BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 09:20 AM

In Foyle's War, the Honeysuckle Weeks character belongs to what appears to be an arm of the service which never existed. My sister actually was an ATS driver during WWii; and I am sure that there was never a single instance of one of them being seconded to drive a member of the civilian police.

Still, she looks lovely in that uniform, doesn't she?

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: SINSULL
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 09:19 AM

The opening scenes of Shogun made me crazy. You can clearly see a helicopter's shadow on the water as it panned the ship. Every episode opened with a helicopter. ARGHHHH!

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 09:13 AM

One of the examples which has always annoyed me inordinately occurred right at the beginning of that famous 1981 tv adaptaton of Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited. It started with Captain Ryder saying "Good morning, Sergeant-Major" to a soldier wearing the insignia of a Colour-Sergeant. One can see how the error happened: three stripes on the upper arm are the insignia of a sergeant; the officer ranked major wears a crown on his shoulder. So the unaware might think that a crown above three stripes signify a sergeant-major; but not so: they are a colour-sergeant or staff-sergeant, depending on the regiment. A Company Sergeant-Major [which this one was supposed to be] wears a crown on his forearm.

Important? Well, they spent literally millions on this series, including the services, acc to the credits, of a military adviser; so what was he doing for his money, eh?

~Michael~

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: Will Fly
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 09:03 AM

Have you ever noticed in TV programmes like Poirot - where vintage cars/buses/lorries have been procured - they're always spotlessly clean - as if! No matter what the weather, no matter what the road conditions are. And never a dent or a speck of rust.

It's always interesting to recognise a location which is actually miles away from the spot in which the drama is supposed to be set. 'Foyle's War' - which I love to death - actually uses only a very few real locations in its Hastings setting. Foyle's house is one of them, but not much else.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 09:00 AM

In Philip Larkin's novel, Jill, the young man meets her when she arrives at Oxford station and the description says she is wearing a hat. A few pages later he is thinking about why he finds her attractive, including the fact that she doesn't wear a hat.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 08:49 AM

Topsie: Yes, A S Byatt is another in my collection. In her Still Life, a young woman asks her university tutor when it is convenient to call on him, and he says he is available every day between 4·30 & 6 p.m. A few days, and a few chapters, later, she calls on him accordingly, & at the end of her interview he invites her to stay for lunch. I wondered if anyone else in the world had ever noticed this.

And in one of Elaine Feinstein's novels, Mother's Girl, the timeline is such that a girl who is 4 in 1938 is still at school at the time of the Hungarian revolution, when she would have been 22.

There is the famous incident in Lord Of The Flies when Piggy's spectacles are used to focus the sun's rays to light a fire, which, as he was short-sighted, they would not have done.

& so on...

~Michael~

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: Green Man
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 08:23 AM

I love them, continuity errors, blatant logic outpoints in adverts and I drive my missus nuts pointing them out. Mind you she ususally figures out who done wht in the thrillers we watch so its fair I guess.

They do matter, they add to the fun. :)

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 08:07 AM

There is a confusing bit in A. S. Byatt's Possession, where she started writing a long excerpt from a diary, then forgot it was a diary entry and started writing about what was going to happen later, after the diary was supposed to have been written.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 07:33 AM

It does matter to me that attention to detail be given as much as is possible for films or programs at the cinema or on tv. Unless it is complete fantasy like the recent new Clash of the Titans with the Ozzie accents which does sound slightly funny and then they put Pete Postewaite who does the best he can, acting really well, as he does. It is entertaining to see errors and outtakes but there are enough special programs that feature the mistakes already.

With books it all depends on if the reader wants something factually informative or just light-hearted reading not to be taken too seriously. Good spelling in reading books should be important to show good example especially to young people who might pick it up to read and think that it is the correct way. If it is copying a dialect I don't have a problem with that.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 07:24 AM

Railway scenes are almost always wrong but the usual punter doesn't seem to mind.
On the other hand how would they react to seeing a Morris Minor amongst the horse drawn cabs in a Sherlock Holmes film? It's the same magnitude of error.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 07:22 AM

MtheGM has been reading up on Sneaky Questions?

John

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: nickp
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 07:18 AM

And on the same theme, the excellent Murder on the Orient Express at Christmas... I'm sure that was a BR Standard being used. Surely there's enough preserved continental locos in the UK?

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 07:06 AM

Was it an Urban Myth, or was there really a red lorry parked at the side during the chariot race in Ben Hur? If so, what a scream! I do hate it when film versions change the details of much-loved classics, eg Pride & Prejudice. Mr Darcy never did go swimming in his shirt sleeves and emerge dripping wet to greet Miss Bennett. (nice fantasy though)You're quite right, MtheGM, and I have to admit to having travelled as a girl up to Durham on the old LNER steam trains from King's Cross many a time with my parents. The noise of the steam escaping from about ten engines on all the platforms terrified me.

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 07:01 AM

Yes. It should be right.

There was an HTV Robin Hood in which his merrie men wearing loincloths dropped out of trees ambushing the sheriff's men to reveal underpants.

And the famous pylons in whichever the film of whichever Shakespeare it was.

I get very cross at cars that had not been built at the time!

Subject: RE: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: Leadfingers
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 06:22 AM

Always good for a giggle when something silly crops up - like Vapour trails in Westerns , and Roman Sodiers wearing wristwatches !

Subject: BS: Do small errors in books, film &c matter
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 06:02 AM

Small errors in films, books, &c ~~ do they matter? Or bother you?

Just one example to go on with ~ perhaps others will be provided. ITV's Poirot series based on Agatha Christie's stories, and starring the admirable David Suchet in that magnificently tongue-in-cheek yet convincing characterisation, took great pains, generally successfuly, to get the right period atmosphere with the clothes, hairstyles, art-deco dwellings of the wealthier characters, &c. But I was, perhaps inordinately, bugged in watching a repeat episode not long ago, to find that it featured LMS trains from the North bound for Kings Cross: when, as even a [old-enuf] fule kno, the LMS [London Midland Scottish] London termini were Euston or St Pancras, while Kings Cross was the terminus of the LNER [London and North-Eastern Railway].

Does it matter? Did it bother you (or would it have done if you had seen it)? While spending that much money, should they research everything really carefully, and avoid misleading, even if minor, historical boo-boos?

Or is it not worth even a second's attention?

What you think?

~Michael~