Howard et al., I fear that the movie makers use the metric system, not to support metrication, but rather to play into the prejudices of the American audience that "Oh, that's Europe, so we expect them to use metric." Sad that, for U.S. audiences, metric gets associated with "foreign" settings and illicit drugs. Strange, but if the film is set in Asia, in the Pacific, or in South America, would the screenwriters also emphasize metric units?
Sometimes, filmmakers don't do their homework. On a slightly different topic, take the film in which Halle Berry plays a prison psychiatrist who suffers a psychotic episode herself and has to be confined in her very own institution. When she wakes up screaming, another psychiatrist shouts, "Quick, give her 40 mg of Ativan!" That is about a 10-fold overdose of that drug! Now, 4 mg would be a good loading dose of Ativan (lorazepam), an antianxiety agent. Maybe someone misplaced a decimal point. Paul ----- Original Message ----- From: Ressel, Howard (DOT) To: U.S. Metric Association Sent: 2011-08-15 06:58 Subject: [USMA:50968] Older movies get it right (somewhat) Although we would love to see all movies metric, it makes sense that historically accurate movies use the "language' of the native country and of the time. So when a WWII movie is produced the Brits would appropriately use feet and miles, the Germans meters. I saw the Mackenzie Break this weekend, made in 1970, and indeed they did just that. The Germans, trying to escape an English POW camp, used meters, centimeters etc. and the Brits referenced distances in miles. Even better, but not relevant, the Germans spoke in Germans with subtitles. Howard Ressel Project Design Engineer NYSDOT 1530 Jefferson Road Rochester, NY 14623 585 272-3372 43,560 square feet in an acre 5280 feet in a mile 16 ounces in a pound 128 ounces in a gallon 23 confused kids in a class What could be simpler?
