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Topic: MPAA: Control over titles?

Dylan Marchetti
Film Handler

Posts: 27
From: New York, NY
Registered: Oct 2004

posted 05-26-2005 02:26 PM

Terminator 2 is a great example as well. If I recall correctly, the films were out near the same time.

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Manny Knowles
"What are these things and WHY are they BLUE???"

Posts: 4247
From: Bloomington, IN, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 05-26-2005 08:46 PM

My brief experience in production has been that character names are NOT licensed from real people. On the contrary, if there was a real-live "Greg Focker" or "Gaylord Focker" with any kind of medical background, this could justify a change of name (or career) of the character in question.

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Michael Schaffer
"Where is the
Boardwalk Hotel?"

Posts: 4143
From: Boston, MA
Registered: Apr 2002

posted 05-27-2005 01:50 AM

"Fokker", or "Focker" which is just a minor spelling variation, nothing dramatic given the fact that many of the officers on Ellis Island couldn't spell a lot of foreign names anyway, is actually a fairly common name in The Netherlands. There is also the very well known brand of small aircraft under the name of "Fokker", named after the founder of the company who was from the Netherlands and worked for the German Air Force during WWI. He was the first engineer to come up with a working solution to enable machine guns to be fired through the propeller, by coupling the machine gun trigger and the propeller via a specially designed clutch.

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Manny Knowles
"What are these things and WHY are they BLUE???"

Posts: 4247
From: Bloomington, IN, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 05-27-2005 01:52 AM

What would we do without Michael Focker?

...I mean...Schaffer. [Big Grin]

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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!

Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 05-27-2005 02:29 AM

Michael,

As opposed to the French solution of merely armor plating the propeller so the bullet would bounce off the blade?

I don't think the the German gun thing was via clutch but a mechanical "AND" gate...such that if the trigger is being pulled AND the propeller is out of the way, FIRE...so it would be more of a CAM than a Clutch.

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Monte L Fullmer
Film God

Posts: 8367
From: Nampa, Idaho, USA
Registered: Nov 2004

posted 05-27-2005 03:36 AM

..yea. Those dual Spandau machine guns used those syncronizers on the Fokker Dr.I Triplane, (the "Red Baron") and the better Dr.VII.

-Monte

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Leo Enticknap
Film God

Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000

posted 05-27-2005 03:44 AM

quote: Michael Schaffer
There is also the very well known brand of small aircraft under the name of "Fokker"...

'Small?!'

OK, they're not as large as a jumbo jet, but whenever I go on one of these to a London meeting, 'small' isn't the adjective which comes to mind when I see it. It's called a Fokker 100, presumably because it can carry 100 people or so. And whenever the flight attendant gives the safety lecture, (s)he often makes sure to emphasise the word 'Fokker' in the hope of raising a giggle from those who haven't heard it before.

On the subject of co-ordinating film titles and related to the thread in Reviews, I'm a bit surprised that a second film called Crash has appeared, (i) so soon after the Cronenberg one, and (ii) in the wake of the controversy it created, thereby raising the possibility of confusion. Does the industry have any mechanism for co-ordinating this sort of thing?

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Carl Martin
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1424
From: Oakland, CA, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 05-27-2005 03:59 PM

sort of. when the italian film "the postman" went to video, it went under its italian name, "il postino", to avoid confusion with "the postman always rings twice". however, this was apparently not an issue when kevin costner's movie came out.

carl

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Tim Reed
Better Projection Pays

Posts: 5246
From: Northampton, PA
Registered: Sep 1999

posted 05-29-2005 02:00 AM

quote: Steve Guttag
As opposed to the French solution of merely armor plating the propeller so the bullet would bounce off the blade?

ROFL!!

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John Hawkinson
Film God

Posts: 2273
From: Cambridge, MA, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 07-08-2005 11:10 AM

For what it's worth, this morning's Atlanta-Journal Constitution "Ask Alan Smithee" column, "Some names really are a heavy burden" addresses the questions of real-life Fockers.

The question:

quote:
Dear Senor Smithee,

Since you seem to know it all about the film industry, I have a few questions that need immediate answers for the benefit of my own sanity:

1. I know that Gaylord is an actual name, but is there such a last name as Focker?

and the answer:

quote:
Dear Compadre,

1. Are you sitting? I hope so. As you know, Ben Stiller plays Gaylord "Greg" Focker in "Meet the Parents" and "Meet the Fockers." And a check at the Web site switchboard.com suggests not only the existence of three people named Gaylord Focker (one in Florida and two in Michigan) but the existence of two people named Greg Focker (one in Florida and one in Mississippi). Additional Focker listings are available through LexisNexis information databases. But many of these phone listings turn out to be hoaxes.

What's definite is that Universal Studios held a contest in the United States and Canada for a Focker Family Reunion. They found very few. But, according to the Los Angeles Times, some 20 Fockers were invited to participate from British Columbia.

--jhawk

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