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Someone added external links to what seem to be full copies of the movie in English and French. Sorry, I don't think we can do that. It's too bad that Watkins has no rights to the film, but the BBC does. People looking for bootleg copies (though it's not hard to get on DVD now) can easily find them without us providing the links. ← Hob 21:58, 7 January 2007 (UTC)ĩ
ooops. Didn't see this before I did the same. Will remove. AlanD 00:06, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
The intro gives the BBC's stated reasons for refusing to air this film as scheduled. However, the production is highly critical of the UK government's preparations in the event of nuclear attack, and it must be remembered that the BBC is an agency of the British government. Does anyone know of some film historian/commentator/critic/whatever who pointed this out in a citable statement that we can add to this article? -- Ted Watson ( talk) 19:34, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
WOW! Check out the newly added external link. Peter Watkins himself is now on the record that the BBC indeed had the hiddenn agenda I suggested, and that documents back him up. That goes in. -- Tbrittreid ( talk) 22:20, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
The article's first paragraph states that this film is a documentary. At least in American English, a "documentary" is a film depicitng actual events. It may be strongly POV, like a Michael Moore documentary, but it depicts real people and actual occurences. Things that use a similar style to dramatize fictional events are better calleda "documentary-style" or, perhaps by using the portmanteau term "docudrama". I won't edit this yet, because I think I should wait for someone more conversant with British usage, but don't think that this should stand any longer without comment. 75.201.81.213 ( talk) 03:37, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
Basically, like the issue the above editor in 2011 raised, the War Game is not a documentary and is quite clearly a Mockumentary, in a similar vein to modern Michael Moore style "documentaries". We have a referenced film critic( Dan Schneider (writer) stating The War Game is technically a mockumentary, yet some highly motivated vandals continue to remove this reference and insert other demonstrable nonsense into the article. This nonsense of the other editor can be seen in the article's edit history. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.167.232.17 ( talk) 22:02, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
References
I would note that apart from the above "mockumentary" nonsense, 178.167.232.17 has spuriously tried to connect the 1965 play with the late-1970s/early-1980s Protect and Survive campaign, as well as claim that the 6 to 9 days between the first screening of the play and the anniversaries of Hiroshima and Nagasaki respectively constitutes "a few weeks," which in colloquial use would imply three or more. Nick Cooper ( talk) 15:39, 15 May 2014 (UTC)
The intro to this page states that it was "commissioned for the BBC's Wednesday Play anthology series", but the article cited as evidence does not support this claim; it shows that the programme was commissioned by Huw Wheldon, head of documentary, whereas the Wednesday Plays were overseen by Sydney Newman. I've not found any evidence to confirm the Wednesday Play link so I have removed but if anyone has any clear sources let me know as I'd like to clear up the confusion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Apocnowt ( talk • contribs) 14:41, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
--- This matter is actually addressed in the Wikipedia entry for Peter Watkins, where it is described as having been commissioned "for The Wednesday Play series". 31.125.76.2 ( talk) 18:33, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
Wikipedia articles on movies, books, tv series &c run a serious risk of becoming blow-by-blow recounts of every single thing that happens. These are inordinately hard for readers to keep track of, and fail abjectly in summarizing the important parts. (Which parts are the important ones are another argument or 5000.) All the same, it goes too far in the other direction to summarize events on the lines of "Later, society collapses" for a film that won the Oscar for best documentary despite not being a documentary. (I don't want to insult the editor who wrote that summary: it was still good to have the summary and hey, this whole damn encyclopedia is a WIP.) I expanded the synopsis into a hopefully reasonably-sized overview of the film's events. I moved background information into footnotes. -- Kiz o r 17:37, 23 January 2022 (UTC)
This article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's
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Someone added external links to what seem to be full copies of the movie in English and French. Sorry, I don't think we can do that. It's too bad that Watkins has no rights to the film, but the BBC does. People looking for bootleg copies (though it's not hard to get on DVD now) can easily find them without us providing the links. ← Hob 21:58, 7 January 2007 (UTC)ĩ
ooops. Didn't see this before I did the same. Will remove. AlanD 00:06, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
The intro gives the BBC's stated reasons for refusing to air this film as scheduled. However, the production is highly critical of the UK government's preparations in the event of nuclear attack, and it must be remembered that the BBC is an agency of the British government. Does anyone know of some film historian/commentator/critic/whatever who pointed this out in a citable statement that we can add to this article? -- Ted Watson ( talk) 19:34, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
WOW! Check out the newly added external link. Peter Watkins himself is now on the record that the BBC indeed had the hiddenn agenda I suggested, and that documents back him up. That goes in. -- Tbrittreid ( talk) 22:20, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
The article's first paragraph states that this film is a documentary. At least in American English, a "documentary" is a film depicitng actual events. It may be strongly POV, like a Michael Moore documentary, but it depicts real people and actual occurences. Things that use a similar style to dramatize fictional events are better calleda "documentary-style" or, perhaps by using the portmanteau term "docudrama". I won't edit this yet, because I think I should wait for someone more conversant with British usage, but don't think that this should stand any longer without comment. 75.201.81.213 ( talk) 03:37, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
Basically, like the issue the above editor in 2011 raised, the War Game is not a documentary and is quite clearly a Mockumentary, in a similar vein to modern Michael Moore style "documentaries". We have a referenced film critic( Dan Schneider (writer) stating The War Game is technically a mockumentary, yet some highly motivated vandals continue to remove this reference and insert other demonstrable nonsense into the article. This nonsense of the other editor can be seen in the article's edit history. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.167.232.17 ( talk) 22:02, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
References
I would note that apart from the above "mockumentary" nonsense, 178.167.232.17 has spuriously tried to connect the 1965 play with the late-1970s/early-1980s Protect and Survive campaign, as well as claim that the 6 to 9 days between the first screening of the play and the anniversaries of Hiroshima and Nagasaki respectively constitutes "a few weeks," which in colloquial use would imply three or more. Nick Cooper ( talk) 15:39, 15 May 2014 (UTC)
The intro to this page states that it was "commissioned for the BBC's Wednesday Play anthology series", but the article cited as evidence does not support this claim; it shows that the programme was commissioned by Huw Wheldon, head of documentary, whereas the Wednesday Plays were overseen by Sydney Newman. I've not found any evidence to confirm the Wednesday Play link so I have removed but if anyone has any clear sources let me know as I'd like to clear up the confusion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Apocnowt ( talk • contribs) 14:41, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
--- This matter is actually addressed in the Wikipedia entry for Peter Watkins, where it is described as having been commissioned "for The Wednesday Play series". 31.125.76.2 ( talk) 18:33, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
Wikipedia articles on movies, books, tv series &c run a serious risk of becoming blow-by-blow recounts of every single thing that happens. These are inordinately hard for readers to keep track of, and fail abjectly in summarizing the important parts. (Which parts are the important ones are another argument or 5000.) All the same, it goes too far in the other direction to summarize events on the lines of "Later, society collapses" for a film that won the Oscar for best documentary despite not being a documentary. (I don't want to insult the editor who wrote that summary: it was still good to have the summary and hey, this whole damn encyclopedia is a WIP.) I expanded the synopsis into a hopefully reasonably-sized overview of the film's events. I moved background information into footnotes. -- Kiz o r 17:37, 23 January 2022 (UTC)