Talk:Eight Below

Actual Sled Dogs

I have seen actual sled dogs on TV, and they are very 'wild' or like a step away from being wolves. In the movie the dogs seem like stupid puppies. Also these dogs are like purebed, but real sled dogs are a lot of the times all different colors, no just white, gray, or black. It doesn't really matter though. --65.146.207.149 20:01, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Original Expedition

I found two different articles about the original expedition, one in the Japan Times (Google Cache), and a blog. Both state there were 13 dogs, not 12. I'm inclined to believe that the Japan Times article is accurate. The external link already referenced does not state the total number of dogs. Teridon 02:23, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

If you have a source cite it to the change you make in the article. Cordially SirIsaacBrock 02:34, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

How cold is it?

I understand the previous reference states that Antarctica is -140 degrees Fahrenheit, but that obviously cannot be true. A quick look at other references on the 'net indicates temperatures of -40 Celsius in the summer to a low of -80 Celsius in the winter.[1]. Also see pages such as [2] which has great information on average temperatures in several locations throughout Antarctica. I've changed the article accordingly. --Stephane Charette 20:20, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

My bad -- I was converting incorrectly between Centigrade and Fahrenheit. The winter minimums of -90 Celsius (Antarctica#Climate) does translate to -130 degrees Fahrenheit. --Stephane Charette 20:28, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

puppies in antartica?

From http://www.aad.gov.au/default.asp?casid=6082

"The 1991 Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty banned all introduced species, except man, from being taken into the Antarctic. It was with a great deal of sadness that in 1993 the last remaining huskies left Mawson and the Australian Antarctic Territory."

Now I am happy to be corrected on this, but the film appeared to be set in the current day. I "watched" the film on an international flight, without sound. My laziness, not the fault of the airline.

Daylight in Antarctica

As far as handled in the "Mistakes" section, there must not be all day daylight during the southern hemisphere summer and all day night during the southern hemisphere winter. This handling is only correct on South Pole, but not as far as I could see on the Mt. Melbourne ( ~70° South) mantioned in the Film. There there should be only a few days around June, 21. without any sunlight and there should be only a few days around December, 21. with almost around the sunlight. Please compare this to the northern hemisphere.

ReneRomann 18:59, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

My Discussion seemed to help a bit. The "Mistakes"-Section was corrected last few days.

ReneRomann 20:06, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Abandonning the Base - Mistakes Section

Original from 146.87.65.10 - Changes from 5. Feb. 2007 12:44

• The reason given for abandoning the Antarctic base is that the weather was too severe. Yet when the film returns to follow the dogs' story the weather is mostly tranquil (and it is usually light, whereas the Antarctic winter is usually dark)
• The Antarctic base was only being abandoned for the winter, and the Commander says "no-one is going south until Spring". So, within the six month timeframe of the story it seems odd that regular journeys south had not resumed.

The reality in the movie is that the weather was serve at the leaving of the base. But the weather at the return is tranquil, as it was mentioned correctly.
This is not a mistake, because the day of return is 6 months after the leaving and so the weather should have been changed. For Day and Night time (light and darkness periods) look at #Daylight in Antarctica.
Therefore there must not be all day dark during the antarctic winter and not all day light during the antarctic summer. Especially getting north from the southpole, the period of all day darkness and all day light shortens to 1 day at the polar circle (63.5 ° South).
As also mentioned before, Mt. Melbourne is about 74° South and in so far there might be only a few days darkness and a few days of light. The period between is a normal day with a time of darkness and the rest light.
The second item mentioned, that it is surprising that the regular journeys had not been resumed cannot been proved because there is nothing shown of that.
Maybe the station shown in the film is a winter-only station without any summer-time crew... But this cannot be prooved trough the film.
ReneRomann 19:51, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

is that Right?

Should it really say that this movie was proceeded by Snow dogs? the two movies have little in common, aside from the fact that they both involve sledding. Stevo D 15:20, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

In fact is Eight Below (less) a continuation of Snow Dogs. But some of the Dogs used for Snow Dogs are still used for Eight Below, such as DJ, playing Demon in Snow Dogs and Max in Eight Below.
But there are no further relations between these 2 films expect the mushing and the relation to huskies. -- ReneRomann 18:33, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Statues of Taro & Jiro

It would be great to include this photo but I'm noty at all adept at uplaoding photos and figuring out the copyright issue. If another editor could upload it, or a similar photo, that would be great:

Taro & Jiro

ThanksLisapollison 22:02, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

If this picture is taken by yourself, you can use it under license of GNU and you have no problems with the copyright issue. But if not, there will be still problems with adding the picture to Wikipedia. (In fact, please read the following article: Image Description page at Wikipedia -- ReneRomann 18:33, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Trivia and Mistakes section - Remain or not?

