Talk:Children of Men

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Alzubaira. Peer reviewers: Luis3367.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 17:26, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

References to use
An older list of citations can be found here. I will list other references to use below.
 * December 2006 issue of American Cinematographer
 * EBSCOHost Connections

WorldCat.org
Books with Children of Men chapters: References to use. Erik (talk &#124; contrib) (ping me) 17:17, 2 July 2014 (UTC)
 * (Summary says, "Reading novels and films including 'Mrs. Dalloway', 'The Well of Loneliness', 'Bend It Like Beckham', and 'Children of Men', Ahmed considers the plight of the figures who are challenged by, and themselves challenge, the attribution of happiness to particular objects or social ideals: the feminist killjoy, the unhappy queer, the angry black woman, and the melancholic migrant.")

British critics

 * BBC
 * Digital Spy (retrospective)
 * Empire
 * The Guardian
 * The Independent
 * The Observer
 * Total Film
 * Time Out London

Thanks, Erik (talk &#124; contrib) (ping me) 18:38, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Article collaboration
, here are my thoughts on this article. I worked on it a lot in 2007 but eventually left it behind. If you're interested, you can go through the archives and see all the drama that took place. :) My first impression is that the article has a lot of detail but that they seem disorganized. For example, the "Single-shot sequences" section does not mention visual effects being used to blend the shots until the fifth paragraph. Anyway, I will go by page elements: In addition to the current elements, I think we should have a section comparing the film to the book, unless the comparative details are so sparse that it is better to put it in "Production". Perhaps there could be a scientific accuracy section, or something about infertility in this film. (I found this as one example.) We should also look for opportunities to use free and non-free images. Free images could be used to show filming locations and cast and crew. Non-free images, probably anything showing visual effects or production design. If we do a video clip for the single-shot sequence, we'll need to make sure the contextual significance is well-established. We want to demonstrate that readers highly benefit from seeing the clip as they read about the sequence right next to it.
 * Infobox: The usual cleanup with the plainlist templates, rounding box office figure, verifying the names against film credits
 * Lead section: Does not have to be the first element tackled, but I think it could wind up having four paragraphs: one with the general introduction and premise, production, reception, and the academic commentary
 * Plot: We can copy-edit it; "(Michael Caine)" being the only actor mentioned in the text shows that it has not gotten that copy-editing
 * Cast: I find it a little awkward to have big bullets for some characters but not others. I am thinking maybe we could do a cast table and save the casting detail for prose after. The table itself could have Actor, Role, and Description, where the last one would help contextualize roles. For example, I don't know who Hunnam's Patric was (and find it questionable that Hunnam is listed as "starring" with the others). I am partial to the table styling that I've used at list of films featuring drones and a couple of other articles.
 * Themes: This section is based on references from 2007, mostly from newspapers and magazines, and I think we are better off using retrospective and more academic approach (the references in the section above). This will be the biggest challenge, to get access to the books and to summarize the content for the layperson reader. No rush on this!
 * Production: I think we could do better sectioning and organization of detail. We can do it by the usual categories if applicable -- filming, production design, art decoration, etc. We could do cinematography and visual effects sections for anything not related to the single-shot sequences; I like that having its own section. Perhaps we could even strive to have a video clip in there! (Last but not the least, we could do a crew list. :-P)
 * Sound: This should go under "Production".
 * Release: Very sparse in terms of theatrical run information. How was it received at Venice? How did it rank in the U.S. wide release? Was the box office earn good or not?
 * Critical reception: We can probably find out the historical consensus on how critics received the film. I think that it could use more British reviews; maybe we can do separate subsections of British and U.S. reviews for navigation/interest. I also kind of prefer to quote more than one sentence from each critic; one sentence each feels too much of a blow-by-blow, where critics' reviews are more complex than that.
 * Top ten lists: Fine with this, though I wonder if this should not be part of "Accolades" in some fashion, since we tend to use that term loosely.
 * Accolades: Needs a table. Maybe some context for how it fit with other nominees. Could check to see if it has been recognized for anything in retrospect.
 * Home media: Usual cleanup, maybe find out some sales figures from Home Media Magazine or something.
 * See also: We can take this out as already linked in the article body unless we think of good tangential articles to link here.
 * References: We'll stick with the British date formatting per WP:RETAIN and clean up references that we keep. We can try to find URLs for some of them; some periodicals may make them available online now.
 * External links: I'd personally drop AllMovie and TCM, I don't think they add much value.

