This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 |
To keep with the standard, let's keep the spoiler warning at the top of the article. This article does contain spoilers, and a link to the warning page would be useful for vistors to this page. -- LGagnon 16:00, Dec 18, 2003
Heh. It took me all of 20 seconds to remember Ebert did the commentary track, get up, check my DVD to verify it, sit back down and I notice you already added it. You're just too fast for me, apparently. :) RADICALBENDER ★ 04:54, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Someone edited the "Similarities to other works" section recently and gave middle names for the real and fictional Daniel Schrebers. I haven't seen any sources to back either up, and I think someone should explain where they got them from. -- LGagnon 03:25, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Why is this article located at Dark City (1998) instead of Dark City (which redirects to Dark City (1998))? bbx 19:14, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Someone changed John's creation of the sun to him turning the city towards the sun. Is there any proof that he actually did this? As far as I remember, the sun wasn't there until after John used his powers to make it exist. -- LGagnon 18:24, Mar 13, 2005 (UTC)
-- Mr kitehead 18:02, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
I don't understand why it should not be allowed to be placed within the dieselpunk category when it blatantly promotes the ideas and themes prevalent in the Dieselpunk world. Explain to me otherwise, because I see no reason for it not to listed alongside other works of fiction within the category. Piecraft 16:02, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
In summary this movie if anything defines the genre perfectly through its narrative and the themes present. It presents a dystopic world, it also presents a sense of "lacking" within society along with the major elements present within the dieselpunk universe which are listed on the main article examples such as The Red Scare (invasion), Atomic Age (nuclear power being introduced), Suburbia (estructuring of society into new community developments), Space Race (conquest of Outer Space) and so on... each of these factors have been manipulated to fit the world that is Dark City. The film's look and style borrow from Noir and Expressionism two major components to the look and overall style of Dieselpunk - other examples would be Metropolis or Sky Captain. Piecraft 12:18, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
My opinion is that -punk genres don't rely only to technology and being centered around the first element of the word (steam, diesel, atomic or whatever), it also relies on look and feel, atmosphere, and general mood, as well as this alternative 'could be but isn't' feeling. For example New Rose Hotel, Robocop and Rise of the Dragon are classified as cyberpunk although the main theme is absent: cyberspace (of course there are cybernetics in Robocop, but robotics is not the main theme). What makes them cyberpunk is the world they belong and most important: aesthetics. IMHO Dark City's aesthetics can be classfied only as Dieselpunk. Yes, it's retroactive classification, but language and words were invented for this reason, especially since it is compared to Brasil and Metropolis. Pictureuploader 20:58, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
What makes them cyberpunk is the world they belong and most important: aesthetics. IMHO Dark City's aesthetics can be classfied only as Dieselpunk.
So you're just applying an arbitrary definition of what a "diesel" aesthetic is? What's the point of picking "dieselpunk" instead of "gaspunk" or "ottopunk" (after all, the engines all look pretty much the same) or "Safewaybrandfignewtonlookalikepunk"? --Dandy
The whole dieselpunk thing seems highly problematic to me. "Cyberpunk" was a consciously adopted idea, and was immediately taken up by critics, etc. "Steampunk" also seems to be something which authors have consciously accepted as a genre. On the otherhand, "Dieselpunk" seems to consist largely of back-appropriations of things that did not consider themselves to be "Dieselpunk". Let's look first at the list of Cyberpunk literature:
Now let's look at the list of Dieselpunk literature:
Beyond the complete incoherence of this list (Chitty-Chitty Bang Bang, 1984, War of the Worlds, and a Tom Clancy book are the same genre?), it is to be noted that, at a guess, none of these works was part of any conscious literary "dieselpunk" movement. They don't even have the same level of thematic coherence that the second list of cyberpunk influences (Dick, Delaney, etc.) have. They are just a list of books that have been appropriated to the apparently virtually non-existent genre of "dieselpunk". john k 17:53, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Perhaps the whole mess needs to be deleted? john k 19:41, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
i dont think the article tells the rating ... -- Nerd42 03:38, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
