Talk:Gods of Egypt (film)

Requested move 16 May 2015

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: not moved. Calidum T|C 01:57, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

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Gods of Egypt (film) → Gods of Egypt – Already redirects here. Unreal7 (talk) 17:07, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Oppose the redirect was changed unilaterally last year. GregKaye 18:11, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

• Strong oppose this makes absolutely no sense. The gods of Egypt are the gods of Egypt. Clearly lacking in a worldwide perspective. Films are not the entirety of the world. We have an article on this topic already, for the real topic, List of Egyptian deities. -- 65.94.43.89 (talk) 04:37, 17 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Comment I am WP:BOLDly retargetting the redirect to List of Egyptian deities -- 65.94.43.89 (talk) 04:37, 17 May 2015 (UTC)
• Comment. If it doesn't contain or redirect to the article on the film, "gods of Egypt" might be better aimed at Ancient Egyptian deities than at the list, for the sake of consistency with Egyptian gods, which redirects to the overview article. As for whether it should aim at the film article or an article on the gods themselves, I actually don't have much of an opinion on it. WP uses small differences for disambiguation all the time, doesn't it? I can't think of examples offhand, but I know I've seen them. Pointing the search string "Egyptian gods" at Ancient Egyptian deities while pointing "gods of Egypt" to the movie article may be an odd, finicky distinction, but it's not really out of keeping with Wikipedia practice. The movie would probably irk me terribly, though, so I'm not going to go see it. A. Parrot (talk) 05:20, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

• Gods of Egypt should redirect to Ancient Egyptian deities. — Jeraphine Gryphon ^(talk) 10:21, 17 May 2015 (UTC)
• Strong oppose Gods of Egypt should redirect to Ancient Egyptian deities. This says (film) since it is a film. In ictu oculi (talk) 09:35, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose. Obviously a promotionally-motivated request. A film which won't be released until next year has already usurped the primary topic from this common term? This redirect has been around since December 2006. Arguably "Gods" is a more common term than "deities", as Deities of Eqypt is a red-link. Wbm1058 (talk) 16:35, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose Per Jeraphine Gryphon.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 03:26, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose and revert the redirect change, to point back to the obvious WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, which is obviously Ancient Egyptian deities.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  13:59, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Choice of cast...

• http://www.vox.com/2014/8/4/5955253/Hollywood-egypt-white-people-exodus-gods-and-kings "In that film, the likes of Nikolaj Coster-Waldau ..., Gerard Butler, and Geoffrey Rush play Egyptian gods, which sets up a weird dynamic of white actors representing ideals of and being worshipped by non-white people."
• http://www.dailylife.com.au/news-and-views/dl-opinion/all-lead-actors-in-the-gods-of-egypt-will-be-white-20140401-35vzp.html "In other words, it's a film set in Egypt with Egyptian characters, but (with the exceptions of Chadwick Boseman and Elodie Yung in minor roles) a white cast. And so, the time-honoured tradition of Hollywood whitewashing continues."

That's probably just the beginning. (Feel free to provide more reliable sources that address this and/or be bold and edit the article accordingly. I'm not bold.) — Jeraphine Gryphon ^(talk) 18:13, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Jeraphine Gryphon, film is likely a candidate for List of films featuring whitewashed roles. Since the posters were released today, I suspect there will be commentary soon about the whitewashing practice to source here. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 19:18, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

This is from The Washington Post. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 00:10, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

Erik Official respond from the creators http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2015/11/27/exclusive-lionsgate-responds-to-gods-of-egypt-whitewashing-controversy/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Basickk (talk • contribs) 14:40, November 27, 2015‎

Thanks for sharing! I will incorporate this. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 19:12, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

Erik Further explanations from the director. IMO "it is not set in Ancient Egypt at all.” should be mentioned. I just leave it here, if you want to add some of this. http://www.forbes.com/sites/dongroves/2015/12/15/the-gods-of-egypt-alex-proyas-grapples-with-a-size-issue-in-fantasy-adventure/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Basickk (talk • contribs)

Thanks, a lot of this would be good to add to "Production", with the selected quote belonging in "Racial and ethnic casting". Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 14:52, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

Is it just me or is there something grammatically wrong with the term "Racial and ethnic casting"? It just doesn't make sense to me. — Jeraphine Gryphon ^(talk) 15:03, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

@Jeraphine Gryphon: I want to avoid any use of "Controversy" per WP:STRUCTURE. I am not sure if "whitewashing" holds up as a stand-alone definition for a section heading. The current heading is kind of a catch-all to cover distinctions made between race and ethnicity (which I've seen debated before). Do you have any recommendations? Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 16:28, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

I've just noticed some weasel words in this section, and removed the sentence concerned. --131.111.185.69 (talk) 23:48, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

