Talk:Howard the Duck (film)/Archive 1

Gross revenue

I suspect this movie made more than $10,000,000. http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=howardtheduck.htm lists it as having a revenue of almost $38M for example. —Preceding unsigned comment added by LarsHolmberg (talk • contribs) 23:31, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Rating

I was just wondering, what is this movie rated? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Supernerd 10 (talk • contribs) 14:24, 5 April 2007 (UTC).

It says PG at IMDB.com. For some reason the Infobox_movie template is broken and isn't showing the rating. --70.142.42.81 01:23, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

"Regarded as one of the worst movies ever made"

really? sounds like someone's opinion to me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.23.114.82 (talk) 06:16, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

like a lot of people's opinion. honestly, the criticism was unDUCKable. and that's a funnier joke than anything in the movie. 76.27.232.185 (talk) 17:14, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Its budget was 30 million and it grossed 15 million domestic, it could be regarded as a financial flop. This would be more fact based than "worst movie ever made". Gmarquartmsg (talk) 05:02, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

References

January 4, 2008 edits

This article, even after a first pass at policy/guidelines editing and WP:FILMS formatting, continues to be seriously below Wikipedia standards. As it stood, there were extremely large amount of uncited POV and original-research essaying, as well as many WP:DATED vios. I've also commented-out an alleged quote that had no citation other than it ostensibly came from some issue or other of Starlog. The entire article is unreferenced.

I've also removed two inappropriate, unsigned posts on this Talk page, which like Wikipedia article pages, must adhere to policies and guidelines, and serve for discussion of improving the article and not as a general forum for the topic.

Please do not edit this article without first having read the Five Pillars of Wikipedia for a basic understanding of policies and guidelines. -- Tenebrae (talk) 00:50, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Pre-production

The statement that the film was originally planned as being animated needs a source. Also, I removed the links to Fritz the Cat and Heavy Traffic because I have no idea if that was the tone that Universal would have gone with had the character of Howard been used in an animated feature, or if this was added because fans of the comic books wanted this to be an animated film in the style of those works. If this is sourced as being the original proposed tone, it can be restored. It would seem likely if there was a point in the film's development where George Lucas would not have been involved in the film, but not if Lucas was involved from the start, as he (along with the director and screenwriter) seems to be the main reason why the final film was so commercial in tone. (Sugar Bear (talk) 07:02, 5 April 2009 (UTC))

Response

This article is shaping up - could be a featured article along the lines of Battlefield Earth. Does anyone have a really good source stating Steve Gerber's opinions of the flick? There's a quote attributed to him on the list of films considered the worst, but it is not sourced. (Sugar Bear (talk) 22:47, 9 October 2009 (UTC))

Ed Gale

Apparently, out of reluctance to use the plain English term "midget", this version of the article, as opposed to historical versions, suddenly starts talking about "Gale" without doing a proper job of defining who that is.
Maybe if people spent more time on coherence and less on trying to out-PC one another ...
Varlaam (talk) 05:37, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Mild humor based on facts or accepted facts being unencyclopedic and worthy of nuking.

In the intro paragraph to this article, the last two sentences state the following, "On the DVD commentary for the film one of the commentators claims that George Lucas reassured him that the project would, in twenty years, be seen as a masterpiece. As of the year 2012 the film was still considered one of the worst ever made."

I did happen to see this movie ages ago, and I remember how terrible it was, so it does rank as one of the worst I personally ever saw, now whether this is widely accepted fact or opinion, I'm not sure (I lean towards it being widely accepted - what does Rotten Tomatos have to say?), but anyhow, if the rest of the facts check out, that a DVD commentator did state that Lucas told him that the project would be considered a masterpiece in 20 years, if *that* can be fully verified, should these comments be able to withstand encyclopedic muster? Or should they be nuked/excised as someone recently did? Thoughts?? In general, if there is a little humor as was intended by whoever added those two comments, is that considered outright inappropriate? --Ysfan (talk) 08:42, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

I do not think it is worth mentioning here. I get the sense that Lucas is joking. Even so, I do not think it is worth including filmmakers' opinions about the quality of their own film, except in unusual cases that will be covered by reliable sources. Erik (talk | contribs) 12:50, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Hmm, yeah, Lucas sarcastically joking about it is possible. I'm assuming good faith on the author's comments since I never heard the DVD commentary myself (Saw it on Cable, and rarely will I ever rewatch a movie with commentary on, plus I'd never buy *this* DVD!), and it is problematic that he didn't specify who was saying it in the commentary, a producer, an actor, etc. I still laughed at reading this though and thought it'd be a shame if it was excised for good, assuming it's factual! --Ysfan (talk) 13:08, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Long story short: Humor is not appropriate for articles on the Wikipedia main space. This is supposed to be an encyclopedia, so we deal in facts; positing opinions as facts and glossing it over with humor is not what we do here.

Also, Ysfan has been blindly reverting my edits(see the first page ofhis contributions log), and it is obvious that this latest revert and accompanying discussion thread are just a further extension of this trolling. If you check over the history, you'll find this revert is his first edit to the article; indeed, aside from reverting my edits and feuding on talk pages, his only edits have been to Ys-related articles. He has apparently since been indefinitely blocked; I don't know if and when he'll return, but since no one else has objected to my edit, for the moment I see no reason to not restore it.--NukeofEarl (talk) 15:16, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

I endorse the removal. With Ysfan's block, I've gone ahead and removed the RfC template. Erik (talk | contribs) 16:01, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Since I happen to be watching the DVD special that is referenced here at the moment, I figured I'd throw out the actual quotes - given the cult status the film has achieved in recent years, I do think it might be worth noting some of this information. The quote Ysfan was referring to is from one of the film's producers, Gloria Katz. But there's are a few really good quotes within this section of one of the DVD's special features.

