MovieChat Forums > A Christmas Carol (1999) Discussion > Fan, not Fran

Fan, not Fran

posted 16 years ago by t_rex_td
6 replies | jump to latest

Just caught that last night, the writers used the wrong name "Fran" instead of "Fan," unless they purposedly changed to make it sound more like Fred's name. If you notice in this version, Belle's name is never mentioned, which I believe is biggest nick pick of the movie. Then again she's not in this version as much as the others, so its not really as important. Even though they weren't in the book, I think the scenes in the Sim version with the sister dying and the young Marley, improved the impact of the story.

[–] shadow_priest_x 16 years ago

I'm sure the writers were fully aware of what they were doing. Stewart was executive producer of the film and he has performanced a one man version of A Christmas Carol on stage for several years, so he's intimately familiar with the story.

Why they chose to change it, I don't know. I haven't yet seen this version (ordered it from Amazon and it just came in yesterday) but I'm sure this will very much get on my nerves every time I hear it.

[–] roghache 16 years ago

I believe they changed Fan's name to Fran because they felt modern audiences would identify with it better and be more receptive to it. They are both nick-names for Frances but Fan was probably a lot more common in years of yore (I have a Great-Aunt Fanny, for instance) whereas Frances is almost always shortened to Fran nowadays. You never hear Fan used.

I think they should have left Fan's name as it was. I give modern audiences some credit that they can cope with old fashioned names without it ruining the story for them. I'm surprised Patrick Stewart felt the need for the name change; I'd have expected better of him. The change irritated me as well.

[–] whoanelly (1587) 3 years ago

I assumed they changed it due to the modern connotations of the slang word “fanny.”

[–] CoriSCapnSkip (2249) 3 years ago

This has been done in at least two versions and the only explanation I can come up with is, Fanny used to be a girl's name like Dick used to be a boy's name, but over the years they each took on a different meaning, though Fanny has that meaning only in England and Ireland as far as I know, don't know if Dick is only in the United States or elsewhere. Perhaps they felt Fan was too close to Fanny even in productions not for a strictly British audience. If there is any other explanation I'd be interested.

[–] whoanelly (1587) 3 years ago

My thoughts exactly.

[–] whoanelly (1587) 3 years ago

Just remembered that Nick Dear’s 1995 screenplay of Jane Austen’s Persuasion changed the name of Capt Harville’s deceased sister from Fanny to Phoebe, probably for the same reason.