Writing credits

I reverted Burksharpless (apparently one of the screenwriters) here because Wikipedia does not list names in film infoboxes with ampersands to separate names. It only lists names in a plain, non-bulleted list. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 22:16, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

References to use

• 'The Gods of Egypt': Alex Proyas Grapples With a Size Issue In Fantasy Adventure
• 'Gods of Egypt' renews concern about inaccurate film casting (archive)
• ‘Deadpool’ Will Cuss Out ‘Gods Of Egypt’, ‘Eddie The Eagle’ & ‘Triple 9’ – Box Office Preview
• Box-Office Preview: Big-Budget 'Gods of Egypt' Imperiled
• Box Office: ‘Gods of Egypt’ Falling Flat, ‘Deadpool’ Still King
• Oscars So White? Or Oscars So Dumb? Discuss. "Also, I think it's important to say that more and more people are calling the industry out, as when people went after the makers of the forthcoming 'Gods of Egypt' for casting a bunch of white surfer-dude types as ancient Egyptians. But this kind of protest tends to be drowned out by the culture of consensus that has turned too many mainstream media types into industry lap dogs."
• Canberra weaver Monique van Nieuwland answers Hollywood's call for Gods of Egypt
• Box Office: Does 'Gods Of Egypt' Deserve To Bomb?
• Scottish action hero Gerard Butler lives out boyhood dream
• 'Gods Of Egypt': Review (Screen Daily)
• Gods of Egypt (FilmInk)
• Surprise, surprise - Gods of Egypt set for box office disaster
• Box-Office Preview: Can 'London Has Fallen' Redeem Gerard Butler After 'Gods of Egypt'?

References to use. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 18:47, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

Budget

@Erik: According to this http://www.thewrap.com/gods-of-egypt-on-track-for-15-million-opening-can-it-beat-the-odds-and-launch-a-franchise/ tax rebates covered 46 percent of the budget. In previous films for example Immortals_(2011_film), tax rebates where eventually removed from the offical budget on wikipedia page ,source on how Immortals_(2011_film) went from 120 mil to 75 mil http://deadline.com/2011/11/first-box-office-slump-continuing-immortals-1-jack-and-jill-2-puss-in-boots-3-j-edgar-4-tower-heist-5-194200/ . I think this should be mentioned next to 140 mil in the opening table as pre-sales have to be recovered by international box-office, while tax rebates is money production companies never gave/took back for the actual production. It also mentions that about 30 million were spend on marketing so it can be easier to cover the future losses of the film. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Basickk (talk • contribs) 11:01, February 19, 2016

Thanks for the link! I will incorporate details. For the infobox, though, the production budget needs to be straightforward. It technically cost $140 million regardless, but we can use the article body to explain the studio's savings. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 15:10, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Infobox

Easy4me, what source are you using to populate the film infobox with details? Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 22:23, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

IMBb. Easy4me (talk) 22:25, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

IMDb is not considered reliable. Would you mind reverting until we get credit information from a different source? I have not found reliable sources yet, but they'll probably come soon. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 22:30, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

New poster here has a billing block that confirms the names. The order of the actors may appear unconventional, though, since it says "with Gerard Butler and Geoffrey Rush" where Butler may be more expected to be near/at the top. We could go with the order of characters on the official website's "Story" page as a better rule of thumb. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 18:34, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Critical reception

Easy4me is pushing for the problematic write-up of Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic scores. These are commercial websites, so we should not showcase the scores upfront per WP:PROMO. As an encyclopedia, we need to guard against this and to instead leverage these websites for encyclopedic value. We should not make Wikipedia a place for readers to decide whether or not to see a movie. We need to take the long view and provide a statistical breakdown of the critics and how the websites used that breakdown to put forth a score of their own making. To open with "the film has a rating of 18%" is to grossly oversimplify the matter in a commercial sense. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 19:22, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

• Write-up #1: On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a rating of 18%, based on 11 reviews, with an average rating of 4.6/10. Metacritic gives the film a score of 28 out of 100, based on 7 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".
• Write-up #2: The film review website Metacritic surveyed 7 critics and assessed 4 reviews as negative and 3 as mixed. It gave an aggregate score of 28 out of 100, which it said indicated "generally unfavorable reviews". The similar website Rotten Tomatoes surveyed 11 critics and, categorizing the reviews as positive or negative, assessed 9 as negative and 2 as positive. Of the 11 reviews, it determined an average rating of 4.4 out of 10 and gave the film a score of 20%.