I remember that, when this movie was released, there was some todo made about why the strangers used knives in this movie instead of something like a gun. The reason given was that Proyas really wanted to avoid the use of guns as much as possible, due to the tragedy surrounding the film "The Crow", which he directed immediately prior to this one. He couldn't justify removing all guns from the film, which is why the humans still used them, but that he jumped at the chance to give the Strangers a different weapon. I recall this being brought up in an interview or two, but it wasn't something that anyone associated with the film really like to bring up too much. Thing is, I can't seem to find any decent information to confirm this now. Anyone got any leads? Did I just imagine all of this? -- Reverend Loki 19:51, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
I know this will upset the fanboy celebration of this movie, but why not something about the massively negative critical and audience reception to this movie? Ebert liked it, but so what? He's only one critic among many and not terribly influential, despite being famous.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.81.118.101 ( talk • contribs) 14:44, June 19, 2006 (UTC)
So, I was looking at Articles By Quality, and was wondering about where this one fit into their rating scheme. Personally, I find myself wishing there was a level between "Start" and "B", though using just what they have given us, I'm thinking it fits best into the "B" category. It definitely has a way to go before climbing higher than that. Ayways, I thought I would solicit opinions from anyone else watching this article before taking any action. Folks? -- Reverend Loki 22:58, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
The aliens remind me of Nosferatu. -- Error 01:23, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
I reverted the addition of Category:Alien visitation films to this article, but I see my edit was also reverted. I feel the category is not appropriate here, for several reasons. The category description refers to "films [that] have been made about aliens visiting the Earth", and Earth doesn't even appear in Dark City. It's not exactly Close Encounters of the Third Kind or The Day the Earth Stood Still. While it's possible that the residents of the city were abducted from Earth, there's no reason to assume that's the case, and frankly, it doesn't matter to the story. I still think the article has no business being in the category. - EurekaLott 02:21, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
Dr. Schrieber explicitly states "We were abducted". Although he doesn't say "from the Earth", it's pretty clear from the general setting of the movie that these people are humans and the setting is an Earthlike mileau; I think one can safely conclude the subjects of the experiment were abducted directly from the Earth.
Atlant 13:29, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
I have just reverted the addition (again) of the line "Many fans of the film prefer to keep the film on mute for the first 5 minutes as it gives away the entire plot twist". No one who has added it that I see has given any reasoning for why it should be included, while those who have removed it have often explained why. The statement is without any citation, yet makes grand statements about the viewing practices of this movie's fans. This is exactly the type of claim that needs citation of reliable sources in order to be included in this article. Please don't try and add it again unless you can convince us of the statement's validity through documentation. -- Reverend Loki 18:01, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
The article should mention aboyt similarity to a scene in "Reqiem for a Dream" where Jennifer Conelly stands at the molo in a red dress ans the guy looks at her from behind, initially blinded by the sun. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 83.16.132.162 ( talk) 23:25, August 22, 2007 (UTC)
Why is this in the list of films with a twist ending? I didn't see any twist when I watched it. Does anyone else agree that it should be removed? 156.34.211.124 19:15, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
I love this movie, but I'm kind of confused. So, one time John woke up in the middle of being injected with memories. So what? The Strangers just fled the scene? Couldn't they just restrain anyone who does this and inject them again? Unless they struggle and escape, but then they would remember struggling and escaping. John just wakes up in a bathtub with no memories at all. How does that make sense? I assumed the reason he was a known serial killer was because someone when the police found him the Strangers would know exactly where he was, but no, he's just a known serial killer because his new memories were going to make him into one. So this means the Strangers took no measures to catch him other than 'guys let's chase him down'. -- 70.81.114.188 20:38, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
Someone should add a section in the article explaining the controversy over the opening narration. Kwyjibear 04:04, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
Under the section of similarities to other works, there is no mention of Frederik Pohl's story "The Tunnel Under the World". The screen writers blatantly used his work as the basis of the film, replacing the insightful commentary on commercialism with telekinetic zombie aliens. Ironic.