I think the key to really fleshing out this article is to be circuitous and to research certain keywords and try out different domains (site:theguardian.com, etc). If we write about the cinematography and use a keyword, we can go back and look for that to see if other sources pop up.

Anyway, that is my brain dump this morning. I can start doing some cleanup and reorganization tomorrow (Sunday). Erik (talk &#124; contrib) (ping me) 14:04, 13 December 2014 (UTC)


 * We can cross the infobox off the list, and I removed Caine's name from the plot section. Hunnam's name is in the infobox because he appears in the British poster's billing block. He was one of the people that worked with Ejiofor's character. I watched the film again today, and during the opening credits, the cast list goes like this. One credit per screen: Clive Owen, Julianne Moore, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Charlie Hunnam, Claire-Hope Ashitey, Pam Ferris, Danny Huston, Peter Mullan, Michael Caine. Three credits: Oana Pellea & Paul Sharma & Jacek Koman. Not sure how much that helps, but it shows that Hunnam is considered to be a primary cast member. I also added the production crew list, all in the end credits' order. Sock   ( tock talk)  21:55, 14 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Thanks for cleaning it up! I'll need to watch the film again. Were Hunnam and Ejiofor in significant roles? Was thinking maybe we could do a cutoff at the first three names above the title, if their roles were not that big. Also, I noticed with the "Country" field that the BFI reference mentions Japan in addition to the US and the UK? I couldn't find any clear-cut reason as to why. The co-production arrangement might be something to look into. (We may also want to verify the budget outside BOM and mention it in the article body as well.) Erik (talk &#124; contrib) (ping me) 22:01, 14 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Both good points on the budget/production company parts, I'll look into that tomorrow (gotta do some editing tonight). Ejiofor was the primary antagonist and Hunnam was the secondary antagonist, so I would say yes. The main characters were briefly with them, then quickly left them and were pursued. I'd say they were significant enough to get their billing. Ejiofor was in the movie more than Moore was, if I'm not mistaken. Sock   ( tock talk)  23:37, 14 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Thanks for explaining about the roles! I saw the movie sometime in 2007, so it has been a while. :) I think it is worth mentioning Patric in the plot summary, then, if you think it would not stick out too much. Erik (talk &#124; contrib) (ping me) 23:44, 14 December 2014 (UTC)


 * It's likely to be a little obvious. I'll try to see if he does anything that especially affects the plot, but I'm not certain he does. He mostly just helps Luke (Ejiofor) do his stuff. Also, I'll be working on this a bit more now and tonight. Sock   ( tock talk)  16:39, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Just wanted to add a note here that we may want to have a Spanish-speaking editor look for details in Mexican periodicals since the director is from Mexico. Searching for site:esmas.com "children of men" and site:eluniversal.com.mx "children of men" shows results. Erik (talk &#124; contrib) (ping me) 18:44, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Science Fiction???
Why on earth is this film considered to be science fiction? It has nothing whatsoever to do with science! I mean ... if the film explored the scientific reason for the world-wide sterilisation, or showed us what was being done to find a cure, then it could be called science fiction. As it stands, the one and only thing that could possibly make people think it's science fiction is the fact that it's set in the future. That's not enough though! Gravity is another movie which is incorrectly labelled as science fiction, but in that case it's easy to understand the mistake. However in the case of Children Of Men it just makes absolutely no sense at all. Or am I missing something? FillsHerTease (talk) 21:42, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, I think you are missing something. Or rather, you have something, a mistaken, narrow concept of what science fiction is. In the first place, it's set in the future, and that IS enough to make it science fiction! Can you name anything set in future that isn't SF? (I realize I'm writing in your future, since your comment is 5 years old). And by the way, Gravity is science fiction too. This rule you have that SF has to explain the science is just your idea; it's not agreed upon. Currently, anything set in space is SF. That may change in coming decades. Now, if you set a murder mystery on the International Space Station, maybe it would be just a mystery and not SF, but I doubt it. Maybe in 20 years. Children of men is a dystopian world story, an extremely common theme in SF.

