Monsters, stereotypes and things lost in translation...

Yes, it's been a while since I posted anything, and this post is not particularly fresh news. However, I felt that I really needed to address this at some point or another. Some people might remember an independent picture called Monsters. The premise: NASA has found proof of extraterrestrial life. A probe sent to collect specimens returns but crashes upon reentry at the North of Mexico and turns half of the country into a quarantined zone invaded by octopus-squid like creatures. I have no complaints about the movie as an actual movie, actually I believe that it is a very clever approach to what science fiction can be, with a style that reminded me of Cloverdale and keep the suspense high, with the message aspirations of District 9. Less action but a bit more depth, yet not nearly as successful as District 9. Considering that the movie was cheaply made, I cannot actually complain.

Unfortunately, no matter how much Gareth Edwards was trying to save when creating the art for the movie, would it have been so hard as to find someone that spoke and understood real Spanish? Was it too much to ask to find someone that actually knew a little, just a little bit of real geography? I know, in the end, as with most American movies, they always seem to forget that the rest of the world is actually watching and noticing the "tiny" liberties that their stories seem to take. And in the end it is probably based in the fact that most Americans simply will not notice those liberties in the script. And yes, I know that when it comes to writing a script and making a story believable and compelling, the small details about geography are probably not the main concern of the director. But, this movie just bothered me way too much. Those "small details" are just humongous in my brain.

Most billboards in the movie display the worst attempt at Spanish I've seen since my landlord tried to pronounce my last name—and there are quite a few billboards and signs in 'sham' Spanish, since most of the action purportedly takes place in northern Mexico, just a few kilometres before the American border—. Anyone could have done a better job. And by anyone I mean any human. It looks like they literally used an automated translator in most cases. In the above photo you can read "Extra Terrestre Investigación Established 2010". Besides being a mishmash of Spanish and English (for some weird reason) the translation of "Extra Terrestrial Research" was taken literally from Google Translate. Really! I tried it and that is the exact translation given en Spanish; they at least kept the acute accent at the end of "investigación".

Only an example of many throughout the movie. Dude, really, I would have done the translation work for free, it would have been quick and easy.

And those geographical references! As I said, it's OK to take some liberties when the script and the story calls for them, but in here they reach ridiculous heights. In this movie, all of Mexico is apparently a jungle (probably based in the only things that tourists know about Mexico: Coronas, heat and palm trees), and even if it is part of the script —the nature taking over everything after the area is quarantined— it still makes no sense. The path to the North is some inexistent river that runs through a jungle denser than the Amazon and leads to (spoiler alert!) a Mayan Pyramid facing the Rio Grande, a few metres away from the US border, and after crossing the crumbling wall supposedly created to contain the aliens (get it?) suddenly everything turns into a desert and the vegetation is scarce to say the least. It's like looking at one of those elementary school maps where one country is green and the next one is pink.

Not everyone is an expert in geography, or Mayan history, or Archaeology, or languages or is supposed to know everything about every country... but come on! Just saying.

Images — Vertigo Films, 2010.