Exported from article for later re-integration. — Erik ( talk • contrib) - 18:16, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
There are too many images in the article, especially with insufficient fair use rationale. Each image needs to have a unique fair use rationale, not a generic list. See this from Spider-Man 3 as an example. The image of the morphing buildings can strengthened specifically to support the paragraph about the influence of The Crow, but I'm not sure about the rest. The image of Dr. Schreiber only seems to serve as identification, and WP:FU requires that the rationale be more than that. For example, the appearance of the character, with the scar and the glasses, would be appropriate critical commentary to warrant the image's inclusion. However, there is no direct basis for the image of Mr. Hand threatening Emma and the group of the Strangers. I imagine that there could be more description uncovered about the appearance of the Strangers, but the image of Mr. Hand does not have any critical commentary pointed at it. Lastly, the soundtrack cover does not meet fair use rationale because cover art must receive critical commentary. It does not qualify as critical commentary about the music itself. For example, appropriate cover art to have critical commentary on would be the Rolling Stone magazine with John Lennon and Yoko Ono. I would suggest the removal of all images except the morphing buildings, and when the article is improved in terms of content, we can locate images that suit the content better. — Erik ( talk • contrib) - 17:06, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
Why is a citation needed for something so obvious? I just watched this film and Jeunet's City of lost Children as well as Borges' Lottery in Babylon came straight to my mind. At least for those 'citation needed' marks, i guess they can be removed (I will do so, if nobody objects). 217.85.91.130 00:28, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
The anime Big O has some striking similarities to this movie. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 143.239.7.1 ( talk) 04:01, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
This section seems very much like a blatant promotion for the Directors Cut DVD. In Addition, the formatting of the section takes up too much page length. Does it even deserve it's own section? Winston Spencer ( talk) 05:59, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
In the first section, there was a reference to a "blood soaked knife". First of all, a compound modifier should be hyphenated: "blood-soaked knife". However, this is moot, because the idea is garbage. A knife is not porous enough to soak up blood, like a napkin. Therefore, I changed it to "bloody knife".
Only porous substances (napkins, biscuits, sponges) can soak up liquids. Think before you write. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.112.206.59 ( talk) 20:26, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
I think the "similarities" section should mention the anime movie called Beautiful Dreamer, a spin-off of the Urusei Yatsura series, since it has a very similar plot. -- 216.9.188.140 ( talk) 08:42, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
I wonder if the "force field" is relevant. Yes, the city is a space habitat, but IMHO the force field is just an assumption, not a fact. Comments, anyone? Thanks Kvsh5 ( talk) 09:39, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
Yes, it was necessary as it keeps radiation out. Scorpidragon ( talk) 01:09, 19 October 2008 (UTC)
The Lem Dobbs quoted in the film is *not* Lem Kitaj! It was me (Geri Townsley {formally Donachie} that did the co-writing on the film with Alex Proyas in 1998. It was Alex that came up with the name LEM Dobbs too. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Scorpidragon ( talk • contribs) 18:51, October 18, 2008
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 |
To keep with the standard, let's keep the spoiler warning at the top of the article. This article does contain spoilers, and a link to the warning page would be useful for vistors to this page. -- LGagnon 16:00, Dec 18, 2003
Heh. It took me all of 20 seconds to remember Ebert did the commentary track, get up, check my DVD to verify it, sit back down and I notice you already added it. You're just too fast for me, apparently. :) RADICALBENDER ★ 04:54, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Someone edited the "Similarities to other works" section recently and gave middle names for the real and fictional Daniel Schrebers. I haven't seen any sources to back either up, and I think someone should explain where they got them from. -- LGagnon 03:25, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Why is this article located at Dark City (1998) instead of Dark City (which redirects to Dark City (1998))? bbx 19:14, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Someone changed John's creation of the sun to him turning the city towards the sun. Is there any proof that he actually did this? As far as I remember, the sun wasn't there until after John used his powers to make it exist. -- LGagnon 18:24, Mar 13, 2005 (UTC)
-- Mr kitehead 18:02, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
I don't understand why it should not be allowed to be placed within the dieselpunk category when it blatantly promotes the ideas and themes prevalent in the Dieselpunk world. Explain to me otherwise, because I see no reason for it not to listed alongside other works of fiction within the category. Piecraft 16:02, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
In summary this movie if anything defines the genre perfectly through its narrative and the themes present. It presents a dystopic world, it also presents a sense of "lacking" within society along with the major elements present within the dieselpunk universe which are listed on the main article examples such as The Red Scare (invasion), Atomic Age (nuclear power being introduced), Suburbia (estructuring of society into new community developments), Space Race (conquest of Outer Space) and so on... each of these factors have been manipulated to fit the world that is Dark City. The film's look and style borrow from Noir and Expressionism two major components to the look and overall style of Dieselpunk - other examples would be Metropolis or Sky Captain. Piecraft 12:18, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
My opinion is that -punk genres don't rely only to technology and being centered around the first element of the word (steam, diesel, atomic or whatever), it also relies on look and feel, atmosphere, and general mood, as well as this alternative 'could be but isn't' feeling. For example New Rose Hotel, Robocop and Rise of the Dragon are classified as cyberpunk although the main theme is absent: cyberspace (of course there are cybernetics in Robocop, but robotics is not the main theme). What makes them cyberpunk is the world they belong and most important: aesthetics. IMHO Dark City's aesthetics can be classfied only as Dieselpunk. Yes, it's retroactive classification, but language and words were invented for this reason, especially since it is compared to Brasil and Metropolis. Pictureuploader 20:58, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
What makes them cyberpunk is the world they belong and most important: aesthetics. IMHO Dark City's aesthetics can be classfied only as Dieselpunk.
