From Pixar in 2007: Ratatouille

While it doesn't bother me, I do hope we get a pronunciation guide for the title. or just call it Rata, Ratat, or Ratille. A title that's a little less frightening for the average Joe-Six-pack out there is probably needed.

rat at oo e (long e)

I don't know. If they can say "Madagascar" then there shouldn't be too much trouble with this title. Pixar is entertaining... AND educational!

Then there is no hope for my dad. Whenever referring to the movie he kept calling it 'Magadascar'.


Probably easier this way: rat-ah-too-ee

Gigli

Rat-Tat-Tooey!

Toys, Bugs, Monsters, Fish, Superheroes, Cars and now Rats. I wonder what the next film after this will be about. I always sort of hoped they go semi-horror with Skeletons or Ghosts. Bring in Tim Burton.

Singing pencils. Trust me.

I really wish they'd do a sequel to The Incredibles, I've had enough of talking toys, fish, ants and whats the next one cars?

Actually a Pixar film about skeletons or ghosts sounds like it'd be kinda cool. Even if they let Burton direct it, still sounds cool.

Amen to that. The Incredibles towers above their other films, IMO. I'm hoping for more output in that vein.

As for an Incredibles sequel, my girlfriend tells me that Sarah Vowell in an interview said that there was nothing cooking for the moment.

I'm interested in seeing what Jim Reardon (another Simpsons alum along with Brad Bird) has planned with Pixar. He's got something cooking for 2008, I believe.

--Jefferson Morris

How about a spin-off:

The Adventures of Edna Mode: Fashion Avenger

There's no way kids will be able to pronounce this title, hell, i'm a grown man and i'm having difficulty keeping it straight, I bet they'll change it at some point.

Didn't they change the title for the first Harry Potter movie because kids would have a hard time pronouncing it? I thought I heard something along those lines before it was released, or maybe it was the book?

Everywhere in the world except the United States, the first book/movie was called "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone".

They changed it for the U.S. since someone, I assume the U.S. publisher and their market research team, deemed American children too stupid to understand the word "philosopher" ...but perhaps pronounciation was a factor as well.

So, yes, I'm sure they'll eventually change the title to something easier for today's youth, like "Ratz" or "Phat Pimpin' Rodentz"

philosopher sounds like work, sorcerer sounds like fun. It was changed because they didn't want to alienate any of the eleven year old boy demographic.

They didn't have to change it in any other country.

You mean you'd let Burton work on a semi-horror-themed film after The Nightmare Before Christmas and The Corpse Bride?

well then I guess the marketing department wasn't as powerful in the other countries or they didn't have the super-duper research that said philosopher was a 'bad' word to have in a book title (like the supposed statistic that books with variations on Dead sell an average of 25% less than a book without the word in the title), and so it never occured to them there was any 'reasonable' reason to change it.

But it had nothing to do with the intelligence level of American children. Noone said, "american boys are stupid and can't read so we can't have a big words in a title." Rather they made the intellectual leap that sorcerer would be more appealing (oh it's about magic and fun things, I'll read that!) than philosopher (wassat? old dusty books? I like action, buggeroff, hey a wrestling book!«child wanders away»)

I do not like that it was changed, but I understand why it was changed, much more sensible are a handful of brittishisms that were changed, although I'd prefer the original there as well, I for one was never able to make the prodigious mental leap that torch=flashlight until it was explained to me.

Back on topic, the pixar title is just unpronounceable, damn french vowels, noone in america will ever get those right, if it were german, spanish, or even latin they'd have a better chance. Hell you get pretty decent luck with Japanese words most of the time, but on this one I can't even get a consistent spelling in my brain, much less a consistent pronunciation.

as a handful of examples (believe me there are many more) I've thought it was (having seen this thread title many times) :
Rat-ill
Rat-too-lay
Rat-ah-Lee
Rat-ah-too-eh-lee-Ay
Rat-ah-twee
Rat-ah-too-EL-ee
Rat-ah-too-ee
Rat-ill-ee
Rat-too-ee
Rah-tat (+above variations whereever Rat was used)

I just loath that ouille combination, for some reason i can't visually parse the word in my mind because of it. heh, separate that thing out and it makes me think the damn film is titled Rat-oil, with the oil drawn out aristocratically , dahling.

A more fair question would be if I'd let Burton work on a horror themed film after Planet of the Apes and the Superman fiascos...

But this is about Pixar. They'll stumble sooner or later, everyone does. But they haven't yet.

Yes they did. In Taiwan, it's Harry Potter and the Mystical Black Magic Stone. In Dutch it's Harry Potter and the Stone of Manners. In French it's Harry Potter and the School of Wizards. In German it's Harry Potter and the Wizard's Stone. In Korean it's Harry Potter and the Pebble of the Wizard.
If "Philosopher's Stone" was the title of Book 7, it almost certainly wouldn't have been changed. Book 1 didn't just have to sell itself, it had to sell the series on the American public. Labeling it a byproduct of American ignorance is, itself, an ignorant argument.

Perhaps, but that's the way I've always heard it represented.

Give kids more credit. If they can learn the names and distinctions among hundreds of different dinosaur species, they can certainly figure out one word of French

I took French, but don't speak it. This is ridiculously easy to pronounce, once you know how to do it.

Kids will be fine. The movie is by Pixar. What else needs to be said?

I think this is like the 'Licence Revoked' myth. The reason presented in the UK was that 'Sorceror's Stone' and 'Philosopher's Stone' mean the same thing, but 'sorceror's stone' was better known in the USA and 'philosopher's stone' was better known in the UK. However, I'd have thought that precious few people in either rcountry would have known what the item was before the book became popular (I knew it, but only because I have a nerdish interest in the history of science).

Back on topic: I can't help noticing that Ratatouille seems to be exploring a similar theme to the next Aardman movie due out later this year, which is a CGI film about a rat.

Hands up how many of you knew what ratatouille was before reading this thread. In the UK it's well enough known because it's a staple of vegetarian students (cheap and easy to cook - ratatouille, that is, not students ...) - I don't know if it's true across your side of the Herring Pond.

Probably not overly common here, but I have heard of it. There is a sandwich place which I like to go to which has hundreds of different sandwiches to choose from. Some of them have ratatouille on them (which they call rat sauce for short.)

Jason

I think the title is a good thing. It's educating kids AND adults with a name they haven't heard before!

did anyone see the teaser on the wallace and gromit dvd for the first cg aardman film? it's called flushed away and it's about rats...being flushed down the toilet. is this another bugs/antz situation we got on our hands?

Um, Sam, quite right, but this is just what I said in my post ...