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Please don’t let anyone Americanise it (1992)

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Re: Please don’t let anyone Americanise it (1992)

#71

Post by marlowe221 »

vlunkr wrote: post #42
CalRobert wrote: post #5

There's a deeply frustrating infantilisation when something is localized in the same language. My kids and I love Bluey, an Australian show, but apparently the producers had to refuse to have it redone with US and UK accents to stop it happening. Never understood what the problem with having David Attenborough instead of Sigourney Weaver narrate Planet Earth was either.

Bluey is a fantastic show, and the fact that it's unapologetically Australian is part of what's so fun about it. I think it's just the choice of nervous higher-ups to localize things like this, and not actually what people want. Like Douglas Adams says, people can survive hearing references they don't understand. And they might even learn something about another culture.

My kids (ages 6 and 3) LOVE Bluey. We are American and (sadly) English-only speakers. The fact that the show is full of Australian accents has not impacted their ability to understand or enjoy the show in any way at all.

The exposure to places that are not-America is good for them!

Re: Please don’t let anyone Americanise it (1992)

#72

Post by cjmb »

sillyquiet wrote: post #15

e.g., Philosopher's stone -> sorcerer's stone. Science-fiction and fantasy UK book covers were better too, which is another example of the same weird parochialism of the U.S. publishing industry as it was. My probably unpopular opinion is that it's a reflection of a more general, largely un-self-aware New York City parochialism, which was where most of the big publishing firms were based, at least until the last deca…

The book cover thing is really insane, too. It's gotten a little better over the last decade, but the early 2000s period was crazy (source: moved from UK to USA at that time).

It's interesting that your pet theory is New York City parochialism. Mine is gerontocracy: the (mostly New York based) publishers of SF & Fantasy have been run by the same aristocracy for ~70 years. And those folks cut their teeth on serialized pulp fiction, comic books, and magazines, which culminated in a certain art style that (imo) peaked in the 1980s.

If you browse wikipedia, you will see that many, many, many roads lead back to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ace_Books

Outside of the US market, newer publishing shops were started & run by younger folks with more modern artistic visions.

Re: Please don’t let anyone Americanise it (1992)

#73

Post by Hayvok »

Abekkus wrote: post #43
CalRobert wrote: post #5

There's a deeply frustrating infantilisation when something is localized in the same language. My kids and I love Bluey, an Australian show, but apparently the producers had to refuse to have it redone with US and UK accents to stop it happening. Never understood what the problem with having David Attenborough instead of Sigourney Weaver narrate Planet Earth was either.

The first planet earth wasn't just given different voiceover for American audiences, it was recut. The brass called the Attenborough cut "excruciatingly slow-paced", so once they decided to re-edit, it was probably easier to recast the narration than to try and edit down Attenborough's own speech. The Attenborough cut is my personal preference too.

Agree in general that the UK/Attenborough cut is preferable, but the American intro sequence is fantastic and dramatic. Gave me chills the first time I watched it.

Re: Please don’t let anyone Americanise it (1992)

#74

Post by bombcar »

vrc wrote: post #30
CalRobert wrote: post #5

There's a deeply frustrating infantilisation when something is localized in the same language. My kids and I love Bluey, an Australian show, but apparently the producers had to refuse to have it redone with US and UK accents to stop it happening. Never understood what the problem with having David Attenborough instead of Sigourney Weaver narrate Planet Earth was either.

I think there’s something about British narration of nature docs that makes them more relaxing and engaging for American audiences. Especially those who grew up in an era of Discovery Channel and PBS where the narration was usually British, or South African, or Australian, or in the Commonwealth-tinged flavor of English of that location. Perhaps it’s nostalgia.

For me at least, for no real reason and perhaps because of British narration of documentaries, the British accent "by default" sounds more learned.

Now I'm sure there's variations of British accents, but the ones we were exposed to as children seemed to coincide with "scientific" or other educational content.

Re: Please don’t let anyone Americanise it (1992)

#76

Post by coldtea »

jawns wrote: post #7

His argument about digital watches did not age well. My kids have known how to understand a digital clock since they were toddlers, but even now, in elementary school, they require entire lesson units in school on telling time from a clock face. Beyond that, he argues that pie charts tell us more about the relationship between things than tables of numbers, and a clock face is "the world's most perfect pie chart." Bu…

>but even now, in elementary school, they require entire lesson units in school on telling time from a clock face.

I'd say that's a failure to teach them analog time as toddlers, not digital time being inherently superior.

Re: Please don’t let anyone Americanise it (1992)

#77

Post by theshrike79 »

CalRobert wrote: post #5

There's a deeply frustrating infantilisation when something is localized in the same language. My kids and I love Bluey, an Australian show, but apparently the producers had to refuse to have it redone with US and UK accents to stop it happening. Never understood what the problem with having David Attenborough instead of Sigourney Weaver narrate Planet Earth was either.

Bluey is one of the few kids shows a parent can watch without having their brain melt.

And it gives great ideas for playing with the kids.

Re: Please don’t let anyone Americanise it (1992)

#78

Post by coldtea »

Intermernet wrote: post #54
vrc wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s why the continuous motion ones are so sought after and pricy. The mechanical continuous motion watches are really marvelous feats of engineering

They're also (as far as I understand it) not actually continuous motion. They just have much smaller increments of movement than a single second.

It's still continuous, as even when fully ticking, it still goes from point a to b passing through all the in between points... well, up to planck length at least...

Ticking just makes the motion jerky/abrupt, not discontinuous/discreet...

Re: Please don’t let anyone Americanise it (1992)

#79

Post by bombcar »

worker_person wrote: post #20
netsharc wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I.e. "get rid of the duck": https://www.simplethread.com/looks-great-lose-the-duck/

I've used that trick on Fortune 500 CEO's many times. Almost never had any of my designs changed beyond whatever "duck" I put in.

Every once in awhile they fall in love with the duck, and it becomes the center piece - so it's not without risks!

Re: Please don’t let anyone Americanise it (1992)

#80

Post by Ajedi32 »

pikminguy wrote: post #25
eadmund wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> His argument about digital watches did not age well. Didn't it? I think it remains true. Time is a continuum, not discrete; analogue watches demonstrate that, while digital ones do not. And yes, schools have to teach one how to use a clock, but at the end of the process one actually has enhanced one's understanding of time. Much like using a slide rule teaches one far more about numbers and maths than using a calcu…

Even if you're right that analog watches are better tools that's not what Adams was saying. "We all know, really, that [analog clock face] is a lot more instantly meaningful to us than 15:39" which is just wrong. Plenty of people, myself included, get more instant meaning from a digital readout.

I don't think there's anything more inherently meaningful about a digital vs analog readout, or vice-versa. They're both highly abstract representations of time, it really just depends on what you're used to.

That said, every single event on my calendar, and every single communication about time I have with other people is expressed as a written (or spoken) number, not as a position on a clock face. That makes digital clocks far more useful for me personally; it saves me the extra step of having to mentally convert to digital time before being able to reason about how the time on my watch relates to other events or significant times throughout my day.

To those who prefer analogue watches I have to ask; how does that process work for you? Do you find it easier to mentally convert written times to a visualization of a position on a watch, and then do whatever mental reasoning you need to do in that space? Or are you doing the same thing I would be doing if I had an analog watch; converting it to digital and then reasoning from there? If the latter, why does skipping that extra conversion step by using a digital watch feel worse from your perspective?

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