-
The new B5TV.COM is here. We've replaced our 16 year old software with flashy new XenForo install. Registration is open again. Password resets will work again. More info here.
Galactica Season 4 (Spoilers Within)
- Thread starter Alluveal
- Start date
Chilli
High Treason Prevention Officer
You make it sound so dirty.
Sindatur
Regular
Ben in a Dip Thong is is not something I want to see, LOL.
I only mentioned them because they are two of the first names you would come to when thinking of names from Star Wars, but, I see your point in single syllable names. Not being a cunning linguist like yourself, that never occurred to me
Oh, I see Markas got to the Dipthong before me, nevermind
Last edited:
Markas
His Majesty
Sindatur
Regular
Ah, but I am not nearly the cunning linguist that you are, sir.
To be honest, I had no idea what a dipthong was, LOL. I had to look it up on Dictionary.com, and the definition was harder to understand than Chilli's usage of it in a sentence.
Last edited:
Chilli
High Treason Prevention Officer
It is now that some Star Wars fans have managed to get laid.
I guess it has some similarity to the name "Leah". Which, again, is a pretty simple name, so similarities aren't too surprising.
Take the name "Kim", for example. It is:
* An English name, short for Kimberly
* A Korean name, meaning "gold"
* A Scandinavian name, short for Joakim
* The name of a tribe in Chad.
You'll have a hard time finding similar coincidential similarities for names like "Anastasia" or "Novaček".
(And yes, I care about BSG so little, at this point, that I have no qualms about posting stuff like this in this thread.)
Alluveal
Regular
Dude, really? I mean, really?
darth_librarian
Regular
Cool. Thats the best thing I learnt today.
Markas
His Majesty
Now we can move on to triphthongs.
PillowRock
Regular
I forgive that on the basis of pure practicality, which is why I don't find it "retarded".
By the time you include the recurring characters that you would like the audience remember (people who are around for an episode or two, then disappear for 5 or 6 or so before coming back) there are a lot of characters running around in this show. (Somewhat fewer now, because as they wind down the series we haven't been meeting new characters as quickly as we've been killing old ones.) There are too many characters to stick with the really simple monosyllabic names, while still making sure that they all sound different enough to remain distinct in the viewers' minds when we haven't seen them for several episodes.
This is further complicated by the fact that this show, much more than most TV series, has an overall context that ends up leading to the characters regularly being referred to or addressed in as many as 5 different ways (first name, last name, rank, job title, and call sign; and, yes, there have been a couple people who had all 5 in play), depending on the situation ....... and everyone has at least 2 or 3 of those in play.
That's an awful lot for the average viewer to keep track of; before even thinking about keeping things straight among the multiple different, but outwardly identical, Cylon characters of the same model. Frankly, I suspect this is why nobody ever acquires any spare nicknames from friends. It's also why we never see any Caprican equivalent of Smith (to the English) or Lee (to the Korean), a family name that is common enough that we 3 or 4 unrelated people with the same surname.
Already familiar names and words are simply much easier for people to keep track of. If they had started inventing new "alien" names for everybody, I suspect that much of the audience would have had a much harder time remembering who was who when they heard references to people who weren't on screen. It's not impossible that this could have hurt the ratings, and possibly cost them the show's renewal.
So they used names that are easier for the audience to recognize and remember; the names that they already know. I can live with that.
Chilli
High Treason Prevention Officer
I'm an American living in Austria, with a discintly English-sounding name, with no German equivalent. People NEVER forget my name. They constantly misspell it, but they never forget it, simply because it is so strange to them. I, myself, have a very easy time remembering the names of study mates I only know tangentially when they're foreigners with names unusal for me. No way can I keep all the Elisabeths, Karins and Katrins apart, though.
Personally for me, the ludicrous names characters have in Star Wars makes them easier for me to remember, if anything. It's a lot harder to forget a name like "Jabba" or "Greedo". With unfamiliar names, remembering the spelling is a problem, of course. But if I, for example, think back at Farscape, which I never watched .. I remember the name "Aeryn Sun", but I can't for the life of me remember Bowder's character's name. Simply because it was something very familiar-sounding, IIRC, and thus forgettable.
Personally for me, the ludicrous names characters have in Star Wars makes them easier for me to remember, if anything. It's a lot harder to forget a name like "Jabba" or "Greedo". With unfamiliar names, remembering the spelling is a problem, of course. But if I, for example, think back at Farscape, which I never watched .. I remember the name "Aeryn Sun", but I can't for the life of me remember Bowder's character's name. Simply because it was something very familiar-sounding, IIRC, and thus forgettable.
vacantlook
Super Moderator
John Crichton. I'm not surprised you can't remember the name of a character on a show you didn't watch. But I'm curious, if you've never watched Farscape, then how you do you know Aeryn's name?
Chilli
High Treason Prevention Officer
Years of reading Dreamwatch, SFX magazine, internet message boards, and not completely living behind the moon.
darth_librarian
Regular
Claudia Black got a lot more exposure, and a good thing too.
Recoil
Regular
Maybe, but that's too bad because Browder was the genius behind that show.
Alluveal
Regular
I'm rather pleased that they aren't falling back on the ole sci-fi cliche of making up goofy, silly, unique-just-to-be-unique names in BSG. It's not about the names to me. It's about the story and character.
Maybe we can find another topic to stumble into after tonight's ep.
eeesh.
Maybe we can find another topic to stumble into after tonight's ep.
eeesh.
GKarsEye
Regular
There's a show on after BSG, I think it's one of the Stargates (I never watched any). It has both of them. My DVR sometimes gets a min or two of it, and a few weeks ago I saw this thing and I'm like wtf, is there some new Farscape- WHY DIDN'T MY B5TV NERDS TELL ME?! So did they just lump the Farscape people into some other show thinking, what, no one would notice, or it would be enough to bring the Farscape fans into a completely different show?
