Interstella 5555

[RobbyB1982]

Saying "double zero" is a provably British thing. So to an American reading the title of this film, our instinct would be to either say "five five five five" or "fifty-five fifty-five". THAT is what sounds natural to us.

Well I lived in the US my entire life and not Britain, and I haven't watched THAT much Doctor Who, so I don't know what to tell you. The phrase came to me for some reason.

I *have* watched a lot of anime though?

Maybe James Bond since I randomly picked zeroes.

[AllanO]

For the longest time I only knew Interstella 5555 by having seen the video for "One More Time" occasional. One time I saw it on a plane and mentioned seeing it on Social Media (and my interpretation of the video was that dance music will weaken a civilization leaving it open to invasion), when someone explained the actual story of the videos. I actually kind of like "One More Time" but I find it repetitive and my problem with dance music in general would be that it is so repetitive for me, but it works for lots of people so great.

The "movie" is a very interesting project and I have always meant to actually watch it start to finish sometime. Stumbling across it playing on TV or wherever was always a bit trippy, it definitely feels like it is a snippet from a larger work, which is in itself an accomplishment.

Uh, no, as far as I am aware no one in the US and Canada says "double zero" when stating a phone number (and I work retail, where inputting phone numbers is how we look up loyalty accounts, so I hear a lot of people speak their phone number aloud on a daily basis). Its either "seventy eight hundred" or just "seven eight zero zero". Saying "double zero" is a provably British thing. So to an American reading the title of this film, our instinct would be to either say "five five five five" or "fifty-five fifty-five". THAT is what sounds natural to us.

I'm Canadian and I find saying double [letter/number] perfectly natural, but it is because my parents are British and I'm used to them saying it. Whenever I try to use such constructions on a normal North American it confuses them. I find "double oh" (as in James Bond 007) or even "double nought" a lot more natural than "double zero".

If the title was enunciated "Interstella four fives" I think the title would be at least literally comprehensible English if not necessarily rolling off the tongue.

A Japanese writing of Roman characters quirk I find tricky is that what looks like "X" is often actually to be taken and pronounced as "cross", which makes sense visually but not otherwise. Although there are examples of this in English to (at least British) such as another name for Tic-Tac-Toe being "noughts and crosses" (0's and X's or rather X's and O's)

"Four five" may also be a quirk of how numbers are handled in French, I have no clue but a language in which the number 70 is rendered soixante-dix (sixty-ten) and then 80 is rendered quatre-vingts (four-twenties) is probable capable of anything (not that English has any scruples). Most obviously in French the singular and plural (usually as in English designated by a terminal s) will usually be pronounced the same way because the written end of the word is not pronounced (except when it is). So the distinction between a plural and singular form of a word is elided. So you would pronounce "Interstella quatre cinqs" (Interstella four fives) the same way you would pronounce "Interstella quatre, cinq" (Interstella 4, 5), so that might be the origin of the pronunciation of the title? If so I have to comment I don't think you should transfer linguistic practice that way in translation, but I guess I can't stop you.

[Formless One]

On the official Youtube videos for Daft Punk's individual songs (the music videos of individual scenes of the movie that is), some people were saying that its actually an homage to one of Leiji's works, Galaxy Express 999 which is apparently pronounced "Three Nine". This makes a bit more sense given that show was literally about a train that flies through space, so locomotive naming conventions are at play. Indeed, you would probably call a train with that number the "triple nine" for simplicity, though calling it the "three nine" would get people confused and think its digits were 39. Which makes me think this comes back to Japanese conventions, not English or French. Now, my Japanese is basically nonexistant, but if I had to guess what was lost in translation it was probably the way they handle pluralization. It might be that we should be saying "four fives" rather than "Four Five", but Daft Punk wanted to retain that quirk so as to not ruin the homage. Then to clarify they have the film's subtitle, where the fives are ciphers for four words starting in S.

[clearspira]

I have to say that the animation in this film sucks. Yeah, 1990s did tend to have pretty low production values, but this was made the same year as Cowboy Bebop so i'm not taking that excuse lying down.

[Deledrius]

I have to say that the animation in this film sucks. Yeah, 1990s did tend to have pretty low production values, but this was made the same year as Cowboy Bebop so i'm not taking that excuse lying down.

