Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2007 September 20

Entertainment desk
< September 19 << Aug | September | Oct >> September 21 >
Welcome to the Wikipedia Entertainment Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.


September 20

edit

Half-Life: Source

edit

Is Half-Life: Opposing Force compatible with Half-Life: Source? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.153.15.68 (talk) 15:29, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No, opposing force (unless re-released) was built on the Gold SRC engine. While Half Life:Source was built using the Source engine. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.155.80.115 (talk) 18:16, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Enzo nowadays

edit

What is Enzo (dog actor) up to nowadays since Frasier ended in 2004?72.229.130.76 00:40, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Beckham in "World's Worst"

edit

The article for Countdown with Keith Olbermann says that David Beckham was once included in the shows "Worst Person in the World" segment but I can't find any evidence of this. Did this occur? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.101.45.228 (talk) 05:37, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Olbermann's show seems to be archived on msnbc.msn.com. A Google search on site:msn.com "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" worst Beckham gets 17 hits. Among them:
  • "'Countdown with Keith Olbermann' for Feb. 27". 2006-02-28. The silver to the international soccer star David Beckham, who says he's struggling to help his son with his math homework. His son is six years old....
Other countdowns may include Beckham, but I'm on dialup. / 05:59, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Who gets the money that movies gross?

edit

The screenwriter? Production crew? Cast? Distributor? Or all of the above? --203.78.9.149 09:44, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's split according to the contract. Some portions will be flat fees, others may be percentages. In general, the highest level of ownership retains the portion that isn't specified, or absorbs the loss, as appropriate. — Lomn 14:14, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
According to IMDb, Donald Sutherland turned down a percentage of the gross for National Lampoon's Animal House that would have amounted to $30-40 million, opting for a flat fee instead because he thought it would be a flop. Clarityfiend 09:22, 21 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Species of Walt Disney's Bambi

edit

Bambi in the movie is said to be a White-tailed Deer. However I have three problems with this interpetation:

  • The deer tails in the movie are not at all white.
  • The antlers of most male deers in the movie appear smaller to me than usual White-tailed deer antlers.
  • This is however contrasted by Bambi's imposing father, who doesn't appear white-tailed at all to me, but rather to be Wapiti-shaped.

Can you help me in this? --KnightMove 10:34, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If you're able to give serious answers, please ignore the statements between the lines.


Would it be churlish to point out it was a work of fiction for children, and not a nature documentary? The animators were undoubtedly more concerned with making the deers as cute (or, in Bambi's dad's case, as sternly fearsome) as possible. Neil  11:07, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think that any known species of deer can speak english fluently. Capuchin 11:10, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It would be more correct to state "there have been no recorded instances of a deer speaking English fluently".  :) Neil  11:35, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Except in Bambi.. Capuchin 11:44, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You may also notice that the ants in A Bug's Life have the wrong number of limbs. Or that toys cannot speak and move on their own as is displayed in Toy Story. Or when were dinosaurs and Homo Sapiens living together? Never. Although The Flintstones would have you believe otherwise. And this isn't limited to just childrens movies. Satellites can't be retasked and used in the way that Hollywood seems to think they can such as in Enemy of the State or Patriot Games. Dismas|(talk) 12:56, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]


