I stumbled on a fascinating video. It’s an evolutionary allegory told in modern methods with a focus on the gestalt…
… oh, who am I kidding? It has a freakin’ STEAMPUNK T-REX! Hawesommmmme! I suggest you go to the YouTube page itself and click the "Watch in HD" link under the video to the right. This deserves good resolution.
That was totally cool. Man, I love that kind of animation.
The video is actually a commercial in German, of course. I don’t know what "Wir hassen teuer" means, because it sounds colloquial to me. Haben wir BABloggees wer Deutsches sprechen? I think I got that right. Well, you’ll let me know.
Tip o’ the mechanical goggles to Fark.
January 4th, 2009 at 11:45 pm
“We detest high prices”, I think is what it means.
January 5th, 2009 at 12:05 am
This was awesome!
January 5th, 2009 at 12:18 am
Ah, Brian, I think you’re right. I hadn’t put it together that way, but that makes sense.
January 5th, 2009 at 12:21 am
Actually, it would mean “We hate high prices”, with an emphasis on ‘hate’.
Advertising (in my eyes, anyway) is usually moronic and directed by/to idiots. But the animation on this one truly is lovely
January 5th, 2009 at 12:30 am
Check out your post at :
http://www.wikiplugs.com/story.php?title=evolution-of-robots
Thanks
January 5th, 2009 at 1:11 am
Richard Saunders speaks German – “Wir hassen teuer” — I’ll go ask him!
January 5th, 2009 at 1:14 am
Apparently it means:
Selection was tough.
But now it’s here.
The most powerful tech of all time.
“Mercilessly low-priced.”
Saturn
“We hate pricey.”
January 5th, 2009 at 1:26 am
Saturn in well-known for such phrases and they have coined the ubiquitous and incredibly annoying (to me) “Geiz ist geil”, which means something like stinginess rocks (or maybe Greed is good!). Wir hassen teuer is just incorrect German and just as annoying as Geiz ist geil. But the animation IS cool, thanks for posting it.
January 5th, 2009 at 1:41 am
It’s a commercial for a retailer of electronics in Germany. As Jennifer pointed out before me – the translation is difficult to say the least, because the original has bad syntax to start of with. The best I can come up with is along the lines of “We hate expensive” (which shares the similarly bad grammar). These commercials are usually very annoying and only one of the reasons I have forsaken TV and moved on the the Intertoobs.
But the animation on this one is truly amazing, I have to admit that much.
January 5th, 2009 at 1:48 am
Yes, I would translate this to “We hate expensive” – bad grammar and all!
Robots = lovely!
January 5th, 2009 at 2:33 am
Right up there with english words such as ‘Gawd’, ‘Hawt’ and other signs of degeneration of languages. But hey, that’s part of the fun, isn’t it?
I sucks spellin’ – you betta take me da way I are!
Happy New Year!
January 5th, 2009 at 2:36 am
She is saying:
“Die Auslese war hart” – the selection was hard (difficult)
“Doch jetzt ist sie da” – but now she is there
“die stärkste Technik aller Zeiten” – the strongest (best) technique of all times
“gnadenlos günstig” – merciless low priced
“Saturn, wir hassen teuer” – Saturn, we hate expensive
The other rival big electronic market in Germany is Media Markt (Slogan: Geiz ist Geil – greed (avarice) is good (?))
The last part of this spot with this nice girl can be seen a hundred times per day in german TV – but I have never seen this whole beginning with the robots. Probably they cut it out because it costs too much expensive broadcasting time….they really hate expensive (:
A fan of your site from Germany (;
January 5th, 2009 at 2:47 am
Wir hassen teuer! Ich entwickelte sich in eine Frau zu finden und zu küssen “Chip”!
January 5th, 2009 at 3:52 am
Rather the “We hate expensive” I’d suggest “We hate dear” as a possible direct translation.
January 5th, 2009 at 4:06 am
I think podblack’s (and by extension, Richard Saunders’) translation hits it best. “We hate pricey” preserves the bad grammar, the colloquial tone and the focus on money.
January 5th, 2009 at 4:17 am
@Martin Watt
It’s a possible translation, but in that context it’s definitely to be understood the way the commenters before you mentioned…”we hate expensive/pricey”.
January 5th, 2009 at 4:33 am
“I’ll be in my bunk”
January 5th, 2009 at 4:43 am
Good animation supported by natural selection. The woman at the end looks like Milla Jovovich.
January 5th, 2009 at 4:58 am
My machine translator gives it as “We hate expensively,” which corrects the grammar but makes a hash out of the syntax.
“We hate dear” might work in the UK, but no one in NA uses “dear” as a synonym for “expensive.”
If you want to preserve the ungrammatical character in English, you might go with something looser, like “We hates expensive,” since “We hate expensive” isn’t really grammatically incorrect. English turns adjectives into predicate objects all the time — “I hate red,” “Phil looks good,” etc.
I for one am pleased to know that Saturn is a German electronics retailer; the first time I saw this ad I thought they were selling those hideous GM cars overseas.
January 5th, 2009 at 5:30 am
“Saturn” is kinda like Fry’s or Best Buy — only worse.
