When Pro Writers Can't Be Arsed To Research, Or: TV Show Goof-Ups

I mean The Thirteenth Warrior.

I thought the process was a little too quick and he had nothing to base his growing vocabulary on, but the fact that he had to learn the language, bit by bit, was pretty cool. They usually skip that process entirely and have people jump into the thirteenth century and have everyone talk the same language....or, what's worse, they film something in English that is supposed to be in Spain or whatever (meaning they are supposed to be speaking Spanish), and half the English/American actors fake a Spanish accent (whatever the hell for), and the rest don't.

That is all kinds of moronic.

grmblfjx wrote:

If you mean The Thirteenth Warrior, there was no language fire magic, he just sat around the fire with them at night and over time understood more and more of what they saying. I thought it was rather well done, too; their conversations being unintelligible (and un-captioned) at first, with increasing amounts of [English] words thrown in over time, so the person watching the movie went through the process with him.

You're not dimwitted. Neither am I mixing movies up. That was the movie I meant. And that was the fire magic I meant, too: they sit around the fire and talk and lo and behold! They understand one another. It WAS well done, but it was still very convenient and quick. I know it's much to ask, but that movie would kick so much more ass if they all spoke Norse all the time!

I love that about movies like that old Luis Funet movie about a couple of WW2 soldiers ending up in France, needing to get out, and Inglorious Basterds, and a lot of WW2 movies, where the French speak French, the Germans German, the British British and the Americans American.

The Scientist wrote:

I thought the process was a little too quick and he had nothing to base his growing vocabulary on

kleine_kat wrote:

they sit around the fire and talk and lo and behold! They understand one another. It WAS well done, but it was still very convenient and quick.

I'll give you that, but. Him learning the language wasn't actually a plot point, and they still had the whole movie to get to. They kind of didn't have the time to elaborate on something that wasn't furthering the story, I think. I'm just glad they mentioned the issue at all.
Plus, if I recall correctly (and it's been years, so I might not), I think they had him mention that he had a natural gift for languages and spoke several. You know, so it didn't seem completely out of nowhere for him to learn the language just by listening.


I'm used to watching movies with captions on, personally, so subtitled movies with everyone speaking in their actual language would be cool with me.

Mostly it's a case of "The viewer knows about as much about this subject as we do... if we pull it right they won't notice and if they do notice they won't care."

grmblfjx wrote:

The Scientist wrote:

I thought the process was a little too quick and he had nothing to base his growing vocabulary on

kleine_kat wrote:

they sit around the fire and talk and lo and behold! They understand one another. It WAS well done, but it was still very convenient and quick.

I'll give you that, but. Him learning the language wasn't actually a plot point, and they still had the whole movie to get to. They kind of didn't have the time to elaborate on something that wasn't furthering the story, I think. I'm just glad they mentioned the issue at all.
Plus, if I recall correctly (and it's been years, so I might not), I think they had him mention that he had a natural gift for languages and spoke several. You know, so it didn't seem completely out of nowhere for him to learn the language just by listening.


I'm used to watching movies with captions on, personally, so subtitled movies with everyone speaking in their actual language would be cool with me.

They tried. Usually, audiences aren't all that tolerant with several languages being spoken in one film (they're usually dubbed in Germany, so you hardly ever have this problem here)...but in the Thirteenth Warrior, we have Old Norse, Greek and Latin. They actually have to learn to understand each other.

And it wasn't a magical fire. Banderas's character is shown learning Old Norse little by little, understanding a little more every day. This process is more difficult than it was depicted in the film, but the fact that they bothered at all is really cool.

This wasn't a film about learning Old Norse, anyway.

The Scientist wrote:

They tried. Usually, audiences aren't all that tolerant with several languages being spoken in one film (they're usually dubbed in Germany, so you hardly ever have this problem here)...but in the Thirteenth Warrior, we have Old Norse, Greek and Latin. They actually have to learn to understand each other.

And it wasn't a magical fire. Banderas's character is shown learning Old Norse little by little, understanding a little more every day. This process is more difficult than it was depicted in the film, but the fact that they bothered at all is really cool.

I know it wasn't a magical fire. I called it a magical fire because you know what, never mind

Has anyone here seen the Dark Crystal? In the original version, the Skeksis were going to speak their own language. I think that sounded awesome. You can see a bit of that here. The quality is very poor and the clip doesn't have any subtitles, but I certainly wouldn't mind watching a movie in which every single creature in this movie spoke a different language and was subbed.

The Scientist wrote:

They tried. Usually, audiences aren't all that tolerant with several languages being spoken in one film (they're usually dubbed in Germany, so you hardly ever have this problem here)...but in the Thirteenth Warrior, we have Old Norse, Greek and Latin. They actually have to learn to understand each other.

And it wasn't a magical fire. Banderas's character is shown learning Old Norse little by little, understanding a little more every day. This process is more difficult than it was depicted in the film, but the fact that they bothered at all is really cool.

This wasn't a film about learning Old Norse, anyway.

I don't know if I'm stupid today, because this isn't the first time today something looks that way to me, but this is exactly what I said and what you responded to.

Oh, sorry, I think I'm the one being stupid. I thought I hadn't made my point clear, that it still looked like I had criticised what they did in the film, when in fact I was commending it.

Being redundant wasn't the intention.