In my point of view, this sections should remain in the article, even if they appear to be copied from imdb-pages. In a critical encyclopedic article about a movie there have to be a mistakes-section which shows the reader what was done wrong while filming. In so far, the mistakes section should remain in this article. This applies also to the trivia section, because it informs the user about things that he normally does not know.

Marking these sections as readable on a page outside the WP would be nearly the same as if you are writing a written encyclopedia and writing in it: read the following book for details. In so far, the article itself degrades to a link list or a table of contents, but it does not stay an article. -- ReneRomann 11:35, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

As far as the "Mistakes"-Section was deleted without comment, this should be discussed here first. In so far, I undid the deletion.

In my point of view, as I already said, the mistakes section should remain because it's neither fan-related nor unencyclopedic. It only shows where there are mistakes done while taking the film and anyone who wants to inform himself should be informed that this mistakes have been made. -- ReneRomann (talk) 19:52, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Greetings, ReneRomann. I am glad you brought this section back. I would argue that items which add perspective to the story's accurate portrayal in the film — as most of them do — belong in this section. Foam on the beer is truly trivial; the daylight vs. darkness item, on the other hand, relates to a fundamental, scientific matter. I doubt that the former item would be missed, but the latter (among others) is important and should stay. Hertz1888 (talk) 20:18, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I earlier removed the Trivia and Mistakes sections with minimal comment except for an Edit Summary that referred to it being "unencyclopedic." My apologies for not expanding on that assessment. To amplify and clarify, one of the issues with the material is that it is unsourced, except for a citation to IMDb trivia. Ignoring the fact that most of the information at IMDb is not a reliable source because it does not have a reputation for editorial oversight (information being user-submitted) or fact-checking (as it has been incorrect numerous times), some of the material may raise copyright infringement concerns (IMDb copyrights all of its content). Above, an editor makes the comment that including statements "even if they appear to be copied from imdb-pages" is okay; on the contrary, copyright infringement is one of the worse things that can happen in a WP article, and it should be remedied without delay.

Additionally, I suspect that the "mistakes" and trivia listed at IMDb are actually some movie-goer's personal observations. Even if we say it is that movie-goer who is the WP contributor, observations about a film's continuity gaffes fall under original research and are therefore not permitted. To even be considered for inclusion in WP, the observations would have to initially be made by a credible third-party, such as a critic or established reviewer, and then referenced here. Certainly not impossible (critics do comment on glaring mistakes), but that brings us to another important point: how significant are these factoids? Errors like these occur in every film; they are to be expected. So what makes the ones in Eight Below any more significant or noteworthy? If these mistakes significantly affected the viewing experience and a credible source mentioned it, I could see considering them for inclusion in the Critical Response section. However, the handful here hardly seem worthwhile; I consider myself a fairly critical film watcher and these few instances certainly didn't ruin the film for me (although, since I'm not considered a credible source, then my opinion doesn't count here). I couldn't find any such references in reviews for this film, so they shouldn't be included here.

This is what I meant by "unencyclopedic."

I did not arbitrarily remove the copy to hurt the article, but to improve it. It caught some editors' attentions, but it should not have been reverted back in without addressing sourcing and significance even if I didn't explicitly mention those problems (verifiability and citing sources are one of the Five pillars of WP). Also, most good film articles do not have Trivia sections. WP recommends that trivia items be merged into the standard article sections. This article needs Production and Development sections; maybe these would be appropriate locations for some of these items. Check out articles for The Prestige, No Country for Old Men, and Children of Men for excellent examples (and look at their Talk pages and revision histories to see how material like this was handled).

Finally, another major concern for this article is that it is almost completely unsourced. I am flagging as such to invite help in remedying that. The Sled dogs section is at risk, plus much of it could be considered original research. I will work to find usable source material. I'm sorry I didn't cover this earlier on this page when I removed the material.
Jim Dunning | talk 23:27, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Category:Period films?

