Changing of titles and editing and translation/ Spoilers for Demolished Man

[dumbledore11214]

> Magpie:
> Let's see...I'm usually more familiar with ones that were changed UK to US because I've seen the US editions and there's usually no reason to change the title either way. (Sometimes the reason is some technical thing that one wouldn't necessarily remember.)
> 
> There's a lot more examples of US movies being changed in the UK. 
> Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles (the TV show) was changed in the UK to Teenaged Mutant Hero Turtles.
> 
> One movie example I would think should hit the same note as the PS change. The US movie "Bonnie and Clyde" was released in the UK as "Bonnie and Clyde...Were Killers!" because B&C wouldn't automatically be known as such in the UK. But there's quite a few movie titles that get changed, sometimes for cultural difference reasons. <SNIP>

Alla:

Oh my goodness. Am speechless. Actually I think that the first example to me hits more of the same note than the second. I love Ninja turtles, especially first two movies, not when they decided to make the never ending show out of it, so what they thought Brit audience cannot figure out who the ninjas are????

Really am speechless. Did they think that this is an american word or something that has deep roots in american tradition that they needed to explain it as heroes? Oy.

Bonnie and Clyde, well to be honest I would not expect British audience to know who they are necessarily, but I totally agree with you that it is the same principle.

I still would not expect for the title to be that patronizing though. I mean, couldn't they let the title be and make sure the ads for the movie show clearly that they were killing, etc? After all not that many people will go to the movies based on title alone I would think.

> Alla: 
> > And I found the change of title to be incredibly annoying. I mean, it is different because it is translation, but title translates perfectly and I can just see it be the situation where UK Publisher or vice versa decides to switch it and me being just as annoyed.
> 
> Magpie:
> So the change was from "The Man Without A Face" to something else? I would guess one of the main reasons for that would be that that title or variations on it have been done before. And possibly that they thought it gave the wrong impression of the book--I can't tell not having read it.


Alla:

Oh, no no. The title of the American original book was "The Demolished man". "The man without face" was the translation title. And no, none of them have anything to do with stupid (IMO) action movie "The Demolished man" or the movie "The man without face". The book was written in the 50s and was the first recipient of Hugo award and the translation into Russian was done in early 70s.


> 
> Alla: 
> > Another aside, Magpie could you tell me if these days in the editing world small publishing companies decide that it is totally Okay to publish books with little or no editing?
> > 
> > I am talking about m/m romamce genre and straight romance too. OMG sometimes when I read them I want to have a red pen in my hand, very very bad.
> 
> 
> Magpie:
> Oh! Definitely seems like people just doing a poor job and either not putting in the time and effort they should, or having really poor editors and copy editors. A major publisher would have an editor who writes editorial letters for actual rewrites and line-editing, plus copy editors.
> 
> -m
>


Alla:

Oh I see, good to know, so it seems just small publishers (very annoying) thing. I mean, some of them are trying, but some of them? No, not at all. I guess I  have to hope that more large publishers will take m/m romance on, hehe.