Quote Originally Posted by FFN View Post
Not somebody prone with seizures, but they are most likely referring to a character who is super-energetic, wound up, rapidly moving and clumsy, possibly in an amusing fashion, like Movie Frenzy.


Quote Originally Posted by FFN
From what I understand in discussion with (generally left-wing, politically correct) Americans and Canadians, their usual usage of spastic or its slang variety spaz is usually not referring to somebody with cerebral palsy or associated conditions, nor is it meant to be the derogatory term it is in some other countries.
And "slag" isn't derogatory outside of Great Britain, and even in the UK it's still not derogatory when used in the context of referring to metals - and from a male robot character.

Quote Originally Posted by FFN
It's an honest mistake, not one of malice or stupidity or, as Kup suggests, a lack of caring for the franchise. Even Gok's own cited dictionary definition doesn't suggest that it is a derogatory term at all. After all, in a culture where the word seemingly doesn't have any negative connotations (and is unrelated to serious illnesses), it would seem to be excessive to check if, on the off chance, it was offensive elsewhere?

With hindsight and coming from a different culture, we can say it's a mistake on their part, but it's not as stupid a mistake as some of you are suggesting.
You'd think they'd learn to do a bit more research into names after the Nexus Maximus affair. A simple Google search (with safe mode switched off ) probably would've let them know that the word could be offensive in some regions.

Also, the issue I have with this justification is that it seems to contradict Hasbro's action/policy when they deliberately avoided using the name "Slag" and called him Snarl -- in the extremely remote off chance that someone would find it offensive, and even if they did find it offensive and tried to take legal action against Hasbro, they wouldn't have a case since in the context of a flame-throwing Dinobot it's a perfectly reasonable word. It would be like say going to a dog show and trying to take legal action against the organisers for having a sign that said "First Class Bitches" (I've actually seen a sign that said this the Royal Easter Show - for a dog exhibit). Since they're using the word 'bitch' in an appropriate context, then they're perfectly safe to do so. Likewise Hasbro would've been perfectly safe to use "Slag" for that character. After all, G1 Slag was still called "Slag" during the 1980s (and Slag made more than half of his appearances in the Marvel Comics in the UK issues).

Ya know, up until Animated Slag came along, I would happily agree with you. When Night Slash Cheetor came out, UK fans had a good laugh, but everyone understood that it was an innocent cross-sociolinguistic faux pas. Then the same thing happened again with Slapper. Then the whole Animated Snarl thing came out, which established a precedent for Hasbro USA supposedly wanting to be more "sensitive" to potentially upsetting people in other regions (even though they totally wouldn't have IMO).



Would it be possible for Hasbro's International division to give this toy a different name in other Anglophone countries? They could easily print off some stickers to put over the names on the packaging and instructions. They've done it before (not necessarily to change names, but other things on packaging).