and the song sung by J-Pop group AKB48 on the soundtrack. (Which, oddly, didn’t get released as a single, although it did chart.)
Maybe this article 5 Insane Ways Movie Titles Are Translated Around the World | Cracked.com
This is also a recurring pattern in naming movies in Germany: “Airplane” had the ridiculous title “Die unglaubliche Reise in einem verrückten Flugzeug”, “The unbelievable journey on a crazy plane”, so “Airplane II” of cause was “Die unglaubliche Reise in einem verrückten Raumschiff”, with Raumschiff= space ship. But then they went overboard and called a totally unrelated film after the same pattern: “Ruthless People” became “Die unglaubliche Entführung der verrückten Mrs. Stone”, “The unbelievable kidnapping of the crazy Mrs. Stone”…
German Titles are awful, especially as they love to add taglines that are extremely stupid.
Thor: Ragnarök became Thor: Tag der Entscheidung (Day of Decision) which is stupid on very many Levels.
A propos of nothing, I visited the director’s house (‘visited’ as in ‘walked up to’, rather than ‘was invited to’) last year in Reykjavik. The entire property is basically a crazy conglomeration of found-art museum and junkyard. It was amazing!
It’s even worse when they decide to replace an English title with a different English title. Captain America: The Winter Soldier became The Return of the First Avenger, evoking some 80s horror B-movie sequel, Begin Again was Can A Song Save Your Life?, Jack the Giant Slayer became Jack and the Giants, which rather sounds like they’re having a tea party, and so on.
Ealing studios “Tight Little Island” contains double entendre that is lost in the US release of “Whiskey Galore”.
They changed all the Quatermass movie titles. There wasn’t much lost with the first movie, really, but there’s no reason they had to change the title (After all, we had The Forbin Project and The Hellstrom Chronicle – nobody cared who those guys were).
But since we didn’t have a first Quatermass movie, the significance of Quatermass 2 was lost. It became Enemy from Space.
And, similarly, Quatermass and the Pit had its title changed to the odd Five Million Years to Earth. Why do that, instead of calling it “Martian Invasion” or something. All I can figure is that they were hoping it would make people think of Ray Harryhausen’s Fifty Million Miles to Earth, but that movie was over a decade old, and not a major hit.
By the way – there’s weird oblique reference to that “Quatermass Xperiment” title in Alan Moore’s graphic novel The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier