Harry Potter: Philosophers or Sorcerers Stone ?

[low-def.]

Hello all,

This maybe a simple and obvious question, but why are there 2 titles to the 1st Harry Potter film.

I'm wanting to buy the films, but not sure whether to get the US Sorcerers or UK Philosophers Stone versions ?

Which is the official name ? or is it both ?

[stuartbrown21]

I know it's something to do with the Americans!!

I have often wondered whether the have dubbed out the word 'philosopher' in the US version..........and I can't remember whether the word 'philosopher' appears written anywhere in the movie?

[dannius]

I remember when it came out I heard it was because most Americans have no idea what a philosopher is. Don't know how true that is!

[jtotheb]

I know it's an American thing but my UK copy of it has 'Philosophers' written everywhere apart from the credits on the back of the Bluray case. It plainly says 'Sorcerers' there!

Sloppy proof reading in my opinion...

[chelsea.tone]

Originally Posted by dannius

I remember when it came out I heard it was because most Americans have no idea what a philosopher is. Don't know how true that is!

True. It was changed to Sorcerers because it was thought the "average" American would not know what a Philosopher was Pretty much bang on in my experience

Tony

[bosque]

Originally Posted by chelsea.tone

True. It was changed to Sorcerers because it was thought the "average" American would not know what a Philosopher was Pretty much bang on in my experience

Tony

Americans have films with titles like "Serendipity" which doesn't seem to bother them very much, so it's hardly likely that they would have any trouble with Philosopher. This is just one of those "all Americans are stupid" slurs that some people find easy to believe - not sure why. It's probably simply the case that the American publisher felt that a Sorceror sounded more dramatic than a Philosopher and changed it for that reason.

[AES256]

Originally Posted by bosque

Americans have films with titles like "Serendipity" which doesn't seem to bother them very much, so it's hardly likely that they would have any trouble with Philosopher. This is just one of those "all Americans are stupid" slurs that some people find easy to believe - not sure why.

Well said.

It's probably simply the case that the American publisher felt that a Sorceror sounded more dramatic than a Philosopher and changed it for that reason.

Correct.
To my knowledge, the first movie had the actors put the philosopher's/sorcerer's stone scenes on film twice; once for each version.

[chelsea.tone]

I stand corrected

Both the book and the motion picture were released in the United States with the revised title Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. The book's U.S. editor, Arthur Levine, who was also responsible for Americanising words, spellings, and grammar characteristic of British English, felt that Philosopher's Stone conveyed an incorrect idea of the subject matter, and that a title change was necessary. Rowling and Levine had agreed to change words only when they felt that British usages would be unnecessarily confusing to American readers (e.g., replacing the phrase "Quidditch pitch" with "Quidditch field" in multiple instances). Several alternative titles were discussed, and Rowling chose Sorcerer's Stone in the end.[5] The "translations" in the American edition led to criticism by many readers. The New York Times ran an op-ed titled "Harry Potter, Minus a Certain Flavour" on July 10, 2000, which heavily criticised Scholastic's decision to Americanise the U.S. Harry Potter editions.[6] Many felt that the translations insulted the intelligence of the American public, and also deprived American readers of an opportunity to learn about other dialects of English. In their editions of the sequels, Scholastic continued to replace British orthography (such as "flavour") with American spellings, but otherwise left many of the British usages unaltered.


Tony

[Noggin1980]

Correct.
To my knowledge, the first movie had the actors put the philosopher's/sorcerer's stone scenes on film twice; once for each version.

Yes I watched the American version a few days ago and they used the words sorcerer's stone multiple times (3 I think), so they definatly did not just dub out philosophers as someone else suggested.

[low-def.]

Cheers for the replies chaps

Think i'll go and order the UK version - Philosophers Stone

[bosque]

Originally Posted by chelsea.tone

I stand corrected

Both the book and the motion picture were released in the United States with the revised title Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. The book's U.S. editor, Arthur Levine, who was also responsible for Americanising words, spellings, and grammar characteristic of British English, felt that Philosopher's Stone conveyed an incorrect idea of the subject matter, and that a title change was necessary. Rowling and Levine had agreed to change words only when they felt that British usages would be unnecessarily confusing to American readers (e.g., replacing the phrase "Quidditch pitch" with "Quidditch field" in multiple instances). Several alternative titles were discussed, and Rowling chose Sorcerer's Stone in the end.[5] The "translations" in the American edition led to criticism by many readers. The New York Times ran an op-ed titled "Harry Potter, Minus a Certain Flavour" on July 10, 2000, which heavily criticised Scholastic's decision to Americanise the U.S. Harry Potter editions.[6] Many felt that the translations insulted the intelligence of the American public, and also deprived American readers of an opportunity to learn about other dialects of English. In their editions of the sequels, Scholastic continued to replace British orthography (such as "flavour") with American spellings, but otherwise left many of the British usages unaltered.

That's an interesting paragraph, can you say where on the web you copied it from ?

[Sonic67]

http://ask.yahoo.com/ask/20020123.html

Dear Percy:
The first book in the Harry Potter series and the movie adaptation both have a different title in the United Kingdom. British author J.K. Rowling titled her first book Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, and her British publisher, Bloomsbury Publishing, retained that title. Scholastic later published the book in the U.S., changing the title to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, and making other minor changes. When Warner Brothers -- an American company -- bought the movie rights, it kept the American book title.
The Harry Potter in Tayside site quotes Rowling's explanation:

Arthur Levine, my American editor, and I decided that words should be altered only where we felt they would be incomprehensible, even in context, to an American reader... The title change was Arthur's idea initially, because he felt that the British title gave a misleading idea of the subject matter. In England, we discussed several alternative titles and Sorcerer's Stone was my idea.

Other sources offer slightly different reasons for the title change. The Harry Potter Lexicon says, "Scholastic thought that a child wouldn't buy a book with the word 'philosopher' in the title." The U.K.-based Harry Potter Teaching Resources site suggests that the book was retitled "...presumably to make it sound more magic orientated rather than philosophy orientated!"

Perhaps Scholastic doubted that American grade-schoolers would be familiar with the mythic philosopher's stone, a mineral substance that could transform base metal into gold. Alchemists of the Middle Ages sought to discover the stone and attributed many great powers to it.

As a result of the name change, all the scenes in the movie that mention the stone were filmed twice -- once with actors saying "sorcerer's" and once with them saying "philosopher's." Maybe the alternate versions of those scenes will turn up on DVD someday soon.

[chelsea.tone]

Originally Posted by bosque

That's an interesting paragraph, can you say where on the web you copied it from ?

Wikipedia

Tony

[andythescientis]

I bought the US box set for my GF, having watced sorcerers stone the other night i think they mention it about 3 times in the whole movie. It didn't really make any difference to the movie for me, but i'm not a harry potter officianado

[andrew markwort]

Philosopher's stone and sorcerer's stone are synonyms and both were in use long before JK Rowling put pen to paper. However, philosopher's stone is confined to Brit English. Thus, the remark that an American kid might think the book was about philosophy was literally true. But it's no more stupid that a Brit kid thinking that someone eating grits is eating bits of gravel.