Jiggowatts

Glenster

You know what I miss most about the 80's.......

It was a simpler time, a major motion picture could be released in which the main character mispronounced a word (one point twentyone Jiggowatts!) at least 50 times and none of the cast or crew ever corrected it. It gave the movie a certain innocent charm.

Also movies could be horrifically historically innaccurate or politically incorrect and people just relaxed and enjoyed the story.

Think about the different reations to Camelot and King Arthur or the old 60's Alexander and the more recent Colin Farrell one.

Todays age is one of exhausting pedantry.....I blame the internet.

WindSock

In Zoolander, they pronounced Maoris as Mayori

Glenster

I was too dazzled by 'la tigre' to pay much attention to pronunciation.

Put a cork in it Zane!

bonerm

Glenster wrote: »

You know what I miss most about the 80's.......

It was a simpler time, a major motion picture could be released in which the main character mispronounced a word (one point twentyone Jiggowatts!) at least 50 times and none of the cast or crew ever corrected it. It gave the movie a certain innocent charm.

Todays age is one of exhausting pedantry.....I blame the internet.

I blame VHS. Before it there wasn't an easy way for the home viewer to go back and check something for a mistake.

Which reminds me, I bought the DVDs of Knight Rider / A-team and it's amazing how slapdash everything was by todays standards. From cuts that didn't match together to stuntmen in bad wigs that can easily be spotted on a big tv these days. Basic reason for all these mistakes I imagine is ... cos the producers could get away with it back then!

(anyway, Jiggowats sounds better and sounds funnier. If I had been Robert Zemeckis and had found out half-way thru that the word was being mispronounced I would have left it in there anyway.)

sundodger5

what is mispronounced? everyone knows you need more than gigawatts for time travel;)

Glenster

sundodger5 wrote: »

what is mispronounced? everyone knows you need more than gigawatts for time travel;)

Obviously! You need some stereotypical Libyans, a sleveless down vest, the world's most arousing car, and the ability to skateboard Biff Tanning into a truck full of manure.

Time travel.

Dunjohn

It's not only mispronunciations and stuntmen I notice. It's also the fact that nothing ever worked in 1985. Guns jammed constantly, vehicles wouldn't start... the whole decade was basically one big deus ex machina.

And the Real Ghostbusters took the Irish word "samhain" and assumed it was pronounced "Sam Hain."

Trashbat

According to back to the future DVD extra's, "Jiggowatts" was an acceptable pronounciation at the time the film was being produced. They even had a science adviser. As science has progressed and gigawatts (and gigabytes etc...) have become more achievable and commonplace, the pronounciation has become standardised..

Interestingly, the 88 MPH required for time travel was actually a delorean in-joke, being that deloreans speedometers only go to 85MPH.

Saying that though, It was fantastic that they could run free and break theories of time travel (including grandfather paradox) left, right and centre without fear of an internet backlash.