Should this article be placed in "Category:Period films"? Yes, I know it's set in 1993 and that's only thirteen years before its release, but American Graffiti is in that category and it was released a mere eleven years after the time it was set in. 67.171.170.241 22:58, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Maybe yes, because the original material for this film was situated in 1958. -- ReneRomann 13:02, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Umm, no, a period film is simply not just a film that takes place in a different time than when it was released. It portrays what life is like during that period, life in Antarctica didn't really change much between 1993 and 2006. --Holderca1 16:31, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Eight below.jpg

Image:Eight below.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot 10:27, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Material for expanding article

Here's some source material that might help to expand this article —

• Has good animal handling and production information, including American Humane Society involvement
• The canine stars of EIGHT BELOW had to be able to do much more than sit and stay . . .
• DVD release info
• Hollywood Reporter review
• Awards (music) —Preceding unsigned comment added by JimDunning (talk • contribs) 21:17, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
• Producer's info about development
• More production notes about the dog stars
• About the human stars
• About production design

Beware of single source dependence, though

Jim Dunning | talk 05:15, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Sled dog section copyvio

Ninety-five percent of the Sled dog section was removed earlier because it is in clear violation of Wikipedia's copyright violation policy, which says "the infringing content should be removed." Research showed that the descriptions of all of the dog characters were virtually word-for-word from this article at Cinemareview.com. For example, here's the copy from Cinemareview.com about Shorty:

The all-brawn-and-too-few-brains rebel dog, SHORTY, is played by equally playful, all-white three-year-old Jasper— another rescued stray who was especially excited to get the chance to star in EIGHT BELOW because he quickly discovered that snow is his favorite thing in the world. Jasper’s sledding double was the tenacious Lightning, a professional sled puller and impressive canine athlete who never seemed to tire of pulling the sled.

Here it is from the removed section of the WP article:

The all-brawn-and-too-few-brains rebel dog, SHORTY*, is played by equally playful, all-white, three-year-old Jasper, who was especially excited to star in EIGHT BELOW* because he quickly discovered snow is his favorite thing in the world. Jasper's sledding double was the tenacious Yukon, who never seemed to tire of pulling the sled.

*As originally entered by the contributing editor, although the editor converted the solid-caps shortly after initial entry.

The whole section was like that. DO NOT restore the section without discussion here first, as copyright violation is considered one of the worst things to occur in Wikipedia. There certainly is information in the Cinemareview.com article that may be useful (and it can be appropriately placed in the article and cited, but intentionally placing copyrighted material into a WP article without permission can result in editors being blocked.
Jim Dunning | talk 03:07, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Wrong, the information was copied from Wikipedia to Cinemareview.com, it should stay in the Wikipedia article. Chessy999 (talk) 03:15, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Certainly possible, although the Cinemareview article contains much more information than this article, so it seems likely it's the other way around. What do you know about the sources of the hundreds of articles at Cinemareview.com, including the rest of the Eight Below series (which were never in the WP article)? The lack of clear copyright info is curious, but wouldn't they be foolish not to include a "GNU Free Documentation License" notice on the site if they are lifting material from WP? What evidence is there that Cinemareview.com copied WP?

I carefully researched the revision history focusing on March 3, 2006. All of the suspect copy was added by a single editor that day with none of the usual revisions typical of the composition process (spelling and grammar corrections, rewording, typos, the usual copy writing evolutions). It appeared to be more akin to copy-n-pasting, but the clincher was the solid-capitalization of the dogs' names and the movie title. The Cinemareview.com article series was consistent in this practice and the original WP version had the same capitalization idiosyncrasy. Of course, it is still possible Cinemareview.com took it from WP, not the other way, except that the same WP editor did revise the dogs section on March 4: he converted all the names to proper name case (initial caps only; this is virtually the only revising he did to this section). So the solid caps lasted less than nine hours; Cinemareview.com would have had to make its copy during that brief window to obtain the version it did. There are also some other minor edits the WP editor made on March 4th (e.g. removing the comment that Old Jack played poker) that are still in the Cinemareview.com article, which further confirm the order of article composition.

The conclusion is that the WP editor moved the material from Cinemareview.com verbatim without attribution. Even if it had been composed by the WP editor, the tone and style is unencyclopedic and smacks of PR and WP:OR. Certainly, some of the information could be merged into Production areas of this article, but it would be very brief to be appropriate for an encyclopedia. To avoid a WP:COPYVIO situation I promptly removed the section per WP policy. If you have a different perspective on this, I'm all ears.
Jim Dunning | talk 05:41, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Bullshit, it is the other way around. Chessy999 (talk) 11:27, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Since you obviously feel strongly about your position, feel free to present your proof. Thanks.
Jim Dunning | talk 13:10, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

The Cinema article was written after the Wikipedia section was added to Wikipedia, can you prove that it was not? Chessy999 (talk) 13:45, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

I believe I have proved the Cinemareview.com article is the source. Since we don't have consensus on this, then please support your assertion with evidence that counters my research. If it dissuades me from my interpretation, then we can move on and work to improve the copy to something suitable to an encyclopedia article. Otherwise, we should consider listing this issue at Copyright problems for review. Which route do you prefer?
Jim Dunning | talk 15:03, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

By the way, I considered asking the original contributing editor about the March 2006 edits, but he was banned from WP shortly after he made them. Oh, well.
Jim Dunning | talk 15:24, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Before anyone starts to argue about the source of this: Click you through the full swf presentation given at the original Disney page Disneys Eight Below page - You may follow "About the DVD" and "Cast" to find the text written for "Shorty". Therefor I think that the WP Article basis is this swf file published by Disney themselves... The other dog's texts can be found there also.

