DCML digest, Vol 1 #1247 - 13 msgs

olaf@andebyonline.com olaf at andebyonline.com
Sat Feb 8 12:40:41 CET 2003


Quoting dcml-request at stp.ling.uu.se:
DON ROSA WROTE:

> More sabotage, eh? (sigh) What a stupid change to make in the script!!! How
> could that be true when the story shows that Donald, not to mention the
> Nephews, were *present* in the flashback when Gyro's shop opened! So that
> makes Gyro and Donald about 85-90 years old and the nephews are about 65?
> Are you certain they made that extraordinary blunder in the script
> translation? That might take the cake for the worst one ever.
> My original script clearly said that the shop had been open only ONE year.
> Slight difference... 1 year as compared to 50. Now it looks like there's
> even a translator who doesn't read the story.


OLAF SOLSTRAND REPLIES:

This is not a (an?) unique French phenomenon. Happens all the time in Norway. In "Gyro's first invention", they did actually not say that his shop were 50 years old - but they didn't say that it was _one_ year old either. A nephew says "it's his anniversary today" or something like that, but that is all. No number of years is mentioned.

Still, blunders like the one mentioned above have been done alot here. I remember that for Easter 2001, Donald Duck & Co made a magazine containing "Land of the Pygmy Indians" and "War of the Wendigo". It also had an additional article (by Erik Hørthe), and after explaining the excitement of the Barks story, the article continues with "40 years later, Scrooge and his nephews return to..." Same problem.

However, the most moronic translation I have seen was a Dutch story printed in Donald Duck & Co in 2001 or 2002. Unfortunately I don't remember who wrote it, but in the story Scrooge tells Huey, Dewey and Louie stories from his youth. In the first frame he shows them a coin, telling that "I made this coin when I was digging for gold in Klondike". The nephews are amazed: "Then it must be more than a hundred years old!" Bah, humbug!

Well, they have a dilemma. Scrooge is a spry man, 80-90 years old. If the publisher wants to, they can say that the story takes place in 2003. Sure - I don't like it, but that's _their_ choice, and to many readers that is the natural guess, as nothing else is mentioned anyway (like it was in the good old Asterix albums). However, if Scrooge is 80-90 years old in 2003, he _can't_ have participated in the gold rush in 1897! This _is_ a big dilemma, but the publishers (at least my local ones) choose to not care about this and say that the characters live eternally. And ka-boom - suddenly Donald and Scrooge live in Peter Pan's Never-Ever-land.

I often ask people the question "If Scrooge never dies, why does he worry about what will happen to his money after his death? And why doesn't Donald find it a little strange that until 1934 he was just an average man, but after that he hasn't aged a day?"



_______________________
Olaf Solstrand
www.andebyonline.com



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