31st August 2004, 12:20 PM
Oh I get the history, they actually explained it at the start in a block of text. But the history doesn't help to make that line make sense. It doesn't point out that China uses that expression when referring to their own country. I suppose it could be figured out with everything that happens after those words are revealed, but in the mean time, people are confused, and that means the movie suffers.
Now don't get me wrong, I prefer as true a translation as can be possible. FF4, when brought over as FF2 and simplified beyond belief (which was later released as "easy type" in Japan, yes, they based easy type on what they gave us, NOT the other way around, and Japan's is actually easier still than what we got), got a pretty aweful translation. They actually all but removed the love triangle story about Cecil, Kain, and Rosa. Blame a lot of the translation stuff on NOA there. Also, for some reason when translating a lot of FF games, they changed character names. Terra was originally named Tina. For some reason, I guess Tina was just too "normal" and they needed a more "epic" sounding name. However, if a term of some kind looses it's meaning outside it's original culture, that term needs to either be explained or translated. I'm now thinking explaining it might have been the better route, but so long as people get the meaning, and they do, and the meaning is the same, I say it's fine the way it was done.
Now don't get me wrong, I prefer as true a translation as can be possible. FF4, when brought over as FF2 and simplified beyond belief (which was later released as "easy type" in Japan, yes, they based easy type on what they gave us, NOT the other way around, and Japan's is actually easier still than what we got), got a pretty aweful translation. They actually all but removed the love triangle story about Cecil, Kain, and Rosa. Blame a lot of the translation stuff on NOA there. Also, for some reason when translating a lot of FF games, they changed character names. Terra was originally named Tina. For some reason, I guess Tina was just too "normal" and they needed a more "epic" sounding name. However, if a term of some kind looses it's meaning outside it's original culture, that term needs to either be explained or translated. I'm now thinking explaining it might have been the better route, but so long as people get the meaning, and they do, and the meaning is the same, I say it's fine the way it was done.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)