I see I have to point out the reason for my question: Bambi is responsible for confusions in German language about certain deer nomenclature. It's a long story, but analysis and debate about it is going on. The article Bambi explicitly states that Bambi is supposed to be a White-tailed deer, and for the debate mentioned it is important to know whether this is true. If it's not, first of all this should be removed from the article. Second, I'm interested in "what else"? Did Disney Bambi suppose just to be any deer, caring only about the cuteness and not the species? Just as the ants in A Bug's Life are just any ants, not regarding which species? --KnightMove 14:01, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know the answer, but the issue surrounding the Germanic translation of Bambi would be an awesome addition to the Bambi article. Beekone 18:41, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
All silliness aside, I think that Neil's initial answer is probably the best. I doubt that Disney had a certain species of deer in mind. After all their target audience doesn't really pay much attention to discontinuity. The deer would be more likely to be stylistic rather than an accurate depiction of real life deer species. Sorry if that's of no help. Hopefully someone will know more. Capuchin 18:56, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Many animators study the animals they are going to animate (I know that a lot of work was done watching fish/getting good knowledge of fish to ensure they capture the right 'feel' for the animals), so I suspect they will have designed Bamb around a specific deer species, even if they use artistic license to make it more screen friendly. Saying all this the below kinda shows a lot more info. ny156uk 20:39, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It's an interesting trail to follow, starting with Bambi, which discusses the movie, and states "For the movie, Disney took the liberty of changing Bambi's species into a White-tailed deer from his original species of Roe Deer, since roe deer don't inhabit the United States, and the white-tailed deer is much more familiar," and subsequently discusses that two actual white-tail fawns from the state of Maine were shipped to California to be used as inspiration for the animators. The movie article links to Bambi, A Life in the Woods which discusses the book on which the move was based (written, intriguingly enough, in German), and which states "The company [Disney] took the liberty of changing the species into a white-tailed deer, and of putting him into an American forest." Following the link to Roe Deer, we also see, in the much-discouraged Trivia section - "The famous Disney deer Bambi was really a roe deer in the original story. Disney changed Bambi's species to the white-tailed deer because too few Americans would know what a roe deer was." Ultimately, I'm not sure why there is confusion, the original Bambi (i.e. the one in the book) was a roe deer, and the film version, for various reasons, was changed to a white-tailed deer who lived in an American forest.--LarryMac | Talk 19:04, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
In what way did my question fail to describe the problem? The white-tailed deer is called this way because it has a white tail, in contrast to other deer species. So if the deers in Bambi do not have white tails, can they be intended to be white-tailed deer? I rather suspect Capuchin is right, and Disney designed Bambi not to be too species-specific. Especially Bambi's father looks so different from the others, that I suspect a different species to be the inspiration for him, than the other deer in the movie. Is the "white-deer-interpretation" backed up by official Disney statements, or just an assumption of critics that has become commonplace? (Description of the problem in German follows.) --KnightMove 22:55, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well. I'm pretty tempted to say "so sorry for trying to help, it's a fucking cartoon, so deal with it." But I'll give it one more shot. Here is an image from the movie. Here is a stock photo of a real live young white-tailed deer. In each image, the underside of the tail is white, the top is not. There are 263 images on that stock photo site, and it is clear that the top side of a white-tailed deer is not white. Some of the other images are of adult male white-tails; I'm can't even be bothered to deal with that complaint at this point. The first paragraph on this page describes how Walt Disney wanted to strive for realism in the depiction of the animals, and some of the things the artists did to reach those goals. There are countless other pages available on the web with a simple Google search for "Disney Bambi realism." Now based on the description of the "problem in German" below, it seems to me that the problem lies in the translation. If Bambi and his family are called roe deer, then, in the context of the movie, this is just wrong. The deer in the film are clearly supposed to be white-tails, and they look a lot like white-tails to me, given that they are simply cartoons. And because of that, of course Bambi's father will not look like a rehbock, because that's not what he was supposed to be.
Jebus, I don't even like Disney films. --LarryMac | Talk 00:29, 21 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That's very interesting, thx. I have watched Bambi these days, and there the lower side of tail and body of the deers is not white. But maybe there are different versions of the coloring? I'll try to find out. --KnightMove 01:24, 21 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
PS: "The deer in the film are clearly supposed to be white-tails, and they look a lot like white-tails to me, given that they are simply cartoons. And because of that, of course Bambi's father will not look like a rehbock, because that's not what he was supposed to be." The point is that females and youngs of white-tailed deer and roe deer are in fact very similar, so you might well identify them within artistic license. Not even for the "normal" males this would be impossible. The only essential, unsolvable problem is Bambi's father. --KnightMove 08:30, 21 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I've never actually seen Bambi, only the odd clip, but does the father look something like this?   DuncanHill 23:07, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
There is no yes or no to the question, judge yourself: [1]
--KnightMove 23:40, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
White-tail deer can certainly be larger and imposing - check out the image of the mount of the world record deer: [2] There is no need to say that Bambi's fathers was based on a different species than white tail. While the record deer had a large 14-point rack of antlers, Bambi's father seems to be a very large 10 point. Rmhermen 14:04, 21 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Problem in German

edit

Have a look at Deer: "Depending on their species, male deer are called stags, harts, bucks or bulls, and females are called hinds, does or cows. Young deer are called fawns or calves."

In German, it's as complex, but different. The word Hirsch in its broadest sense might describe any species of deer, or any individual of deer. In a narrower sense, it's used as part of some species' names, or especially for male, adult deer. Female and young deer usually are denominated in cattle terms: Kuh (cow) and Kalb (calf), e. g. for US elks, Wapitikuh and Wapitikalb. It depends on the context whether Wapitihirsch describes any elk, or an elk stag. In most cases, Hirsch is to be interpreted as a Red Deer stag.

Unfortunately, Roe Deer - in German Reh - is excluded from this terminology, and in contrast follows goat terms. The male is called Rehbock (buck), the young Kitz (kid). While the Reh is a Hirsch regarding the biological family, the common meaning of Hirsch does not include the Reh.

But in the German translation of the Bambi film, the deer are called Reh, whereas Bambi's father is no way a Rehbock, but an imposing Hirsch. That's why German-languaged children (and adults alike) often believe Hirsch and Reh to be male and female of the same species, which is definitely wrong. This is called the Bambi lie or Bambi error. --KnightMove 23:34, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A fine frenzy of nine inch nails

edit

Besides A Fine Frenzy and Nine Inch Nails are there any other "groups" with only one member? I'm possibly not stating the question quite right but I think you can see what I'm driving at. Dismas|(talk) 13:09, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The Divine Comedy are certainly sometimes only Neil Hannon. DuncanHill 14:17, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Suicidal Tendencies is Mike Muir and whoever he can get to back him up as a band. The same is becoming rather true for the Infectious Grooves as well. Then, there's Alice Cooper - in which Alice Cooper was the name of the band but became one man who hires a backing band. -- kainaw 14:37, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Almost every electronic musician ever? I mean, they just use pseduonyms, but I don't see how that's different from A Fine Frenzy. Some non-electronic people include Mice Parade and Eluvium. Recury 14:53, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The Streets, Bright Eyes...if Billy Corgan could play the drums, Smashing Pumpkins would be a one-man band... Adam Bishop 15:39, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
White Stripes is a one-"man" band.  :) Corvus cornix 17:55, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
lets see...Death, The Album Leaf, Necrophagist (early years), Dethklok, Foo Fighters (first album was all Dave Grohl)

point is- there's PLENTY. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.155.80.115 (talk) 18:19, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I got the point. Thanks for the links and such, all. And I just want to say that the White Stripes comment was funny! Dismas|(talk) 21:26, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Simply Red became a one man band due to Mick Hucknell continually fallnig out with his band mates and rpelacing them. 212.240.35.42 10:32, 21 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]