Wallace and Gromit and the Were-rabbit

[tiggymalvern]

We went to see the Wallace and Gromit movie this evening - it starts off slowly, and I was starting to worry a little, but then it gets going and the jokes and the pastiches start rolling, and it becomes a really fun addition to the Wallace and Gromit collection of idiocy.

The only problem was, I sat there in confusion throughout, because there was much talk of Gromit growing a prize melon for the giant vegetable competition. And Gromit was very obviously growing a marrow, as is traditional for giant vegetable competitions. A large marrow-shaped marrow, not the least bit round like a melon. It had marrow markings. And melons aren't vegetables anyway.

This was the first thing I said when the film ended, all 'Huh?' And then it turned out that our American friends had no idea what a marrow is, and all became instantly clear. It's been changed for the American release, so as not to confuse the audiences with a vegetable they don't know. But won't they just be confused anyway? I mean, Gromit's growing a melon that looks nothing like a melon. Is this supposed to be better than just having them go home and google for a marrow?

Comments

[king-chiron.livejournal.com]

Apparently, from the article I read and (and just forwarded a bit to you) they tried 'marrow' in test audiences in the US and it confused them, so they switched to something else, and I guess wanted to use something that started with M which is why they used 'melon' rather than 'squash'.

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

So were you weirded at all by the melon not looking like a melon? Or did you just let it pass because it was a silly model?

I always think of melons as round, but having googled just now I discover that there are some oval watermelons. But they don't have stripes, or go in in the middle.

[king-chiron.livejournal.com]

It didn't weird me out too much, I thought it looked a bit watermelonish.

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

I guess it probably passes better if that's what you're expecting to see....

[darthhellokitty.livejournal.com]

It looked like this to me:

http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/extension/vegetable/cropguides/watermelon.html

[darthhellokitty.livejournal.com]

OH! Apparently it's like a zucchini! OK, that DID look like a giant zucchini, so now I get it.

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, I can sort of see it. The marking's aren't quite right, though, a lot are blobby and broken up rather than real stripes. But I guess that's the kind of distinction you wouldn't make if you were expecting to see a melon.

And a melon's still a fruit XD

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but they already had the character's mouths moving for a two-syllable word starting with 'm', so I guess they thought melon would pass. Which it did for the lip movements, just not for the visuals!

[king-chiron.livejournal.com]

Oh, and if I wasn't verbal enough about it, I quite liked it. I wasn't sure what to expect, but I liked it very much, considerably more than Corpse Bride we saw a few weeks ago (which I didn't hate either, although I know some were quite disappointed with it).

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I thought it was a big improvement on the Corpse Bride too. I guess part of that was I expecting the Corpse Bride to have more of an internal logic to the characters' actions, whereas logic goes out of the window as soon as you enter the Gromit-verse XD.

Plus it was just funnier. I liked Corpse Bride, but not enough to watch it again.

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think the first thing that came up for me was lots of stuff about bone marrow transplants!

[imre-nico.livejournal.com]

I think most Americans, when confronted with a word they don't know in an obviously British context, like "flannel", "nappy", "kipper", or "shehdjule", just kind of assimilate it for what it is- a clearly British word for an item that they either know by another name, or something, like a marrow, that they don't know from Adam's Housecat. It rarely ruins anything. I think there was some unecessary paramarrownoia there on the part of the film's exporters.

In Finland, there is a fucked-uppedly vicious woods-dwelling marmotesque animal, which by description sounds like but is decidedly not a wolverine- that is called a "morehund" in Swedish, which translates unhelpfully as "raccoon dog". It's neither.

I have never met a person on this planet who knows what the fuck it is, neither will I ever be able to explain it. It just is, like a marrow is. I can accept that. So should America.

And I'm certainly not going to call it a rabbit just because they both have fur and start with 'r'.

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

The Washington Post said test audiences were confused, and that's why the change. I guess I can make some allowances here, in that a lot of the audience would be children, who maybe don't have the ability to just accept something they don't understand and ask later.

But kids will be missing a lot with this film. How many kids have seen the original King Kong these days? (Mind you, sitting watching Madagascar on a plane, I was damn sure their main audience had absolutely no overlap with American Beauty, which didn't stop the writers adding the skit. I do like kids' films which are fun on different levels XD)

[tameiki.livejournal.com]

Lol. So you found even more things with different names, did you? It's kind of the same thing that Japanese do when they watch anime that's been dubbed badly and things changed around so Westerners will understand. The one that instantly come to mind is when onigiri/rice balls are called, 'donuts'. *giggles*

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

You make me so glad I don't watch dubs. I always knew it was the right decision.

[tameiki.livejournal.com]

Since FH hates watching subs, I watch them sometimes.

Not *all* dubs are horrid. Just most of them. There are some subs that are equally bad. *cough*VIZ*cough* XD

The dub for Rurouni Kenshin was extremely well done as was Cowboy Bebop and Scry-d since the same crews worked on them. :)

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

People keep telling me the Bebop dubs are well done. And I still can't stand to watch more than ten seconds of dub!Faye the brainless bimbo.