...versus defaulting to there being any sort of difference between cultures as to what qualifies as a relateable interest when it comes to fantasy movies?
Honestly, I don't think there even needs to be an argument here. It's like wondering why Americans spell things differently than other English speaking countries. We can go out just assuming that Americans are all idiots that cannot spell, or we can explore the possibility that it's a different country operating under different cultural expectations and norms that have nothing to do with intelligence at all.

Still, though, it should be pretty obvious that the change was an intentional marketing move, regardless of the fact that it worked and why it worked.
But, in America, Sorcerers seem more magical than Philosophers. Seems like a pretty logical reason to market it as such. Unless you're simply marketing the movie based on who read the book or not, which probably wouldn't get you all that much gain.

True, but I think it's a little different to spelling of words. The "inventor" of the English language is a hotly debated topic whereas Harry Potter has a clear creator and original intentions.

Anyway, I'm not saying it was the wrong decision to make by the publisher, however I just find it weird that so many things are changed in order to be palatable for Americans...

Why, when we receive American cultural imports, they aren't changed to suit our cultural norms? In fact I'm glad that they aren't, because I would find it a shame if everything was always changed and altered to suit our country's norms, rather than the beauty of experiencing different cultures per se.

I just find it strange, is all.

EDIT: Just to clarify, I'm in no way saying "Americans are stupid," in fact I was arguing the opposite - why think that a single word in the title of a book needs to be changed in order to appeal to Americans? It's like they're selling the American population short. I think it's silly that they feel that Americans need to have something changed to suit their cultural norms, personally I would think that citizens of the US are open-minded and intelligent individuals who don't need alterations to cultural imports in order to comprehend them for what they are.

If we're talking about creator intentions, then ****, we might as well be flagging the entire lot of every movie that has ever been adapted from a book in order to be more palatable to the audience. And if we go further, when we're talking about a book being palatable to a particular culture, it's PRETTY hard for me to see any significance in a further step of a mangled intention being remade into a movie that tacks on a change in a freaking title, as though that's really the biggest foul.
Honestly, the entire issue feels like straw grasping. The truth of the matter is that whether Americans would give a damn about the title or not, they loved the movie. And if someone could tie that enjoyment to a lower intelligence level, then that doesn't say much for non-Americans who also enjoyed the movie... And certainly we're not basing something like this on whether a movie title contained this or that... It should be pretty obvious that one was just more accessible to the culture than the other, but it doesn't simultaneously say that the culture doesn't know what philosophy is.

This is exactly what I am saying, read my edit :)

My main thing is that I don't see how the word "sorcerer" is an American word, making the book more relatable to American culture? How is sorcerer more American than philosopher? It just seems weird to me. I'm not saying your argument is invalid or that I disagree with it. It just seems pointless to change a title of a book (I am talking about the book that was published in 1997 with very little marketing campaigns, whereas I think you are talking about the more recent movie when HP has become a marketing conglomerate) to become accessible to a culture when I'm pretty sure the book would have been just as accessible to the literary population using the word "philosopher." It would be different if they were changing the word to a cultural-specific term but neither of those words are culturally specific. There is no way that "sorcerer" or "philosopher" and culturally specific words. In fact, they aren't even synonyms.

LOL... No, I meant that Sorcery lends itself more to magic than Philosophy, which was my assumption of why it was changed. Which, as an American, makes sense to me... which might also be the reason it would market better.

I'm not thinking so deeply about this. It's a simple marketing thing. In America, things that relate will probably be more cohesive to an audience, and I'm thinking that's why that happened. It doesn't go further than that, really.

lol fair enough, but sorcery lends itself more to magic than philosophy in all countries of the world, so it still baffles me as to why they only changed the title in America. Oh well. Marketing, who knows.

I agree with you. It's dumb that they changed it, just like any of the other "translations" I've heard done on British books sold in the US are also dumb ("torch" changed to "flashlight", that kind of thing). Americans are not idiots overall, it would be nice if publishers stopped treating us that way.

Granted, when I read the first one at 11, I envisioned them carrying actual flaming torches. Kids aren't worldly. They don't know these things. :laughing:

And he was a kangaroo I'm assuming?

Gots me a new sigfile...