This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
- The So Bad Its Good Black Condor comic book series has the titular character's paAnims being killed while they were all in Mongolia and himself being raised by condors... which live nowhere near Mongolia.
I'd fix this, but I have no idea what "paAnims" are...
- What about rose-breasted grosbeaks? ;_;
What about them? The California state bird is the California Quail. The Massachusetts state bird is the Black-Capped Chickadee. Hence, the joke. (I hate having to explain jokes.)
Erica MZDM: Edited the Dinosaur entry from 'monkeys' to 'lemurs', and took out "To make matters worse, the monkeys were clearly of the New World variety (even though they call themselves Lemurs, they're not fooling anyone). "
While the Dinosaur critters did have facial features more in line with modern new world monkeys than with real life lemurs(most notably the lack of a wet nose and short muzzle), the overall physiology and the hop-walk were classic lemur. In short, they're a mash up designed to be cute. And it's not like lemurs are any less out of place than proper monkeys.... <_<
BT The P: natter trimmed: RE: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's/Sorcerer's Stone. They couldn't get a boa constrictor, only a Burmese Python, so they changed the reference from Brazil to Burma and removed the snake's use of the word 'Amigo'.
- A rare case of reverse Adaptation Decay in this troper's view.
- Wait a second, "amigo" is Spanish. Don't they speak Portuguese in Brazil?
- A rare case of reverse Adaptation Decay in this troper's view.
For the record, it's the same word meaning the same thing in Portuguese. They're not the same language, but they're not completely different either. The million pound question is, did JKR get it right on purpose, or by lucky accident.
- Rowling taught English in Portugal and was once married to a Portuguese gentleman. I'm going to go with "on purpose."
Selasphorus: Hmm. The ornithologist in me is warring with the...part of me that likes to make things read smoothly. (Bear with me, I'm editing at 1am.) When speaking in scientific/ornithological terms (like on a report of species seen, or a scientific paper), common species names of birds should be capitalized; this is to indicate whether "grey heron" means Grey Heron, Ardea cinerea, or just some heron that is grey in color. However, all those Capitalized Species Names tends to interrupt the flow of text. What's worse, this capitalization policy is not often applied to other common species names, like those of mammals. (Note: Scientific names are ALWAYS in the form of capitalized genus name, lowercase species name, and italics when available.) Anyway, it's starting to bug me in this entry, so I'm wondering if it should be edited to set them all to lowercase just to make the text be more readable. Unless there's any objections, I'll set to work on that.
I am also an ornithologist and I say, keep the species name capitalized (ie Bald Eagle, Red-Tailed Hawk, and so forth).
Conversation In The Main Page:
- Aladdin himself is something of a Misplacement. He's supposed to be Chinese.
- Not really, the original story is from the Arabian Nights. Making him Chinese in Pantomime is a (relatively) modern phenomenon.
- Actually, the original story in the Arabian Nights is set in China - but because the original author (whoever he was) Did Not Do The Research (to be fair, researching distant exotic lands was harder in those days), it's a version of China that's ruled by a Sultan and populated by Muslims with Middle-Eastern names. Modern adaptations are faced with a choice of making it more authentically Chinese (for Hollywood Atlas values of "authentic", at least) or trimming off the Chinese bits and setting it back in the Middle East; panto went one way, Disney went the other.
- Not really, the original story is from the Arabian Nights. Making him Chinese in Pantomime is a (relatively) modern phenomenon.
- Another live-action example from Disney: In Mary Poppins the robin that lands on Mary's hand during the "Spoonful of Sugar" song is an American Robin, in England, well outside its normal range.
- Understandable, given that the British robin-redbreast
(for which the American ditto was named, by homesick settlers) is a much smaller, much lighter brown bird with a red face as well, not remotely recognizable to North American audiences. Still pretty funny to those in the know, though.
- And during the animated segment there are penguins in the English countryside. But perhaps they immigrated to open the restaurant.
- Understandable, given that the British robin-redbreast
- 101 Dalmatians (the live action version) has skunks and raccoons in England.
- Rule of Funny: those raccoons were pretty badass.
- Passenger Pigeons. They never turn up in period pieces, and considering how ludicrously common they were said to be, this might count as a (unique) instance of this trope.
- Actually, in period pieces set along the Eastern seaboard to the Gulf Coast - meaning pretty much every single Civil War-era recreation ever - we should also be seeing noisy, brightly-coloured parakeets as well, believe it or not. Imagine Gone With The Wind with flocks of parrots dotting the landscape...
- In fairness, with species like passenger pigeons and Carolina parakeets having been extinct for decades, the average movie producer won't be able to show big flocks of them. Only with the advent of modern CGI has it been possible to have huge flocks of extinct birds on screen, and random flocks of CGI birds would distract from most movies.
- The Mourning Dove looks pretty similar to the Passenger Pigeon (just smaller and less colorful), so for the Passenger Pigeon they could just film Mourning Doves and tweak their appearance to look more like a Passenger Pigeon. As for the Carolina Parakeet, I'm not sure how they could do that without CGI.
- Some conures (generally the ones with "parakeet" in the name, since those tend to be the long-tailed ones) could pass for Carolina Parakeets to an average audience. (Of course, that isn't saying much when that stupid Red-tailed Hawk call shows up everywhere...)
- In fairness, with species like passenger pigeons and Carolina parakeets having been extinct for decades, the average movie producer won't be able to show big flocks of them. Only with the advent of modern CGI has it been possible to have huge flocks of extinct birds on screen, and random flocks of CGI birds would distract from most movies.
"does Dorothy really think there are lions or tigers in forests?" Well, it's Oz - why shouldn't she expect everything? Also, there <i>are</i> lions in forests - the Gir Forest in India, for one. Tigers are *mostly* forest animals (OK, I know you mean temperate forest, not rainforest, but the Siberian Tiger. And Siberian Tigers do live alongside bears - but not lions.)
"Another episode had Stan narrowly escape a Mountain Lion in the woods... Lions were extirpated from the Eastern U.S. by the beginning of the 20th century (aside from a small and critically endangered population in Florida). Producer Seth Mac Farlane is from Rhode Island, about a day-trip away from D.C., so either he really doesn't know any better or he's been living in California too long. Not that the show is above taking liberties with realism anyway."
- I've never seen American Dad, but I have seen a couple of Mountain Lions (known locally as Painters or Mountains Screamers) here in North Georgia. They're reclusive animals, but they ain't extinct by any means.
Removed the following line:
- This ignores the fact that, what with the world only being 7,000 years old, there would actually be a lot more so-called 'modern' animals in actuality...
For one thing, the correct Biblical nonsense would have been 6,000 years old. For another thing, you don't get to play Johnny Bible in a discussion about talking dinosaurs raised by lemurs.