So you're just applying an arbitrary definition of what a "diesel" aesthetic is? What's the point of picking "dieselpunk" instead of "gaspunk" or "ottopunk" (after all, the engines all look pretty much the same) or "Safewaybrandfignewtonlookalikepunk"? --Dandy
The whole dieselpunk thing seems highly problematic to me. "Cyberpunk" was a consciously adopted idea, and was immediately taken up by critics, etc. "Steampunk" also seems to be something which authors have consciously accepted as a genre. On the otherhand, "Dieselpunk" seems to consist largely of back-appropriations of things that did not consider themselves to be "Dieselpunk". Let's look first at the list of Cyberpunk literature:
Now let's look at the list of Dieselpunk literature:
Beyond the complete incoherence of this list (Chitty-Chitty Bang Bang, 1984, War of the Worlds, and a Tom Clancy book are the same genre?), it is to be noted that, at a guess, none of these works was part of any conscious literary "dieselpunk" movement. They don't even have the same level of thematic coherence that the second list of cyberpunk influences (Dick, Delaney, etc.) have. They are just a list of books that have been appropriated to the apparently virtually non-existent genre of "dieselpunk". john k 17:53, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Perhaps the whole mess needs to be deleted? john k 19:41, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
i dont think the article tells the rating ... -- Nerd42 03:38, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
I remember that, when this movie was released, there was some todo made about why the strangers used knives in this movie instead of something like a gun. The reason given was that Proyas really wanted to avoid the use of guns as much as possible, due to the tragedy surrounding the film "The Crow", which he directed immediately prior to this one. He couldn't justify removing all guns from the film, which is why the humans still used them, but that he jumped at the chance to give the Strangers a different weapon. I recall this being brought up in an interview or two, but it wasn't something that anyone associated with the film really like to bring up too much. Thing is, I can't seem to find any decent information to confirm this now. Anyone got any leads? Did I just imagine all of this? -- Reverend Loki 19:51, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
I know this will upset the fanboy celebration of this movie, but why not something about the massively negative critical and audience reception to this movie? Ebert liked it, but so what? He's only one critic among many and not terribly influential, despite being famous.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.81.118.101 ( talk • contribs) 14:44, June 19, 2006 (UTC)
So, I was looking at Articles By Quality, and was wondering about where this one fit into their rating scheme. Personally, I find myself wishing there was a level between "Start" and "B", though using just what they have given us, I'm thinking it fits best into the "B" category. It definitely has a way to go before climbing higher than that. Ayways, I thought I would solicit opinions from anyone else watching this article before taking any action. Folks? -- Reverend Loki 22:58, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
The aliens remind me of Nosferatu. -- Error 01:23, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
I reverted the addition of Category:Alien visitation films to this article, but I see my edit was also reverted. I feel the category is not appropriate here, for several reasons. The category description refers to "films [that] have been made about aliens visiting the Earth", and Earth doesn't even appear in Dark City. It's not exactly Close Encounters of the Third Kind or The Day the Earth Stood Still. While it's possible that the residents of the city were abducted from Earth, there's no reason to assume that's the case, and frankly, it doesn't matter to the story. I still think the article has no business being in the category. - EurekaLott 02:21, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
Dr. Schrieber explicitly states "We were abducted". Although he doesn't say "from the Earth", it's pretty clear from the general setting of the movie that these people are humans and the setting is an Earthlike mileau; I think one can safely conclude the subjects of the experiment were abducted directly from the Earth.