Given the character designs, I've always assumed it was intentionally retro. It could just be the artist's style, however. I know very little background to it beyond what Chuck expresses in the review.

[Riedquat]

I'm Canadian and I find saying double [letter/number] perfectly natural, but it is because my parents are British and I'm used to them saying it. Whenever I try to use such constructions on a normal North American it confuses them. I find "double oh" (as in James Bond 007) or even "double nought" a lot more natural than "double zero".

Yes, double <number> is very commonly used in the UK, especially in phone numbers. In phone numbers 00 is inevitably "double oh", it would be very unusual to hear someone say zero. "Oh" is almost always the case when 'spelling' any number out.

A Japanese writing of Roman characters quirk I find tricky is that what looks like "X" is often actually to be taken and pronounced as "cross", which makes sense visually but not otherwise. Although there are examples of this in English to (at least British) such as another name for Tic-Tac-Toe being "noughts and crosses" (0's and X's or rather X's and O's)

Anything American that pronounces Z as "zee" rather than "zed" throws me out. "EZ" being a common one, which I inevitably read as "ezz" or "ee-zed."

[Nealithi]

I just want to say that by the time I was recording this, I'd already had a full week that started on Sunday, put in a 16 hour day on Christmas Eve, slept about five hours, then was on hour 12 of Christmas Day. So that's why I gave up on pronouncing foreign names, I didn't compromise on working on the review at all, but I was so exhausted I didn't want to go searching for stuff like that. I hope it doesn't make it look like I didn't care about the reviews.

Chuck are your fans going to have to summon C'thulu to eat the moon again so you take a nap?
We love your work.
You do great.
We want you around for a good while yet.

I mean I want to hear you trying to explain SfDebris to your great grandchildren.

[Formless One]

I have to say that the animation in this film sucks. Yeah, 1990s did tend to have pretty low production values, but this was made the same year as Cowboy Bebop so i'm not taking that excuse lying down.

Given the character designs, I've always assumed it was intentionally retro. It could just be the artist's style, however. I know very little background to it beyond what Chuck expresses in the review.

Its leiji's style, those character designs aren't retro, but a specific hallmark of his. Stella in particular is just one of a long line of women he drew whose build and hair are actually a direct reference to Leiji's own grandmother if you can believe it (specifically a photo of her when she was younger that greatly impressed the man). He has one such character in almost every one of his anime and manga. But its also common for him to mix lithe, tall characters with realistic facial features with short, cartoonish characters like Baryl in this film.

The reason it seems retro is that Leiji was a prolific animator in the 70's and 80's, or in other words, right when Daft Punk's members were growing up. They sought him out for that reason, remember. But saying its a product of low production values is insulting the artists involved. You can tell that the money and effort are there if you know a thing or two about animation. Nothing looks flat, objects and people move like they are part of the environment rather than clearly being in front of a static backdrop (at least most of the time), the backgrounds are rich in detail. There is a sprinkling of CGI thrown in where appropriate, which wasn't cheap back then like it is now. They even made an effort to sync the lip flaps of the characters to the songs whenever the music is diegetic, which is hard to do when the character is singing in a language you don't speak (the songs are in English, remember, but the animators were Japanese).

I think that really all you are saying is you don't like Leiji's style, and that's fine, but don't confuse stylistic choices for poor animation or penny pinching. If you want to see examples of real penny pinching leading to poor animation quality, look at stuff like early seasons of Pokemon, for instance, especially the filler episodes; or literally anything covered by Anime Abandon. The contrast in detail is pretty stark; it takes money to put that many lines on an animation cell.

[Deledrius]

I think that really all you are saying is you don't like Leiji's style, and that's fine, but don't confuse stylistic choices for poor animation or penny pinching.

I never said that at all. In fact, quite the opposite.

I say this as a pretty big fan of the film since back when it was released.

It's clear that this film was not cheap to produce.

[TGLS]

I think that really all you are saying is you don't like Leiji's style, and that's fine, but don't confuse stylistic choices for poor animation or penny pinching.

I never said that at all. In fact, quite the opposite.

I say this as a pretty big fan of the film since back when it was released.

It's clear that this film was not cheap to produce.

I think he's addressing clearspira, not you. Though the quotation makes it weird.