And yes, I bought the DVD. I do like HtD - I rate it high among other bizarre comedies, like Thomas Dolby's next big screen project, Rockula. But no I probably wouldn't have shelled out money for the DVD, with no digital copy and only a handful of old and new featurettes - except that it only cost $5 and it came with $5 in movie cash to see the Minions with my nephew. Glad I did though, I forgot how many beloved character actors were in this.

Gloria Katz: George (Lucas), for years said, he said, "Just wait. 25 years from now, it will be rediscovered. And it will look really good, for its time period." And that's sort of what happened.

Willard Huyck: The first thing, you know, people would say sort of under their breath, "You know, I liked it." You know? And they were afraid to say it. Then, you know, people would starting saying, "You know, it was unfairly treated." And there'd be websites, fans of Howard the Duck, and "Why isn't it on DVD?" And so those things, eventually, you come out from under the cloud, and people said, "I liked it. I thought it was funny."

Gloria Katz: And then suddenly, it becomes a cult movie, because people really understand the absurdity of it.

Ed Gale: And it's funny how it, it died for a lot years, and then the new kids came, and now I have a whole new generation. I get fan mail from all over the world, and it's from Chucky and it's Howard the Duck.

I do think such a renewed interest is worth noting in some form, but having just joined the conversation I'll leave that up to discussion. CleverTitania (talk) 05:55, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

Delisted

I have checked this article and I'm afraid it doesn't meet the GA criteria anymore. Thus, I have delisted it and downgraded it to B class for now. Regards. — ΛΧΣ²¹ 21:46, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Appearance?

This article states: "The appearance of Howard was criticized as being unconvincing due to his poorly functioning mouth, drunkenness, pervertedness, and expressionless face." How can "pervertedness" be an appearance? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.158.48.90 (talk) 13:04, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Howard's full name

OK, so I saw someone reverted an edit, where a user had changed Howard's name to "Howard Duckowitz." I knew it wasn't right, but I wondered if they had gotten this from the mail that Howard tosses onto a chair as the comes into his apartment. So I checked, and in fact his full name can be seen on the mail, and it says Howard T. Duck. It's also listed that way in the closing credits.

Should we change the cast list from "Howard the Duck" to "Howard T. Duck"? If we need an external source for it, IMDB does list Chip, Ed, and all the other actors as playing "Howard T. Duck."

Also, I noticed in that opening scene, that his planet also has two moons. In fact, the shot of the two moons looks like it might be intended to reference the shot of the two suns of Tatooine setting in the first Star Wars movie. Here are some images for comparison.

http://www.dadsbigplan.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/binary-sunset-wall.jpg
http://www.herogohome.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/HowardTwoMoons.jpg

Is that something too trivial to note? Or is something we should only note if we have a source which says it was intentional? CleverTitania (talk) 02:17, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

Since there have been no objections and there are multiple sources for the name, I have updated the cast list to reflect Howard's actual name. I also realized there is a paragraph in the production section which specifically mentions the details put in the opening sequence, to establish the differences of Howard's home planet from Earth. So I decided to add my note about the two moons (yeah, the red was messing with me, later the craters made me realize they are moons not suns) in the skyline shot, and their similarities in angle from the two suns on Tatooine shot in Star Wars.

I also undid an edit which noted that even though Howard the Duck is on the 2014 list of the biggest flops in the LA times, it's the only film in its list to have grossed more than its budget. I wanted to explain here. I felt the addition was an editorial comment, and I didn't think it was a notable point to add to the article, given that the film made less than a million dollars over its budget. Plus, I believe that $37 Million is the Production budget, and likely doesn't include marketing, distribution etc. I've found a few sources that differ on what defines a flop, whether it's that the movie must make 2.5 times it's budget or 60% to not be a flop, whether it must miss it's targeted projections by a long margin. By any definition I can find, it belongs on a list of major flops. I say embrace it's status as a box office bomb - Blade Runner bombed too. CleverTitania (talk) 03:34, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

Guardians of the Galaxy

I recently made this edit, removing mention of the fact that the character Howard the Duck appears in the film Guardians of the Galaxy. The reason for removing it was perfectly clear: there is no evidence connecting the appearance of Howard the Duck in that film to the earlier film Howard the Duck. Unfortunately, I was reverted by a brand new user here, without explanation. I do not find that acceptable. In the absence of any evidence that the appearance of Howard the Duck in Guardians of the Galaxy has anything to do with the appearance of that character in the Howard the Duck movie, it is original research to connect the two. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 02:30, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

I would say it would be original research to connect the two per se, but I would think there should be a mention of the fact that the character appears. Although, is it established (some interview with a GotG person?) that it was Howard the Duck in that scene, or some other duck from Duckworld? Jimw338 (talk) 11:18, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Remake?

Did I hear something about this being remade?ApolloCarmb (talk) 21:42, 17 April 2018 (UTC)