MovieChat Forums > The State Within (2006) Discussion > Great series, missing some US touches

Great series, missing some US touches

posted 14 years ago by luxmissus
8 replies | jump to latest

Although I was impressed over all, some of the accents -- like MacIntyre's in and out accent -- made me wince as well as a few Bristishisms "in hospital" instead of "in the hospital", use of bum instead of butt etc. by an American characters. Considering how sharp the series was as a whole, I was surprised.

It made me realize how many howlers that American filmmakers must make that I probably don't even realize, being from the States myself. Other people must roll their eyes at US films sometimes.

[–] 14 years ago

[deleted]

[–] luxmissus 14 years ago

Yeah, like every single time one of your actor's has ever tried to do a 'British' accent.

I believe it.

"(W)ith only minutes to react we've somehow been killed by a stick insect" -- Londinieres

[–] tenonceb4 14 years ago

McIntyre is British, but he's lived in the US for a long time. It's somewhat natural for him to go from American to English accent.

You are only limited by your own imagination.

[–] Adam_P_L 13 years ago

This miniseries gets a lot of U.S. parlance wrong. An American newsman would never refer to British muslims as "Asians," for instance.

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[–] Adam_P_L 13 years ago

SPOILER ALERT

The lethal injection scene was ridiculously poorly staged. No one is given a lethal injection while wearing a suit. Also, it took about 10 seconds. In reality, it takes much, much longer.

I can't get over how well-acted and produced this miniseries is, but how many things don't ring true.

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[–] cmcurrie2 12 years ago

I do not understand your complaint at all. Most of the characters were Brits. We keep our Britishisms when we travel or live in other countries. So, yes, it is "in hospital" and others. Warner, Carl and the FBI agent spoke American.

I hope you don't expect me to talk Texan if I visit TX.

[–] Julie-30 12 years ago

Based on my informal study of the cast, the American characters (with the exception of Sharon Gless) are all played by Canadians.

In MI-5/Spooks, virtually all of the US characters are played by Brits or Canadians. I've also heard some atrocious US accents from Australians (Miranda Otto in "The Way We Live Now" comes immediately to mind).

Since Canadian English can often (not always) be indistinguishable from American English, I can't always spot them, but I have an pretty good "radar" for non-North Americans playing people from the US.

But the British seem to get their collective knickers in a twist whenever an American tries a British accent. Oddly enough, they don't seem to mind when an Australian or a Canadian does it. I remember when Pride & Prejudice 2005 came out. Brits went nuts complaining about Donald Sutherland's "American" accent. When they found out he's actually Canadian, much of the whining mysteriously stopped. Interesting, huh?

As for "howlers," I'm from New York City originally, and I've lost track of how many mistakes filmmakers make about my hometown. Personally, I find them rather fun to spot, and I don't take it personally.

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[–] crooked_spoons 11 years ago

I've also heard some atrocious US accents from Australians (Miranda Otto in "The Way We Live Now" comes immediately to mind).

This is an old thread over all but her accent in that series has always stuck with me as one of the absolute worst I have ever heard. It was just awful.

Anyway, for as horrible as so many Brits seem to think American actors doing English accents are I'm always amazed at how tremendously bad some of their own actors sound when doing American accents. I have a decent ear and can generally hear a foreign actor's native accent come through when they're doing an American for any length of time (Julian McMahon on Nip/Tuck or Jason Issacs on Awake for example) but I don't generally grumble and whine when it's a one-off sort of thing. Robert Taylor's accent on Longmire is flawless in my opinion. However some of the actors in this series

Also, I believe I heard the phrase "in hospital" used more than once in this series and I know at least in one instance it was used by an American character and another American character (the reporter from the Washington Press used the word "leant" instead of "leaned" twice. Little things like that kind of take me out of the series.

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