Mistborn Movie Opinion

[danex he/him]

when they inevitably make a mistborn movie, would you want it to be pronounced "Kel-see-ur" or the canonical "Kel-see-ay"?

i'm in the second camp
1. it's funny
2. it's more accurate
3.  the movies would probably have more of a french aesthetic to them that the books generally lack, so it wouldn't be super out of place

Edited September 20, 2022 by dannnnnnex

[Quantus he/him]

I prefer the common form over the in-world faux-british.  Im not sure either would qualify as canonical though, in light of this WOB:

 

Quote

 

Questioner

How do you pronounce Kelsier's name?

Brandon Sanderson

I say "kelsi-er" (ˈkɛlsiəɹ). In world, they'd say "kelsi-eh" (ˈkɛlsiˌei). Yeah, most people would.

Salt Lake City ComicCon 2017 (Sept. 23, 2017)

 

 

[danex he/him]

22 minutes ago, Quantus said:

I prefer the common form over the in-world faux-british.  Im not sure either would qualify as canonical though, in light of this WOB:

 

 

“in-world” means canonical

brandon just has his own headcanon

[Frustration he/him]

I prefer the accuracy, even if I say -er myself.

[StormingTexan he/him]

I listen to audio books and it is pronounced like option one so that will always be in my head cannon.

 

In SA Michael Kramer and Kate Reading pronounce Sadeas differently but I think it was Michael who said it first and the most so I always say it like he does and it always sounds wrong when Kate says it. 

[Returned]

I presume there's an approximately 0% chance that the movie would not be produced for a mass audience primarily of people in the U.S., and so "Kel-see-ur", as the more likely American English pronunciation, is almost certainly locked in.

My own preference is pretty neutral, though I probably lean towards "Kel-see-ur" due to the audiobooks as well. I appreciate that there are differences between what makes a good book vs. a good movie, and so I'm not as committed to perfect accuracy with regard to the book as I was when I was younger (especially for details like pronunciation).

And, unrelatedly, while I love Mistborn I never, ever liked the anatopisms of details like modern-ish Western suits or French-tinged names, pronunciations, and accents on another planet in a universe that does not include Earth and the cultures that generated those things. It's not better or worse than people all wearing togas or robes or having obvious knock-off names like "Mai-Kell" or whatever, but they were always too specific a thing and too present in my real life to feel like a good element of an original fantasy setting. Consequently I would have zero problem with changes to things like that, including the pronunciation of the name of a major character.

[danex he/him]

To all the people saying they don’t want Kelseeay

what if they all had french accents

would you like it then?

would you prefer they don’t have french accents?

[Treamayne]

7 hours ago, dannnnnnex said:

when they inevitably make a mistborn movie, would you want it to be pronounced "Kel-see-ur" or the canonical "Kel-see-ay"?

i'm in the second camp
1. it's funny
2. it's more accurate
3.  the movies would probably have more of a french aesthetic to them that the books generally lack, so it wouldn't be super out of place

Yes, both.

The names of N. Scadrial have both Franco and Germanic Influences. Much like Earth, I would expect some people to "mispronounce" any given name that deviates from their perceived norm.

2 hours ago, dannnnnnex said:

To all the people saying they don’t want Kelseeay

what if they all had french accents

would you like it then?

would you prefer they don’t have french accents?

Absolutely no unnecessary accents - just because some words in-world may have roots to real-world languages like French and German does not mean that an accent is appropriate for the whole of Scadrial. A lot more goes into an accent than a specific pronunciation of a few words - including, but not limited to, the grammar and phonetic structure first learned as a child (and when learning a language). Having some French inspired names where there is no other Franco or Latinic phonetics or grammar structure would just make the whole project come off more as a parody if they were to attempt to French accent the whole cast (or even some cast).

Aside:

Spoiler

The most interesting (baffling) accent I've ever worked with was a Pashtun Afghani coworker that learned English in Moscow from a Russian ESL teacher than learned in London. The mix of British/Russian/Pashtu accents was. . . interesting.

 

Edited September 21, 2022 by Treamayne
SPAGF

[Coriniroc]

How about Kel-seer? Not overly French and Kel-see-ur feels clunky to me a bit?

I'm in agreement that leaning hard into the french accents would be ill advised, or any accent for that matter. I will say that I popped on Shadow & Bone last night and got a lot of Mistborn vibes from it. Not necessarily copy it to a T, but I think it's a good representation of the appropriate level of darkness/grunginess that should exist in a world teetering on extinction and frankly, pretty gross (at least in Luthadel).

No british accents, but it felt very Sherlock Holmesy which I wouldn't mind aesthetically incorporated into the city of Luthadel at least. 

[danex he/him]

to everyone saying they don’t want accents….you do realize that american is also an accent right

if it’s valid for them to have american accents it should be equally or more valid for them to have french accents.