The reason why I started it off with "the film has a rating of 18%" is because it is too early to determine what the overall critical consensus towards Gods of Egypt will be. Plus, there's an average rating so that does not oversimplify it. If people are curious as to how Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic work, they can simply choose to click on their respective Wikipedia pages. You are giving off the vibe that you are trying to defend this movie. Easy4me (talk) 19:33, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

I agree that it is too early to determine an overall consensus, but I don't think either write-up does that. If needed, for #2, we can state "to date" to show that the numbers are very dynamic. Aside from that, the thrust of my argument is to explain Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic's approaches every time they are referenced. We have to avoid assuming specialist knowledge. It is easy for movie buffs like us to be very familiar with RT and MC, but we cannot assume that familiarity universally. I cannot find the WT:FILM discussion right now, but there was some consensus on writing out RT and MC scores more fully. While it is wordier, it lays out how the sources manage the critics and their reviews, such as Rotten Tomatoes treating a review only as positive or negative, meaning its score will be more severely skewed than Metacritic, which has a "mixed" middle ground. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 20:06, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

I agree with Erik. Write-up #2 is more informative in that it summarizes the methodology and gives a full-break down of the findings. If we are presenting statistical analysis we have a duty to explain the methodology so that the numbers are not misinterpreted, and readers should not expected to have to go to another website to fully understand the statistics. By that logic we could just as easily say there is no point including any statistics at all since the reader can go to the website itself to see the statistics. Also, you can't reject some of the statistics on the basis it is "too early" because it is all based on the same data. While there is a valid argument for not adding any statistics at this stage, the fact is the statistics and the accompanying prose can be updated as the aggregators incorporate more reviews into their data. Betty Logan (talk) 20:13, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

The Rotten Tomatoes consensus is particularly colloquial and a good example of merely showcasing Rotten Tomatoes; it should not be included. The passage says nothing except that the film is bad, which does not require such silly language. The consensus for other films may actually explain what critics thought, but this one doesn't. Pinging Betty Logan, Easy4me, TropicAces. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 12:11, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

yeah, guess that seems right to me. I added 2 reviews for further context. TropicAces (talk) 12:34, 26 February 2016 (UTC)tropicAces

I agree with not including the summary in this case. The purpose of the summary is to provide a summary of RT's findings, and in this case the summary simply does not do that. It is completely vacuous! Betty Logan (talk) 10:12, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

I think it does have one useful comment though: "colossal wreck, boundless and bare". Kailash29792 (talk) 06:48, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Too much attention to casting controversy compared to rest of page

It gives the impression that the film was a huge scandal or something. I believe the size of the section give WP:Undue weight to negativism. DJokerNr1 (talk) 08:03, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

Considering that you pushed to remove Gods of Egypt in its entirety from List of films featuring whitewashed roles (discussion), your stance here is highly dubious. The casting was indeed a huge scandal. Reference #27 shows many, many reliable sources writing about the studio and the director apologizing for the whitewashing. Coverage of the film's theatrical release and box office performance universally mentioned the whitewashing and that critics found whitewashing to be the least of the film's problems. In addition, the section includes contrasting commentary from the actors as well as the director. More would be added if it can be found. I find the tagging of this section to be in bad faith. Pinging editors who have edited or discussed this article: Betty Logan, Basickk, TropicAces, Easy4me. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 11:57, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

The controversy is not excessive in comparison to sections covering controversies in other film articles, so I don't agree the section gives undue weight to the issue. However, I think there is a neutrality issue by singling out Scott Mendelson's opinion for "box" treatment since it is promoting a non-neutral point of view in the debate. Betty Logan (talk) 12:15, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

I added a quote box to try to break up the wall of text. I thought the quote seemed to summarize the overall situation well. Do you think there is another way or another quote to break up the wall of text? We could move the Proyas quote box down from "Production" to balance it out and maybe find an image for the "Production" section instead. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 12:42, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

Cultural commentary

Is this really necessary? I mean, it's a REAL REAL REAL stretch. Not even trivia, as trivia is fact-based. Angry bee (talk) 00:02, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Requested move 17 August 2016

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: IAR closing early. Editors have noted several problematic RMs by IP (dynamic) these few weeks. Consider an WP:ANI report? Not moved, WP:SNOW (non-admin closure) — Andy W. (talk · ctb) 18:47, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

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Gods of Egypt (film) → Gods of Egypt There is no other article called "Gods of Egypt". 31.52.4.146 (talk) 16:06, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose. Yet another poorly thought-out move request from this IP. Not only did the IP just change "Gods of Egypt" to point to this film instead of the obvious primary topic Ancient Egyptian deities, the above move request, which was exactly the same as this one, was completely ignored. Nohomersryan (talk) 17:00, 17 August 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose More disruption from this user. I've reverted their edit on the redirect. Someone block this editor and fast. Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 17:51, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Wokeism

Racial and ethnic, non-whites playing Egyptian gods ... it's not a serious historical piece, people, it's a bit of fun for the kids. This section should be removed, stop pandering to the childish. 110.175.159.176 (talk) 16:39, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

Egyptians were closer to white greeks than anyone else people really need to stop listening Jada Pinket Smith — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.189.56.116 (talk) 02:13, 25 December 2023 (UTC)