I saw the movie for the first time on Sunday, and since viewing it I’ve looked it up online. I’ve seen pictures of Randall holding his tray of cupcakes saying “Be my pal”. But I’m pretty sure that when I saw the movie the cupcakes were of little smiley faces. I don’t know if I’m imagining it or what. I find it strange though- why change it for an English speaking country?
I was wondering if anyone else knows whether the UK version (or the International version in general) had this scene changed?
I can confirm that the cupcakes are different in what I believe is the international version of MU. Also, the grade marks on Mike and Sulley’s school papers are shown in a few different scenes, and they are replaced with smiley faces as well in the international version. Obviously the grading systems are different everywhere in the world, so I guess it makes sense to use the international version in the UK, while it is English-speaking. Using the US version would be confusing primarily because of the grading system differences.
In Japan, the Japanese dubbed version has [spoil]Randall smiley face[/spoil] cupcakes. There is an English version, but I haven’t seen that yet because I went with some Japanese friends. Also, in the Japanese dubbed version, when Mike and Sulley show their test scores Mike gets a happy face mark, but Sulley gets a [spoil]sad face[/spoil] mark.
Oh thank you guys! I suppose it makes sense to change things for the international version, and they’ve done it before. Does make the close-up on the cupcakes kind of weird though (and Randall worrying about one of them being askew comes across as weirder than it was meant to be). I’m surprised they used that version for the UK though, considering English is the biggest language here.
And I had no idea that the exams were changed too.
Oh, how funny! I was actually wondering what they’d end up doing about that in the international versions. Shame it doesn’t [spoil]get the sad “Be my pal”/“Lame” juxtaposition[/spoil] this way, though.
Yeah, the joke was largely lost. It actually kinda came across as weird because they showed the cupcakes long enough for a person to read a message. But if there’s no words there’s not much to see, so it felt overlong. The smiley Randall faces were kinda funny though.
Being in the UK this actually bothered me far more than it should! I kind of assumed that being english we’d get the “Be My Pal” cupcakes too. Also you’re right it does come across a bit weird with the extended close up and Randall adjusting the cupcake. I’m thinking of buying MU on import when it comes out on dvd/blu-ray if only for this reason!
I saw both versions at my local cinema (in Bathurst, Australia). The 2D version had the [spoil]Lame cupcakes and A+/C- grade marks[/spoil], while the 3D version had the [spoil]picture cupcakes (can’t remember if it was a smiley face or not) and the smiley/frowny face grade marks[/spoil]. No idea why we would have the international version as that grading system is used in Australia. (Also no idea why we would have both versions - was it just my cinema? Any other Aussies here who can comment?)
I can get why they did that in the international version, but it sounds like they had the same visual replacement thing on all international versions. I remember looking at the featurette on the international versions of Monsters Inc and I know they did similar things (such as the Don’t/Stalk sign became a symbol version of it), but I haven’t heard about them keeping that in English-speaking countries.
They probably were just using an American ad.