In so far I think that the WP article is based on this texts instead of basing on cinemareview.com. Maybe this clears up all the things. - By the way, I'm not the one who added the texts, I only noticed this while browsing through Disney sites.

I don't know whether in so far the CopyVIO are applying, but I think, they also apply for the content published by Disney, but I'm sure about this when I see the original poster used under "fair use". -- ReneRomann (talk) 22:39, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

I can proove that the disney page was last changed on Sat. 2007-02-23 (by HTTP response headers)

Server: Microsoft-IIS/5.0

P3P: CP="CAO DSP COR CURa ADMa DEVa TAIa PSAa PSDa IVAi IVDi CONi OUR SAMo OTRo BUS PHY ONL UNI PUR COM ::::NAV INT DEM CNT STA PRE"

From: DOLHIGHWEB01

Cache-Expires: Sat, 12 Jan 2008 22:43:54 GMT

Cache-Control: max-age=300

Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2008 22:42:03 GMT

Last-Modified: Fri, 23 Feb 2007 20:23:41 GMT

Etag: "8044e8818857c71:14a2"

Content-Type: text/html

200 OK

and was created (at least) at 2006-11-05 by reading the page source.

Maybe a site prior to this was released at 2006-01-18, but this would mean, that this site was also used while the movie was still showed in (european) cinemas.

<script language="JavaScript">

var axel = Math.random()+"";

var a = axel * 10000000000000;

//document.write();

document.write('<img height="1" width="1" ::::src="http://switch.atdmt.com/action/062006_eightbelow_homepage"/>');

</script>

All codes here were taken from the Disney page I linked above.

I hope this brings true light into the dark. -- ReneRomann (talk) 22:51, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Excellent detectiving, ReneRoman! I thought the CinemaReview.com piece seemed too much like a fluff public relations effort. I wouldn't be surprised if they made arrangements with Buena Vista/Disney to use it (or vice-versa). Of course that changes nothing except now the copyright violation is with Disney now. Same policy applies: any use of it as a source must be cited. Thanks, ReneRoman, for nailing this one.
Jim Dunning | talk 23:52, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Jim, u don't know if you're coming or going! Chessy999 (talk) 01:12, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

--

Jim, the question might be, as I think that this section might be helpful, if we can "copy" the text with a simple notice at the start of the section like "The following content was taken from the official DVD-website, which can be accessed by the link in the 'Links' section"

I also agree that this section by now infrigates the copyright of Buena Vista / Disney, but I don't think that cinemareview.com has any rights to use the same text, but the second one might not be our problem here. -- ReneRomann (talk) 10:53, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Rene, I don't think the full text of the Disney/Buena Vista marketing copy would be appropriate in the article (because it's tone and style are unencyclopedic), and usually such wholesale copying (even with attribution is done only when the text being copied is of primary interest to the article. Here, we're interested in the film production, not that text. I think mining it for useful information is the way to go. I'm going to look at it more closely this week to see where any facts can be integrated into the article. This is a good opportunity to flesh out this article with other key film article sections, especially Development (which has an interesting story behind it) and Production/Filming. Thanks, again, for the great research.
Jim Dunning | talk 14:18, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Universal HD

That thing about Eight Below being on Universal HD seems to be incorrect because I'm watching it right now. In any case, I guess it can be removed. PatMan33 (talk) 23:43, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

broad daylight

"balmy, blazing daylight at a time Antarctica is locked in round-the-clock darkness and temperatures of 140 degrees below" that's utter nonsense. the guy who wrote this is really ignorant in basic geography. december, january and february are climatically summer in the southern hemisphere. that's why the dog guy says the ice is too thin. and if i were to be critical of the film, i would say there was actually too much darkness in the movie. i am no expert, but taking into consideration the latitude (halfway between the antarctic circle and the pole), the altitude (presumably over 2000 meters) and the fact that the expedition takes place in late january (that's right, just around the solstice) i'd say the sun shoul've had been under the horizon for 2 hours at most, if at all. and that means there's actually no darkness at all, but just about midnight there is a couple of hours of twilight.

i liked this movie anyway :). cheers! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.80.116.136 (talk) 17:40, 14 April 2009 (UTC)