[fov]

Welcome to the forum, Morozko! Thank you for your detailed response. It's nice to get another perspective.

Grandfather Frost is regarded in Russia as a true Russian Christmas and New Year's spirit and figure, and normally has "Snegurochka" as a helper. I believe the English translation for "Snegurochka" is "Snow Maiden" but that translation doesn't do it any justice. The term is supposed to be very endearing but English language seems to have a limitation in this area. I guess a little closer translation would be "The sweetest and kindest snow maiden", which can be expressed in Russian in just one word.

Okay, this brings up a question about something that wasn't explained very well in the game. (I'm going to use spoiler tags since not many people here have played it or seen the movie.)

Spoiler:

Near the end of the game, Nastya is cast out of her house by her stepmother and Father Frost finds her in the snow and brings her home with him. I got the impression she is going to take care of him and do his housekeeping. Does this make Nastya the Snegurochka?

The movie "Morozko" is actually considered to be a classic in Russia, and is a beautiful, sweet, kind and charming story. Ask any Russian person who grew up watching it and similar movies are a kid, and you'll immediately see them nod and smile kindly, more of a feeling of "awwwww". I was rather surprised to find out that "Mystery Theater" showed it as a "bad" movie. Unfortunately, it seems the "reviewers" there are very ignorant and uninformed people.

You're probably right that a lot is lost in translation - and not just in the translation of the language from Russian to English. A lot of cultural cues and folklore that just "makes sense" to someone who grew up with them are going to seem strange and out of place to someone who didn't... and you're right, laughing at it isn't a nice thing to do. But what you're saying about the nostalgia you and other Russian people who saw this movie growing up is exactly what I was trying to get at in the review. Have you played the game? I think it would be especially fun for someone who is familiar with this movie and has that kind of nostalgia for it. In comparison - when I was a kid I LOVED the Little House on the Prairie books by Laura Ingalls Wilder (for those who aren't familiar, it's a series of books written by a woman who grew up as a pioneer, about her family's travels west and experiences homesteading in America in the 1800s). I must have read each of those books 50 times. Right now Wonderful World of Disney is doing a miniseries that's very accurate to the books, and I've been having a great time watching them. They make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside and remind me of how much I loved those books when I was a kid. I can see this game having the same effect on someone who watched and enjoyed Morozko.

It's like if someone in Russia was watching a badly translated American western and ripping it apart for being dumb and stupid and saying that all people do in it is drink whiskey and shoot each other's brains out, oh, and have horrible buck teeth.

Don't worry, Mystery Science Theater makes fun of Western movies, too. They're an equal opportunity show.

Also, I don't think Ivan was meant to be shown a "jerk" transforming into a "non-jerk". He's a positive character from the start, he's a good guy, just with some "bad manners", which he eventually changes later. While "Nastya" is a goodie-two-shoes from the start, "Vanya" is a bit of a troublemaker, proud, dismisses a lot of things without caring too much but keeps his nose high and keeps on going to where he's going

This is interesting. It's certainly not how he's portrayed in the game (good guy / troublemaker) but I wonder if you played the game, how you would react to his character. Maybe the game developers were assuming that the player has seen the movie, so the player will be more forgiving of Ivan (in other words, maybe they thought they didn't have to set up his character as carefully because they were falling back on how he was portrayed in the movie). Or maybe the people who created the game interpreted him differently than you did... or maybe they meant to make him more of a good guy / troublemaker but didn't do a good job of it.

As for the names, "Nastya" and "Nastenka" are both nicknames for "Anastasia", "Nastenka" being a more endearing form. Doesn't mean that just kids would call her that, anyone can. And "Vanya" and "Ivanushka" are nicknames for "Ivan", "Ivanushka" being a more endearing form. There are more forms of those names as well because the language is so rich.

Interesting! I'm sure the nicknames would not cause any confusion for someone familiar with the culture. It's an issue with the translation that the developers wouldn't necessarily have foreseen.

I appreciated the game for giving me a glance into the Russian stories it's based on, but I didn't come away from it thinking the game is the definitive representation of Russian folklore. It's obvious to me that this is just one development team's attempt to retell the story. The game's "foreign" aspects (foreign to me, at least) are definitely the best thing about it. I don't think it would have been nearly as interesting to me if it were based on fairy tales I'm already familiar with, or if it were just a straight love story without the fairy tales at all. I think it definitely suffers from some problems but at its core the developers really meant well, and the charm of the original (as well as the developer's feelings about the story, which are clearly favorable) does shine through in spite of the game's problems.