Ever since it was announced that Arcee was planned to be in the first film and now that is seems pretty certain she's going to be in the second one I can't help but feel that in certain parts of the world its going to be very hard to take her seriously. This isn't to do with the issue of Fembots in the film by the way. I live in the UK and in all the parts I've been to (so it isn't a really regional thing) the term 'Arsey' (from arse, meaning your ass, behind etc) is used to describe someone who is miserable, grumpy, upset, annoyed, irritable etc. As Arcee and Arsey are pronounced exactly the same its going to be pretty funny every few minutes to her the characters talking and constantly referring to one Autobot as Arsey. So is this term a purely UK one or do other countries know of it? Because if they keep the name it is going to get a fair few cheap laughs every time she's mentioned (in the UK at least). Google it and it does appear on a number of sites.
Well, Arcee is pronounced with the double 'ee' sound on the end (ryhme with marquee), and I certainly pronounce arsey with a short 'i' sound on the end, so unless someone doesn't know who to pronounce arcee, or there is some weird local pronunciation of arsey that has a double 'ee' at the end, there won't really be anyone who thinks that Arcee = arsey. Besides, there's a dinobot called Slag, and that's much worse.
Whatever... It SPELLED different!!! And who cares.. Dont you think Bumblebee sounds dumber... And by the way... the actors and voice overs for the robots wont speak with a british accent so it really doesnt matter!!!
I myself always thought it was some sort of pun on the abreviation RC for 'remote controlled', to be perfectly honest. The whole 'Arsey' thing is only of relevance to those with some knowledge of the slang or colloquilisms used in places like the UK or Australia. Given the different pronounciation of the word 'arse' from Britain and 'ass' in the US I don't think its a problem.
Apart from Bumblebee, going by his couple of lines in the first film. As for Arcee, it's more down to how it's emphasised - with the stress on the second syllable it sounds nothing like "arsey". And I'm with Lord Melchett there on Slag, much funnier to a Brit audience. As is Slapper from RiD. I dunno, some of these TFs are bad robots
Its not going to spelt on screen though is it so the casual viewer isn't going to know, and whats accent got to do with anything? Its not like Aluminium which does have notably different pronounciation, the two words do sound phonetically similar, them both being pronounced: Ar-see
I think of all the things to worry about in the world, this is pretty low on the list. If she was called "Cockmonger" then we might have a problem.
Somehow now I'm reminded of the small circus caused when Octopussy was released (I know of this by watching its making of doco on the DVD)
i think it'll be hard to take her name seriously because what the hell does Arcee even mean? the other autobots have explanations for their english names, but arcee isn't an english word (neither is optimus, but it's at least derived from an english word). i'm not sure how they're going to explain her name.
They'll find some way to make it work. Even if they don't Michael Bay has a way of changing things and for all we know Arcee won't be called Arcee. He'll probably change it to Minerva whom I think was Ironhides psuedo siggo.
