Hrm, fair enough, but I was 10 when I picked up Philosopher's Stone and I had no issues with it! They need to give children some more credit.

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Me left, friend AJ on right. Interesting fact: both pairs of sunglasses are mine. Also, don't go to Point Pleasant. 18 dollars to park, 9 to get on the beach. My rather boring sandwich that I didn't even like was 8 dollars. If you also like to drink when you go to the beach, expect to pay around 10 bucks each. Each. They were mixed drinks though, so it's completely understandable. Thankfully I don't drink. I almost was gonna ask for cranberry and club soda. Nope.ogg

EDIT: Three for one. Might have posted one of them already. Or all of them. Or maybe you just think I haven't and I really could've.

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You know I figured your baldness was something you did for a laugh and to say you did it, I never figured it would become your actual style. You wear it well though, I just hope with your music preferences you don't get unfairly pigeonholed with the NSBM scene.

These are great shots, looking good. I like your hairstyle choice! :p: It suits you. I can't imagine someone ever pigeon-holing someone into a scene based on their lack of hair, these days.

Yeah not really sure why I said that, must be a combination of drugs, alcohol, tobacco, and energy drink

Are we talking about Harry Potter here? If so, it probably makes more sense for it to be a sorcerer's stone rather than a philosopher's stone, because otherwise everyone would think they're about to watch a really boring movie that has nothing to do with magic.

I'm pretty drunk. I don't know if this is even the forum I think I'm posting in.

:laughing: You guys...

The point is that JK Rowling wrote it as the 'Philosopher's Stone' based on this legend: Philosopher's stone - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

That's how the author wrote it and named the title of the book, so why change it? Is the point I was getting at...

I always wondered who and what Waldo was.


That's that cleared up.

[QUOTE=Lateralus;1340164]

That's how the author wrote it and named the title of the book, so why change it? Is the point I was getting

It needed to be changed for the exact reason he said. Philospher stone would sound so f-ing boring compared to what they used. It doesn't matter what it is based off of. No one would have wanted to read it otherwise. Low marketing appeal. I NEEDED to be changed.

But it was ONLY changed in the US, yet it still extremely if not more successful in the other countries where it remained as "Philosopher's Stone." So are you saying it NEEDED to be changed in order to be appealing to Americans only? Because it obviously wasn't "f-ing" boring in the UK, Australia and NZ where it was a best-seller... If they really thought it would be detrimental with its original name they would've changed it in every country's publication of it... but they only changed it in America so that's what's so silly. It's like they're saying "Oh, Americans won't get this Philosopher ****, we HAVE to change it so it sounds appealing to them. But all other countries are obviously cultured enough to understand the original title." It's kinda degrading!

...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...

People around here don't even know what Black Metal is. :laughing: I actually do have a Das Racist t-shirt with Baphomet on it, and I can't bring myself to wear it anymore. Shaved head + a t-shirt that says "racist" = condemned before I say a word. Then with Baphomet, I look like a satanist racist. I can easily handle being seen as a satanist, but not a racist. That's where I draw the line.

Thanks! :D They were for a Photography course on "light". At that time I only had my DSLR for a few weeks, so I was on a bit of a learning curve.

:clap::clap::clap::clap::clap::clap:

I agree with Laterus about preserving the original intention of the author. To dumb things down so that they´re more palatable is patronising to the target audience and has the long-term effect of making people dumber.

The philosopher´s stone is a well known concept that´s been around for hundreds of years. The term carries with it lots of connotations, including:-
(i) the search for an ultimate truth
(ii) the confusion that once existed between science and magic
(iii) the pursuit of wealth
(iv) the futility of searching for something that doesn´t exist (or more precisely, how looking for one thing leads you to discover something else instead)

I imagine that JKR expected readers to pick up on some of those connotations, just as Colin Wilson did when he chose the title for this under-rated novel (which is, btw, a page-turning classic about the power of the human mind, highly recommended):-

http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1304341970l/715738.jpg

If JK´s original title had been left unchanged, it might´ve prompted some American children to learn more about the history of science and the history of Western culture. As it is, they have been denied that particular route of enquiry and JKR´s title has been robbed of a certain resonance. And for what ? Some venial marketing decision.

Um I'm actually highly offended that you are misquoting me in your signature. I'd like you to remove it because I don't think Americans are stupid and I am not a racist... this was the original quote:

You have completely misquoted me out of context. Not funny.

I apologize, I removed it. It is perfectly obvious and apparent that you don't believe that, the misquoting was done openly (which is why I bolded that part of the quote in context) and was itself the joke. But, as you wish, I removed it. Again my apologies.

Thanks Paul Smeenus. I understand it was a joke but unless people have seen the original post in context, which is unlikely, they would probably just view the quote in your sig and think I was a stupid, ignorant racist.

Anyway, I appreciate you changing it :)

American isn't a race tho :)

Yes, I didn't think that part through. We all fuck up sometimes, that was mine for today (hopefully)

Americans on average are stupid though...We had GW Bush as our PRESIDENT.

Slow Groove that's your cue

Bush was a legend. Better than Cameron, Brown or Blair.

Today is the 5 year anniversary of me joining this site. This is the first picture of myself I posted (barely thirteen):
And this one was taken yesterday (almost eighteen):
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Yay! So grown up! So glad you're back :)

Wow you are hot fashoure!

And this one was taken yesterday (almost eighteen):


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different country, different values Doctor. It'd be totally cool for me to fuck a 16 year old over here. And I have done so.

Complimenting someone is falling quite a bit short of propositioning them, IMO

It was a joke. I just wanted to accuse Vanilla of sexual misconduct.

Oh I see :)

And you still look like Yoni Wolf. :love: