Sunday, March 8, 2009

ROANOKE: A MOVING EXPERIENCE

The geography of Toobworld is pretty screwed up in comparison to that of the real world. For a good example, think of all those vest-pocket kingdoms that have to be squeezed into the map of Europe, thanks to shows like 'Mission: Impossible' and 'Man From U.N.C.L.E.'. What the Toobworld map doesn't need then is a mangling of previously established locations which we have in the real world. But luckily these problems occur in onscreen graphics which are not visible to the citizenry of Toobworld. (For the most part - the graphics in that VW commercial are not only visible, but they break apart when the car drives through them.)

This season saw the country of Colombia identified as "Columbia" in two different series. And now a TV movie, "Wraiths Of Roanoke", wants to move the island of Roanoke away from its location off the coast of North Carolina:
Online graphics like that could be seen as the voice of some serlinguistic deity, some cosmic power from Toobworld, addressing the audience viewing at home in the Trueniverse. But if so, he's certainly not infallible.

BCnU!
Toby O'B

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Not to excuse a fairly poorly written movie (which hits on a plot with some significant potential), but could this simply refer to the fact the original colony of Roanoke was to be in the New World area which was all known initially as Virginia? I am a North Carolinian, but that is a potential answer.

--Hugh

Toby O'B said...

My knee-jerk response is that quote by Mushrat of 'Deputy Dawg' which I use all the time: "It's pozz'ble, just pozz'ble...."

I don't know enough about the early settlement of America one way or the other to say definitely. But I do know that Connecticut gave up their claim on Long Island to New York in exchange for their colony to ahve the right to stretch as far west as possible. Look how well that worked out. (They were ripped off of possession of Fisher's Island too!)

So your idea makes sense to me, Hugh!