Atlant 13:29, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
I have just reverted the addition (again) of the line "Many fans of the film prefer to keep the film on mute for the first 5 minutes as it gives away the entire plot twist". No one who has added it that I see has given any reasoning for why it should be included, while those who have removed it have often explained why. The statement is without any citation, yet makes grand statements about the viewing practices of this movie's fans. This is exactly the type of claim that needs citation of reliable sources in order to be included in this article. Please don't try and add it again unless you can convince us of the statement's validity through documentation. -- Reverend Loki 18:01, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
The article should mention aboyt similarity to a scene in "Reqiem for a Dream" where Jennifer Conelly stands at the molo in a red dress ans the guy looks at her from behind, initially blinded by the sun. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 83.16.132.162 ( talk) 23:25, August 22, 2007 (UTC)
Why is this in the list of films with a twist ending? I didn't see any twist when I watched it. Does anyone else agree that it should be removed? 156.34.211.124 19:15, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
I love this movie, but I'm kind of confused. So, one time John woke up in the middle of being injected with memories. So what? The Strangers just fled the scene? Couldn't they just restrain anyone who does this and inject them again? Unless they struggle and escape, but then they would remember struggling and escaping. John just wakes up in a bathtub with no memories at all. How does that make sense? I assumed the reason he was a known serial killer was because someone when the police found him the Strangers would know exactly where he was, but no, he's just a known serial killer because his new memories were going to make him into one. So this means the Strangers took no measures to catch him other than 'guys let's chase him down'. -- 70.81.114.188 20:38, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
Someone should add a section in the article explaining the controversy over the opening narration. Kwyjibear 04:04, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
Under the section of similarities to other works, there is no mention of Frederik Pohl's story "The Tunnel Under the World". The screen writers blatantly used his work as the basis of the film, replacing the insightful commentary on commercialism with telekinetic zombie aliens. Ironic.
Exported from article for later re-integration. — Erik ( talk • contrib) - 18:16, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
There are too many images in the article, especially with insufficient fair use rationale. Each image needs to have a unique fair use rationale, not a generic list. See this from Spider-Man 3 as an example. The image of the morphing buildings can strengthened specifically to support the paragraph about the influence of The Crow, but I'm not sure about the rest. The image of Dr. Schreiber only seems to serve as identification, and WP:FU requires that the rationale be more than that. For example, the appearance of the character, with the scar and the glasses, would be appropriate critical commentary to warrant the image's inclusion. However, there is no direct basis for the image of Mr. Hand threatening Emma and the group of the Strangers. I imagine that there could be more description uncovered about the appearance of the Strangers, but the image of Mr. Hand does not have any critical commentary pointed at it. Lastly, the soundtrack cover does not meet fair use rationale because cover art must receive critical commentary. It does not qualify as critical commentary about the music itself. For example, appropriate cover art to have critical commentary on would be the Rolling Stone magazine with John Lennon and Yoko Ono. I would suggest the removal of all images except the morphing buildings, and when the article is improved in terms of content, we can locate images that suit the content better. — Erik ( talk • contrib) - 17:06, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
Why is a citation needed for something so obvious? I just watched this film and Jeunet's City of lost Children as well as Borges' Lottery in Babylon came straight to my mind. At least for those 'citation needed' marks, i guess they can be removed (I will do so, if nobody objects). 217.85.91.130 00:28, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
The anime Big O has some striking similarities to this movie. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 143.239.7.1 ( talk) 04:01, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
This section seems very much like a blatant promotion for the Directors Cut DVD. In Addition, the formatting of the section takes up too much page length. Does it even deserve it's own section? Winston Spencer ( talk) 05:59, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
In the first section, there was a reference to a "blood soaked knife". First of all, a compound modifier should be hyphenated: "blood-soaked knife". However, this is moot, because the idea is garbage. A knife is not porous enough to soak up blood, like a napkin. Therefore, I changed it to "bloody knife".
Only porous substances (napkins, biscuits, sponges) can soak up liquids. Think before you write. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.112.206.59 ( talk) 20:26, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
I think the "similarities" section should mention the anime movie called Beautiful Dreamer, a spin-off of the Urusei Yatsura series, since it has a very similar plot. -- 216.9.188.140 ( talk) 08:42, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
I wonder if the "force field" is relevant. Yes, the city is a space habitat, but IMHO the force field is just an assumption, not a fact. Comments, anyone? Thanks Kvsh5 ( talk) 09:39, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
Yes, it was necessary as it keeps radiation out. Scorpidragon ( talk) 01:09, 19 October 2008 (UTC)
The Lem Dobbs quoted in the film is *not* Lem Kitaj! It was me (Geri Townsley {formally Donachie} that did the co-writing on the film with Alex Proyas in 1998. It was Alex that came up with the name LEM Dobbs too. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Scorpidragon ( talk • contribs) 18:51, October 18, 2008