Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Why does the UK get a much funnier title and trailer for the new Aardman animation film "The Pirates!"?

So once upon a time Gideon Defoe wrote a hilarious novella about a group of ridiculous pirates in Victorian London to impress a girl he fancied (hear more about this from The Hour of Thunder's pirate expert Heil in Thor's Episode 36).

And low I read it and thought it was good. Then he came out with the weaker but still funny books: Adventure with Ahab, Adventure with Neopolean and the fantastic "Adventure with Communists"

Now Aardman, the awesome claymation studio behind Wallace & Gromit and Chicken run is adapting the first to book into a claymation movie starring clay Hugh Grant.

I was so excited when I read this was happening and I have to say when I first saw the american trailer for it*, I will still excited but it seemed a little more aimed at a younger audience than the books were or than Wallace & Gromit is. I believe these is a major difference between making a movie appropriate for all ages and making one that appeals to children and the trailer was definitely going for the kids movie tone. I was also sad they changed the title to the less funny, "The Pirates! A Band of Misfits".

I just today found out today that in the U.K. the film is called "The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists" so I decided to watch the U.K. trailer, and found it hipper and funnier and much more in line with the tone of the books that i love.

The UK Trailer I like better:



The American trailer:



The American trailer wasn't a terrible trailer and I was excited to see the character designs, and the "Fish I've dressed up in a hat line is great. but dispite having way more dialogue from the film I don't think it captures the tone of the books or sells the movie as well as the UK trailer. Maybe I just like everything better with sea shanties.

PS:
Happy Birthday from
Aardman Animation, unless you live in DVD region 1:


Footnote(s):
*Actually I saw the trailer in front of "The Muppets" which I had a similar "this is good but I was hoping for something better" opinion of that I have of the American trailer. So I will go on record as saying "The Muppets" needed less of a focus on the human characters and more sea shanties.

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