Science and the public

I couldn't help but notice that one of my favorite producers of animated films, Aardman Animation, is coming out with a new movie (trailer here). I find it very interesting that the UK version of the movie is "The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists!", while the US version is "The Pirates! Band of Misfits!". The film is based on a book with the former title, by the way. I don't want to overanalyze this, but it's hard to escape the conclusion that some marketing drone decided, "scientist" is box-office poison, and that "misfit" was an acceptable and more marketable substitute in the US. Great. Wonderful. In case you're wondering, Charles Darwin shows up as a character in the book/movie. I imagine that the US ads won't be playing that up very much, or there will be protests. Sigh.

(I do have a science post I'll make shortly. I just couldn't let this pass w/o comment. And it's taking enormous self-restraint not to launch into extended political invective about the US, but there are many places where people can read that if they want to.)