January 5th, 2009 at 6:48 am
OK, now I’ve got a voice in my head saying “We hates expensive” and it sounds like Gollum from Lord of the Rings. What does that mean?
January 5th, 2009 at 7:37 am
@Chuck, we’re both equally demented?
January 5th, 2009 at 7:41 am
I hate commercials…
“Haben wir BABloggees wer Deutsches sprechen?”
Actually it should have been:
“Haben wir BABloggees, die deutsch sprechen?”
But it was quite good
January 5th, 2009 at 7:51 am
Based on the context, I thought it meant, “Check out my breasts.”
January 5th, 2009 at 7:51 am
Wharaloadobutterybuttocks!
Robots don’t evolve any more than anything else does. God made robots as they are from powdered iron and they’ve been that way for 6,000 years.
January 5th, 2009 at 8:10 am
Oh no that’s an equivelent of Fry’s Electronics in Germany? Egads, next they’ll be drinking French beer.
Cool comercial though
January 5th, 2009 at 8:10 am
Does anyone actually believe in the NOSTRADAUS 2012 documentary played last night in the History Channel???
January 5th, 2009 at 8:34 am
As good as CGI animation is getting, I’ll still take good old fashioned stop motion. May the Great God Nesuahyrrah bless you all.
January 5th, 2009 at 8:45 am
I saw the Corpse Bride the other day for the first time. Awesome stop motion animation. There is a nice easter egg in it… Vincent plays a “Harryhausen” piano.
January 5th, 2009 at 9:45 am
PanterD2S: Media Markt hasn’t been a competitor to Saturn since 1990 when Media Markt bought Saturn. Now they are both owned by MediaSaturn Holding.
As for the ad, I haven’t seen it full length on TV. I saw the full version only in a cinema as one of the pre-film commercials. And for those wondering, a cyber woman of some sort has been part of the Saturn commercials and the brand for many years now.
January 5th, 2009 at 9:53 am
@ Shane:
In the Pixar film, Monsters, Inc., the name of the restaurant is “Harryhausen’s”.
Ray’s movies inspired several generations of animators and special effects artists. His film, Earth vs. The Flying Saucers, was one of the first to capitalize on the flying saucer craze, and ironically, became the visual inspiration for countless “sightings” that followed.
January 5th, 2009 at 9:55 am
Hmm… Anyone ever read Greg Bear’s “Great Sky River”? One of the best SF novels regarding machine’s evolution…
January 5th, 2009 at 10:07 am
Chuck: thank you for that, now I hear it too. But it beats the German version
January 5th, 2009 at 10:13 am
“Wir hassen teuer”, we must have said that a thousand times over on our New Year trip to Vienna, the pound has really taken a pounding recently.
January 5th, 2009 at 10:15 am
Saturn is a german electronics stores chain, but with stores all over Europe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_(store)
January 5th, 2009 at 10:49 am
Hah- apparently the apex of robot/steampunk evolution is everything will be come a hot cyborg woman.
January 5th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
@ blindw@cher:
The woman at the end is Verónica Hugo.
January 5th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
Yeah, we have Saturn here as well. I dont like their slogans either. “Geiz ist geil” was a horrible one at that. This new one is only a small improvement over that if any at all.
Saturn is for some reason still better than Media Markt, which has less annoying commercials, but crappier service. The weird part of that is, that both belong to the same group.
The commercial sure was cool though. I love animation and this wone was pretty neat!
January 5th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
Ich wünschte, ich hätte eine Roboterfrau. Mein Computer ist doch nicht sexy.
January 5th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
@Valis
You’ve got the author wrong; Great Sky River was written by Gregory Benford.
You are right about the quality tho’ – great reading. I’ll assume you’ve read the other five books in the series. If not; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactic_Center_Saga
jj
January 5th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
@Chuck
HAHAHAH… Oh man that made me laugh.. “weeee haaatez expennnnsssssive” in that shrill creepy Gollum voice!
January 5th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
If they’re deliberately using bad grammar, I’d say a better translation is “Saturn is epic win!”
January 5th, 2009 at 7:25 pm
And here we see the prehistory of Cybertron…
January 6th, 2009 at 12:24 am
Now this will be an evidence against the robot creationists…
January 6th, 2009 at 1:25 am
Perhaps they have misspelled the slogan. They might have meant “Wir hassen Tiere”. “We hate animals!”
January 6th, 2009 at 3:00 am
Haben wir BABloggees wer Deutsches sprechen?
Why did you say you want to eat my luggage?
January 6th, 2009 at 4:10 am
In Discworld, luggage eats you!
January 6th, 2009 at 6:46 am
Sexy robot girl speaking german = Who cares WHAT she’s saying, I GOTS to get me one of THESE!
January 9th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
The translations above are generally correct, but not perfect.
“Die Auslese war hart” – the selection was hard
“Doch jetzt ist sie da” – but it is now here
“die stärkste Technik aller Zeiten” – the best technology of all time
“gnadenlos günstig” – mercilessly affordable
“Saturn, wir hassen teuer” – Saturn, we hate expensive
The grammar is fine. This is how germans talk.
Furthermore, “Geiz ist geil” means greed is awesome. “geil” also means, more colloquially, sexy.