Talk:The Exorcist/Archive 2

Merger discussion for The Exorcist (film series) and The Exorcist (franchise)
Two articles relevant to this one (The Exorcist (film series) and The Exorcist (franchise)) have been proposed for merging. If you are interested, please participate in the merger discussion. Thank you. — Shibboleth ink  (♔ ♕) 21:50, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Notes for peer review
I said at the peer review that I recently opened for this article in the wake of my recent expansion of it (which, as I said there, began as what I thought would be a brief copyedit) that my goal is to get the article to FA over the next year so we can run it on the Main Page for the 50th anniversary of the film's release date on December 26, 2023. It is not ready IMO (and indeed, I think, by anyone''s standards), to be nominated now. There are tasks which still need to be done, and decisions to be made, for which I welcome the assistance and input of other editors.


 * There are still about nine fact tags in the article, mostly in the middle in the Release and Special effects sections. I eliminated quite a few that had previously been in the article by either finding a source or deciding the information in question wasn't relevant (there was a lot of fancruft that had accumulated in the article from the fan wiki and various websites during the late 2000s). The remaining tags are on facts I am not sure about so casually deleting, and maybe haven't taken the time to see if they can be reliably sourced. I'd appreciate it if anyone else has anything to say, or can find sources we can use.


 * In that vein I also wonder if we really need those bulleted lists of the features on the home media versions. They're not presently sourced, but that isn't as much of a problem as them seeming to be at least in part duplicated in the adjacent prose. This also seems rather crufty, in defiance of summary style.


 * Not all the citations include links to archived versions. This is something we should do not just in cases where the original link has gone to Atlanta but for every link, because it makes future verification efforts that much easier. Obviously not all the links in the cites are archivable, even by sites other than the Wayback Machine, but a lot more could be than presently are. Adding those links is no one's idea of a pleasant wikiafternoon, but it will make a difference at FAC.


 * There are also some interesting facts that could be included that I'd like to see if anyone knows more about or can help find better sources:


 * The story about how Blatty's appearance on Dick Cavett made the book a bestseller. It's great, but no one's been able to really confirm it. This Reddit thread which looks into it is the sort of thing I sometimes wish we could make exceptions to RS for. It would be great if some RS somewhere has more info that could confirm or deny this. (IMO one should be skeptical of Blatty alone as enough of a source for this—that's why I have Blatty's story about how he sneaked into Monash's office to get the dirt that forced the studio to give him the producing rights back attributed inline. Remember that up to that point in his career Blatty had put bread on the table writing exactly this sort of story, including one about how he impersonated an Arab sheik, and you'll realize that maybe this is just another tale Blatty told on himself. Unfortunately there's no really good way to cast doubt on it beyond this sort of speculation).


 * In her Yale Review article, Sara Williams mentions that West Germany supposedly banned the film shortly into its release there after a young man shot and killed someone and then blamed the film's influence on him. Since her memoir doesn't strike me as a credible source for this information, and more importantly because I couldn't find a more reliable news-type source, I didn't put this into the article. And I didn't find anything in the German article, either. But if someone more fluent in German than I can find the right archives to search, we may be able to get something on this.


 * I also read in another source I deemed insufficiently reliable that Friedkin apparently fired the original production designer because after reviewing that guy's sets for the MacNeil house once they were actually built, he decided they were too homey and ordered all of them struck so the new production designer's sets (yes, the ones that burned down after the bird incident later) could replace them, which apparently delayed the start of actual filming in them by yet ... another ... month. If someone could find something firmer on this, that would be great (And really, it would be nice to see if the costume designer ever gave an interview anywhere. At the least they could talk about how they put that great fall wardrobe together for Ellen Burstyn).


 * In addition to what we already have about the arteriography scene to justify including it under the fair-use criteria, I will be contacting the doctor in it (he's still alive, a professor emeritus at Stanford). His CV includes a presentation he did about this scene for a medical conference; I'd be interested if he has a copy or something he could share as a source (I'd really like someone to explicitly confirm what seems obvious but is never stated flat out in other sources: that the procedure is real and not faked).


 * We have room for three more non-free media given the customary allowance of four per article. I think we should include video clips of:


 * the scene where Burstyn was injured; this would allow us to show not only that but Regan's head spinning around.
 * Father Merrin's arrival, and
 * the levitation/"The power of Christ compels you!" scene.


 * All of these scenes have enough (sometimes a good bit more) in their separate sections in the article to justify including the relevant video clip, which would easily enhance readers' understanding of the subject per the NFCC. If someone better than I at ripping these clips and uploading them here on enwiki under fair-use licenses and justifications could do this, I'd be grateful. If you can make the clips but would prefer I handle the licensing issues, let me know.


 * I will also at some point in the near future be going to a nearby university library where I will be able to look at a lot of paywalled academic scholarship on the movie (and maybe some hard-to-find books) to possible expand that section (currently still a subsection).

I am open to any other idea I might not have thought of that might improve the article. Happy editing! Daniel Case (talk) 02:06, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Article size
I see editors have been discussing the article length. The key factor that matters per WP:Article size isn't the bytes of wikitext but the readable prose count, which is an astonishing 17171 words. I don't think you're likely to pass FAC without some very significant cuts from that (you're looking at reducing the article around 40-50%). Admittedly, GAN has looser length criteria.

I am impressed by the dedication that it must take to write such a long article, but nevertheless keeping it concise and on-topic is essential for our readers. Although some spinoffs have already been done, there are more opportunities for the same. For example, the "litigation" section doesn't seem to me that any of the lawsuits had a major impact on the film or its legacy. I wonder if might be excised completely (or shortened to a couple sentences) and moved to a sub-article.

Unrelated, but I also noticed harv errors with Travers & Rieff 1999. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  07:09, 20 June 2023 (UTC)


 * OK, then, since the edit to this page didn't show up on my watchlist when I checked, I made my post over at your talk page which was a little snippier. You can ignore it if you want. Or at least the snippy parts.
 * I'll take your idea re the litigation section seriously ... Daniel Case (talk) 21:53, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

Reception section spinoff?
I have recently made another pass through the article with an eye to trimming and tightening; as a result the article is leaner than I ever imagined it could be a few months ago. But it still has a couple of hundred too many words by the standards of WP:TOOBIG. I'm not sure how much more I could cut and not leave something important out of the article.

As noted in discussions between me and in the wake of the recent GAN debacle, the reception section is overlong compared to most of the other sections, especially since I have spun off separate articles into draft space for now from the original production and themes sections. While we have plenty of other separate articles on those subjects for individual films, we don't have any "reception of ..." to a specific film, although we do have Reception of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

However, there is Reactions from India and the Indian diaspora to Slumdog Millionaire, which was also an overlong but essential aspect of that film's reaction. As it was created as a result of a talk page discussion, I think it is only fair to initiate and ask the same question here: Should we split off a separate reception article?

If no one objects within a few days, I will start that process. Daniel Case (talk) 04:33, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

A fact about The Exorcist
Can we all agree that The Exorcist ended perfectly and did NOT need a sequel? BlackBuick2099 (talk) 12:15, 28 July 2023 (UTC)