Think about Star Trek. None of the "science" in Star Trek is really science; they're just devices. Warp drive, replicators, matter transmitters ("transporters"), ray guns "phasers", photon torpedoes, all pretty standard SF devices, and nobody knows how any of it works. And who doesn't think Star Trek is SF??

It could be an alien invasion, a plague, environmental catastrophe (maybe it IS a plague or an environmental catastrophe. Maybe it IS aliens and we just don't know it.  Not the point). I'll offer you a definition of science fiction that may help you understand: anything that's set in a world other than our own, in the future, or that uses a standard SF device such as space travel, worldwide disaster, time travel, or aliens is science fiction. If there are horses, it's a Western. If there are aliens, spaceships, or a dystopian world, it's SF. Here's another definition: anything that everyone thinks is science fiction is SF! btw, did you know Atlas shrugged is science fiction? It's set in some sort of alternate world where WWII apparently didn't happen, and nuclear weapons and nuclear energy don't exist, and it has at least three magical scientific inventions in it: Galt's motor, the invisibility screen over Galt's Gulch, and Project X. Of course Rand didn't waste a second on a scientific rationale for her magic inventions. Some SF does that; some doesn't.47.229.157.65 (talk) 01:54, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

What Distracted Me & What Was Underrepresented
What distracted me was also under the themes section. I enjoyed reading the themes that were found within the movie, but I thought that the name of this particular theme, “contemporary references” was a bit confusing. They were trying to cover too many topics within one theme. I think it would’ve been more beneficial to cover one particular “contemporary reference” and focus on that and name that particular theme in relation to that contemporary reference.

A few point that is underrepresented is the theme of religion. It talks widely about Christianity which makes sense, the only aspect of the movie pertaining to Christianity that they didn’t discuss was the when Theo saved the baby during the bombing. In that scene the victims of the bombing who were scared, found hope and parted a path for the them to go through. This could be an example of Moses parting the Nile. Lillycberkley (talk) 06:55, 27 January 2017 (UTC) Lilly Berkley

The reason it's confusing is because "contemporary references" is not a "theme" or even "themes". There are far too many people who write about fiction on Wikipedia who have no idea how to do so because they never actually studied it beyond Grade 12 English class, and so think all forms of analysis of a work of fiction boil down to looking for "themes". I have reorganized it so it's not so confusing. ZarhanFastfire (talk) 03:04, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

Roger Robert review
The Roger Robert review is left out. The film scored 4/4 in that review.Alzubaira (talk) 20:18, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

Add some positive feedback in the Hope section
I would add someone positive view of the film to build some contrast from the individual who did not like the film. Maybe someone who likes the film has a different point of view.

`~Luis Espinoza~ 2~22~17 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Luis3367 (talk • contribs) 03:23, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

"a Catholic allegory" versus "an allegory"
In the "Religion" section, it says "According to Cuarón, the title of P. D. James' book (The Children of Men) is a Catholic allegory derived from a passage of scripture in the Bible." Yes, Cuarón did say that, but I question the "Catholic" part of his statement. Why should the allegory be characterized as Catholic rather than "Anglican" or simply "Christian"? For that matter, it's more straightforward to simply say "an allegory" rather than "a Catholic allegory". I'm making that change. If you disagree, please discuss here. Mksword (talk) 20:47, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Jasper's Zen Music
Jasper's Zen Music is "Omgyjya-Switch7" from Warp Records. The added vocal is "male loud scream", which was posted to the Creative Commons sound library Freesound by user thanvannispen. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.192.68.174 (talk) 22:07, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

Themes
The movie touches more themes than Hope&faith and religion, i think. KhlavKhalash (talk) 19:11, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

Good Article?
This article was good article in 2009 and I don't think it has aged well and needs tightening up. There are sources in the lead and there are unsourced areas throughout (such as Mark Kermode ranking it top 10 and the accolades table to name a couple). There's also a lack of images. I may try and have a look at it but if others are more inclined please do. This would make an excellent FA if any is passionate to fix it. Lankyant (talk) 17:08, 11 January 2024 (UTC)