[NameIess]

22 minutes ago, dannnnnnex said:

to everyone saying they don’t want accents….you do realize that american is also an accent right

if it’s valid for them to have american accents it should be equally or more valid for them to have french accents.

If you're going to have the movie in English, then wouldn't it make sense to use an accent that comes from a country where English is a first language, such as England or America? Also, I feel like if they use French accents people are either going to think it's just a fantasy retelling of the French revolution or just be confused as to why they have a French accent

[Treamayne]

1 hour ago, dannnnnnex said:

to everyone saying they don’t want accents….you do realize that american is also an accent right

if it’s valid for them to have american accents it should be equally or more valid for them to have french accents.

Technically, there are a number of different American accents. But what I was discussing was the change in a second language when it is altered by the grammatical and phonetic influences of a non-related first language. 

Also notice I said "unnecessary" accents. A well cast actor, who happens to have an accent, is one thing - casting for specific accents or having actors use a specific accent is quite different. Even when they are great at the different accents (Nicole Kidman, James Marsters), asking them to portray an accent is an attempt to influence the work, and I don't think it would be appropriate for Scadrial. Here we have an Empire, formerly comprised of many nations (that likely had regional dialects, if not different languages altogether), a millenium after the unification. A hodge-podge of accents and dialects would be, in my opinion, more appropriate than any attempt at a unifying lingustic style. It represents the intermixing and cultural shift imposed by TLR over the course of the last 1000yrs. 

[danex he/him]

well, in that case, I am now simply advocating that the movie be made entirely in french. We'll just have to use subtitles. 

[Returned]

11 hours ago, dannnnnnex said:

to everyone saying they don’t want accents….you do realize that american is also an accent right

if it’s valid for them to have american accents it should be equally or more valid for them to have french accents.

Thanks Wayne  It is equally valid for them to have French accents, as it's an arbitrary choice no matter what you pick. But it would be an odd choice and introduce a lot of extra effort to have everyone speaking American English with an arbitrarily chosen French accent (or accents), when those accents aren't common there, for a movie that will likely be produced by U.S. companies for a primarily (or at least initially) U.S. audience. Not as an artistic choice, but as a business and production choice. It would be much, much easier, both to do and to justify, to simply have all of the names use French-style pronunciations and not bother with accents at all.

 

4 hours ago, dannnnnnex said:

well, in that case, I am now simply advocating that the movie be made entirely in french. We'll just have to use subtitles.

Ah yes, but French with which accents? I don't care what language the movie is in, as long as they get the plotting, pacing, and effects right, so I'm on board for a default French language production if that's the way the production goes. And it's not like the people on Scadrial plausibly speak French, or English with French accents, anyways. The Romanized, English spellings of their proper nouns just have pronunciations that seem similar to French.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

1 hour ago, Returned said:

Thanks Wayne  It is equally valid for them to have French accents, as it's an arbitrary choice no matter what you pick.

But it would suggest that they are speaking a second language to the audience. The only ones doing that from their own perspective would be the Terris people.

1 hour ago, Returned said:

But it would be an odd choice and introduce a lot of extra effort to have everyone speaking American English with an arbitrarily chosen French accent (or accents), when those accents aren't common there, for a movie that will likely be produced by U.S. companies for a primarily (or at least initially) U.S. audience. Not as an artistic choice, but as a business and production choice. It would be much, much easier, both to do and to justify, to simply have all of the names use French-style pronunciations and not bother with accents at all.

Well, Dragonsteel has a linguist. You could go full Tolkien and make the movie in the original language

Though, the Final Empire does have strong regional accents. There is no need to limit yourself to actors of one origin. I would let all Terris people speak with one foreign accent though. Cutting that out would deprive the audience of a clue that they are different. 

1 hour ago, Returned said:

Ah yes, but French with which accents? I don't care what language the movie is in, as long as they get the plotting, pacing, and effects right, so I'm on board for a default French language production if that's the way the production goes. And it's not like the people on Scadrial plausibly speak French, or English with French accents, anyways. The Romanized, English spellings of their proper nouns just have pronunciations that seem similar to French.

It could but it would make people wonder why this romanization was chosen. Why couldn't Brandon just spell him Kelsié and be done with it?

[SwordNimiForPresident the sword/that sword]

That WoB is actually a relief. It means Kelsier is pronounced with a British "r" rather than a French one. Kel-see-ay is horifying. Kel-see-eh I can work with.

As to the accents, I couldn't care less what version of English they use, but using non primary English speaking accents seems needless. I do think it would be cool if each world in the Cosmere ended up with a different accent in movies.

Now I can't stop imagining Raoden speaking with a deep southeastern USA accent.

Or Kaladin with a central Canadian accent "I'll prootect doose oo cannoot prootect demselves, eh?"