Talk:The Lamp (1986 film)

Proposed merge with The Outing (film)
Two versions of the same film. One has professional reviews, and the other has some citations to self-published bloggers. Any drama about the editing and distribution can be discussed in The Outing, which is the article with better sourcing. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 03:05, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
 * That's what I was thinking. I'm going to try to see what I can find for this and work on scrubbing the hell out of these articles. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)  11:27, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I hate to say it, but unless we can find some very good RS for this, we need to take any of the claims in the Lamp article with a grain of salt. I might actually even argue against merging entirely unless we can find a RS that mentions that this alternate form of the film existed. The only two links in the article that actually call the film "The Lamp" are a SPS and an Amazon link. Neither of these are particularly difficult to create if someone particularly wanted to perpetuate a hoax. I hate having to be that suspicious, but we've already had good reason to be. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)  11:32, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
 * We have this, but it was published in 2012, which would have been the year after the Wikipedia article was released. Still, it's McFarland's so they do some pretty good research and I'd like to think that this was written prior to the article. This satisfies me enough to where I'd say that the film's release overseas as Lamp happened. However whether or not anything else happened with the editing and different versions, that's something I'd greatly prefer to have RS for. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)  11:36, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Found something good - the BBFC entry for the film. Now I really have to point this out: the BBFC gives the film length time as 88 minutes at its longest. I'm aware that the BBFC likes to slice and dice films, BUT the article gives off the impression that mass editing was only done in the US by one company. Unless I can find a good source to back up the 100+ minute claims, I'd say that we may want to leave this off. There's like a minute's difference between the British version and the US version, which can suggest some editing but doesn't actually mean that it is edited. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)  11:44, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I found a mention of the film here but I can't really see the page itself. I think it does mention the Japanese release based on the blurb that came up with a search, but I'd have to verify it first. It looks like one of the local universities has this, so I may go over there tomorrow after work and check it out if I have the time. It was published in 1997 by Scarecrow, so they'd be a good source, given that there's zero chance that they based it on the WP article. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)  11:52, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Here's what I found so far: the film did release under this tile overseas. There is some evidence to show that there was some editing, given that there's a minute or two difference between the times for the US and UK releases, plus I found a mention in a book that gives the length as 85 minutes. However there's nothing so far that actually states that the film received massive edits, so trying to say that these differences in time means that the film was edited can be seen as original research. Different people give different times for how long a film actually is - some count the credits, some don't, and so on. I'd say that all we should really merge at this point in time is basically mention of the title and the locations where it released. The only film edit we have actual proof of is the 14 second cut for the UK version, but the page doesn't say what was cut, just that it was. I can see it being a rape scene since they do like to edit stuff like that out of films if it's too disturbing. I think that the most we can say is that the UK version was a certain length and had 14 seconds removed, but not really which scene was cut. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)  12:02, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Yeah, it probably was released under different titles, and they may even have been different edits. it's conceivable.  But even when they're mentioned, the different titles are usually used interchangeably.  The Dallas Observer doesn't differentiate between the two titles in its review.  Nor does Fangoria in this review, though it tantalizingly promises "more on that soon".  Dread Central does a little bit of commentary here.  Shout! Factory doesn't really differentiate between the titles, either, in their catalog.  So, maybe a redirect is the most appropriate action.  But I think there may actually be some kind of coverage out there about this.  Brian Collins, the guy who wrote the Fangoria review, knows his stuff about horror films.  I'm a little disappointed that I can't find his promised write-up about the release/distribution issues. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 12:30, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
 * That concerns me - it might be that Fangoria just never got around to it, but it's also possible that the guy researched the claims and dumped the article idea because he found that there wasn't anything to back it up. In other words, he might have found that the claims were false. (IE, the 100+ minute film claims.) Then again, it could be that the article was just referring to the rest of the review? I dunno. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)  04:25, 11 December 2015 (UTC)


 * I never for the life of me understand why there are separate pages for different versions of the same film. Like why are there separate pages for Godzilla and Godzilla, King of the Monsters!? Or The Return of Godzilla and Godzilla 1985? They are the same movie. If some alterations were done then that could be covered in a subsection on the same article. It doesn't need to have a completely separate page.Giantdevilfish (talk) 16:07, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Something I just noticed: the BBFC page for the edited version shows a release date of 4/28/87, which looks to be its theatrical release date. This kind of goes against the claims in the article that say that the VHS release was edited. As far as I can tell, theatrical releases are titled "film" under the category of media type and home releases are "video". Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)  04:39, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Support Merge -- as they are essentially the same film. I agree that this should be merged to the Outing film page with the intro sentence there stating "also known as The Lamp. And the information about The Lamp included in the release section (or any information that can be accurately verified by RS.) This page can then be a redirect. — Cactus Writer (talk) 15:40, 15 December 2015 (UTC)