Talk:The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013 film)

Copy 'n' pasted thread originally on User talk:Gareth Griffith-Jones

 * Boxing Day

See my revert on the film's page. You usually aren't one to fight reason, but you seem to be today. If editors don't even find Christmas notable enough to mention as a release date, how is Boxing Day notable enough? Why not just leave it at December 26? And as another editor pointed out, how is the UK release even really relevant in the first place? Please, if the release date must stay, stop making it Boxing Day. It isn't helpful at all, especially since the article is for an American film, and 90% of the Americans I've met since moving here tilt their heads at the mention of Boxing Day.


 * I don't know who wrote the previous unsigned comment but I was the one who first removed "Boxing Day". Wikipedia often suffers from being too American, making references to local holidays and local abbreviations, but the same rules apply to other countries, and local references should be avoided (also the only citation provided for release dates in the intro makes no mention of the UK December 26 or "Boxing Day" which is why I said I did not think it was WP:NOTABLE). Ben Stiller might be clever enough to reference local culture in his interviews but an encyclopedia must write thing differently, more generically, in a way that hopefully still makes sense in the future
 * Any further comments from me will be on the article talk page, so that other editors might see them and we might gain consensus. Talk pages on individual pages are not a good idea, they often lead to personal comments instead of comments that are only relevant to the article. Especially since I'm an changing IP Editor I will not see any responses if you try to make them on my page. -- 109.76.88.164 (talk) 03:33, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

and another thank you to IP:109.76.88.164 (talk) — what both of you write above makes sense. In mitigation, I should add that here in "the old country", we never say December 26th, but always refer to the day following Christmas Day as Boxing Day and if Christmas/Boxing day/s fall on a weekend day, the subsequent national holiday/s are referred to as bank holiday/s. I hope this helps to explain my intransigence last night. Put it down to a glass more than usual! Cheers! — Gareth Griffith-Jones &#124; The Welsh Buzzard:  Cardiff born and bred &#124; — 10:50, 21 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you for posting here, although you forgot to sign & datestamp

Cult following
I don't think this film has reliable sources that say it has a cult following. I think an editor may have gotten confused because I see there were reviews at the time that it came out that said it might end up becoming a cult film. But to call it one for sure we'd need to see if any have said that it has since become one and I don't see any if they exist. Popish Plot (talk) 18:33, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I took that part out, if there is a source saying it has a cult following, someone please correct me. Popish Plot (talk) 19:39, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
 * , I agree with your removal! We would need a source for that statement. Erik II (talk &#124; contrib) (ping me) 21:47, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

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Non-reliable sources causing confusion
Can someone please explain this section to me? It confuses me, as The Matrix isn't even mentioned in the two repetitious sentences and the references applied are inadequate:

"Influences

The Matrix

''When Walter lands at Nuuk in Greenland, he needs to hire a car by choosing between two Daewoo Matiz,[37] a blue or a red one.[38][39] Therefore he asks the man in the airport booth: "Do you have any cars available?" "Yeah, we have a blue one and a red one", the man replies. "I'll take the red one", says Walter.[40][41][42][43]"''


 * Reference 37 & 39: From IMDB. T thought that this site was not considered to be reliable source due to the crowd sourcing. I would think that this is true especially of a uncited "Trivia" section (which doesn't even mention The Matrix). Citing IMDb & WP:USERGENERATED
 * Reference 38: Again from an uncited crowd-sourced page, "Connections".
 * Reference 40: A brief transcript of the scene without a mention of or analysis with The Matrix.
 * Reference 41: An altered film clip that states "Standard YouTube License", but I don't think this is adequate. In addition, again, no mention or analysis of The Matrix is found. WP:NOYT "Be careful not to link to material that is a copyright violation." & Video links "YouTube and similar sites do not have editorial oversight engaged in scrutinizing content, so editors need to watch out for the potential unreliability of the user uploading the video. Editors should also attempt to make sure that the video has not been edited to present the information out of context or inaccurately."
 * Reference 42: A series of screen shots with no mention of The Matrix or copyright approval.
 * Reference 43: A question & answer from the Quora site where a comparison with The Matrix is made to the car choice scene. However, wet blanket-like, I must point out that Quora contains non-vetted user-generated content supplied by non-vetted expert??? members (like WP and the same reason WP isn't considered a reliable source). Quora is therefore not a reliable source. WP:USERGENERATED "Content from websites whose content is largely user-generated is also generally unacceptable. Sites with user-generated content include personal websites, personal blogs, group blogs, the Internet Movie Database (IMDb), the Comic Book Database (CBDB.com), content farms, most wikis including Wikipedia, and other collaboratively created websites."

So, these are a lot of references that don't amount to a hill of beans. You may be correct in your analysis - regarding the car choice scene & The Matrix" - but if no other reliable source is found that says that, then this is original research and should be removed.

Thank you, Wordreader (talk) 03:24, 7 August 2016 (UTC)


 * It looks like I removed the section shortly before you posted this. Similar content was also posted to Red pill and blue pill, which I also removed, with basically the same rationale on that article's talk page: Talk:Red pill and blue pill. I really don't see how this belongs at either article based on the sources provided. Grayfell (talk) 04:08, 7 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Here I am, late but it was dawn and I needed to sleep. That said, my conclusion is that you're right also with my latest version for this reason. That's why I've lived all this as a progressive clarification and not as an edit war. --Mauro Lanari (talk) 12:37, 7 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Thank you, Grayfell. From my design point of view, I supposed that the red car was chosen because it would contrast with the greyish-bluish landscape; a statement of "I am here." But that's my personal thought and I would not have tried to rationalize it. Mauro Lanari's reference "a progressive clarification and not as an edit war" has me mystified. "Edit war"? Thank you for your attention, Wordreader (talk) 17:13, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

Accuracy
I’ve added a section on accuracy. Walter Mitty is a character with some real-world significance, so if we have sections on the accuracy of historical films, or comparisons with novels, then we should have a comparison between the portrayal in this film and how he is generally perceived, I think. Swanny18 (talk) 21:27, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

I thought the film was ambiguous as to whether Mitty's success is real or all the adventures are one extended daydream? In which case the film's characterisation would not be so much of a significant deviation from the popular understanding or Thurberer's idea — Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.222.114.245 (talk) 20:06, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

Release Comparisons
The Australian release of this film is 110 minutes (1h:50m) whereas the US release is 114 mins (1h:54m) I'd like to know more about the difference edits. I've found a reference to a scene including one or more friends of Richard Melhoff, Cheryl's son, but there is no such scene in the AUS release. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zollo9999 (talk • contribs)